I just kicked off a live 4-day challenge with a group of Catholic husbands on how to lovingly deal with differences in sexual desire. This is the first session. I share why the usual approach of "let's just compromise on a number" doesn't actually solve anything. It opens the door to a conversation, which is a good first step, but it keeps things on the surface. We need to go deeper in order to identify and address the issues that are really at work.

I also share what the Church actually teaches about sex as a "truly human act," and why that vision points us somewhere we men can easily overlook. We can pretty easily compartmentalize our lives, but our wives tend to experience life more holistically. The quality of your sex life reflects the quality of your relationship. If you want to change what's happening inside the bedroom, the work starts outside it.

This is the first in a four-part series. Grab a cup of coffee and let's talk about it.

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Hey there.

I am currently hosting a four day challenge for Catholic husbands on dealing with differences in desire in the bedroom.

As part of that, I am posting replays of the sessions on my podcast.

So today I am posting day one of dealing with differences in desires for Catholic husbands.

Enjoy.

I'm really, really happy that everyone is here.

The fact that you showed up here means something.

It means that you care about your marriage.

It means that you care about your wife.

And.

Sorry, I'm still getting organized a little bit.

Thanks for patience.

And you're willing to do something about it.

Like you took the effort to sign up for, for this challenge.

Maybe you're familiar with the work that I do.

Maybe you're familiar or your wife is familiar with work that my wife does, but you took the time to sign up for this and you took the time out of your evening to join me on this call live.

And I don't take that lightly.

That definitely means something and I want to honor that time and I want to make this valuable for you.

This week we're going to talk about something that almost every married couple deals with.

And that, of course, is the difference in desire.

Right?

Differences in desire for physical intimacy, for sexuality, The gap between how often you desire sex and how often your wife desires sex or vice versa.

We're going to go there, we're going to talk all about it, because it matters.

There's no shame here.

There's no judgment.

This is a space of open brotherhood and acceptance.

And I want all of us to just kind of come into this space, into this challenge, into this call right now with that perspective.

We are all men who love our wives.

We want our marriages to be everything that God designed them to be and everything that God desires them to be.

And that's the only real qualification that you need, is that desire.

Yeah.

That desire to do what God wants for your own marriage.

Okay, I also want to say something at the outset here.

While it's true that the husband is often the spouse with the higher desire, that is absolutely not always the case.

It's not uncommon at all for the wife to be the higher desire spouse.

That comes with its own set of challenges.

No, I personally have been in both of those situations in different seasons of my marriage.

And maybe some gentlemen who have been married for a number of years, you know, as many of us, maybe you also can kind of appreciate that these types of things have different seasons in marriage.

Sometimes I've been a lower desire spouse, lower desire than my wife.

And I felt inadequate and I felt like I was failing her, and I felt like maybe I'm, you know, not.

Not as much of a man as I should be.

Other times I've been to higher desire spouse, and I felt lonely and I felt frustrated.

I've seen this from lots of different angles, personally, and I can tell you the path forward is the same regardless of which side of things you're on.

If there is this discrepancy that's causing a frustration, that's causing some challenges in your marriage, there is a way forward, and that's what we're going to talk about this week.

So before we go any further at all, I would like to start us off in prayer.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear Lord, I thank you for this time that we have together to explore the richness of marriage and specifically the beauty of physical union, sexual union in marriage.

To explore how this is a great sign of the love and unity that we have with our spouses, with our wives, and to explore ways that we can increase the unity through our physical intimacy.

To get on the same page about our desire for each other and help us know what we can do practically to help make that happen and to allow your grace to work through us in our marriages.

We ask that you bless our time together, send your Holy Spirit upon us, upon our words and upon our thoughts, and help us all to grab hold of the.

The one thing that you really want us to hear from this.

From this discussion tonight and let that thing, whatever it is, really work in our hearts in the way that you need it to.

All these things we pray through the intercession of St. Joseph, my personal hero and patron saint.

Joseph, pray for us.

Amen.

Name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thank you.

All right, so there are a whole bunch of people in this call live, which is awesome.

Thank you.

There are over 250 people who join the challenge.

Men who join the challenge.

That's amazing.

So let's get one thing straight right off the bat.

You're here because there's a gap between what you would like in the best bedroom and what's actually happening.

And this.

This I want you to understand you are not alone.

Just the numbers on this challenge, which is, you know, that proves it right there.

This is actually one of the most common struggles in Catholic marriages, in all marriages.

