Do Not Disturb blog challenged fellow marriage bloggers to write a post on “We do . . .” showing “what real marriages are like.” I encourage you to pop over and take a look at their post on Keeping Our Marriage Strong: We Do . . . Justin and Megan listed things they do to keep their marriage strong.
Now here’s my contribution for what we do to keep the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Hot, Holy and Humorous strong.
We do committed. At this point, we know that we are “in it to win it.” We’re like Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II (1941) advising to “never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never.” We’ve long since misplaced the towel that we might have thrown in at the worst of our marriage. It’s simply no longer an issue. The “D” word is never spoken, never hinted at. God has made us one flesh and “let no one split apart what God has joined together” (Mark 10:9).
We do presence. We spend time with each other, growing our friendship, sharing our concerns and joys, and just hanging out. Time matters. Show me what you give your time to, and I’ll show you what you treasure. Sometimes it requires creative scheduling or sacrificing other activities, but we prioritize our marriage.
We do do-overs. We don’t hold grudges from when our sex life sucked or from the inane thing he said ten minutes ago. (Of course, I used he because I never say anything stupid, right?) When you get married, you believe this person to whom you pledged your undying love will never let you down.
Yes, he will. The only one who will not let you down is God. Your spouse, however, will mess up. So it’s important to treat them as God does — giving forgiveness, grace, and the chance to do over. We believe that if King David and the Apostle Peter got a second chance (and a third and a fourth), then so should my spouse.
We do humor. I think God is funny. Really. The Creator of these animals is bound to have a great sense of humor:
And then there’s the one Jesus told about the camel and the eye of the needle. Imagine you’re the first to hear that analogy. Wouldn’t you laugh at the image?
Laughter is a blessing from God. Proverbs says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine” (17:22). In the best of times, our marriage has been filled with wordplay, jokes, snickering, and gut-jiggling laughter. I’ve even talked about how sex is humorous. We do humor. We look for opportunities to make each other smile.
We do sex. (Regular readers saw that coming.) Without physical affection and intimacy, this relationship is a parental partnership, a roommate arrangement, or a nice friendship. While those things are okay, they are not a marriage. Even in Song of Solomon 5:16 when the wife refers to her husband as friend, her romantic passion is listed first: “His mouth is sweetness itself; he is desirable in every way. Such, O women of Jerusalem, is my lover, my friend.”
In my marriage, we reconnect physically as frequently as we can and make those moments count by participating fully in the experience of physical unity. We value intimacy as an expression of our love, a nurturing of our love, and a message of gratitude toward God for His pleasurable gift.
What “We do . . .” phrase would you use for your marriage? How do you keep your marriage strong and real?
All very important! We do…putting God first. It’s the only true thing that keeps our marriage strong, because the instant we take our eyes off of God and put them on ourselves we become self-centered and selfishness tears a marriage apart. We fail, but continue to work at putting God first!
Putting God First. A big AMEN from me! My marriage wouldn’t be where it is without God guiding our daily steps. Thanks.
Stopping by from happy Wives Club. I really enjoyed your post!
“We do T.V. watching.” My husband is a big fan of several tv shows so we watch them to connect with each other throughout the week.
You know, Delora, we have a TV in our bedroom, and I know some marriage experts say that’s a no-no. But we sometimes snuggle up and watch shows together…and then end up doing other, um, recreational stuff afterward. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
God created us men; He definitely has a sense of humor (albeit cruel). At least with all the talk of how owners look so much like their pets, we now know why no-one (except perhaps Cyrano De Bergerac) has ever owned a Proboscis monkey. BTW, until the feds got involved, Tarsiers were apparently once native to southeastern New Mexico. 😉
“Without physical affection and intimacy, this relationship is a
parental partnership, a roommate arrangement, or a nice friendship.” May this simple, but profound truth positively impact every marriage…
Oh, I love men. Don’t insult them! LOL.
Thanks, Greg. Your input is always welcome here.
And thanks for your posts (and patience in tolerating a single guy who sometimes suffers from chronic foot-in-mouth-disease.) 🙂 It’s always encouraging to hear the truth from a biblically-based advocate for intimacy.
Wonderful post, as always J. I like this “We do presence”. I just wrote about the importance of quality relaxed time (inspired by a post by Paul, Generous husband). it’s not just about giving time, but giving quality time. My hubby and I do alot of presence, play and prayer 🙂
Thanks so much, Ngina! I like your alliteration: Presence, Play, Prayer. Wonderful.
We do fun! One of the first things I fell in love with about my husband was his laugh! So when we have fun, we laugh and it makes my day. Thank you for reminding me and thanks for linking up with HWC!
Christy Joy
#happywivesclub
I love that, Christy! Keep the fun alive.
And my hubby has one of those fabulous full-belly laughs, which I adore.
