by PAUL BYERLY | May 16, 2025 | Growing
Today, I want to look at all the things I have mentioned this week as they apply to your sex life.
Training Wheels: Training wheels can help, but also limit. Using lube allows you to have sex, but it may mean you need to learn how to arouse her. Hand jobs for his higher drive keep him from losing his mind, but may prevent the couple from finding something that is better for both of them.
Ditch the train wheels when you no longer need them. And work to no longer need them!
Shortcuts: Some sex shortcuts are just wrong. Using porn for arousal, for example. Yes, it will get her going, but at a cost. Other shortcuts are not wrong, but may keep you from learning things that would make your sex life better. A vibrator might speed up foreplay, but could also limit her pleasure.
Validate your shortcuts.
Books: There are a lot of books about sex. The majority advocate things contrary to the Word of God, and may show things we should not be looking at. It’s rare for a secular book on sex to not contain things that are problematic for believers. Fortunately, there are a number of good books written by and for Christians.
Two books we can highly recommend are Rethinking Sexuality: God’s Design and Why It Matters and Married Sex: A Christian Couple’s Guide to Reimagining Your Love Life .
A Guide: Growing up, most of us learned from friends. This was usually the blind leading the blind. Talking with your adult friends should be better than that, and you can learn things. A concern is how much you, and they, share about your sex lives. And if it will go any further?
A counsellor or coach will have more information, will be better able to determine what you might need, and should guarantee your privacy. Internet based help allows you to talk with someone you won’t see in real life.
For obvious reasons, working with someone of the opposite sex is a bad idea, even if the person is a professional. We think couple to couple is great, but usually a mix of that with some same gender meetings is most effective. If your spouse is unwilling to get help with you, talking with a couple can give you a better understanding of your spouse.
Lori and I do coaching for sexual issues. We find a few sessions can be a big help.
~ This is Paul, who is glad we now have so many great tools to help us Do Sex Well!
What a beautiful sight!
We have a big Yellow Jacket issue every summer. These are queens, which can produce 5,000 workers each! Our dozen traps have taken out about 100 queens so far.
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by PAUL BYERLY | May 15, 2025 | Growing
One great way to get from point A to point B is to hire a guide.
We can do this in marriage with a friend, an older couple from church, or with a coach or counsellor. As with books, you want to make sure what you get is good. In fact, this is even more important with input from other people. A good guide can take you to places you might never go on your own. And a bad guide can get you lost; or worse! A similar faith is critical when you seek help from others.
A good guide has been where you want to go. When Lori and I were having difficulty at the start of our marriage, the only couple willing to help us didn’t have a marriage we wanted to emulate. We decided that was not going to help us.
Knowing the way is not enough; a good guide also knows how to help others. Among other things, that requires being able to understand where you’re starting from, and your abilities. It may be faster to go over a hill than around it, but if you can’t manage the slope, it’s a bad option. A guide also needs to be able to tell when you need a break.
For marriage help, we’re big fans of working with another couple. This gives you both a male and a female viewpoint, and improves understanding. It also means you each have an advocate.
And yes, Lori and I do coaching for various marriage issues, including sexual difficulties. And the ministry we work with has others who can offer various help.
~ This is Paul, reminding you that Doing Marriage Well sometimes takes help.
The lilacs are blooming! We also have white, and last year we got a dark purple one we will put in the ground this year.
Widget is more interested in finding that robin that keeps leading her away from its nest.
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by PAUL BYERLY | May 14, 2025 | Growing
A tried and true way to help your marriage is to read a book. Reading a book together can give you new perspectives and tools. Doing a book with a few others couples can be even better.
When I say book, I don’t necessarily mean reading. I’m an auditory learner, and I retain more of what I hear than what I read. Some folks do so much reading for school or their job, they don’t want any other reading. And some find listening while exercising, driving, or doing other mundane tasks is a great use of time. And today most books are available in an audio version.
Some couples like to read out loud together. This allows them to discuss what they read in real time.
Of course, it’s important the book is giving you good information. The recommendations of those you trust are a good plan for this. If you’re walking with the Lord, you want what you read to be in line with that. Most of the marriage books Lori and I recommend are faith based, but there are exceptions. And some books that can help your marriage are not written as marriage books.
We have not added a bookshop to Doing Marriage Well yet. But you will find a lot of great books on The Generous Wife and Generous Husband.
~ This is Paul, suggesting books can help you Do Marriage Well.
Widget, fresh from a swim, wrestling with her friend Whiskey.
Life is good!
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by PAUL BYERLY | May 13, 2025 | Growing
Short cuts make long delays. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Shortcuts are iffy, at best. Especially when we use them to improve our marriage.
In school, we’re not allowed to use calculators because they wanted us to learn to do math. But in advanced science they were okay with the shortcut of calculators because by then we all knew how to do basic math. Today we have high school graduates who have relied on calculators so much they can’t give change without one.
The power of a shortcut is like the power of a calculator; you can do more, and you can do it faster. The problem with shortcuts is you don’t learn basic skills you may need later.
The “passionate discussions”, AKA arguments, in your early marriage were important because they taught you about each other and about how to communicate when you were at odds. If you had flipped a coin to shortcut past those discussions, you would not have learned what you would need later for much more significant differences that could not be solved with a coin flip.
Marriage shortcuts can be very useful, but only if you know how to do the math by hand.
~ This is Paul, warning you that sometimes Doing Marriage Well means taking the long path.
The root crops are planted!
We have four kinds of potatoes, three kinds of onions, two kinds of carrots, and one kind of garlic. The straw is one of two rows of Russet potatoes as an experiment.
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by PAUL BYERLY | May 12, 2025 | Growing
This week, I want to talk about a variety of things that can help you get from where your marriage is to where you want it to be.
Today, training wheels. My six-year-old grandson got a bike, but was unable to ride it without being held up, and he got discouraged and stopped trying. So I bought him training wheels and put them on. His mother, his father, and I worked with him a bit, and now he is zooming around.
But here’s the thing, while training wheels helped him get going, they are also limiting him. He can’t make sharp turns because the wheels prevent it. And when he leans and a training wheel rides the ground, it slows him down. Much like crutches, they both help and limit.
We can apply training wheels or crutches in our marriage. That could be narrow rules or regular help from others. It might be a written process or a checklist. But while all of these can help your marriage, they can limit growth down the road.
Don’t be afraid to take off the training wheels when they have done their job.
~ This is Paul, telling you that Doing Marriage Well sometimes requires a season of training wheels.
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Arching and hissing no longer keeping Widget at bay.
But Tilly wants you to know they are NOT friends.
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