by PAUL BYERLY | Jan 9, 2026 | It's You
Podcast: https://bit.ly/45B50CN
A couple of thoughts on sex as related to this week’s content.
The idea that no one works for something they don’t think is possible is huge here.
Most of us come into marriage with very unrealistic expectations based on porn and popular media. Watch any R-rated movie or TV-MA series, and you are “taught” that women don’t need foreplay, and will have mind-blowing orgasms after 60 seconds of intercourse. And of course that’s not what happens.
Many women enter marriage with fear and lies about sex. Many also have some sexual frustration. When their bodies don’t do what they have seen on screens, they assume it’s them. They are broken, and sex is just not for them.
Let me be very clear: this is not true. Lori and I know plenty of women who went from thinking this to enjoying sex a great deal. From never having an orgasm to having one pretty much every day. From trying to avoid being asked for sex to eagerly seeking it. From only doing missionary in the dark to trying a number of new things and keeping many of them.
You can have great sex. What’s more, God wants you to have great sex.
The belief barrier isn’t the only obstacle. There’s also the issues of prioritising and lack of time.
In a growing number of marriages, both husband and wife say they would like to have sex more often. But they can’t find, or more accurately won’t make, time for it.
Many of these folks make up the difference by secretly masturbating. A recent study found rates of masturbation over the last decade have gone up for both men and women in relationships, but not those who are single. What’s more, most men and women who masturbate said they wanted to have intercourse more often than they were.
Some folks push themselves to have sex when they have had a long, stressful day. They try to squeeze sex in without the time or energy to do it well. This leads to poor sex, especially for the woman.
I think our less than positive feelings about sex prevent us from making sex a priority. If it happens, that’s nice. But making it a high priority seems somehow selfish.
In 1 Cor 7, when Paul talks about the importance of sex, he says a couple can’t stop having sex even by mutual agreement unless they do so for a season of prayer and fasting. This means sex is not something you do because one of you wants it. Sex is “the act of marriage”, and God expects us to do it regularly. So making it a priority isn’t selfish; it’s godly!
What would have to change to make it possible for your marriage to have mutually desired and mutually enjoyed sex more often?
~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well includes regular sex.
Tilly has multiple places to sleep.
But when the sun is out, this bed is the only choice.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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by PAUL BYERLY | Jan 8, 2026 | It's You
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4jyN8yr
Incorrect benefit/cost ratio calculations are another common reason why couples do not have the marriage they desire. Benefit/cost ratio is a business calculation that is made by dividing the projected cash benefit of a project by the projected total cash cost of the project. If the resulting number is over 1, it’s a good investment. The larger the number, the better.
While not everyone knows the term ‘benefit/cost ratio’, we all do this all the time in our lives. It’s how we decide if something is worth doing. We compare what we think something will cost us in time and energy to what we think we will get out of it. If it costs too much, or we won’t get much out of it, we’re not likely to do whatever.
We do this calculation in our marriage. In addition to deciding whether or not to do something, it may be used to determine how much effort we will put into it. If our spouse asks us to make a change for them, we calculate how much benefit we will gain from the change. Then we make an effort in proportion to what we think we will get.
There are obvious problems with this. We may miscalculate both what we will get and what it will cost us. What’s more, if your marriage has never been better than okay, you don’t understand how much a good marriage will benefit you. So you make inaccurate benefit/cost calculations.
Another issue is failing to recognise how much your spouse will benefit from something and how that will affect what they do with and for you. Such indirect benefits are easily missed. If your spouse has a positive attitude toward you and your marriage, it will influence how they treat you. If you underestimate how a change will benefit your spouse, you will fail to guess how they will respond to you.
An example of how this plays out: Your wife asks you to come to bed early so you can talk before going to sleep. You calculate: “I’ll lose an hour of my evening, and all I’ll get is conversation I could have anytime.” So you give her ten minutes. But that connection would make her feel valued. When she feels valued, she’s warmer toward you the next day. That warmth affects everything: how she speaks to you, how she responds to your needs, and how she thinks about your marriage. The real benefit was much higher than you calculated.
