Building a long-term, intimate marriage is the most exciting demanding and soul expanding work that many of us will ever do in this life. All of the specific challenges to confront and overcome will be different from couple to couple, but many of the same tools work for many couples.

I met Keith and Lindsey through my Get Your Marriage On Program, where my team and I help couples and individuals implement various tools and strategies into their marriage to bring their intimacy to the next level. Keith and Lindsey are definitely the kinds of people you'd love to have as close neighbors and friends: they're really genuinely good people. And you can tell that they like each other very much.

They've agreed to share their story with you today in hopes of inspiring you in your marriage. And this episode, Keith and Lindsay will answer questions such as the following:

• What misconceptions and societal pressures affect sex and marital roles?
• What tools help them most in their journey?
• How did they rewrite the many narratives and scripts that they (like all of us) inherited from their culture and families that get in the way of building a good intimate marriage and sex life?
• How do they balance the demands of work, kids, travel and intimacy all in marriage?

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.

I'm very excited about today's episode today! We get to address a lot of juicy topics, such as the following:

• a reluctant wife feeling pressure to give her husband a hand job
• a couple that wants to try pegging, but is unsure about it
• a frustrated wife that feels like all the effort she's making to improve her marriage is one sided and feels a lot of pain because of that
• a husband shares that the pain of being in a low intimacy marriage, where either fight about sex or have none at all, and he's tired of it
• a couple asks about using penis rings
• a frustrated wife, whose husband is only interested in sex if he's the one initiating (which is unfortunately really infrequent)
• a discouraged wife that must resort to using a vibrator in order to orgasm when penetrative manual oral stimulation is preferred

These are real questions on the hearts of many of you listeners, and I am humbled that you would trust me with your most perplexing questions relating to sexual intimacy in your marriage. I'm on a mission to help you have the very best sexual and intimate marriage possible. And I hope that the discussion today spurs deeper conversations within you and your marriage.

If you have a question you'd like to submit anonymously for me to address in a future podcast episode, fill out the form here, and that comes straight to me.

Resources mentioned in today's episode:

Episode 194: “Is this ok for us to do?” Seeking God’s Direction In Your Sex Life

Episode 87: Healing From Pornography with Zach & Darcy Spafford

Get Your Marriage On Program

Intimately Us App

FREE TRAINING: How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

Retreat testimonial videos

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

In many marriages, there are people that feel like they do far more than their share of the relationship work, but why do they tend to take on the responsibility of their spouse's share of the relationship, especially in stressful situations?

Intimate marriages are like a system like an air conditioning and heating system in your home. It works hard to keep things at an even temperature or homeostasis. When the temperature gets too high, the air conditioning kicks on to cool things down, and when the temperature gets too low, the heater kicks on to heat things up. So it's a system, a way of keeping things normal and functioning in a environment where people can live.

When there's stress and anxiety in the relationship, one person may tend to be com overly responsible for the relationship to calm the other person down, to bring the relationship back into homeostasis. This is called the over-functioning / under-functioning dynamic. And it shows up in sex too.

If you've ever said to yourself, "If I wasn't the person to always initiate sex here, nothing would ever happen," this could be a sign that you're an over-functioner in your sexual relationship.

My guest on this episode, Dr. Kathleen Smith, is a world renowned expert on systems theory and relationships. And this is her second time on my podcast (her first appearance was episode #45). She's the author of a new book, True to You, in which she discusses the overfunctioning under-functioning dynamic in relationships and how to fix it, and that is also the topic of our discussion today.

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.

"I just have a hard time with some of the things you said on your podcast. How can you be okay with things like toys, lingerie, and even talk about sex so publicly like that. I grew up with the understanding that those things aren't appropriate to discuss."

I can absolutely relate. This conversation with this sincere woman took me back several years ago when I was struggling with the exact same concerns. And I've been pondering her concern and reflecting on my own weeks, a month of struggles working through them.

