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Coaching Log 10/18/2005
Please pray for the following married couple we coached today.
Marital Status: Married
Gender: Male
Your Age: 28
Age Of Your Spouse: 27
Would you like to learn how to become a Christian? I am a Christian
Is your spouse a Christian? Yes
How many times a month do you go to church? 3
How many years have you been married? 6.
Do you have children? Yes.
How many children living at home? 2.
Is your spouse unfair to you? No.
Are you unfair to your spouse? No.
Does your spouse think you are unfair to them? No.
Do you feel angry with your spouse? No
Do you feel your spouse is angry with you? No
What percent of your time together with your spouse is spent arguing?
Never
Do you like being married? Yes
Do you wish you were single again? No
Do you want to stay married? Yes
Would you ever divorce your spouse? No
Would your spouse ever divorce you? No
MarriageRomance.com may publish all or parts of this coaching session: Yes
(Excluding names of coach and coachee)
Please describe your situation and problem:
My wife and I have been married now for 6 years. We have a 3 year old son
and a daughter who is almost a year old. Starting back when we were
expecting our daughter, I noticed us to somewhat drift apart. At the time it
was easy to dismiss it as being part of the emotions of expecting a child.
As time when on the situation did not change. After we had our baby this
distance was still evident, yet still easy to dismiss, this time being us
getting used to the new addition in our lives. Now, with her soon to be a
year old I am running out of excuses.
I feel like our marriage is non-exisistant. We have a great family. But the
intimate relationship with my wife seems to be gone. I work all day and my
wife runs a home-daycare. When I get home and the other children go home,
that is time for the family. We spend a ton of time with our kids playing
reading etc. I love spending time with my family. It is just that by the
time the kids go to sleep we are both usually pretty exhausted and end up
going to sleep as well. I can't even remember the last time we had time for
"us". We both love eachother dearly and we love our family. However the
intimate relationship I once had with my wife seems to be gone. To add
frustration to the situation, we have ample opportunity to have "us" time.
Our parents love watching the kids for a few hours on the weekend. The
problem is is that when the do watch the kids we spend that time trying to
catch up on chores and cleaning and stuff other stuff that needs to get done but is almost impossible to do when the kids are around.
I really miss my wife. When throughout every evening my life is very
fullfilled with my family. But when the kids go to sleep I feel alone. I
have brought these feelings up to my wife several times and she seems to be
very understanding and willing to help. However when the discussion ends and daily life resumes the attempts to fix things get overshadowed by need for sleep or need to clean and stuff like that. I love my life with me kids, I just am starting to feel like that in having kids and gaining so much from them I sacrificed the fantastic intimate relationship I once had with my wife.
Most frustrating to me is that she really doesn't seem to notice or care
about this. I understand my wifes point of view that or kids are most
important, yet I wish she would see that giving us some time is important as well. Instead of her current view of well if everything else is done and we are still awake then we can have our time. I cannot even describe how much I miss my wife. I feel like she doesn't miss me and it saddens me a lot.
What can I do? I feel like I have done everything possible yet I still feel
alone.
Coaches Answer:
Thanks for contacting MarriageRomance.com for coaching. I will try to
encourage you in the Lord and give you Godly advice.
I read your coaching information and understand how you feel. I'm older now but when I was your age my wife and I were in about the same predicament. She was very busy with the children and school and church and and did not desire intimacy. It wasn't that she did not want it, it was, like you said, she did not desire it.
This is very common in marriages and sometimes leads to misunderstandings
between the husband and wife. I promise you she will change once the kids
are off to college. Once they get in high school she will begin to focus on her relationship with you, because she realizes that the kids will be gone some day.
But now is the time to build a good relationship. Sometimes waiting until
the kids become teenagers is too long.
You both have to decide that you will take the time for each other. If for no other reason, you should do this because the apostle Paul said to.
The apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 7:5, "Do not deprive each other,
except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control."
In this verse Paul says married couples should have sex regularly and it is implied that they should enjoy sex. Because if one of them does not enjoy sex, the other will not feel emotionally sexually fulfilled. Sex is not just a physical act, it is intended to be a deep bonding and with feelings of closeness and warmth and togetherness, and if only one spouse enjoys it, neither will feel emotionally sexually fulfilled. And so the one needing the closeness the most will suffer the most.
I noticed you and your wife are both Christians and you go to church almost regularly. That is good. God wants us to fellowship with other believers.
I hope you have devotions each night with your kids and that you tuck them in and pray with them and that you and your wife pray together in bed each night.
There is an old saying, "Those that pray together, stay together."
Since you do not have much time, see if your wife will read or listen with you to some of our marraige love stories at MarriageRomance.com in bed. They may help her to forget about the day and get in the mood for intimacy. We started MarriageRomance.com to provide love stories so that married couples could read them together at night and help them start thinking about love and then focus on each other.
And we have a "romance ideas" section where you and her can find lots of creative ideas to help you focus on each other.
If you could talk to her and agree to set aside one night of the week to go to bed an hour early so you can spend time with each other. You can pray together and read some stories together and try some of the romance ideas on each other. An hour should be enough time.
