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Sunday, March 2, 2008
Up for this marriage challenge?
Could you have sex for 30 consecutive days? Do you think it would improve your marriage?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A church in Florida wanted to help married couples deal with the major problems in their lives: money and sex.
The church set up a financial series to help address the fiduciary issues.
And, for their sexual problems, the church challenged the married couples to have sex at least once a day for 30 continuous days. The challenge began in mid-February.
The pastor of the Relevant Church in Tampa, Fla., says that God wants married couples to have sex. His church believes that by increasing intimacy the couples will increase communication. The theory is if the couples have sex for 30 days then sex would become a habit.
This is normally the part of the column where I write about my own experiences, but my husband has begged me not to write about our sex life. So instead, I talked to five metro-area moms to see what they thought of the 30-Day Sex Challenge and if they thought it would improve their marriages. All of the moms I spoke with have been married at least 10 years and all have at least two kids.
The first mom I talked to (let’s call her Mom A) couldn’t stop laughing when I told her the concept. “Well, that would get old after Day 1,” she quipped. “Let’s see Monday night is TV. Tuesday is laundry. Let me tell you all the other reasons why we don’t.” She said he needs to get to her by 8 p.m. if there’s a chance of sex, but that means stopping their daily chores. For example, the other night they chose to work on their taxes instead of having sex. (They’re getting a refund.)
All the women I talked with agreed that their husbands would like to have more sex. However, the wives cited tiredness, chores and, oddly, feeling full after dinner as reasons why they didn’t. They also mentioned being touched all day by their children so they didn’t want to be touched at night.
Many of the women thought the 30 days would be like when they were trying to get pregnant.
Mom B, who is currently pregnant with her third child, said “I’m having a hard time getting my mind around it. Is it going to be like when you’re trying for a baby? Is the goal just to get it accomplished even if you’re not into it?”
Mom B also had logistical issues with the idea of planning on having sex for 30 days. For example, she said, the other night her daughter came into their bedroom and threw up in the bed. She said that would pretty much ruin any sex plans that night.
The biggest upside Mom B saw to having sex every night was that she would be sure to get her kids to bed on time and her family would be on a tighter schedule.
Another mom (Mom C) recently cancelled her maternity insurance to help save money. She was concerned 30 days of sex would increase her chances of getting pregnant and in turn her out-of-pocket expense. Mom C, whose children aren’t in school yet, said, “Staying at home with kids is such a physically demanding job. If my husband expects dinner on the table and the house to be cleaned, then I am done when the kids are in bed. I don’t want to have to do something else for someone.”
Mom D wanted to clarify if the sex had to be with the same man all 30 days. (We told her yes!) She said she thought she and her husband could have easily done it before kids, but now there are just too many other things to do. “We’re done. We have children. We’re good.”
Only one mom out of the five (Mom E) thought she could easily fulfill the 30-day requirement and she was the one who seemed to be having sex the most regularly already — several times a week. When asked how she accomplished it, she said, “I don’t sleep and it shows, but that’s what happens. Something is given up and it tends to be sleep.”
But she does believe, as did all of the women I spoke with, that sex if good for your marriage. “Any time you bring a husband and wife together it’s a connection. If you go several weeks without having it, it becomes easier to lose the connection all together. Without that connection, money and all the other typical reasons why parents get divorced become bigger.” She added, “Or at the very least you have a good 15 minutes.”
