Before marriage, two people in a relationship always tend to anticipate too much and have a high level of sexual attraction for each other. Both always anticipate that their marriage would be heaven for both of them. However, after wedding, they may discover that what is heavenly for one may be hell for the other due to differences between males and females from both physical perspective and psychological perspective.This passage is going to introduce what's more hidden behind sex within a marriage.
First, when one forces a particular sexual act upon one’s spouse, it ceases to be an act of love and becomes sexual abuse. True love is always seeking to bring pleasure to the spouse. It is never demanding something that the spouse finds objectionable. If the two of you disagree on a particular kind of sexual expression, then it calls for communication and negotiation. If you cannot reach an agreement, then love respects the desires of the spouse who objects. To violate this principle is to sabotage mutual sexual fulfillment.
Second, sex is more than intercourse. By its very nature, sex is a bonding experience. It is the union of male and female in the most intimate way. It is not simply the joining of two bodies. It is the union of body, soul, and spirit. I think that is why the Christian faith and most other world religions reserve intercourse for marriage. It is designed to be the unique bonding experience that unites a husband and wife in a lifelong intimate relationship.
If intercourse is viewed only as a way to relieve sexual tension or to experience a moment of sexual pleasure, it ceases to reach its designed purpose. And it eventually becomes a mundane act of selfishness. On the other hand, when intercourse is viewed as an act of love that expresses in the deepest possible way our commitment to each other, it leads to mutual sexual fulfillment.
Third, communication is the key that unlocks sexual fulfiliment. In a culture that is saturated with explicit sex talk, I am constantly amazed at the couples who enter my counseling office who have never learned to talk about this part of their marriage. If they have tried to talk, it has often come across as condemnation and rejection. They have focused more on telling than they have on listening. The only way we can learn what is pleasurable or objectionable to the other is to listen as they choose to talk. None of us is a mind reader. That is why I've spent a great deal of my life encouraging couples to learn how to listen with empathy.
“What could I do or not do that would make the sexual part of the marriage better for you?”Empathetic listening is listening with a view to discovering what the other person is thinking and feeling. What are their desires and frustrations? I have often encouraged young couples to ask this question once a month for the first six months of their marriage: “What could I do or not do that would make the sexual part of the marriage better for you?”. Write down their answer and take it seriously. If you do this the first six months of the marriage, you will be on the road to finding mutual sexual fulfillment.
Forth, the past never remains in the past.
In today’s sexually open culture, many couples have been sexually active before marriage. The commonly held idea is that sexual experience before marriage better prepares you for marriage. All of the research indicates otherwise. In fact, the divorce rate among those who have had previous sexual experience is twice as high as those who have had no sexual experience before marriage.- The reality is that previous sexual experience often becomes a psychological barrier in achieving sexual unity in marriage.
Our culture has taught that sex before marriage is recreational and that once you get married, you can simply wipe the slate clean, commit yourself to be sexually faithful to your spouse, and all will go well. However, it is not that easy to wipe the psychological slate clean. Couples often struggle with the desire to know their spoused sexual history, and when they know, it sometimes becomes a memory that is difficult to erase. When it comes to marriage, something deep within the human psyche cries out for an exclusive relationship. And we are pained by the thought that our spouse has been sexually intimate with others.
It is far better to deal with past sexual experiences before marriage. When we are silent on this subject and enter marriage without discussing our past sexual activities, almost always the past has a way of erupting into the present. When this happens after marriage, the awareness of deception is often more difficult to overcome than the sexual activity itself.
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