I haven't shared my podcast here in depth about the wrestle that I went through that was so profound. It's become my calling in life to help couples like you enjoy a passionate and intimate sexual relationship in your marriage. If you would have told me back then that I'd be talking about sex in nearly 200 podcast episodes with over 1.2 million downloads, along with retreats, coaching and apps, I would've thought you were completely bonkers.

But then again, It, might've not been that crazy after all . . .

Tune in for discussions about the things I've learned along they way that can help you in your marriage, especially how one can know and decide what is right to do in the bedroom and in your marriage and not, as well as working through conflicts and creating a thriving marriage.

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Next Level Virtual Lovemaking Retreat, July 12-13

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

I get asked frequently about what to do when you (or your husband) comes too quickly during sex, or has premature ejaculation. I wanted to do an in-depth episode on this topic to address the many questions that we have because frankly, sex isn't that enjoyable when it's over too quick or you just don't last as long as you'd like to. Even if this is something you don't deal with right now in your marriage, the information in this episode will teach you how to keep your sexual health in tip top shape for your marriage.

My guest today is Mark Goldberg. He is a sex therapist out of Maryland that specializes in common male sexual dysfunction issues, such as premature ejaculation. You can get more information about overcoming sexual dysfunctions on his website: erectionIQ.com

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Next Level Virtual Lovemaking Retreat, July 12-13

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.

For most couples, there's a lot of hot passion and excitement during the early dating and engagement time and for a while after the wedding. But over time, we develop routines, scripts, and become habituated to each other. This is normal and serves a good purpose. However, herein lies the challenge: how do you create an intimate marriage with lots of passion long term?

This is the very thing I research, teach, and coach about in my program and at my retreats. And I was a guest on the Redhead Reveal podcast. The host, Jen Pinkerton, is a marriage and family therapist out of Houston, and I had a great conversation with her about navigating intimacy in long term marriages.

And this is the episode that we recorded that I want to release with you today. In this episode, we're going to answer the questions such asthese: Why is it hard to keep sex passionate when you've been married for a long time? What can couples do to create an environment for passion to thrive? What is validation seeking behavior and how does that tend to interfere with a healthy, intimate relationship?

And I think you'll find a lot of other great golden nuggets in this episode!

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Next Level Virtual Lovemaking Retreat, July 12-13

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

It's so easy to notice how our spouse is making choices that get in the way of them getting what they really want. Our brains expend tremendous amount of energy trying to get our spouses to see things our way, because from our vantage point, they're self-sabotaging, right? It's so obvious (to us anyway).

Of course, our spouses think think the same thing about us. :)

If you or someone you love has ever felt this way, then this podcast episode is for you. We're going to talk about relational self-awareness: what it is, how to get it, and how to build a better relationship with your lover.

My guest today is Dr. Alexandra Solomon. She is a professor of marriage and family therapy at Northwestern university in Chicago. I recently read one of her books, Love Every Day, and we have a great chat about the principles in her book and those she teaches in her class.

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Next Level Virtual Lovemaking Retreat, July 12-13

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com

For a lot of us, we associate the word "eroticism" with something that's distasteful or something that we probably shouldn't want as a Christ-loving people, right?

We don't go embracing the things we see on Las Vegas billboards, for example. So eroticism to to some is kind of something hard to hear. Now, this is a concept I teach towards the end of our retreats and my program because there's a lot of groundwork to cover first to understand it. And I understand that we generally don't talk about eroticism because it's very personal.

But whether you believe that the book of Songs of Solomon / The Song of Songs in the Old Testament was inspired by God or just purely, really good Hebrew poetry, we have many examples, even in the Bible, of married couples using their eroticism to create something special within their relationship, something precious.

And that's the kind of eroticism I want to talk about today. It's the kind that will strengthen your marriage and bring you closer together.

If you've enjoyed this episode, you might like these resources:

Intimately Us App

How to Become One: Overcoming obstacles to intimacy and significantly improving sex and connection in your marriage, in 90 days or less

Next Level Virtual Lovemaking Retreat, July 12-13

Couples Retreat in St. George, UT, October 10-13

You can find links to all these and more at our website: getyourmarriageon.com