And this is, in fact, one of the main reasons why Sarah, my wife, and I started serving men and women married Catholic couples, specifically in the area of sexuality, because Couples have a lot of frustration, a lot of difficulty in the area of sex, in their marriage.

And there's just not a lot of faithful, Catholic and practical advice and guidance in this area.

So that's why we started doing this.

We also help in marriage preparation or, well, marriage prep, and also marriage enrichment.

But this area of sexuality was where we saw the most need.

And so that's why, that's why we do this.

So you are absolutely not alone.

But most men carry this burden, this difficulty in silence.

And you might feel like something's wrong with you or like there's something wrong with your wife or something wrong with your marriage.

And you look, maybe you look around at other couples and think they've got it all figured out.

I promise you, they, they probably don't.

And they're probably thinking the same thing about you.

They probably think you've got it all figured out.

So right now in this room, we're not going to pretend this is real, this is common.

We're going to be open and honest about the challenges that come with marital sexuality and specifically differences in desires for it.

The fact that you're dealing with it doesn't mean that you or your marriage is broken, honestly, it just means you're normal more than anything else.

But we don't want to settle for normal, do we?

We want exceptional marriages and that's what we want to strive for.

So differences in desires.

The first thing that most couples will try is negotiation.

So you sit down, you try to find a number that both of you can live with, right?

And a frequency.

Maybe you desire four times a week.

Maybe she, she desires more like once a month.

You land somewhere in the middle.

Honestly, it's, it's not a bad first step.

It's a pretty good first step.

Here's what's good about it.

You had that conversation, right?

If you can talk openly about it, that's.

Honestly, that's almost half the battle.

So that is a very, very good thing.

It means you're talking about it and that matters.

And a lot of couples never get that far.

And it.

Honestly, if you're in a marriage that hasn't gotten that far, that hasn't talked openly about it, and you haven't had like an honest and open conversation with your wife about it, that's okay too.

We're going to work with that as well.

But here's, here's what I want you to notice.

Even when you find that compromise, does it actually feel like the problem is solved in a long term way?

Usually not.

You Might still feel like you are not getting enough.

She might feel like she's giving more than she wants to.

You've sort of managed the tension, but the tension is still there, and it hasn't gone away.

And that's because negotiation around frequency, as useful as it is for getting conversations started, and it is a good starting point.

It keeps things on the surface.

We're just talking about frequency and numbers and objective, you know, like, you can count it on the calendar.

Literally, deep down, there's something deeper.

When you desire your wife, you don't just want a number on the calendar.

You want her.

And you want to be wanted back.

You want to be wanted by her.

Am I right?

And likewise, she probably also wants sex to be delightful.

Not to feel like an obligation or a chore, but to feel like a celebration.

So negotiation, again, it can be a good starting point, but it can't be the destination.

We've got to go further than that.

We need something more, and we need something deeper than just negotiating.

So this is where I want to introduce or perhaps reintroduce, for those of you who are well acquainted with this, the Catholic idea of sex.

That's going to reframe what, you know, the whole way that we approach this.

This comes from the heart of what the Church actually teaches about sex.

Are you on?

I don't know, and I'm gonna mute you.

Comes from the heart of what the Church actually teaches about sex.

The Church's vision for sex and marriage is that it is a, quote, truly human act.

That's language directly from the catechism.

It means that sex isn't just physical.

It's not just recreation.

It's not just a drive or desire or physical release.

These are all views from the culture.

And it's easy for us to pick up.

Pick up on them and have them influence us.

But the Church's vision for sex is so, so much bigger and much more meaningful than that.

Sex is an expression of the emotional and spiritual connection between.

Between you and your wife is meant to reflect the love, the unity, and the total gift of self that your marriage is.

Sit with that for just a moment.

If sex is a reflection of your marriage, then what happens in the bedroom is not isolated from the rest of your relationship.

It is deeply connected to everything.

We, as men, I think, have a tendency to compartmentalize in our.

In our minds.

Work is work.

Faith is faith.

Marriage is marriage.

Sex is sex.

We put things in boxes.

That's how we're wired.

And there are a lot of strengths to this, like, this allows us to be really focused.

We can single track and we can, like, block out every.

All the distractions and, and get a task done.

And, you know, there's a lot of.

A lot of benefits and, and values to how the male mind tends to work.

But that is one of the ways that we tend to be wired.

We have an easier time of compartmentalizing these different parts of our lives.

But our wives, women, on the other hand, they tend to think and to experience life more holistically than we do.

