5 Simple Tips for Sex & Romance in Marriage
God created us as sensual beings. He created us to feel attracted to the opposite sex, to desire to be close to one another, and to respond positively to physical touch.
And out of all of this, He created sex as the ultimate expression of sensuality and intimacy—as something that is very good between husband and wife.
The Church doesn’t always teach it this way. If sex and sexuality are even mentioned at all, it’s usually in the negative. All sex then is viewed as somehow impure. Even within marriage, it sometimes is considered to be a perversion deserving of God’s judgment. But if Adam and Eve had sexual love before the fall—which we can infer from God’s command to them to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28)—then sex in the marriage relationship has to be good. Sex is part of God’s perfect plan for mankind.
God is the One who said they were to leave father and mother and cleave to each other (Genesis 2:24). One of the meanings of cleave is to have sex—to be glued together, figuratively speaking (Strong’s #H1692). In Genesis 2:25, they were to celebrate and not be ashamed. There is definitely a need to get back to God’s original plan! Cleave in the Hebrew means “to catch by pursuit.” This one word covers the need of both husband and wife, sex and romance. I need to pursue my wife, Sue (romance), and she needs to let me catch her (sex). Amen!
We desperately need a healthy, godly perspective on sex and romance. Doing so will help us not just to be married but to be happily married. Romance is the atmosphere of the marriage; sex is the event and grand finale of romance.
In Genesis 2:18–24, God created a helpmeet for Adam. Because God couldn’t find a helpmeet within the Garden for Adam, He took a rib from Adam’s side and made a woman, Eve. The two were to have a unique and intimate relationship, and in this God designed marriage.
Because God created marriage, He is the one who gets to dictate what it is or isn’t. From Scripture, we know that marriage is two people, male and female, becoming one flesh, just as Adam and Eve were one, unified at the original creation. We know that marriage was ordained for us to make a lifelong covenant—not for us to live together for a time and “see how it goes.” And marriage is for the purpose of cleaving to one another and becoming one flesh (Genesis 2:24).
So these are the things we know to be part of God’s plan for sex and marriage. Yet so many relationships and marriages find themselves outside of His perfect plan.
Sex is a miracle from God; it joins two hearts and lives. But there are reasons why He placed sex within the boundary of marriage. Sex joins two people as one. Imagine what happens when you have multiple partners. Imagine taking that—taking them—into your marriage. Imagine the emotional damage. Imagine taking those memories, those experiences with you into the marriage bed. Or maybe you don’t have to imagine; maybe you know firsthand what I’m talking about.
This is one reason why God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). He hates what it does to people. It forces two people who have become one to pull apart. It’s like trying to separate two sheets of paper that have been glued together. You can do it, but it’s not going to be clean. You’re bound to irreparably damage both sheets of paper. When individuals have sex with multiple partners, there is a gluing together and tearing apart that hurts and harms.
God knew all this when He created sex, and so that’s why He intentionally placed it within the confines and safety of marriage. He knew that was the best, safest place for it. The “ flee fornication” command in 1 Corinthians 6:18 (KJV) is for our protection and for the beauty of our sexuality within marriage. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled” (KJV). God sanctifies sexual relations in the institution of marriage, “but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4b KJV). God warns us that He will judge those who defile the marriage bed by being given to sexual indulgence outside the boundaries of marriage.
So now that we know why God placed sex within marriage, how can you strengthen this anchor line? How can you make sure that this part of your marriage is as strong as it can possibly be? There are a few things that husbands need and a few things that wives need to feel fulfilled in this aspect of their marriage relationship.
Don’t Forget Romance
If you’ve ever been fishing, you may practice a catch-and-release policy. The idea is to release the fish back into the water so that you can catch them again. The same idea of pursuit should exist within the marriage relationship. Women need to be pursued and feel desired by their husband, and this happens through romance.
Romance is the atmosphere of the marriage, and a wife needs it to be alive and well to respond with loving openness to her husband. She needs consistent romantic experiences and expressions of her husband’s love. She needs hugs, back rubs, kisses, and other physical gestures—and she needs them to be done without the goal of sex (she needs nonsexual hugs). I know, guys… just hold on.
Men often don’t know what that means. A hug or kiss that doesn’t go anywhere seems unnecessary to men! But many women desire emotional love more so than physical love. Women like candlelit dinners and romantic walks on the beach at sunset. They like to be romanced; they like to be wooed. Many men don’t understand this. They want to jump right into bed and expect their wives to respond sexually when there has been no romantic buildup. This is where men and women are different. That’s why this is so important to get right.
Husbands, tell your wife you love her—tell her every day. Do something thoughtful for her a few times a week. Hug without a motive. Kiss without a motive. Share your thoughts and heart with her. You don’t need to understand it, but you do need to do it. Delayed gratification may be important here. This is a part of loving her the way she needs to be loved.
In response to this, one husband said, “I told her I loved her forty years ago, and if I change my mind, I’ll tell her!” It’s a response that might get a chuckle, but I fear that mindset is true for many men. They believe that by working hard and providing, they are showing their love. But women need to hear it! Men, how would you feel if your wife said, “I don’t know what he needs sex for, we did that on our honeymoon,” or “Sex, why? We already have all the kids we want.”
