Get Your Marriage On! with Dan Purcell

We recently hit a major milestone with this podcast: 1 million downloads! Thank you for your support!

Let's be honest here. Initiating sex is not easy at all. We want the other person to take charge and initiate, right? We worry, how are we going to be received? There's also so much of ourselves wrapped up in what it means to initiate, or not initiate, sex. And past experiences tend to influence our reluctance to initiate as well. Yet, the reality is if one of you doesn't initiate sex, sex is never going to happen in your relationship.

So why is initiating sex so hard? What are some common reasons why people, me included, struggle to initiate sex sometimes? How do we get better at this very intimate act of bidding for sexual connection?

I've been pondering these questions lately, and I'm grateful to meet up with James Christiansen, a licensed marriage and family therapist from Roseville, California. You'll quickly find out that he has a brilliant sharp mind and quickly cuts right to the heart of the matter.

And this episode, we're going to talk about what's at the heart of initiating sex, because it gets a lot deeper than what you're probably thinking. And by the end of this episode, hopefully you'll take more courageous action to cherish your spouse more than before.

Links referenced in the episode:

⬇️ Download the Intimately Us and get in on the Sextimacy Challenge before it's over!

🌟 Get info on the DIY Boudoir Date Night Box

🙋 Snag the last spot at our couples retreat coming up in just 5 weeks!

To love and be loved wholeheartedly. It's life's sweetest gift. Marriages thrive when there's two forces working together love and desire. By love, I mean, the qualities like attentiveness, which is like being a good listener, kindness, a feeling of home and belonging in the relationship and loyalty.

On the other hand, by desire I mean a sense of passion, excitement, pursuit, adventure, mystery, and fun. We need both of those things in a good marriage. And to really love someone and to really desire someone with all of your heart, it's often a function of how developed and mature we are. Did you know that there are stages of development and romantic and sexual relationships as there are in other aspects of life? And how do you grow from whatever stage you are now to your next stage and become a better lover?

I've been podcasting consistently every week without fail for almost three years now. Can you believe it?! And one of my personal most favorite teachers of all time is Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, who you'll get to meet in just a moment. We recorded this podcast a long time ago. And because we have so many new listeners on this podcast, I've gone back to the archives to make sure you all get a chance to hear it!

Marriages need more help to stay strong today than ever. And that's why we just opened registration for upcoming marriage retreat in St. George Utah for March, 2024.

Retreats are an exciting way to spend some time away and we give you the tools you need to build a stronger sexier marriage and you get to meet other couples, have good food, go on excursions and just have this amazing experience to keep the fires of love and passionate desire burning bright in your relationship for years to come. Register today on our website.

My wife and I both grew up in good homes, but stereotypical to most that grow up in a conservative Christian culture in the 80s and 90s, conversations around sex were usually limited to biological reproduction or staying pure from sexual thoughts. These messages served me well before we were married but after we were married, we realized that these models led to anxiety about sexuality and difficulty with our sexual relationship. These issues didn’t really surface until after a decade into our marriage, when we weren’t so entrenched in survival mode from raising a young family any longer and could actually take a breath and focus on our relationship again.

I’m grateful for the many resources that helped me grow my understanding of marriage and sex in marriage. Specifically, where at first I thought spirituality and sexuality were incompatible, the examples of teachers like my guests on today’s podcast helped me see that spirituality and sexuality actually go together.

Fast forward a few years I’m grateful for the privilege of coaching other couples in growing their marriage intimately. It’s now what I do for work full time, and I hope this podcast, our apps, retreats, workshops, and other resources are helping you build a stronger marriage.

One of the common issues I see with my clients as a marriage coach is how “duty sex” or viewing sex as something just for the man for example often limits a couple’s ability to grow sexually.

Another has to do with one’s interpretation of biblical teachings around sex growing up, and how those views are often antithetical to building an intimate marriage.

