the act of marriage.

{Spoiler alert written by the professor:  this post contains many uplifting, and some tastefully humorous, thoughts on marital intimacy.  If you believe that this topic is inappropriate for public blog posts, feel free to click “Back” now.}

When my mother scheduled my first OB appointment just weeks before my marriage, she told them that I was a virgin and that I was getting married.

You can imagine that I was a bit of a celebrity in that Washington, DC office.

I will never forget the Indian women’s instructions complete with a demonstration using her fist and pointer finger.  “If he go slow” she explained, “you’ll be just fine.”

Todd read the book, “The Act of Marriage” twice before our honeymoon.

On our wedding night I told him to shut up and kiss me.

I did not want to know anything from a book.

I wanted our intimate life to be exactly what it was...

New, experimental, innocent and perfect.

I figured if God thought we could figure it out on our own I wanted to enjoy the process.

We did!

there are things that good mormon girls don’t talk about.

Your sex life is one of them.

I do believe that your intimate life is between you, your spouse and the Lord.

It is sacred and private.

And, it should be.

But, I have learned much from wise friends who have answered questions I’ve had... and, I’ve felt prompted to be open about intimacy with others.

I hope you feel that I’m open without being irreverent or immodest.

I have some advice about intimacy.

I was even asked to teach a class on marital intimacy once.

This was my advice...

You know when you’re young and your arm brushes against a boy’s arm that you are crushing on?

Your whole body tingles.

And then you start dating and you hold hands or kiss for the first time.

It’s magical.

And after awhile, holding hands looses the tingles... but kissing is magical.

My advice is... ENJOY THE PROCESS.

Can you imagine if the five year old who kisses a boy for the first time behind the swing set bursting into tears because her kiss wasn’t like the ecstatic woman on tv?

Enjoy the tingles that come from brushing arms!

Enjoy kissing, enjoy being near each other... enjoy learning together!

Enjoy what it is even as it is becoming what it can be.

My wedding night was beautiful and perfect.

We have learned a lot since then.

Our intimacy is different, but no more real or perfect.

There have been many stages to our intimacy.

There have been times when I thought we had it all figured out.

There have been times when I have sobbed because I thought we were the only couple in the world that couldn’t figure things out.

There have been nights when I’ve pushed todd away from me thinking he was the most selfish man ever.

There have been nights when I’ve begged him to want me more.

There have been many nights where I’ve laid in his arms knowing that I am the luckiest girl in the world.

When we couldn’t get pregnant for over a year I thought we were broken.

When I had many babies and couldn’t enjoy much with intimacy I thought I was broken.

We’ve read books, we’ve thrown books away.

We’ve shared our bed with too many kids, we’ve been too tired, too lazy, too stressed.

I’ve had my fair share of head aches.

We’ve tried too hard, we haven’t tried enough.

I’ve thought, sixteen year old girls in the back of a car can figure this out better than we can?

And I’ve thought, nobody has it better than this.

We don’t schedule intimacy... we tend to cluster.

Really great and close—a bit distracted and distant.

Like everything good in life... intimacy takes continual work.

It’s an ebb and flow.

Intimacy in marriage isn’t just something that stays great.

It’s like a testimony...

if you are not continually working at strengthening your marriage, your marriage relationship will naturally dissipate.

Everyone has to work at it.

And, maybe there are couples out there that have never had to work out anything about their intimacy.

Guess what?  They have something else they’re working on.

Trust me.

better yet, don't trust me- just ask them. 

say, "it seems like you have the perfect marriage."

and, unless they are still wearing their wedding dress they will probably laugh.

Satan whispers for us to hide when we are naked.

God commands us to cleave unto our spouse in our nakedness.

We live in a day and age when people spend a lot of money and effort trying to make naked perfect.

I don’t want a spouse that can only find joy in me when I have the body of a 19 year old magazine cover.

I want a man that will love me when I’m old and saggy and wrinkled.

And, guess what?

He wants a woman that will let him love her even when she doesn’t feel like a 19 year old magazine cover.

There is great joy that comes from not being ashamed to be naked in front of your spouse or your God.

Not just physically.

To have one person that sees your strengths and weaknesses and loves you completely is what marriage is all about.

To be able to love someone else.

To love and to be loved—warts and all.

It’s a journey, a becoming, a process, a miraculous dance that you create together.

And, the road is uphill with divine views.

I once was studying the law of chastity.

We believe the law of chastity is that you have no sexual relations before marriage and that you are completely faithful to your spouse inside of marriage.

I thought much about how I could be “completely faithful” to my spouse.

About what it means to have FAITH in him.

Faith is the evidence of things NOT SEEN.

Or, in other words, seeing his potential.

Loving him completely for what he can become- not just what he is today.

Oh, how I have loved learning to love that man completely.

i'm someone that people talk to about their problems- it's in my nature.

my heart aches for those who struggle.

i know that everyone struggles with something.

i have friends who struggle with a spouse who has been unfaithful.

i have friends who struggle with issues from before their marriage that affect their intimate life together.

i have friends who struggle with a spouse addicted to pornography.

i have friends who struggle to feel anything at all during intimacy.

i have friends with husbands who never want to be intimate.

i have friends who complain because their husbands are too attentive and caring too much about making sure they enjoy intimacy all the time.

i have friends with really, really great intimate lives.

i have friends who have taught me much about loving.

We have struggled, like many people do.

People who struggle seem to think they are the only ones... that it’s not fair, that they shouldn’t have to work on their marriage.

People are always surprised when I tell them what I think—

The commandment to BE ONE with your spouse is like the commandment to BE ONE with your God.

It takes daily, weekly, hourly effort.