The idea is the same here. We each have needs that only the spouse can provide, so we must take these roles very seriously. Your marriage depends on it.
5 Approaches of Romance
I struggled early in my marriage in the area of romance because I didn’t have a good role model to teach me. I’d try to do this or that, and most of the time my efforts fell flat or turned into a crisis, not romance. I built a fireplace once, in our bedroom, and nearly burned the house down. I took Sue out on a boat ride across Lake Texoma, and we had a beautiful dinner by the water as we watched the sun go down. Because it was dark, I got lost and ran out of gas, and we were stranded on the lake until 4 a.m. Not too good. Yet, while romance wasn’t necessarily the end result, Sue has always appreciated the effort.
Finally, I asked God to show me how to love Sue through romance, as well as help other husbands be a blessing to their wives. He revealed five important approaches that bring romance into the marriage relationship. Of course, Sue helped me as well.
1. The Unexpected
Doing the unexpected can turn anything into a romantic gesture. You could stay home and spend time with your wife when she expected you to be out with friends. You could take her to dinner when she expected to cook a meal. You could ask her to watch the sunset with you on the lake (with a compass and map hidden in the boat of course). You could rise early to make breakfast. These are just a few of the many ways you can surprise your wife with your thoughtfulness. If I made breakfast, my wife would definitely be surprised and hopefully be blessed by the effort (I’m praying over that one because I’m not sure it would be edible.).
2. The Impractical
Young men instinctively understand romance, but as we get older and more comfortable in marriage, the romance starts to decline, and we become much too practical and mature in our approach to life. While maturity is a commendable character trait in a husband, it can be an enemy to romance. Similarly, practicality is an enemy of romance. Spend extra money on a nice dinner. Take that extra day off to be with her. Dare to be impractical and you’ll find that she will respond. A motel for a getaway may be practical, but a five-star hotel is romantic. Sue is a different person when there is a number on the door!
3. The Creative
Sometimes you have to think outside the box to really impress your wife. I remember a time in our marriage when I didn’t have any money to buy something special for Sue, so I picked some wildflowers and made a little homemade card to say how much I loved her. I felt silly, but she teared up. That little creative gesture was not about the money, but about thinking of her and finding a way to show how much she meant to me. It was one of the few times my gesture didn’t end up in disaste. (Thank You, Jesus!).
4. Dating
Planning a date can be a wonderful way to win over your lady’s heart. Sue and I didn’t date before we got married—not in the traditional sense. But ever since our vows, we have made a point to go out together and have dates. It’s not the food, but the fellowship that we look forward to the most, sharing things with each other and talking about the future. A date can help the two of you unwind and get back to the heart connection that brought you together in the first place. Even though dates are usually planned, the unexpected can always happen.
5. Be Gentle and Kind
When I’m really pressed for time or just don’t know how to best show Sue my love, I bring it back to the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23)—these affect your marriage, and they are a guide to romance. Do something little that’s kind, something that brings joy, and something that is gentle. These things will go a long way when it comes to making a mark on your wife’s heart. Romancing your wife is an element to a happy marriage, but sex is an element, too. And the Lord has plenty to say about it.
Sanctified Marriage
In Genesis, after the creation of mankind, God created marriage and defined it as a man leaving his parents and cleaving to his wife (Genesis 2:24). He created Adam and Eve as sexual beings without shame—just think of that! Unfortunately, this concept is foreign to many Christians. Sex suffered as a result of the fall but didn’t contribute to it, and like every beautiful thing that God gave us to enjoy, it became something He never intended it to be. God had created sex as a statement of Adam and Eve’s perfection, not their perversion. Sadly, today we focus more on the perversion. We need to be reactivated from the Word of God and look back to what God intended sex to be.
Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” This means that sex—within the confines of marriage—is pure and sanctified. God gave husbands and wives to enjoy each other sexually within the marriage relationship and to be faithful to each other.
This passage in Hebrews 13:4b doesn’t mean that we can condemn others (or even ourselves) for wrongful actions. God is a God who forgives, but if people refuse and reject His gift of forgiveness, they will be righteously judged at the appearing and kingdom of Jesus. However, we also shouldn’t condone things that hurt us and our families. Sexual perversion, sexual shaming, pornography and adultery—these are man-created extremes that are absolutely destructive to people and to marriages.
Sex in Its Extremes
One sexual extreme that we still battle today is the idea that it is necessary to refrain from sex in marriage in order to be pure and holy before God. Paul warned of this, saying: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth (1 Timothy 4:1–3 NIV).
This religious philosophy believes that, in order to be close to God, you need to remove sex. It says, “To be good with God is to refrain from sex.” How sad!
Another extreme is the world’s view that, in order to have great sex, you have to take God out of the equation—no rules, boundaries, or monogamous relations. This results in people viewing the Bible as some kind of oppressive, anti-sex book that wants us to stay sexually repressed. It has resulted in Hollywood and college campuses eliminating marriage from the sexual conversation.