One way to change things is to start adding a large “my spouse wants it” factor to the benefit side of your calculations. This is both loving and wise, and it will result in both of you being happier with your marriage.
Count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ~ Philippians 2:3-4 (ESV)
~ This is Paul, reminding you that Doing Marriage Well looks different for every couple.
Got two inches of snow yesterday.
I have mixed feelings about snow, but there is no denying its beauty!
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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by PAUL BYERLY | Jan 7, 2026 | It's You
Podcast: https://bit.ly/49dmJTi
Another reason we don’t work for the marriage we want is we’ve never seen a great marriage. Even worse, most of us have seen couples we thought had a good marriage get divorced!
No one fights for something they don’t think is possible. And looking around, I can understand thinking a great marriage is impossible, and a good marriage is highly unlikely.
But this perspective is wrong!
I’ve mentioned before that I was convinced it was possible to have a far better marriage than any example I’d ever seen. There is no rational reason for me to have felt this way, so I blame God. I consumed a lot of Bible between the age of eighteen and when I got married, and I’m sure that was part of what convinced me a great marriage was possible. But I think it was more than that: I think God put the hope, desire, and belief for a great marriage in my heart.
Today I have a great marriage, and I know a number of couples around the country who have the same. Great marriages come in various flavours, but all of them have certain things in common. The husband and wife are best friends. They enjoy time together. They support, laugh, touch, and encourage each other frequently. They are slow to anger, fast to forgive, and always offer grace. They work hard to not hurt each other, and speak up when they feel hurt. They apologise and forgive easily and tend to grow from rough spots.
While all those things are hallmarks of a great marriage, I don’t think they are what makes a marriage great; I think they are the natural consequences of loving openly and deeply.
Perhaps the most important thing for having a great marriage is that the couple believed they could have a great marriage. Maybe it started with just one of them, but eventually both saw it as a goal that was both desirable and possible. And once that happens, good things occur.
If you want a great marriage, I suggest you ask God to give you the belief that it’s possible. Then pray the same for your spouse. Even better, make it a joint prayer.
~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well requires believing you can!
Four years ago we had two feet of snow on the ground.
This year we have half an inch in the shade.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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by PAUL BYERLY | Jan 6, 2026 | It's You
Podcast: https://bit.ly/49tfIws
Have you ever played the game whack-a-mole? Moles pop up randomly for a moment, and you try to hit them with a mallet before they drop back down. If you pick a couple of mole holes close together, you can always hit the moles in those holes. But when you try to cover all the holes, you miss most of the time.
Life is this way. When we focus on a few things, we do those things well. When we try to do too many things, we tend to do poorly at all of them.
I mention this because it’s a big reason why folks don’t have good, much less great, marriages.
Society tells us we can have it all. But the truth is, you can only do so many things well. When we take on too much, we generally don’t do any of it well. We get distracted by one thing, and others get ignored. Then one of the things being ignored pops up as a problem, and we try to whack it. Odds are we’ll fail to hit it and also lose control of what we were doing well.
Focusing on your marriage is not enough if you’re trying to cover too many other things. If you want a good marriage, you must focus on a reasonable number of things. That probably means letting go of some things. Perhaps you can pick some of them up down the road when life is less busy. Perhaps not. And that’s okay. The right priorities now lead to better outcomes later.
What might you let go? It could be a committee or volunteer role. It could be a hobby that’s consuming more time than it should. It could be saying no to the next kids’ activity, even if everyone else is doing it. It could be letting the house be messier than you’d like for a season. Only you know what’s crowding out your marriage, but something probably is.
Whack-a-mole is particularly common when you have school-age kids. The kids need your help, and you want to spend time with them before they grow up and move away. Making the kids one of the things you focus on is good and right. But don’t let that move your marriage off the board.
Take some time to think about all that you’re trying to do. Is it too much? Have you allowed your marriage to become too low a priority? If you are losing the game, what are you going to let go?
To help you find things to set aside, ask yourself these questions:
- What am I doing out of obligation rather than calling?
