Speaker 1: 0:31

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Thank you for listening to this episode about sexless marriage with Adam and Carissa King. I am so glad I got to have them on this show because they bring so much wisdom, research, kindness and skill to this difficult, difficult topic. You're going to hear what is the definition of a sexless marriage, what are some of the most common reasons why couples experience this, and then how you can take some steps to really get to the core of what's underneath those surface level symptoms and have some practical tools to heal, to restore and to experience redemption in this area, if you are married and if you're not married, this is going to give you some really great education and insight into what married couples experience and if you stay until the end, you will hear them walk us through how they work with couples to restore safe touch in very teeny, tiny baby steps that lead to wonderful results. So enjoy the episode and thanks for listening. Today I am so excited to be hanging out again with Adam and Carissa King, also known as Dear Young Married Couple, welcome back. Aw thanks, drew, dear.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Young Married Couple Welcome back. Thanks, Drew. We're so glad to be back on the podcast. We love husband material and what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 2:01

Yeah, we have the greatest respect for you and what you're doing. Man, we're just happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Yes, thank you, and the gratitude is mutual. You guys probably don't know that I actually got to attend a marriage retreat with Adam and Carissa, which was wonderful, thank you. That retreat skyrocketed our sexual communication and helped us understand what the real issues were, and has really given us a launch pad to grow in our sexual intimacy. So thank you so much Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Love to hear it Praise the Lord. That's the will of God.

Speaker 3: 2:34

Thank Jesus Happy.

Speaker 1: 2:38

And sadly, there is so much heartache and grief and loss when sex is not part of marriage. So that's why today we're talking about sexless marriage, and this is a huge topic that so many of you guys have requested, and I trust no one more than Adam and Carissa to address it. So what is the definition of a sexless marriage?

Speaker 3: 3:10

Hit it girl.

Speaker 2: 3:11

So the definition of a sexless marriage and we have to use numbers as a launching pad and then we'll go from. There is a marriage that has sex 10 times a year or less. Now the reason why that number is important is that's where we see all the negative side effects of having that sexless marriage come into play. So, for instance, if someone is having sex, you know, twice a month, their satisfaction is pretty much the same as someone who's having sex twice a week. But when we get to that 10 times a year or less, marital satisfaction drops big time, communication drops, their emotional intimacy is super low, and so that's why that number is important on a grand scale.

Speaker 3: 4:01

Yeah, I've seen the stats around like 6% to 7% for people that say we have no sex at all, like 30 and younger, but the sexless marriage stat it grows exponentially when there is. You know that it's not happening very often one time a month, so it's. It's definitely something that we see very, very often in in our practice, or at least dissatisfaction oh yeah like there's a gigantic um desire gap, like she's completely comfortable or he.

Speaker 3: 4:36

Either way, we've seen both, we'll just use he, for instance, he's very unhappy with you, know, twice a month and she seems very happy with that or satisfied Maybe not happy but satisfied. But of course, when we start unpacking what's really going on in the marriage, we always find reasons for why there is this standoff.

Speaker 1: 5:01

There are so many stories behind why sex might not be happening. What are some of the most common reasons?

Speaker 2: 5:08

Yeah, so there's a variety. Obviously there's trauma. That can be a huge reason. If someone has some, even if it's not sexual trauma, it could be any kind of trauma in their background, but it's causing them to feel unsafe to have someone in that personal, intimate space, that can be a huge reason. Broken trust, which can be a form of trauma, is another reason.

Speaker 3: 5:34

The most common, I think.

Speaker 2: 5:35

That we see. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:37

And especially in this show, we're talking about struggling with pornography.

Speaker 2: 5:44

Right.

Speaker 3: 5:45

Yep, absolutely, it's so common. Here's the thing is all of these things that we're saying are kind of connected too. So the pornography use could, of course, and does, affect their own view of sex and how intimacy looks inside the couple. And then, of course, if there's broken trust and she's sad about that, she's going to probably start holding back. And if there's not, communication worked on, so we could say all the words like okay, you know communication, or, uh, you know the physical, you know, it could be hormones, it could be stress, it could be mental health, anxiety, depression, it could like, it could be all these things. But none of these things are in a vacuum.