And then agree to set aside one night of the week to go out with someone watching the kids. Hopefully the kids will be asleep when you come home so you can spend time alone in the bedroom without interruptions.
I know it hurts you that she doesn't miss you. This is very common in
marriages. The husband marries his wife and discovers she does not desire him. Men are made differently from women. The world paints a picture that all women are dieing for intimacy, when in reality only about a third to a half are. And especially mothers with babies and young kids are not that interested in sex. This lack of what I call "emotional sexual fulfillment" drives many husbands to look at porn and flirt at work and things like that.
But if you just realize it is not you, but rather your wife's emotional
state of being overwhelmed with all she does, then it is easier to not take it personally.
But what I discovered with my wife, was that, she could not be all
interested in intimacy, but if she read a moral erotic story with me, she
would switch gears and get turned on and desire intimacy.
So I would encourage you to keep your self control, save your sexual energy for your wife, and get her to understand that you need her love. Explain to your wife that Paul said married couples should have sex regularly so that they will not be tempted. And also I might add, so they will not argue and fight as much. Love making provides a bonding that helps couples forgive each other.
And one misconception is that the kids are more important than the
relationship with the spouse. To the contrary the relationship with your
spouse is more important than spending a few hours less with the kids.
Taking time to keep a healthy relationship with your spouse and with God is very important.
I pray God will give you wisdom and I pray your wife will be willing to take the time to meet your needs and show you how much she loves you.
God Bless,
MR Coach
Coachee's Response To Coach:
Thank You so much for replying to my email. I have started to pray for her
as many times a day as I can. Sometimes I get caught up in the way she acts
and I try to work it out myself, but I know that only God can do that. So I
am going to continue to try to pray for as many times as I can. As far as
ignoring her when she yells at me, I try not to. Up till now I have tried
everything as far as asking questions and trying to understand her. When she mad like that there is nothing at all I can do to get her to settle down. Even when she gets mad about something that there is no reason to be mad about, I apologize over and over even though there is nothing really to
apologize about.
She is going to college, but she hasn't had any class since last January and she isn't starting untill January 06. I have tried to do as much as I can to help here around the house. I have a job where I work 10-12 hours and when I get home I usually try to do everything I can around the house (cooking, cleaning, laundry, ect.) as much as I can. It is wearing me down so bad that I am so tired all the time. As far as takeing care of Madelyn (the child), she has so many people offer to come over and help her out, but she doesn't want anybodys help.
As far as sitting down w/ my wife and seeing what she wants to do. I've been trying to do this ever since she met. Last night when I got home from work, she started telling me how she didn't know if we were meant to be married and if she really wants to be married to me. I asked several times what I could do to make the situation better. Every time I ask she just tells me its not me, and she gets mad, because she says I'm getting very annoying. It just breaks my heart when she says things like that because even though we made mistakes by having pre-marital sex, I believe that we have to live with our consquences. I didn't force here to marry me. I think she married me simply because that is what her mom told her she should do. Deep down I don't think she wants to be married to me. I don't know what to do about that. Divorce is the last thing I would ever want, and I would never say, Ok, lets just get a divorce, never.
Everything you wrote is write on the money. I am going to continue to pray
everyday that the situation gets better. I have a lunch meeting w/ a pastor
from the church I used to attend. I also have contacted her parents to see
if I can talk to them.
I hope that I have made myself clear in this email. Lately my head has been
such a mess, I don't know if I am makeing sense to anyone.
God Bless You,
Coachee
Coaches Response:
Thanks for answering. I think you can assume she does believe that Jesus
died for her sins and that she just needs some maturing, like we all do.
I praise God that you are solid in your desire to please God.
Just keep loving her and God says you will win her to Himself with your
love.
I pray God will give you wisdom and patience with her.
You have a true ministry there with your wife. But it will be very
rewarding when she does mature and love you more in the end.
See if you can get some good Christian woman or girl to be her friend. She needs good Christian influence in your life.
And I hope she doesn't watch TV all day, or read romance novels - they are
very destructive to a person's spiritual growth. But telling her to not
watch TV or read the novels is not a good solution. Instead a good solution would be to get her involved with something else, like working at the church nursery or volunteering at the crisis pregnancy center. Going to college may not be good for her at this point.
Is there anything she likes to do? If so see if you can get her plugged in to doing it with a Christian organization, on a paid or even volunteer
basis.
I pray for you brother!
God Bless,
MR Coach
Coachees Response:
Thank you very much for you advice and prayers. You have been a true encougagement for me. It has been such a blessing to have conversations with you. I know that God will improve the situation, and it is only thru him that anybody is going to change, including myself. I will continue to pray everyday.
Again, I can't thank you enough. You filled with so much spirit. All of your friends and family are so lucky to have someone so solid in there faith in there midst. I sure that they appreciate it.
In Jesus's Love
Coachee
Coaches Response:
I just thank the Lord that He used me in a small way to encourage you. I just pray God will touch your wife's heart so that she responds to your love for her. I pray God will continue to give you patience and wisdom.
You are in such a difficult situation but you can look at it as an opportunity to serve your wife and love her unconditionally until God helps her mature. That is what God does with us - it's called Grace and so he wants us to do that with others - especially our wife.
God Bless you,
MR Coach
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