Committed: The Ties that Bond
with Angella Dykstra
I'm a mom of three, a professional accountant, and an amateur photographer and writer. I am not a marriage expert. But my husband and I take "Til death do us part" seriously, and here I'll be sharing how we keep our marriage strong while we both do that insane work-life juggle.
Check out my Work It, Mom! profile and my blog, Dutch Blitz.
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Some of you who have been reading from the beginning of this here column (2008, baby!) may remember when I talked about the seven days of sex experiment. To sum it up, a pastor had issued a challenge to his congregation to have sex for seven days straight (with their spouses, natch) to increase intimacy.
It works. Trust me on this one.
Another pastor in Florida issued a challenge for his parishioners to have sex for 30 days (or nights) in a row and see what it does to your marriage. (30 days wouldn’t work for me personally, but maybe people have longer cycles than I do?)(TMI?)
This pastor, Paul Wirth of Relevant Church, says his “30-Day Sex Challenge” was one way of combating the 50-percent divorce rate in our country. According to Wirth (who has taken the challenge himself), it’s a way to increase the intimacy, to pay attention to one another and to continue to meet each others needs. RAWR.
Wirth has written a book: 30daysexchallenge: A Journey to Intimacy. He also tells us that 20 million married Americans have sex fewer than 10 times a year. That’s less than once a month. ONCE A MONTH.
That kind of makes me sad. I mean, yes, we are all busy and yes, some of us have a kid (or three!) but if you want your marriage relationship to make it to forever, you need to be connected to your spouse - relationally, emotionally and physically. I’ve personally found that the physical connection makes the emotional and relational aspects happen more easily.
So? How about it? Are you up for a 30 (or 21) day challenge?
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While I totally get the point of this, I think it misses the mark. For me, sex is only one way to have intimacy. My husband and I are usually in the twice-per-week club, mostly because we have very stressful jobs and we’re really tired when we get home. That DOES NOT mean we’re not intimate. We might unwind watching our favorite TV show while we rubs each other’s feet. Or we spend 15 minutes in the morning cuddling after the alarm goes off. Or we go to the gym together, giving lots of high-fives and kisses as encouragement. So we may not have sex a ton, we are a very intimate couple.
Tia | January 14th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
I don’t know - I kind of feel like (for me) committing to a sex challenge moves sex from the fun category to the chore category. I could happily do a 7-day challenge but a whole month seems daunting. I mean, don’t get me wrong - I don’t view sex with my husband as a chore but committing to a whole month of ANYTHING is overwhelming for me right now. I couldn’t even commit to a month of eating dessert every day and I LOVE eating dessert
hillary | January 14th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
I totally agree with the two of you. 7 days, yes. 30? Unrealistic. And cuddles on the couch is sometimes how I’d rather spend my alone time with my husband.
Angella | January 14th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Yeah, I don’t know about this. I don’t think sex = intimacy. Obviously it doesn’t, hence the phrase “one night stand”. You’d think that in marriage it might be different, but I really do believe that intimacy is MUCH more about the talking and sharing that goes on before/after sex than it is about the act itself. No? And I feel that other forms of physical touch are sometimes more important. Going for a walk and holding hands the whole time, cuddling up on the couch together, having a romantic dinner while playing footsie, giving each other massages, etc. Sex is not the answer to the soaring divorce rate. Communication, quality time, shared interests, kindness, compromise, SHEER HARD WORK - those are the things that people need to work on.
Sex is fun though, so I’d be up for a 7-day challenge! I wouldn’t do 30 days because I don’t see the point of it. I’d rather do a 30-day challenge where we had to spend at least 2 hours together just talking or playing games or listening to music, I feel like that would create much more closeness than just “doing the deed” at bedtime because it’s something we signed up to do.
We’ve done the 7-day thing before, not for a challenge, but just because we were on holiday in Fiji for our 10th wedding anniversary for 8 nights and well, it happened at least once a day. And the main reason it happened at least once a day? It was the result of us spending lots of time together, uninterrupted time, quality time, FUN time. All that time made us feel closer to each other, and we WANTED to have sex a lot. Not the other way around
Hannah | January 14th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I’m with Hannah. I think 30 days of a 30 minute uninterrupted coffee date would do us more good for our intimacy issues than (more) sex would.
Danica | January 14th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
30 days? Hmmm. I will give it the old college try.
sizzle | January 14th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
I couldn’t do it for the same reasons as you. And right now? Uh, I’m almost seven months pregnant. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
But I can definitely see how it would work.
Mrs. Wilson | January 15th, 2011 at 12:14 am