Speaker 3: 6:30

It's not one isolated thing, it's it's lots of things that affect the whole system. Desire problems or a sexless marriage is simply a symptom of something that I think can be worked on and there's so much hope. But really we're created for connection. We're created by our creator to seek intimacy, so if that's being stopped, there's a good reason why.

Speaker 2: 6:57

Yeah, I think one. Just to boil down to getting underneath the symptoms, one cause that we see often in our practice is a negative view of sex, and this negative view of sex can come from a variety of places. Trauma can be one of them, but even if there was no trauma growing up in the church, someone can have a really negative view of sex, and often wives will see it as their duty to engage in obligatory sex with their spouse, and so that often results in a sexless marriage. Because they're every once in a great while doing the obligation so that is what 10 times a year or less and they're not having any pleasure because pleasure is associated with negativity or sin. It's bad, so they're just doing it to check the box. So that's another cause that we see is the negative view of sex.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Yeah, negative view of sex and also a male-centered idea of what sex is. Right, maybe just a limited view of sex is vaginal penetration and that's it.

Speaker 2: 8:09

Yes, exactly yeah, and actually this whole negative view of sex can cause in many marriages more than you'd think up to about a quarter of married women Christian married women experience vaginismus or dys the vagina. That causes them to physically avoid penetration so they have tightness, dryness, they can't, or if they do and they can, it's so painful to have intercourse. And that's the reason why it's psychosomatic is because this disorder starts psychologically and manifests somatically body soma and so it can absolutely be treated. We see successful treatments of vaginismus often, and it involves both the psychological and the medical interventions, but it's absolutely a treatable disorder.

Speaker 1: 9:15

I've been just hearing you say that might be mind-blowing, because it's so easy to become resigned to the way things are.

Speaker 2: 9:25

Yes, Yep, because that's just how it's always been, and we've been married six years, or eight years, or 20 years.

Speaker 3: 9:31

The fear of the unknown is generally greater than what they're experiencing, the pain that they're experiencing, so, so many people get very comfortable, not comfortable, sadly resigned to the state of their marriage and because everything else is crazy busy. You know they have kids generally when this is going on from what I crazy busy. You know they have kids generally when this is going on from what I've seen. You know they have obligations, they have ministries, they're got-it-together people a lot of times. They're doing lots of stuff. So this is just a thing where we're just going to put it in the back room into the closet, shut the door and try not to feel. We're going to just try to just keep on going on and be roommates and make everything work. That's what happens. And so when do we bring this very painful thing out? When do we talk about it? And generally that's a very painful conversation that many people don't have tools to do, so they avoid it and it stays like this sometimes for years, sadly.

Speaker 1: 10:41

I've been there.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of people have. And I mean you mentioned having children. That's a big variable that introduces sexless marriage. But I would say I see a lot of people, pre-children, with like the negative view of sex vaginismus. I mean people have called and dm'd us on their honeymoon saying we can't have sex. What's going on, like we need help. Um, so I mean that's one issue. But then even we've had couples three years, five years into marriage telling us we've never consummated our marriage.

Speaker 3: 11:19

I had a client just recently. What happens is, you know, there is excitement and there's hope right at the very beginning. And they go in and maybe it's painful and maybe she just tries to, you know, put away the pain and he's maybe not as gentle as he could be. This is kind of what happened and they kind of pushed through it for a couple of years, but after a while the pain just you know, pain has a way of getting your attention. So it just slowly tapered off and then she's like I'm just not willing to hurt anymore. And he's like I don't want to hurt you, but also I have, you know, you know this, I have needs.

Speaker 3: 11:54

So there's a standoff of like you know, I don't want to do this, it hurts, and well, and, and all the frustration that compounds and compounds, you know it's. It's interesting. There's another stat that says couples that have a healthy sexual relationship, they attribute sex as only being about 15 to 20% of their overall happiness for their marriage. But the couples that are in a negative place with their marriage, they attribute 50 to 70% of their frustration in their marriage to sex. So when it's bad, it's really bad and it's sex's fault.

