When Everything in You Wants to Pull Back
When you're missing each other, everything in you wants to pull back. I know that feeling well.
Maybe it's the schedule. Maybe it's exhaustion, or a heaviness you can't quite name. Whatever the reason, the pain starts to build, and self-protection begins to feel like the safest move. You stop reaching. You give the quick peck on the way out the door. You wait for things to get easier before you show up again.
But what I've been learning, especially this year, is that when there's opposition, resistance, or struggle in a marriage, one of the bravest things we can do is fight for intimacy with intimacy.
A Hard Season, Shared Honestly
Last week, in Naked and Unashamed: The Battle for Intimacy in Your Marriage, we talked about the reality that oneness in marriage is often opposed by forces we see and forces we don't. I wanted to follow up with something more personal.
My husband and I are coming through a uniquely difficult season. We've felt more opposition, oppression, and discouragement than maybe ever before in our 20 years of marriage. We're still fighting through it with daily prayer, consecrating our lives, our bodies, our home, our sexuality, and our marriage to God, and inviting the name of Jesus to be our strong tower.
Most of what I'm sharing here are things we've practiced our whole marriage. But in this fragile, vulnerable season, they've come back to us in a really tender and gentle way. We've needed to lean into them to care for each other well.
I want to be clear about what I'm not saying. Leaning in doesn't mean being a doormat, ignoring red flags, or letting unhealthy patterns go unchecked. This is for marriages that are genuinely trying to grow, where you just feel like you keep missing each other.
No One Has More Authority to Pray for Your Spouse Than You
While I was seeking wisdom in this season, a priest told me something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. He said, "Francie, the most powerful person to pray for your spouse is you."
Because we are one before God, I have the same authority in prayer over my husband's body, mind, and heart that I have over my own. Other people can pray for us, and that's good. But no one else stands where a spouse stands.
That gave me so much hope, and a new confidence to keep learning deeper places of prayer. If your spouse is wrestling with lies, discouragement, or feeling defeated, you aren't stuck on the sidelines. God ordained us as spouses to pray for each other and over each other. That's a holy and sacred calling.
Six Ways We've Been Leaning In
Alongside prayer, here's what my husband and I have been practicing to stay close in a hard season. If you're feeling sexually discouraged or stuck, I hope something here gives you a place to start.
1. Bless each other's bodies
We've been praying over each other, putting a hand on each other's head and blessing each other in the name of Jesus. When I bless my husband, it sounds something like this: I bless your mind, your body, and your spirit. Your body is good. Your sexuality is good. Your strength is a gift to me. Your pursuit is a blessing to me.
I go through the places where he's been feeling waves of discouragement, or where we've both been struggling, and I bless them. I try to come in the opposite spirit, with encouragement.
2. Keep encouragement short and true
That blessing doesn't have to wait for a set-apart moment. I send my husband sincere texts of encouragement throughout the day. I could write paragraphs, but I've found that for him, in the middle of the day, a short, true sentence is really powerful.
3. Choose non-pressure closeness
There's an element of sexual intimacy that can feel like you need to show up and perform. When you're in a season of heaviness and feel like you have nothing to give, that makes the bedroom feel even harder.
So we've been leaning in with sexual care that's as non-pressure as possible. That might look like:
Naked cuddling, massage, or non-pressure touch
Showering together and washing each other, without it needing to go anywhere
An embrace that lasts more than two seconds
Slow sex, or what we call "plugging in": bringing your bodies together in union and simply resting there, without feeling the need to be active
Plugging in has been a profound gift to our marriage over the last seven or eight years. One question you might ask each other: What would be a non-pressure way I could love you intimately?
4. Get creative on your dates
I've noticed that our patterns of discouragement can get looped into our patterns of behavior, even the places we go and the things we always do. So give yourselves the freedom to break out of it. If you always go to the same restaurant, try a hike. Go to a spa, take a walk, or pick a book you're both curious about and read it together. Something out of your normal rhythm can breathe fresh air into your marriage.
5. Set times to pray together
Spiritual darkness loves chaos. When we're missing each other and our schedules are all over the place, that chaos can start to feel like the dominant force in our home.
Over the last six months, we've brought order and intention to praying together, at night and in the morning, using set prayers we know we're both praying. It's been a unifying gift in a season that otherwise could have felt like we were waffling all over the place. The Wild at Heart app from John Eldredge has beautiful written prayers for spiritual warfare and consecrating your home and family, and we've used several of them.
6. Kiss for 30 seconds (or longer)
I know this sounds small, but it's actually really tender. There's the little "bye, honey, see you later" peck, and then there's the kiss where you melt into each other, maybe in the kitchen or the bathroom, nowhere near the heat of the moment.
Even when things feel awkward or aren't how you wish they were, that long kiss gets the oxytocin flowing and lets the sense of connection and safety come back.
A Blessing You Can Pray Over Your Spouse Tonight
I want to encourage you to take that authority as a spouse and pray with it, because you've been given authority to pray for your husband or wife like no one else has. If you're looking for a place to start, put your hand on your spouse's head, back, or chest and pray:
I bless your masculine (or feminine) heart, mind, and body. I thank you, God, for this person in my life. I take authority over anything that is trying to distract, discourage, or make us stuck, and I bind it up and put it at the feet of Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, that you have brought light and healing and breakthrough into our lives, and that you are doing so now. We receive it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Intimacy is profound. It's a powerful gift, and it's not easily obtained, because so much in this world opposes it, whether it's discouragement, distraction, exhaustion, or spiritual warfare. But it's worth fighting for. It's worth prioritizing.
If you feel stuck, you don't have to wait for things to get easier. You can start showing up in a different spirit today, with the spirit of God and the spirit of love.
Want to go deeper? The Circle is a place of prayer, honest conversation, and not walking this journey alone. I'd love for you to join us in the Circle, my group mentorship where women gather to talk honestly about healing and discover God's good design together: Circle.
Have a question you want Francie to tackle on the podcast? Send her an email — she's always taking notes.