J, I just want to thank you SO SO much for your amazing blog!! I began popping in a little here and there over the last six months as I approached my wedding day. By God’s grace we saved ourselves (we are both in our mid 20s) and on our wedding night it was just as beautiful as I had hoped it would be. Sex wasn’t perfect but it was amazing because it was our coming together as man and wife for the first time. We laughed, we loved, and just held each other. I did have a little trouble with pain when he tried to enter me and I just remember he kept comforting me and holding me while I breathed and tried to remember all the things I read here to try. We shifted positions and practiced and by day #3 (round #4 hehe) he slipped right in and it just felt GOOD with no pain. We are having so much fun learning each other (for example I did not realize there are different kinds of lube…and the gel stuff does NOT work well for me!!) and he keeps saying how wonderful it feels that it’s all so natural and we have so much fun laughing about the silly things that happen in bed instead of letting them bother us. I know most of my feeling at ease comes from reading your blog and some of the ones you have referred to (I also read Sheila Gregoire’s Good Girl’s Guide to Sex and that was FABULOUS!). Anyway I know this is not entirely on topic but I didn’t know how else to send you a message and I wanted you to know THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Oh, and I’m not sure yet which of us is the higher drive spouse…so far we both seem to want it all the time. We did discover you CAN try too often hehehehe, as a couple we do better at no more than twice a day. 😀 This week we’ve had to go to once a day just because it’s no more honeymoon and back to real life but he said to me yesterday “you know it’s funny, I’ve been thinking about you all day at work but it hasn’t been about SEX…” We just love each other, being with each other, and exploring what God has given us. I hope we can keep things hot, holy and humorous all the way until we are old and wrinkly and then we’ll for sure be laughing all over again. 😉
You just made my day! Or rather, my week!
Not because I need an ego stroke (really, I’m just shocked that God has used me in this way and it humbles me), but because you and your husband are experiencing the sexuality I–and other Christian sex bloggers–describe as God’s intended plan for marriage. I can hear in your response here that you are ready for a lifetime of love with your hubba-hubba hubby.
May God bless and keep you both! Saying a prayer for your continued bliss right now.
What an amazing comment, Anonymous! You sound like my hubby and me, but we’ve been married for over 30 years! We’ve just had a rebirth of our marriage and we talk about how it’s like we’re on our honeymoon, but we’ve known each other so well already. We’re more amorous toward each other now in our 50’s than we were in our 20’s! It was God who did it, though. He renewed us somehow, some way. And it’s awesome! I pray your marriage will always be as wonderful as it is now.
We do dates!
With three little ones, my husband and I grab time alone together whenever we can. It used to be regular date nights each week, but now that our sitter situation has changed it’s a bit more sporadic. Just today we did a lunch date while a sitter was with the kids.
We do FRIDAYS!
My hubby and I both have Fridays off, so it’s our day to spend together…from sun up to sundown and then some!
In fact we no longer call it Friday, its Ourday. And we have had a lot of great day adventures, hitting the road and visiting nearby towns, or laying on a blanket in a park (or at the beach) reading a mutually picked out book, or just having lunch and then roaming around Ikea together. (Also, a lot of car sex on Ourdays!)
This has been going on for two years now, and I wanted to change things up a bit, so one Friday a month is designated a SexDay! And that doesn’t mean we only have sex on that Friday…it means we plan a get-away (hotel sex!) and we take turns being the planner.
We definitely DO Fridays!!
We do serving together! I love volunteering at church with my husband!
My question is – what do you do when you don’t feel like being intimate? Do you do it anyway? When we do that, it’s an epic fail and things do NOT go well.
Some would say absolutely! I say it depends. Why don’t you feel like it? There may be something there that needs dealing with. But if it’s simply a matter of not being in the mood, then I would say yes…do it.
Why? Here are 3 reasons:(1) Women tend to become more aroused after engagement, so their mood can come around; (2) Sex breeds sex, as in frequency of sex in marriage can foster both relational intimacy and libido; (3) Because it’s the loving, serving thing to do for the spouse you are committed to. BUT in that case, you may need to do some preparation for the bedroom or adjustment in lovemaking to make it “go well.” If you’re not in the mood, more time may be needed to get in the mood with a hot bubble bath, slipping into something pretty, etc. (whatever makes you feel more relaxed and confident) and to engage in foreplay to heat up your mood.
Prayers and thoughts are with you, Julie! I can’t say much more w/o more information. Best wishes.
We do honesty. We do grace. We do forgiveness. We do fun.
We do the little things. I know my hubby loves me because he changes the oil in my car, oils my cowboy boots and brings me coffee. Of course the coffee may be for his own protection.. lol!
Great list, J! Thanks for sharing it!
(We shared ours on the blog last night too.)
We do sharing the chores we dont like. I empty and he loads the dishes. he puts laundry in and I fold and put it away.
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