A Man's View of Romance (Part One)

Creating a More Romantic Marriage

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Creating A More Romantic Marriage

Day 5 of 8

Guest: Dennis Rainey

From the Series: A Man's View of Romance

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(Music: "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?")

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today. Our host is the executive director of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and if you've ever scratched your head and asked yourself the same question Henry Higgins asked himself, then stay with us for today's edition of FamilyLife Today.

(Music: "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?")

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, and let me see if I can do a recap, Dennis, for our listeners here as we begin the broadcast. Last week you talked with us about why romance is so important for a marriage relationship.

Dennis: Right.

Bob: You talked about the "romance robbers" that every relationship experiences. Barbara joined us, and we spent three days talking to men about how wives view this issue of romance, and we just had a couple of days with the guy you describe as the "Michael Jordan of romance," who talked with us about some creative things that his group – that he calls the "Men of the Titanic" have done to communicate romance to their wives, and before we talk to wives about how their husbands view romance, you want to spend one more session talking to the men, right?

Dennis: Right. You know, I think a lot of Christians are afraid to discuss the obvious. There is a great struggle that is taking place in the Christian bedrooms of our nation, and if that struggle is going to be diminished, and Christian marriages are to emerge, then that means we've got to get honest and look at this biblically, we've got to look at it and speak out it forthrightly and, in the best way we know how to talk about it, be able to speak honestly first of all to men about what they're feeling when it comes to sexuality.

Bob: Now, is it okay for the wives to listen in as we talk to their husbands?

Dennis: I think, for today's broadcast, you ladies can just eavesdrop as I just have a heart-to-heart talk with the men, because I think a lot of us, as men, are really confused, and this first point I want to make with the husbands is you need to reserve romance and your sexuality for your wife only. What I mean by that is God has blessed you and given you great sexual energy. That ought to move you to serve her, to love her, to sacrificially give to her without resentment.

Now, those last two words are very important – "without resentment" – because I think God gives us, as men, this urge to initiate toward our wives for a reason, because our wives are different. They have relational needs, and what we do with our own sex drive, as we look at our wife's needs, can either move us to using our wives as an object or we, as men, can realize that we need to get on our wife's wavelength and how she views romance; that is, her need for relational love, and that means spending time with her, taking walks, some of the things we've talked about earlier in this series.

Bob: Are you saying here that if a man is failing in these areas, if he's not communicating love to his wife on her terms, then he really needs to make that a priority before he has any expectations from his own wife?

Dennis: I'm saying when Paul commanded husbands to love their wives, He commanded them to nourish and cherish their wives. The picture is of bathing them in nutrition for their soul. What is that for a woman? It's a relationship. It's sharing your life, as a man, with your wife, and if you don't do that, most likely your wife is going to feel like a sex object, and I think one of the best questions a man could ask his wife at this point, to see how he's doing, is say, "Sweetheart, when I make love to you, do you feel loved?"

I'm convinced there are a lot of wives who would say, "No. I may feel pleasure, I may feel sexual release, but somehow, sweetheart, you're not communicating real love to me, because you haven't met those relational needs."

And it's not what the man is doing or not doing in the midst of the actual act of intercourse. It's what he hasn't done to prepare that relationship with his wife and enable her to feast on having fun, on being nourished and cherished by someone who tenderly cares for his wife.

Now, this next thing I need to talk to men about at this point – this gets kind of tough to speak to men, but I've gotta do it – men sometimes have a higher felt need for sex than their wives, and I've got a couple of questions for you men who continually find yourself in overdrive in this area.

The first question is – are you feeding your sexual appetite throughout the day? Your fantasies, what you look at, what you watch, what you allow your mind to feast on – are you feeding that regularly throughout the day in an unbridled fashion? It is a wise man who, first of all, looks to himself in saying, "Am I really setting up our marriage to win here or am I somehow, because of what I'm allowing myself to think about all day, am I being selfish in arriving at the marriage bed almost setting my wife up to fail because I have so feasted in my mind on my sexual creativity?"

Bob: There needs to be some self control and discipline that a man exercises over his own thought life?

Dennis: Discipline is a part of the Christian life, and I think for a lot of men this goes down hard, because what we would like to say is we would like to have complete freedom to think about what we would like to think about and arrive home all sexually energized and charged up, but the problem is – what's our wife been thinking about all day? She's had kids draped all over her legs and arms, tuggin' on her skirt, and here's the man arriving home. He's had all these thoughts, and his wife is nowhere in the ballpark, let alone ready to go to bed with him.

A third thing I'd like to encourage the men to do, and this is going to sound the riskiest of all, but it's absolutely important that you share your feelings about your own sexuality. This is what women really don't understand about men, because men aren't in touch with what they're feeling about their own sexuality. And a part of this, Bob, I believe, is a man must express to h...