There’s enough loneliness in the world for single people and widows. But couples are not meant to be lonely. That’s why they have each other.
I feel very strongly about this loneliness thing. I’ve been there. For years. While married. A spouse may not realize how immobilized their other half is by their nonchalant, unnoticed neglect.
Sure, a couple’s interests may differ. One spouse may find importance in activities that the other spouse either can’t participate in or isn’t interested in. But sidelining physical intimacy isn’t okay. It creates a sorrow; a hole; an abyss of emotion in the neglected one.
One spouse may not initiate intimacy for one or several of various reasons – disinterest, tiredness, modesty, cleanliness issues, inability, whatever – but there is never a reason for completely hanging the other spouse out to dry.
I love that the bible has something to say about this…
…each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
1 Corinthians 7:2b-5
When we were first married, a relative advised us to sleep naked every night. We didn’t do it. I was used to my T-shirt and underwear and he was used to his T-shirt and boxers. We weren’t used to having cold shoulders in the middle of the night.
Now that it’s been 15 years, we’re taking that advice. We’d grown too accustomed to our own individual-ness rather than our unitedness. We’d ended up sleeping in our own spaces, under different layers of bedding (he runs hot, I run cold). That equated to us not being one together, but two alone.
Nakedness means you can barely resist each other. That’s the way it should be! That physical intimacy cements a deep-down care for each other throughout the rest of the day that is foundational to consistently loving and respecting one another. When intimacy erodes, care erodes too.
There’s so much more to physical intimacy than the superficiality of passionate lust portrayed in the media. I don’t even like to call it sex because that overused word now implies, at least for me, shallow instant gratification rather than deeply private, deeply affective, deeply vital togetherness.
I hope this helps you or someone you know in some way. No one who is part of a unit should feel alone.