Speaker 1: 12:36

It's her fault, right.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Yeah, but when?

Speaker 3: 12:38

it's good. It's like oh it's good, I'm just thankful, you know. So there's a big discrepancy there.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Yeah, connection is the issue there. It's connection, but they blame it on sex.

Speaker 1: 12:51

You've talked about how God created us for connection, and I would add he also created us for safety. We talked about safety earlier and how that is one of the major issues here imagining that some listeners might be older in a marriage that is decades longer, with some really long-term patterns here and maybe even feeling unsafe for a long time.

Speaker 1: 13:27

And there are other couples, whether for one reason or another, no matter what happens, are still not going to be having sex for the foreseeable future. In that place, where there are no quick or easy solutions, what is the best thing they can do?

Speaker 3: 13:46

Counseling.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Yeah, I mean it's a holistic response, right? So you're kind of alluding to maybe medical issues or reasons why they can't physically have intercourse. So we approach this holistically. We're not just going to say, well, you need to find a way to insert A and B. We're going to say let's talk about what we can do physically, emotionally and spiritually. You know, how can we have intimacy in all of these realms and heal our marriage from the inside out?

Speaker 3: 14:20

Right? Well, what is missing is the feeling of oneness, right. That's the deepest connection that is possible. And so let's just say the couple is functioning well, like as team, but there is no like, they're just. They're not having sex.

Speaker 1: 14:41

No romance, no spark, no physical energy between them.

Speaker 3: 14:46

So that's what we're talking about right there. That's what happens is there's no oneness? So we pull back behind our walls because that feels really unsafe to talking about. Right there, that's what happens is there's no oneness? So we pull back behind our walls because that feels really unsafe to put myself out there and try to initiate and there's crickets when I initiate and then I do that enough times, I'm just like she just doesn't want me, there's a problem with me, and or I look at her and it's like I'm frustrated and angry, because, remember that frustration is the result of unmet or uncommunicated expectations.

Speaker 3: 15:14

No one walks into a marriage thinking, you know what, I would rather just not have sex, or very rarely. If they do, normally there's trauma there. But they don't walk in saying, you know like, I just don't want intimacy. No, everyone wants intimacy, but stuff gets in the way. So one of the first things we have to do with a couple is get clear that they want oneness, they want connection, and start to become vulnerable. Again I love actually, drew I quote you all the time I heard you say this is that you know that vulnerability is like looking at a lion but then having the glass taken away. It's easy to be transparent, but when you're in the zoo and they take the glass away, now you're vulnerable to that lion. Now it's scary and you're not really doing it well, unless you're a little bit worried about what's going to come out and how it's all going to go.

Speaker 3: 16:13

That's a vulnerable conversation, but that's what people generally lack. They don't take the risks, they don't buy the flowers, they back off of the small, loving, vulnerable gestures that I love you and I care for you and I want you.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Extending that invitation when there is the risk of rejection. Even if it's not I reject you, they take it that way when maybe the person just would reject a sexual invitation in that moment, like that rejection feels like a rejection of self, and so that's the vulnerability piece. You have to go out and take that risk and talk about the feelings involved. That in and of itself is such a hard task for most couples.

Speaker 3: 17:00

Yeah, and I would encourage people to think this way. If you guys are in an okay place, if you're kind of that teammate zone, they're not gigantic communication or trust issues going on. It's just a little bit cold Taking that time to present yourself and open your heart and say this is what I would like and this is I really want this, and being willing to change yourself in the process. It takes courage to do that, but that's always what it takes. It's being honest with yourself and honest with your spouse, knowing that your wife is a good-willed spouse, like. She's good-willed and I'm using because I'm the guy here. So I'm using the guy as the example. But she's a good-willed and I'm using cause I'm. I'm the guy here, so I'm using the guy as the example. But she's a goodwilled spouse.