Another has to do with sexual performance pressure. And sexual dysfunction.

We get to talk about all of these things and much more in this episode with Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner.

As my guests will attest, getting away for a weekend once in a while can really nourish your marriage. Especially if it’s a marriage retreat where you can learn about how to have a more intimate and fulfilling sex life, develop closer friendships, meet other couples on a similar journey, learn new skills to deal with conflict, and most importantly to have fun together! Our next retreat is four days and three nights, October 26 - 29, in the Dallas Fort Worth Texas area. Register now so that you don’t miss it by going to getyourmarriageon.com, click on Retreats, and then DFW retreat. If you’re on the fence, go to the web page anyway and check out the videos shared by past retreat attendees sharing their experience to get a feel for what it’s all about.

For more great content like this, check out the following resources:

Next Level!: https://getyourmarriageon.com/next-level/

Couples Retreat (Dallas/Ft Worth area): https://getyourmarriageon.com/couples-retreat-dfw/

Website: getyourmarriageon.com

Instagram: @getyourmarriageon

Fun and Sexy app for couples: Intimately Us

This is part two of the podcast we released last Friday (#200). And if you haven't listened to that one, I highly recommend you pause this episode and go back and listen to #200 first.

These two episodes are continuation of a project that I started a few months ago to better understand what it means for me to cherish my spouse. I shared a tragic story about my wife's cousin and how that really propelled us to understand what it means to cherish others better. In the process, I've sought out mentors to help me understand this concept better.

And you get to hear snippets of the conversations I've had with them - you get to be a fly on the wall and learn with me and what it really means to cherish your spouse. And to love them really, really well. Of all the things I talk about on the podcast -- sex, orgasms, initiating, foreplay -- I think learning how to cherish your spouse whole heartedly takes the cake!

This is the most important. This is the sum of everything that I wish you would get from my podcast.

I hope these two episodes become the most downloaded episodes of the entire podcast. And this is what I want to be known for. I want you to know that to really love and cherish your spouse is at the heart of everything we do, even your sexual interactions (which we talk a lot about on this podcast, right?). It's about how you cherish your spouse through the language of your sexuality and sharing that with your spouse exclusively.

So today you get a year from three more mentors that I look up to a lot: Tammy Hill, Danielle Savory, and Alex & Kadi Dutton (from EveryLove Intimates). So you get three different perspectives here on the same kind of thing, different stages of life, different worldviews.

And in case you missed it, I talked to Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, Alana Martens, (from Kingdom Sexuality), and Tony DiLorenzo (from One Extraordinary Marriage) in part 1.

I hope this is the inspiration you need to make the most of your marriage relationship--make the changes, get the help, and do what you need to do-- to find that deep and abiding love, the cherishing that brings the deepest meaning and satisfaction to our lives.

Resources:

Get Your Marriage On Program

Intimately Us App

FREE TRAINING: How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

Retreat testimonial videos

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.

For a lot of couples, Christmastime is a really stressful time of the year. There's a lot of end of year projects for work and school; there's also gift shopping and preparations for guests and meals and Christmas cards and dinners and parties, and the list just keeps going on and on and on.

And if you have children, it just multiplies the complexity by every child that you have in your home.

But Christmastime can also be a very special, sexy time of year. Think about it. Think of all the romantic, Christmas-themed movies that we love. Think about the time you get a snuggle by a fire. Think about the fun that you can have with your spouse when the world kind of slows down for a little bit. It can become a very sexy time.

In fact, a friend pointed out to me that, in the United States at least, we have the highest birth rate at the end of August, early September. I didn't believe him. So I double checked it. And it's true! In the United States, we have the most births in late August, early September. Which means most people are being conceived around Christmas time.

And I want this to be a very sexy time for you too! So I'm going to offer you 12 sexy Christmastime tips in this episode!

Helpful links:

Intimately Us

Get Your Marriage On! Couples Retreat

Tammy Hill's book, Replenish