And NO ONE is exempt from that effort.

i once heard of a Sunday school lesson on chastity where the teacher licked the icing from the middle of the oreo and put the cookies together.

She asked if anyone in the class would want to eat the licked oreo?

She repeated the phrase to the girls, “save yourself for marriage, don’t be a licked oreo.”

The teacher had no way of knowing that another one of the leaders in that room had just found out her husband was a “licked oreo”.

They were struggling in their own marriage.

Can you imagine how painful that lesson would have been for her?

Can you imagine if one of those young girls happened to slip up, to make dumb choices young in life that would bring her pain?

Can you hear Satan whispering to her, “you can never go back now, you’re the licked oreo?”

We have to be SO CAREFUL with what we teach and what we say and what we believe.

God is greater than Nabisco.

our intimate natures are not one time, make it or break it, cookies.

his atonement heals, forgives, changes, purifies, teaches, and fill us with the potential for complete JOY.

he is justice and mercy, divine grace and infinite forgiveness.

if we don't believe this, we do not know Him.

Deep within each of us is the potential for joy that is greater than oreos.

Intimacy is a divine gift from God.

Passion is one of God’s greatest gifts.

It is not a coincidence that he pairs Passion with Creation.

Both are divine.

It is not a coincidence that Satan loves the bedroom.

God is love.  Satan is doubt, fear, trickery, deceit.

Satan does not tempt us or our husbands because we are weak and evil.

He tempts us because he knows we have a GREAT potential for good.

We are commanded to bridle our passions that we may be filled with love.

It is not the weak horses that have a hard time with their bridles... it is the gallant Stallions.

God is not the condemning parent that Satan wants us to believe He is.

God is the wise teacher who is continually leading us to eternal JOY.

You can try to separate physical intimacy from emotional intimacy, but your joy will be shallow.

You can try to enjoy a symbol of commitment with no level of commitment and you will ache for more.

You can drive your “marriage buggy” with one wheel over the edge of the cliff and think you won’t get hurt.

Be careful of Satan’s cliffs.

Excessive physical unity can’t compensate for emotional unity.

You can be content living in a relationship where you are casual people living parallel lives.

but oh how you are missing out!

Nothing compares with pure, unified, marital intimacy.

It is divine and holy and beautiful.

And so fun!

It is worth the wait.  It is worth the effort.

A wise man once told me, intimacy is how adults play.

I think we should play more, talk more, enjoy life together more.

If this whole blog hasn’t already been TMI... here’s the final TMI.

I once got a hemorrhoid.

Not from childbirth, from weightlifting, I think.

I was burning and aching and I dreaded going to the bathroom.

It was horrible and I was cranky.

Nobody knew the real reason why.

(well, except that I always say too much and so I told too many people.)

The whole time I was dealing with my situation I kept thinking about cranky ladies at the grocery store.

I kept thinking, “I bet they have a hemorrhoid and we just don’t know.”

I think that intimacy problems are sometimes hemorrhoids in our marriage.

We may not talk about them, but they still affect everything we do.

Intimacy is the glue that holds everything together.

The rose colored glasses.

the sprinkles on our cupcake.

For me, the true sacrament of intimacy is that 1 + 1 doesn’t equal 2.

1 + 1 = 200

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

When todd and I are unified we are more kind, more patient, we work harder, we laugh more, we wake up early, we floss. :)

There is beauty all around, when there’s love at home.

I have learned that intimacy is better than sleep when I am tired.

Intimacy is better than words when we are making up from an argument.

A weekly stay home night is more important for us than a weekly date night.

My real life, imperfect man is better than Stephanie Meyer’s glowing vampire.

Todd and I, we don’t have a perfect marriage.

But, we’re perfect together.

I love him more than I ever imagined possible.

And, he loves me even when I feel unlovable.

And, we want to love each other better.

I still get tingles when he rubs my arm.

I still love to kiss him in the car.

My favorite time to cuddle is in the morning when he’s all dressed for work and I’m a distraction.

I love when pulls me close to him in the middle of the night.

We have travelled a long journey together (almost 15 years)...

and we have many miles yet to travel (1500 years)...

and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather make the trip with.

{This was one of those posts that got me up in the middle of the night- I had to write it so I could go back to bed.  Todd whispered sleepily, “what were you doing?” I whispered back, “writing a post on our sex life.”  He woke up.  hah!  I assured him that I had the draft waiting for him to approve before I pushed POST.  he hopped right out of bed to read my draft, wondering why I had picked this topic.  I assured him, I didn’t... it just wouldn’t go away.  As he climbed back in bed he was thoughtful.  he isn’t the talkative woman that I sometimes wish he was.  “it’s not bad, I fixed some typos,” he said.  “I want to read it again in the morning.”  I wondered if he thought I made our relationship seem too hard.  He said he didn’t think so.  I asked if he thought I made our relationship seem too good?  He laughed and said,  “You could never do that.”  I wondered why and he said that I’m just too real... I asked about hemorrhoids and he laughed, “that’s not too bad, I think everyone has had a hemorrhoid once in their life.”  He liked the part where I said I liked being his distraction on his way to work and he said he should let himself be distracted more often.  wink, wink...  And then he thought we should stop talking and start enjoying our process a little bit more.  As he rubbed his hand down my side he whispered, “Can you feel that? hourglass.”  We have an ongoing debate about my body-type.  He is convinced I have an hourglass figure and I’m pretty certain I’m an apple, or pear, or celery.  I sure love that guy and please don’t tell him that he is not married to an hourglass, thanks.}

Life is good.

Marriage is good.

It is worth it.

This is not a post about my intimate life.

It is a post where I testify that marital intimacy is SO IMPORTANT.

a good intimate life is possible and worth it!!

I know it is.