For her, whether she felt emotionally connected to you that day, the quality of your interactions together, were you cranky, were you loving, were you stressed.

All of these things flow into whether she feels open and safe and desirous in the bedroom.

All of these things are much, much more immediately connected for her in her mind than they tend to be for men.

And you know what the church says.

She's.

She's basically right.

It is all connected.

Sex is supposed to be the expression of your love and communion as spouses, not substance, something separate from it.

So here's what I want you to really think about.

And this might be the most important thing that I say all week.

The quality of your sex life is a reflection of the quality of your relationship, right?

So the quality of your sex life is a reflection of the quality of your relationship has a really practical implication.

If you want to transform what happens in the bedroom, you have to be willing to look at what's happening outside the bedroom as well.

The emotional connection, the communication, the trust, the daily ways that you love her and she loves you.

All of that plays a really, really big role in the quality of our sex life.

And all of that plays.

Plays into our levels of desire, differences in desire.

So here's something that might potentially be a little hard to hear, but I think we all can handle it.

The invitation here is to work on our marriages, to work on your marriage, to invest in the relationship, to grow as a husband.

Here's the thing.

You can't do that work with a goal of getting more sex or better sex.

It's not a transaction.

If that's your motivation, I promise you she'll feel it and it won't work.

This is not like a tip you might read on a magazine or something where it says, you know, do a chore for her and then she'll have more sex with you.

That's.

That's missing the point entirely.

You do this work because your wife is worth it, because she is the woman to whom you have pledged your Entire life.

She's the one you want to live for.

She's the one you want to get to heaven with.

She's the one you want to get to heaven.

She is worth it.

And your marriage is worth it.

And honestly, you are worth it.

You are worth becoming the man that God made you to be and worth.

And the marriage is worth becoming the marriage that God wants it to be.

And here is where the beautiful paradox comes in.

When you do invest in the relationship for its own sake, because it itself is worth it, because your wife herself is worth it.

When you do that, when you become more present, more connected, more emotionally generous as a husband, then intimacy, both emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, and yes, physical sexual intimacy that follows and it, it grows and it improves.

Not again, not because this is a transaction.

It's not I do X and then she does Y.

It's because you're working to create the kind of marriage where intimacy can naturally flourish.

Again, sex is a reflection of the, the love and the connection and the intimacy that should be there already.

It can, you know, be this virtuous cycle where you are feel loving and connected and then you make love and then you feel even more loving and connected, right?

It can deepen it, but it can't be a shortcut to it.

That love, that connection, that intimacy has to be in place and then sex is a reflection of it, a celebration of it and a deepening of it.

It's just like.

Think of your relationship in general, right?

Like the course of a normal relationship.

I've heard some people say that, you know, men or, or some men use sex as a way to become close to their wives.

That's, that's not.

I don't actually really agree.

Think about your relationship in general.

Like you, ideally, church teaching is followed and our moral, moral morality is respected.

You, you start dating, you fall in love, you propose, you get married.

All of that happens without sex, right?

There's a lot of love and a lot of intimacy and a lot of connection that all happens without sex.

All of that love, intimacy, connection, unity, that's all fostered.

And then once marriage occurs and you make that commitment, then it is celebrated and reflected in sex, right?

So that, that love, that intimacy, that connection is first both, you know, temporally and ontologically, if you like the philosophical terms.

So that's what we're talking about.

That's kind of the difference between a surface level negotiation of, you know, four times a week or once a month, land in the middle, let's mark it on the calendar.

Negotiation Says how.

How can we kind of split the difference, right?

The deeper work, the work that I'm proposing, that I'm talking about says, how do we become the kind.

How do we become the kind of couple where desire is.

Isn't the battleground where we're not arguing or disagreeing about desire in the first place?

Instead, how do we become the kind of couple.

How do we foster and cultivate the kind of marriage where our desire for each other is itself a source of further unity and not frustration and not division?

That's the goal, right?

So tomorrow we're going to cover some really specific reasons under the surface that influence high desire and low desire.

The day following, we will get to some really specific actions that you can do as a husband to help close this gap.

So we are going to get really specific.

We're going to get really practical in terms of dealing with the differences and desires.

But this is really important to understand, like, the framework of where we're coming from, how we're approaching this.

And the important thing is, you know, we can't accept a idea of, you know, negotiation is kind of like, someone's got to win and someone's got to lose in a negotiation, right?

Like, did I get what I want or did she get what she wanted?

One of us has got to be a winner.

