(Haha, sorry couldn’t resist using the cheesy title from the early 90’s song!)

-Written by Taylor, a current graduate wife

Dr. Laura’s famous book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, can be abbreviated into one main point: Give him good food, regular sex, and be nice, and you’ll have a happy husband.

We all know that the mystery of marriage is a bit more complicated than that, but my husband and I both agree that those three elements are essential. This blog has been a great resource for graduate wives and includes regular columns containing recipes (food) and words of encouragement (be nice) for the journey with your spouse, but we haven’t tackled s-e-x until… today!

Boys and girls are different. My husband and I say this often to each other. I need to feel loved, respected, and connected before we have sex, and he’s the other way around; sex creates feelings of love, respect, and connection for him. I have needs that he doesn’t have. He has needs that I don’t have. And that’s okay. It’s important for me to love and serve him in a way that is most meaningful to him.

Throughout the graduate journey, sex has been such an important, unifying tool to keep our marriage going strong. Our marriage bed (floor/dresser/shower/whatever) is our secret place, a dwelling where he and I alone enjoy each other’s bodies and souls. It’s the place where we come together physically and spiritually after living what seem to be like separate but parallel lives. It’s our getaway, our holiday, our escape from the drudgery of libraries, computer screens, and tight budgets. It’s our place of certainty in the unknown of the future. It’s our place of comfort in grief and loss and disappointment. It’s also our place to celebrate a great meeting with his supervisor or the completion of a job application. It’s whatever we need it to be for us to connect and build and affirm each other as man and wife.

That sounds lovely, doesn’t it? So, why is it so hard to put into practice? Here’s my analogy: sex is a lot like exercise. I find it hard to make time for it, sometimes I dread it, but I never, ever regret it. In the same way that exercise should be a priority for the fitness of your body, sex should be a priority for the health of your marriage. Do what you gotta do. Make a plan and schedule it. Lay out your clothes and gear (aka lingerie and candles) ahead of time. You’ve already got a willing work out partner!

Consider this quote from an unknown source:

“God designed us to enjoy sex. He united our sensitive spirits to delicately intricate, wondrously strong, feeling bodies to give us great heights of blessing and joy in sexual union.  There is nothing we can do with one another through our bodies that is so holy and perfectly fulfilling as much as sexual nion. God meant it for refreshment, fulfillment, recreation, realignment, release, sharing, procreation, healing, lessons in loving, practice in sensitivity, development in the art of laying down our lives for another, completion, gratitude, longing, hope, endurance, fun, laughter, mysticism, embrace and so on through endless catalouges of blessing.  It is perhaps God’s best physical gift to mankind.”

And so it is. That is a great game time pep talk if I’ve ever heard one. Haha, now get out there and make time for it!