I have a theory and I believe the testimony of hundreds of married couples backs up this theory. The theory is the more sex you have outside of marriage, the less sex you have within marriage.
My wife and I have the privilege to speak with many couples each year and we have never heard one of them remark anything remotely close to this statement, “We’re so happy that we engaged in premarital sex.” As well, we’ve never heard, “Premarital sex helped us prepare for marital sex.” What we have heard is that sex before marriage actually stole intimacy from their marriage. Sex was no longer special, awaited and neither did it gather the excitement anticipated.
Premarital sex is titillating, full of emotion and coated in brain chemicals that run amuck. It’s also full of the fear of being caught, and overcome by having, no, taking what does not belong to you. Once married, that anticipation diminishes to the point in which some couples are not engaging in sexual intimacy on their wedding night. Even further, we often hear the expression that sexual intimacy is rarely occurring now that they are married. Imagine, this divine gift given to us by God, now stolen from us because of lust-filled desires.
Now, hearing from those singles who have waited, saved themselves for the one they will spend the rest of their lives with…never have we heard one single word or expression of regret, bemoaning the fact that they were inexperienced. To discover this world with one another was a huge part of the gift itself. Encountering one another sexually, within godly boundaries, literally helps to carry intimacy throughout the marriage, all the while maintaining their vows spoken before God.
Anytime we violate God’s principles, we also violate human value, respect and honor. Sex outside of marriage is a sin against our body (I Corinthians 6:18) and a violation against our future marriage. Because marriage is sacred, as is the act of marriage, we break covenant with God through immorality (I Corinthians 6:9). We disrupt His desire and design for our future. When we worship the created more than the Creator, we have convinced ourselves that our will and our desires, not God’s, are best for us.
Have you succumbed to sex outside of marriage? You can be forgiven of your sin and be renewed in your commitment to purity before God. He longs to give to you a fresh start, but you must be serious about that commitment. His Spirit dwells within the Christian to not sin because, “…you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (I Corinthians 6:19 & 20)
“The truth is, I never loved her.” Unfortunately, I’ve heard these words more than once. Since I probably never have been totally honest in my response, I’ll be honest with you.
We make a personal choice with whom we marry – no one forces us. Do you want to stay in love? Then love your spouse with all your heart. Do you want to be happy? Then work toward making your spouse happy. Ask God to show you all of your personal selfish desires so that you can continue your love commitment through every stage of your marriage.
Individuals are “hooking up” at the workplace, on social media and along the sidelines of their kids sporting events. We tend to have an insatiable desire for understanding and a listening ear and when we receive that from someone other than our spouse, we are walking on shaky ground.
In God’s word, Ephesians chapter five is where we often find ourselves concerning the husband and wife relationship. We tend to quote those parts that we like in these verses, but often fail to remember the parts that require effort from us. For example, what man doesn’t like the fact that God requires a woman to respect her husband? And, what woman doesn’t like the part that asks a husband to love his wife?
We hear far too many reports about marriages that are not lasting. When marriage is full of selfishness, insecurity and immaturity, marriage becomes an attempt to receive healing from our spouse, i.e., if they’re the problem, they’re the solution as well. When our spouse deals with the same inadequacies, they are unable to give what we’re looking for. Over a period of time, the thought of having married the wrong person is often generated.
issues in your life. Too often we blame our spouse for our worst and then think they’re the problem, believing the lie that all would be better if they would make all the changes.
Occasionally it’s good to evaluate our marriage progression. Today I want to share five ways in which we can identify marriage growth and maturity. Don’t be discouraged if you feel overdue in any of these areas; just realize maturity does take time and personal revelation for change.
We are settled. We do not have to always agree, but rarely do we disagree. Steve is Mary and Mary is Steve and we desire the very best and the highest goodwill for each other. We are not competing with one another and we are not jealous of each other. We will not settle for mediocre in our relationship and we will not allow a spirit of discontentment to show its ugly head. We both know that through the grace of God and His goodness to us, we gained something…or someone in marriage. When we said “yes” to one another, we said “no” to every other possible partner out there. We have no regrets.
You’ll find those six words, maybe nine, in chapter thirteen, the final chapter of 
Before you were married, did anyone advise you that your marriage would need room for failure, forgiveness, loss, brokenness, disagreement, or even sin? If not, a full and honest disclosure was missed, and you may have entered into marriage a bit naïve or ill-advised. Marriages fail because we fail God, each other, and ourselves. We fail to love, we fail to honor, we fail to forgive, and we fail in keeping at bay our own personal struggles with selfishness. And that’s where prayer can come in.
In 
We seemed to have reached a desperate part of our meeting with a middle-aged couple pastoring a small church in New York. In tears, the wife declared, “We’re not intimate!” We asked what she meant by that statement. She said without hesitancy, “We don’t do fun things together; we don’t hold hands; we don’t sit close any longer; we rarely have sex; and our conversations have become predictable, boring, and too infrequent. It’s like we’ve taken a break from closeness, from our friendship…from intimacy.”
How does a couple stay sexually active when there are jobs, a family, household responsibilities, and civic commitments, along with children’s sports and school, and then local church involvement? All of these good things can rob us of intimacy as married couples and can even become priority over our sexual thoughts and desires. Sometimes life gets a hold of us, and all too often we’re too exhausted to take a hold of one other.
On your wedding day, you spoke something called vows that probably sounded something like this: For better or for worse; for richer or for poorer; in sickness and in health; ’til death do us part. Rarely do we imagine having to face such issues. But truth be told, we will face some of these things and, perhaps, already have. If you think about it, these vows prepare us for reality long before reality sets in; they help prepare us for inevitable disappointments in marriage.
Infidelity can affect all of our marriages because we can all be tempted. We are all potential vow-breakers. If we think it can’t happen to us, we can become sloppy and less guarded, not alert to the enemy’s schemes. In 
Steve Prokopchak 