Sex After Baby Part 1
Do you ever see something on social media that bothers you and you can’t stop thinking about it?
Of course you do. You are human. Something we share in common.
Something came across my feed the other day that bothered me for so many reasons.
I saw a pretty popular mommy blogger come to the conclusion on her blog that she was a lesbian, due the fact that she had no interest in having sex with her husband anymore.
I felt sad for her, I felt sad for her husband. I didn’t personally know this woman, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
This woman didn’t know Jesus, so of course by the world's standards her “epiphany” made sense. She was overwhelmed with her children, no longer wanted to be touched by her husband, and this was her logical explanation. I hurt for her, because I’ve felt that way, too.
A leader in my church recently shared a testimony about how God healed his marriage. He shared that at one point his wife wished his sex drive wasn’t so high or that he could have another wife so she could get a break.
My first thought on hearing that part of the testimony was “Same girl. Same.”
I’ve had those thoughts more than once.
The transition to two children was way more difficult than I anticipated and when things like eating and sleeping became luxaries, sex fell by the way side.
We live in a sex obbsessed culture who celebrates and flaunts it at every possible angle except the place it was intended: in a healthy, loving, long term marriage. It has become a well known joke in many circles: that women hate sex and tolerate it. Men just want more of it and can never get enough. But, that's not how it's supposed to be. Thats not what sex was designed or created for.
Of course when you’ve been up with the baby night after night, when the other kids are screaming, when you realize you may have some vomit in your hair, of course in those moments it's hard to think about your partner's needs. And as those frustrating life moments get more and more frequent it has suddenly been two months with no sex and your husband now seems more like a business partner.
I am here to tell you what you may not want to hear: sex is important and we should all be having more of it with our spouse.
Not to be dramatic, but the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual well being of our households depends on it.
Sex builds intimacy.
It brings us closer to our spouse.
It extends your life.
It reduces stress, helps you sleep.
It clears your mind.
Sex is even a form of worship.
That might be a heavy bundle to unpack, but stick with me for another minute.
Throughout the entire bible, Genesis to Revelation, God gives us little examples and glimpses of what healthy, and unhealthy, sexual relationships look like.
It starts with perfection in the garden and is interwoven throughout human history.
We experience pure desire in poetic form in Song of Songs. We read the plethora of rules in Leviticus on who and what you can or cannot have sex with. Even Jesus talked about it, and so did Paul. Sex is important enough to be brought up again and again in the bible, yet the church has never wanted to talk about it.
The only sex talk I recieved again and again as a teenager was the one about how and why not to have it.
It seems like the only thing the church wanted to teach my peers and I was that sex was bad, don’t do it before you were married.
That was all well in good, but no one ever talked about sex after marriage. I got the sense that as long as I had my virginity intact on my wedding day that was all that mattered. What happened in my bedroom after the wedding day was of little consequence.
Would I have believed anyone had they told me that one day my teenage hormones would disappear? That sex would one day feel like a chore? That a day would come where I had to fight for my marriage, and to keep good sex at its core?
We are going to expand on this topic and explore it deeper. I have resources for you. I have personal experiences and ways to reshape your thinking when it comes to sex.
Sex is important, and life is too short to be living without it.