Speaker 3: 17:54

She. She walked knowingly into this marriage and chose you out of all the other people. Let's assume that she's goodwilled and let's assume that she has good reasons for why she feels the way she feels in the marriage. And if we can be honest with that the way she feels in the marriage and if we can be honest with that honest with their self and honest with their spouse, so many conversations can happen If you could just ask she makes sense. Because why does she make sense, given that? I know some about her past? Maybe she was victimized as a young girl and now the trauma is popping up for her.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Or victimized by me and what I've done there. You go.

Speaker 3: 18:38

Maybe she's been through years of pain and she's scared of that and she doesn't want to hurt you by saying that there's so many that make sense. Just going down that trail of why this makes sense, why your spouse makes sense, that like just going down that trail of why this makes sense, why your spouse makes sense, could really give you insight and empathy and how they're feeling, because so often we're like looking at ourself and protecting ourself that it's difficult to turn that that view and gaze the other way and say okay help me understand you.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:13

That is such good advice for us as men to get out of our own little inwardly focused world. Take some courageous steps of vulnerability, and I know some guys are thinking to themselves well, if I do that, I know how she's going to respond, I know it's not going to be received and there are so many obstacles in the way.

Speaker 3: 19:47

I think that that is a very valid feeling and thought. The feeling is probably feeling maybe a little hopeless. You have frustration and then, underneath that, maybe a little hopelessness and sadness. I think getting real with how you feel about this and not avoiding it is the first step.

Speaker 2: 20:07

Well, that's the vulnerability, right, Right.

Speaker 3: 20:11

I think Eddie Caparucci likes to Well, that's the vulnerability, right, right, like. I think Eddie Caparucci likes to say walk into the fire, like we can't just stand on the sidelines and be like, oh, this all needs a change. You could, but you're not going to win any games doing that. You have to actually get into the arena and it really starts with that hard conversation. Find a safe moment and I would just advise men, instead of pushing their frustrations on their spouse, come with love and ask some questions and if you want to talk about yourself, talk about what you want, not about what the other person is doing wrong.

Speaker 2: 20:56

And I would say too and Adam alluded to this, but I'll just put it out there as an actual tool that men or women could use but before they talk about what they want, especially if they're in the position of having broken trust and they're healing from that in their relationship, they can do this empathy building exercise. And Adam was saying it, but we call it because, because, because and that's just telling your spouse it makes sense that you blank whatever it is that they're struggling with. That makes sense, that you feel it makes sense that you don't want to have sex because. And then you go into at least three reasons. And the reason why we challenge you to come up with three reasons is because the first reason is pretty surface.

Speaker 2: 21:39

Typically it's like the obvious reason like it makes sense that you don't want sex because you're so busy with the kids You're stressed out You're stressed You're. You know it's like okay, yes, and what and what else? So then you go into two more reasons.

Speaker 3: 21:53

I always push the man to go into her childhood. There's always reasons there, like what would inform from her childhood, or growing up, or broken relationships that came before you. What informs her the way she moves, the way she interacts with relationships in the world? And you how did? What kind of relationship did she have with her father? So all of that that that you could pull from there.

Speaker 2: 22:21

And then fears would be another reason that she might not want sex or might feel a certain way. So you would fill in the blank it makes sense that you don't want sex because you fear blank. And I would, like Adam said, go into the fire there, walk into the obstacle which is in this situation a lot of the men listening to your podcast because you broke trust and you're the lion, so you can fill that in the blank. And because I broke trust, it's scary to go into an unknown situation with someone that may hurt you again, even if it's not hurting you, right there in the marriage bed. You fear that this is going to happen again, where I'm doing something behind your back and it feels like a rejection.

Speaker 3: 23:14

So you're walking into the fire with that empathy building tool, giving them the because, because, because, and what we'd caution guys not to do right away is a lot of guys want to fix it right. So they'll say they'll do that and they'll be like, but you know, I'll never hurt you again and start trying to fill in all the blank spaces with their empty reassurances. And so I would just calm guys down and be like, hey, slow down just a little bit, just let some space elapse. Maybe let her talk, give her feelings and don't defend yourself. As soon as you defend yourself and put your walls up, she'll do the same. Remember, I like telling people you reap what you sow.