One of us has got to be a loser.

That's.

That's.

We can't have that perspective in our marriages, because I'm not here to win over my wife, win out against her.

I'm here to, like, serve her and love her and help her get to heaven.

And hopefully that's what she wants for me too.

Um, so we've got to reorient this whole issue around how do we get deeper into our relationship so that we can foster this unity around our physical desire?

And we're gonna get really, really practical in the days to come.

But this is just really important here at the beginning to have the right spirit, right heart to approach our wives and our marriage with the right heart and the right spirit.

And the right heart and spirit is how can I serve?

How can I foster my.

My marriage?

How can I grow in love?

That's the.

The life of marriage is the life of.

Of our Catholic spirituality, right?

We're on a journey towards heaven, towards God, who is love itself.

And, you know, our goal is to create, not create.

Our goal is to.

To conform ourselves to his perfect love, to his perfect divine will, which is other centered, loving, service oriented and all of that.

So that's where we're headed over the next couple of days.

All right, let me, let me kind of pull three main things together from what we talked about today, and then we'll open it up to some questions, if anyone has questions.

Today was about three main big things.

One, you're not alone, right?

I really want to eliminate any shame that you feel if you're higher desire.

If you're lower desire, you're not alone.

The struggle is nearly universal.

There's no shame in this.

Regardless of what situation you have with your, with your wife and your marriage right now, just accept it and accept it as an opportunity to grow, to grow in humility, to grow in love, to grow in charity, to grow as a husband and as a man and as a, as a Catholic.

The second.

So you're not alone.

The second negotiation is a start, but not a solution.

Again, we can't have this conflict where one of us wins and one of us loses, or maybe we kind of settle in the middle and neither of us really win and neither of us really lose and we're both half happy and half unhappy.

That's not the end game that we're going for.

Finding a compromise can get this conversation going.

And, and having a, like, frank, open conversation about it is a fabulous start, and that's great.

But you won't get to where you really want to go until you go deeper into some issues under the surface.

And then three, sex reflects your marriage, right?

The quality of your sexual relationship is a reflection of the quality of your marriage.

And that's, that's our key pointing the way forward.

The path forward isn't that surface level compromise.

It's doing the deeper work of becoming more connected, more loving, more unified as a couple and understanding each other at a deeper level.

So tomorrow, tomorrow specifically, I'm going to dig into why.

We're going to ask why.

We're going to get really curious and we're going to ask why does this gap exist and what's actually driving those differences and desires?

We're going to get curious and not judgmental about what's beneath the surface.

We're going to ask why is a lower desire spouse, lower desire?

Why is a higher desire spouse, higher desire?

And I think you'll find it quite eye opening and maybe surprising.

And it's on the basis of understanding and diagnosing those things that then we will be able to identify those specific actions that we can take as husbands to help close this gap in a way that helps us foster love, unity, communion, union with our wives and not this kind of compromise and not.

It doesn't have to be antagonistic, but, you know, there's kind of an inherent friction there.

So for tonight, I am going to leave you one question to reflect on and one small thing to do.

The question I'd like us all to reflect on is, what would it look like if I invested in my marriage purely because my wife and our relationship are worth it?

You don't have to answer right now.

Just reflect on that.

Let it just sit with it.

What would it look like if I invested in my marriage purely because my wife and our relationship are worth it?

That's.

That's something for us all to think about, to do.

Here's the challenge for what to do.

And it's something we can all do, I promise, before tomorrow's session.

Do one small thing for your wife that has nothing to do with sex.

One small, kind, loving thing.

Something that says, I see you, I love you.

You could send her a text, take something off of her plate, like, do.

Do something for her.

A genuine compliment.

Don't make a huge production.

Just go out of your way and do one more thing.

Okay.

Repeat the question for us to reflect on.

You know what?

I'll do better.

I will copy it into the chat.

Here's the question.

What would it look like if I invested in my marriage purely because my wife and our relationship are worth it?

And then to do one small thing for your wife that has nothing to do with sexual.

Just a kind, affirming action for her.

So one question.

One small, small action to help us, you know, reorient our hearts towards our wives.

That is what I've got for today.

Like I said, tomorrow we're going to go look at some of those specific issues.

I think you'll probably find that very enlightening.

Most men that I've worked with, there's something new.

You might have heard of some of these things, but I. I can almost guarantee that some of this will be new for you.

And then the day following, we're going to get much more practical, and then we'll.

We'll take it from there.

So thank you all for joining.