Sexual Intimacy a burden for you? See sex in a different light. How Sex is Like Peanut Butter (for the low-libido spouse)

Marriage is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  The bread is the foundation, your mutual belief in Jesus Christ.  The jelly is experiencing the ups and downs of life as a team.  It can be sweet or tart, depending on your particular circumstance.

Sex is the peanut butter.  It keeps the whole thing bound together.  It also adds a nice salty balance to the sweet/tart of the jelly.

What if you are a low-libido spouse that only sees peanut butter as annoyingly sticking to the roof of your mouth?  You can never seem to rid yourself of it altogether?

If you are that low-libido spouse, I applaud you for sticking around long enough to read this sentence.  Peanut butter (sex) can indeed seem like an annoyance, unless you understand how crucial it is to the savory nature of your marriage.

If you say, “I don’t know if I want to become a fan of peanut butter (sex).”  I understand.  I once stood in your shoes.

Chances are, if you are reading this, your marriage is not happy and there is no peanut butter in your pantry.

Actually, your spouse has been putting peanut butter on your shopping list for a very long time.  It just seems there is never enough time to go down that aisle or not enough money in the account to pick up a jar.  Because, seriously, isn’t peanut butter just a luxury?  No one needs to have peanut butter that often.

You have to ask yourself, “Do I want to continue the conflict about sexual intimacy? Do I want to remain this unhappy?”

Well, if you want to move out of a place of unhappiness, it might be worth your while to consider the nutrients peanut butter (sex) provides your marriage.

God created peanut butter (sex), so there must be spiritual benefits.

Within sexual intimacy there is trust, hope, love and faith in your partner.  You bare it all and trust that they are supportive and loving and wanting the best for you.

It must please God to have his children commune in the marriage bed.  Sexual intimacy has been compared to the type of relationship God wants to have with us through Christ (Ephesians 3:8-12, Ephesians 5:32), an earthly symbol of a heavenly reality.

Peanut butter helps the healing process.  (Seriously, peanut butter has 116% of your daily need of vitamin E and helps speed the process of cell regeneration.)

Sexual intimacy is healing and bonding.  I’m not saying that the act of sex will make you forget the angry and disrespectful words pointed your way or whatever else your higher drive spouse has done that was selfish.

When I was wounded by his words, having sex with him was the last thing I wanted to do.  That would mean he won.  How wrong I was.  No one wins when sex is a point of constant conflict.

Sexual intimacy is healing because it creates a savory climate for forgiveness and grace.

Allow yourself to contemplate a different point of view just for a moment.

As a lower-drive spouse, I thought he just needed physical release.  Now, I see that I misunderstood his intentions.  For him, touch did what words could not.  Everybody is different in how love is poured into them.  For most higher drive spouses, sexual intimacy is an outward sign of emotional intimacy.

Frustrated, raw emotions of perceived neglect and disregard becomes anger.  The anger is heightened when there is an inability to put hurt into words.  It was hard to see past his anger and into his heart.  Because, the anger made me feel attacked.

Learning to see past the anger into his core with an open heart may lead you to feel tenderness and compassion.

Jesus had lots of compassion.  Matthew 9:36, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Decide to come home with some peanut butter.

OK, I’ll be honest.  It took some major work on God’s part to help me see peanut butter as a pantry staple.  We had years of negativity to work through.

However, I did finally decide to go down the peanut butter aisle and you can, too.

An amazing thing happened.  As I decided to engage in more frequent and consistent sexual intimacy, I saw his actions toward me become softer, gentler and positive.  Anger disappeared.

Then, we figured out that our PB&J was so much better with a nice cold glass of milk to go along with it.

We’ll talk about the milk of conversation in the next post.  Because, love pours into the low-libido spouse in a whole different way.

 

Linking with Crystal Storms at Intentionally Pursuing’s, Intentional Tuesday.

Linking with Sheila Gregoire at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum’s, Wifey Wednesday.

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