Speaker 3: 23:59

Galatians 6, 7. You know, if you sow defensiveness, you're going to get defensiveness. If you sow anger, frustration, you're going to get frustration. So if you want openness and love and understanding and listening, you have to sow that, you have to lead that. And here's another thing Crops don't come up overnight. You know you're going to plant that seed and then you're going to water it for a while and maybe you're going to be fresh. You know how much water I've dumped into this soil. I don't even see it anymore, know nothing is happening. But you know, give it some time, give it some consistency. Over time you'll start to see life, but it does take consistency and time.

Speaker 1: 24:42

And time doesn't heal action over time does this is so good and that because, because, because tool really works. Yes, especially when you get to the fears, here come the tears true, yes, so true, yeah, so true.

Speaker 3: 24:59

We, we still do that oh yeah starting to use tools.

Speaker 3: 25:03

Some guys are like I'm not going to use the words someone else gave me. That's stupid, you know. But and we've got that before, I've got that before from clients. But I like to explain it like no, it's an agreed upon protocol that as soon as you go into that tool, she knows what to do and I know what to do and I know how to behave and she knows how to behave. So that might be a good way of saying hey, I would like to listen to you. Can you explain to me how you feel, or could you? So it's asking permission, asking for that person to divulge, and telling how you will behave in that situation could create safety.

Speaker 1: 25:39

As we're talking about sexless marriage, we're really getting to the roots in this conversation of like the issue is not the issue, that's just the surface level. Let's get down to the soul level of what's going on underneath. What are some teeny, tiny baby steps toward healing. I'm sorry, I was just gonna say like a sexful marriage let's go with it I think all of us would want a sexful marriage.

Speaker 3: 26:13

Yeah, you just coined a word, dude sexful marriage take us there that's great.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Yeah, so I love that you asked the question the way you did not not just the sexful part, but the the teeny, tiny baby steps, because one of the one of the systems we like to walk people through and we don't offer this as a handout or anything, because it's definitely something you want someone to walk you through but it's a system called sensate focus.

Speaker 2: 26:40

I know, drew, you're aware of it, and the idea is that you're gradually, through baby steps, building safe touch and other senses in your marriage so that you can experience the freedom and the mutuality, the reciprocity of safe intercourse, and it doesn't have to end in intercourse. That's just the last stage in the five stages of sensate, even just experiencing the mutuality and safe touch of sex without intercourse. And actually the first four stages are just that it's sex without intercourse. Stage one involves the clothes staying on and you're not even touching erogenous zones, and so this first step of stage one which I think you can do on your own unless there's a lot of sensitivities there and you need someone to walk you through it. But the stage one is touching your spouse, not reciprocally yet, just you touching them and them receiving your touch and in a way that is pleasing to them and then also in a way that is pleasing to you, and separating the two.

Speaker 3: 27:48

Slow that down.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Yeah, so saying, how would you like me to touch you right now? And they might say, oh, I don't know, like, uh, hold my hand or or maybe like, rub my shoulders, Um, and then you could do that. And then, as you're doing like rubbing your spouse's shoulders, you could say how does this feel to you, Do you? Do you want me to just place my hands on your shoulders, or do you like it when I press my thumbs into your shoulders? And it's not necessarily always massage, that could be part of it. But you're asking the other person how do you want to receive my touch? But you're also evaluating for yourself am I enjoying this giving of touch?

Speaker 2: 28:29

And then and I'm going really fast, forwarding through this but then, once that's, you know, enjoyed thoroughly and you learn a lot about each other and yourself, you flip-flop and then you receive the touch while your spouse gives the touch, and we do this for several sessions, just in stage one. Then we go to stage two, which is close off, but you're still not touching erogenous zones, erogenous zones being your private parts, right, so the breasts and the genitalia. And then eventually, you get into stages three and four, where you are allowed to touch erogenous zones. And then stage five is where you're enjoying fully engaged and reciprocal and safe intercourse and we walk people through that when they've experienced broken trust and they've done a lot of the work already and they're ready to re-engage sexuality together. Obviously, a lot of the healing has to do with re-engaging sexuality, but they're ready to re-engage each other. We'll walk them through that. And then also we walk people through that if they have aversions to sex because of abuse, trauma et cetera. So it's a powerful process.