- What would happen if I said no to this for six months?
- What’s stealing time but not adding value?
- If I had to cut one thing today, what would it be?
Less really is more!
~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well should not involve a mallet!
This is Sue, the sweetest rabbit we ever raised, who we passed on to our daughter-in-law years ago. She is inside recovering from an injury.
The kitten is Kit, who is very friendly and has made friends with everyone. She sleeps with the very large dog, who has no idea what to do with her.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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by PAUL BYERLY | Jan 5, 2026 | It's You
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4q5R1x0
I have a friend, who also does marriage ministry, who says, “You have the marriage you want.“
I think it’s more accurate to say you have the marriage you are willing to work for.
Many people will disagree with both of those statements, arguing that you can only have the marriage you desire if your spouse is willing to do their part. But here’s the thing: in many marriages, both spouses say that. Each is waiting for the other to do “their part”.
Part of this is that we don’t see ourselves accurately. We think we are less of the problem than we actually are. This then means we see our spouse as more of the problem than they actually are. We give ourselves excuses and justify things we should be dealing with. And we don’t do that for our spouse.
It’s easy to see your spouse as the problem. In fact, it’s so natural, your spouse likely sees you as the problem. And then our friends “help” us by listening to our skewed version of our marital reality and agreeing it’s our spouse, not us.
Allow me to drop some truth on you: you only see some of the ways you are limiting or injuring your marriage, and you underestimate many of the ways you do see.
Regardless of what your spouse may need to do, there are things you need to do. This is the log in your eye, and Jesus “suggested” that you deal with it before you worry about that speck in your spouse’s eye.
How about spending this week looking at your logs? Consider how your actions might look to a third party looking at your marriage. I’d also suggest asking the Lord to show you some of your logs.
~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well requires being honest with yourself.
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I made an eggnog cheesecake with a gingersnap crust for Christmas and again for New Year’s Eve.
It was a big hit both times.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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by PAUL BYERLY | Jul 18, 2025 | It's You
Podcast: https://bit.ly/4lDG6sn
When it comes to sex, “It’s about you” is a huge issue.
We each come into marriage with sexual expectations. Perhaps there is some sinful premarital experience behind that. Or it might be full of wrong ideas we got from porn or romance novels. Friends and popular media also fill us with ideas. And some of it is our imaginations.
If those sexpectations are not too many, and we hold them loosely, there’s a chance to build a good sex life with our spouse, who brings his or her own sexpectations. But all too often, a couple has a clash of sexpectations that causes frustration, fighting, or worse.
The problem is when we decide our expectations are the right way to do sex. If our spouse has done the same with their different expectations, we are at an impasse. He feels cheated if there is no oral sex, and she feels disrespected if there is. She expects soft lighting, and he wants enough light to clearly see every inch of her body. She wants loving words, while he desires passionate slang. He thought sex would be driven and hard, while she has always envisioned soft, slow sex.
None of those things are wrong. Some of it won’t work for some folks, but honestly, more of that is about expectations than most of us want to admit.
If you both had come into marriage with a list of things you wanted to try in bed, you could have found the common ones and done well. Then you could have played with things just outside that common ground, and grown. But if either of you came in with a list of must-haves, you had problems. If you both had must have lists that didn’t overlap well, there were probably fireworks of the wrong kind.
If you’ve been married for years, you may wonder how any of this matters today. But it does. Are you still upset that something you expected never happened, or only happens on rare occasions? Have you found common ground, or are you living a compromise that makes neither of you happy?
If you want to address this, sit down together and lay all your cards on the table. Not just what you want, but why you want it. Confess any sin behind that preference being created. That could be seeing it in porn, reading it in a romance novel, or doing it with your high school crush.
Also discuss why you don’t want to do things your spouse wants, and again any sin behind why. That could be a previous sex partner who did it and hurt or offended you, or asked for it all the time till you hated even the idea of it.
If you can be honest and see each other’s reality, there’s a chance for change.
~ This is Paul, reminding you that Doing Sex Well looks different for every couple.
It was a hard day.
But it was a good day!
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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