Great colleges like Harvard and Yale were founded on Christian principles with the Bible as their primary textbook. They once believed that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10 KJV). But now, even talking too much about God or bringing Bible teaching into the classroom conversation can get you expelled or, at the very least, mocked and persecuted. Political correctness has replaced biblical correctness. There is a Bible phobia on many of our college campuses and in the media at large. Even “free speech” is forbidden if God, the Bible, or conservative values are expressed.
The Bible is clear on both of these extremes: We can be close to God and have great sex. We can avoid sexual perversions and be sexually fulfilled. It’s not one or the other. As couples with the anchor line of sex and romance secure find, sex is even better when we have the Holy Spirit to guide us in our marriage relationship. Wives, share that with your husband, and they may want to be Spirit-filled.
A Balanced View
The biblical view of sex is clear, yet we’ve distorted it. We’ve included too many opinions and beliefs that may not align with what Scripture truly teaches. Let’s look at the truth about sex and marriage.
Sex is not moral or immoral. It’s amoral, which means that it can be used for good or bad purposes. There are many things in this life that are amoral, but like sex, we tend to view them one way or the other. Television, for example, was often classified as immoral, but it’s what we allow to come across the television screen that is important and makes the difference. We can watch good things, or we can watch bad things. Television is not always good or always bad.
Money is another example of an amoral thing. Money is not inherently evil; it can be used in wonderful ways. Rather, the love of money is what we must look out for and avoid. It’s the love of money that drives greed, causing us to never be satisfied with what we have. So money in itself is amoral because it can be used for good or bad purposes.
Something that is amoral needs good, strong boundaries. Like fire and water, sex is good within its God-given boundaries, but outside those boundaries, it can be damaging. Fire inside the fireplace is warm, but when it breaks outside the boundaries, it’s dangerous. It’s the same thing with water. Water nourishes the earth, and yet flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis are extremely dangerous and life-threatening. Water within the banks of a river is life to a city. Outside the banks due to floods, it can wipe out an entire town. We can live three to four days without water, but only a minute or so under it.
These two elements—fire and water—have the potential to destroy what’s around them just as easily as they have the potential to help what’s around them. Because of our culture’s view on sex and marriage, the challenge for churches and parents is in explaining to our young people how God views sex as being beautiful within its boundaries of marriage between a man and woman. We need to enjoy sexual love in marriage.
To God, there’s no such thing as casual sex. A powerful and mystical union from God happens in sexual love, and the power of it diminishes through having multiple partners. “Safe sex” is defined in Scripture as a husband and a wife in union with one another. It’s not only safe, it’s a lot of fun!
First Corinthians 6:12–20 says that our bodies are parts of Christ, and what we do with our bodies matters because a person joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. There’s something holy about sex that points to our rebirth as Christians and our relationship with Jesus. And just as our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, sexual immorality and sexual perversion are sins against our own bodies (1 Corinthians 6:18). And I’m not sure we grasp the gravity of that truth.
When we knowingly sin, we do so because we think we can manage the consequences by either avoiding or predicting them. We choose to have an intimate dating relationship because we assume we’ll get married anyway. We choose to look at pornography because we assume no one will find out. We choose to commit adultery because we think we can juggle a double life.
But the consequences that we foresee do not usually play out in the same way. The person we were intimate with chooses not to marry us, and the brokenness is deeper and more damaging than predicted or conceived. The pornography that we sneak soon becomes an addiction that is wreaking havoc. The adulterous relationship ends up destroying our marriage and harming so many others around us.
There are always consequences for believers and unbelievers. Sometimes, the consequences are spiritual, and they push us away from God. Satan condemns us and guilts us into believing God is mad at us or doesn’t love us any longer. Other times, the consequences are relational, as they damage our marriage, our friendships, our career. When we fornicate, we sin against our own bodies. That means the unintended consequences come into our bodies. Diseases, unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, broken hearts, or emotional drama are all a part of sinning against our bodies.
As in all things, we must set boundaries to protect ourselves and our marriages. Boundaries are in place to help us, not to harm us. They exist to keep us safe and to protect our intimate relationship with our spouse.
Sex and Romance
While there can be sex without love, there is no real love in a marriage relationship without sex. Intimacy brings about physical, emotional, and spiritual bonding. It is an expression of our love for each other, but just as it was created to bring a husband and wife closer together, it can be used to tear them apart—sometimes well before the marriage has even taken place.
This is why, when we are single, we must establish personal boundaries on sex. Then, once we are married, we must refine those boundaries to include the marriage relationship, for a husband needs to seek to sexually please his wife, and the wife her husband. This is how God intended sex to be (1 Corinthians 7:3–4)!
Let’s ignore the lies from the world around us, telling us that true holiness is in celibacy while true sexual freedom is in multiple partners. Let’s chase after holiness and freedom within the God-ordained confines of marriage. Only then will we be able to create a strong anchor line of sex and romance, resulting in a lasting and fulfilling marriage relationship.