Speaker 3: 29:40

Yeah, and it's counterintuitive because we pause sex Like wait, hold on, don't we want to have sex? So why are we pausing sex? And a lot of times there is such a relief on one of the spouses, like whoever's, kind of being the one that has a lower desire, just because there's always this constant pressure. And so most touching is what we call demand touching Like I touch you only because I want something, I want sex. It's objectification touching. And so when now we take that off the table, we're not edging for sex. There is no manipulation process here. We're only touching to just to say I love you. And there's no sex in the future except for sensate, which is connection and touch, safe touch.

Speaker 2: 30:36

Pleasure.

Speaker 3: 30:37

Yeah, it's really incredible how this really re-imagines sex for people that have been really stuck in a loop, a negative loop, but now it kind of pulls them out of that loop and says here is something that you can do and partake in and experiment and try without the danger of being completely vulnerable with that person in that way. That may not have been safe in the past.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Yeah, Baby steps of vulnerability.

Speaker 3: 31:06

Yes, and we get there with so many couples.

Speaker 2: 31:10

Yeah, it's beautiful too to see their reaction. Even just in session one, their reactions are like oh my goodness, like I felt all the feels I felt, desire again.

Speaker 3: 31:19

I remember there's a couple I worked with. They're doing fabulous, by the way, but probably like a couple years ago he had an affair on her and it just wrecked them and their marriage was not very cohesive before. There was lots of trauma and mistrust and stuff before that Fair happened and then just, of course, like an atom bomb in their marriage. Well, we started working on trust. Things started getting better. Then there was this like choice Okay, do we want to embark on this journey of sensei? You know, pausing Cause there really wasn't. There was some sex happening, but it was not good. And so we said, okay, pause sex and we started doing sensei. We did sensei, for I forgot how long it was, it was a good amount of time. They didn't, they didn't rush it, no, that's, that's awesome. But like, right at the very end, you'd have to see it. But right at the very end there's a couple of steps where it's mutual touching, it's stimulation, but the goal is not for orgasm, it's just for mutual pleasuring and having fun together. And they came back.

Speaker 3: 32:30

I remember a session. They came back and they said that you could tell that something happened. I was like and they said you could tell that something happened. I was like, oh God, you know what happened. Jesus, help them. You know, they're just kind of crestfallen. They're like well, I was like how is everything going? How's Sensei? I'm just trying to like fish. They said it's really good. I'm like it's really good and they look sad and they're like we're doing Sense8.

Speaker 3: 32:52

Adam, we rushed it and we just and we had sex and it was amazing genuine expression of their desire and their vulnerability and things just carried on beautifully from there, and so that's just a testimony of what this system can be if they can have the discipline to say we're not going to do sex, and I'm going to pursue this and work really hard just for intimacy and not for sex.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Without the crushing pressure of demand and obligation.

Speaker 3: 33:44

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and, by the way, we didn't really talk about this, but this works for erectile dysfunction, this works for premature ejaculation, this works for just a myriad of problems, because all of those are psychosomatic issues where we're having to redefine or relearn what safe touch looks like, and so this is the arena that we do that in.

Speaker 2: 34:12

And just to qualify, they are psychosomatic. But oftentimes some medical intervention can help with some of those things.

Speaker 3: 34:19

We don't want to eliminate the contributions.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Everything that we say, of course yeah, there's the disclaimer.

Speaker 3: 34:24

There's medical yeah, hormonal imbalances, all that too, but the vast majority of the people that we work with fit into this paradigm that we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 34:36

And you're casting a vision where there is so much more we can do than just intercourse or nothing.

Speaker 3: 34:46

Yeah right.

Speaker 1: 34:47

It's like what a beautiful world that our bodies can build together, even if it's just eye contact for a few moments. Yes, right, like just one minute of eye contact could create so much intimacy and connection, even without touch. Yep, right.

