A marriage should be protected against hazards of life. This is because there are forces, both natural and spiritual, which are inimical to the health of every marriage. That is, there are challenges of life that can bring a marriage to an end. One of such challenges is SEX. It is a feature of marriage for which every couple should be concerned with. It is one for which every married couple should do all to ensure that it does not endanger the life of the marriage. If it does not bring fulfillment, it will endanger the marriage.
To sexually protect your marriage you should cultivate the following behavior:
Make your spouse your best friend, with whom you can share every secret of your life.
When this is done, you will not be overwhelmed by sexual temptation or harassment. Before you are drawn away by temptation or pressured to succumb to sexual harassment, you would have discussed it with your spouse and marshalled out a way of escape together. After all, it is common knowledge that unity is strength and a problem that is shared is half solved.
Note your spouse’s observation about any unhealthy relationship with a person of the opposite sex and take
appropriate action.
Some persons are quick to judge their spouses’ complain or observation in this regard as jealousy, rather than taking precautionary steps about such observations. Even if it is jealousy, it means that it is a source of concern to your spouse. Then it is worth being addressed by you. Ignoring such observations have ruined not only marriages and homes, but also many lives.
Make yourself sexually available to your spouse as much as possible.
You should make sex as regular as much as possible. As much as possible includes as often as your spouse wants it; as often as your state of health can accommodate it; as often as circumstances permit among others. To achieve this requires effort both physically, financially, and readiness to learn how to achieve it.
Lack of satisfactory sex in marriage can lead to many unpleasant situations of marital unfaithfulness and heartbreaks. It has been discovered that many cases of adultery stemmed from lack of sexual fulfillment in marriage, especially when such persons had experienced pre marital sex.
Watch your spouse’s back.
You should not be naïve and assume that your spouse is a saint who would not have extra marital affairs. There is no immunity against temptation; we will all face it somehow. What is bad is yielding to temptation. Watching your spouse’s back keeps him from yielding to temptation. Some persons have done that to their own peril. I don’t believe watching your partner’s back is as a result of lack of trust. Rather, it is more of putting in place checks that will help keep him/her to live straight, knowing fully well that he/she cannot afford to take chances. A check like that once a while can prevent an unwilling partner from falling into sexual temptation, especially when the pressure from the tempter becomes intense.
Never ignore unusual behaviour on the part of your spouse.
It may be a pointer to an undisclosed inner pressure he/she may be going through. When he/she gets moody or becomes evasive over normal daily chats, then you need to probe deeper to be sure a tempter is not lurking around the corner for him/her. Don’t dismiss such obvious unusual behavior with a wave of hand. Probing may turn out to be a life saver for your marriage.
Make the subject of your sex-life as a couple an open discussion.
Talk about your sex life together and discover how to be better sex partners and bed mates. I discovered recently after a conference on “Enjoying Great Sex Life in Marriage,” that a lot of couples never sit down to discuss their sex life; they just flow with whatever they get during sexual intercourse. When they enjoy it, they wish it lasted longer; when they don’t enjoy it, they mourn in secret, counting their losses. Thus, many couples just endure rather than enjoy sex. This is not good for the marriage. It opens the door for the tempter to enter into the marriage.
Learn the art of lovemaking in order to have an exciting sex-life in your marriage.
I have come to discover that there is more to sex than ‘rise and sink’ or the missionary position. Knowing this makes sex an exciting act to look forward to in a marriage. Sex can become so interesting that the married couple, especially the wife, becomes readily available at any given moment. There are materials that you can access to give you adequate knowledge on how to enjoy great sex life.
Finally, cultivate positive sexual habits that are healthy for your marriage. These are practices by which a couple can be protected from sexual harassment and temptations. This will be the subject of our next week’s write up in this column.
I believe very strongly that it is the responsibility of married couples to protect their marriage from external pressure that can spell doom for the marriage. And sex is a major factor of marital disharmony which must be dealt with by every married person. To ignore the fact that sex is a critical issue that needs to be addressed in marriage is like sitting on a keg of gun powder; it may explode anytime.