Speaker 3: 35:08

Exactly, I mean, and then you add a 12-second hug or a six-second kiss or like all of those other things that you can do to bring in that intimacy, but we just push guys to not avoid it, to do the hard work. This is hard work to really look at yourself. And this may be a time where they're listening because there's been a breach in trust, where they're like okay, we got to get real and change some things. Be honest with yourself and be honest with your spouse. That's where it starts. Once you can agree that there's a problem, there's now things that you can do about that problem.

Speaker 1: 35:47

Thank you, Adam and Carissa, Thank you God. This is just fantastic.

Speaker 2: 35:55

Yes, amen, I love you man.

Speaker 3: 35:56

We're just excited to be here and it's wonderful to be on the other side of helping so many people and men, the people, the listeners that might be listening right now may be feeling so alone and just lonely. It's hard to be lonely and feeling like that shame, the crushing burden of shame. It's like come out of the shadows, face it. Join Drew's groups. We have people that we know have been through them and it changed their life. Do that work. And on the other side of this is healing and restoration and beauty and connection.

Speaker 1: 36:40

Adam and Carissa. What is your favorite thing about healing for a sexless marriage?

Speaker 2: 36:48

Oh, I love that. When you heal from a sexless marriage and we see this on the faces and testimonies of a lot of people who have gone through this work that we're describing they not only experience the intimacy and closeness with their spouse, but they're getting a glimpse of the intimacy and closeness that God wants with us, and so it transforms them physically and mentally, but also spiritually. We see a lot of healing work take place in their relationship with the Lord, and I love that. God designed intimacy for that reason, so I think that would be my favorite part of healing from a sexless marriage.

Speaker 3: 37:31

Yeah, I think my favorite working with people is not just them having sex, because when that's broken, so many other things break. And so watching the life that now is injected into their spirits and souls, that now they're connected and now they're functioning as a team, and watching their businesses flourish and their families flourish, and then now they're impacting their people, that they start mentoring. Almost always I like to tell people that a testimony and a shame are. It's the same situation, just felt a different way. So you can either hide in your loneliness and shame and not talk about it, or you can start to mentor and love people through this as a testimony and I've seen that over and over again it's a beautiful thing to witness once they've faced their dragons, to watch the beauty that happens as a result of it.

Speaker 1: 38:42

It's inspiring and I'm imagining that some people might want to reach out to you or take some steps to get help. So where should they go?

Speaker 2: 38:54

take some steps to get help. So where should they go? They can go to our website and um, you know we do offer counseling. I would say that maybe even a first step, um, if you wanted to really just have a focused weekend, is go to the Eros conference. We have Eros conferences throughout the year. Two left this year. We have one in June that is in Biloxi, mississippi, on the Gulf Coast, and one in November that's in Houston, texas. So you can treat it as a destination weekend for you and your spouse, and we dig into a lot of this stuff in detail.

Speaker 3: 39:30

We teach tools, live on stage and it honestly blew our minds. Just we had a few hundred people there on our first one. We've done, of course, retreats for years, but um, this particular conference is new and it just blew our minds. It was amazing.

Speaker 3: 39:48

It was so fun, so we'd invite you there Also, like we have, uh, some resources go to our resources page. There's the five steps when trust has been broken. We've been on here before and talked about that. Gave that resource, but I would just point them back to the other episode that we did on building emotional intimacy and download that tool five steps when trust has been broken. It will help avoid some of the potholes that commonly befall men and women.

Speaker 1: 40:17

Yes, and you can also get some of their card decks. You know, the Husband Material man cards were based on Dear Young Married Couples card decks for couples, including the one titled Sexpectations.

Speaker 3: 40:29

Come on now. Yeah, I can't recommend that. One enough. We have multiple card decks. That's my favorite, Awesome.

Speaker 2: 40:39

They're fun, for sure.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Well, you all can find these links in the show notes. Thanks again to Adam and Carissa. Dear young married couple, gentlemen, always remember you are God's beloved son. In you he is well pleased.