Let’s deal with the desire issue first. The typical model says we first feel desire, then arousal, followed by the actual event of sex (intercourse)—but as I say in my Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage book and seminar, this is not true for millions of people! Many people don’t feel that great desire first and often don’t want to do it until they are actually doing it—then they are glad they did! Unfortunately, the misinformation that we have been given by so-called experts and the media in our culture has led most people to believe that both the man and woman always feel all this hot and heavy desire before they can have sex.

After all, that’s what TV, movies and novels portray—especially for women who are typically shown as provocative, chase-the-man-down vixens and then men (especially those into porn) wrongly expect their wives to be like that. On the other hand, many women who don’t have this overt, “clamoring-to-jump-in-the-sack” drive worry and think that there is something wrong with them, when it’s just not true. Most women have no problem having sex and are great lovers once they get started, even if they don’t act like the sex kitten, porn queen or “desperate housewife” that the media around us depicts.

What I hear consistently from couples is actually the flip side—it’s the men who have lower desire, lower sex drives and the wives are the ones who want to have more sex. Sometimes it is a physical issue or a problem with porn and masturbation, but not always. Some men are just wired to be low-key in the desire department. It can really mess with a dude’s head when he thinks there is something wrong with him because he’s not the red-hot Fabio or Don Juan type who is walking around in a state of perpetual readiness. Again, guys, if you don’t feel this rush of desire to begin with and your engines aren’t all revved and ready to blast off, don’t take that as a sign to mean that you shouldn’t have sex with your wife. More often than not, once you get on with it and you begin to engage your wife physically and you touch and connect with one another, those feelings of desire and arousal will come alive too.

People get so hung up on this desire thing. They feel awful if they themselves aren’t fueled by all this gigantic heat and passion, or they end up getting upset at their spouse and in turn make him or her feel horrible because, “You don’t desire me or pursue me! You never initiate!” Here is a word to you higher-desire people: Don’t pressure or demand a show of intense desire from your lower-desire spouse. When you criticize your husband or wife and expect them to be all hot and heavy and the initiator, it ends up making them feel horrible.

Seriously, we have to stop with all this nonsense. It’s just plain foolish and counter productive. Everyone wants to be wanted, I get it. It would be really great to feel like your husband or wife was dying with desire for you, but not everything is about what we want. There are lots of things that we want in life, but they just don’t always happen that way. I want to get paid and not have to work. I want to never have to pay taxes. I want to never have to clean the house or deal with dirty dishes or laundry. Who cares what you want!?

To have a successful life and marriage, you don’t live by what you want or feel. So don’t sit there never having sex, feeling bad about yourself or mad at your spouse because of what you wish they were like or what you wish you felt. In the words of Nike: Just do it! Try it! You’ll see, it will great and I bet you’ll both enjoy yourselves! And remember…it truly doesn’t matter who starts it or what your desire level is.

First of all, it is not intended to be some academic dissertation or highly instructional show on marriage… I mean, it is Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Papa and they are both comedians. They intended the show to be comedy. After all, there are some extremely funny situations that crop up in marriage. And who isn’t going to find some of the situations these couples are arguing about funny? A man who has his dead dog stuffed and wants to set up a shrine to him in their house; another husband who wants to put a stripper pole in their house but his wife is opposed; a woman who will only allow the family to use the dining room on Thanksgiving.

I’ve said it before, couples (including my wife and me) argue over the stupidest things! When you bring in a third party, it becomes very clear how silly some of these things are. Like it or love it, The Marriage Ref is extremely positive in that manner. In fact, it’s how the concept of the show was developed. Seinfeld says he and his wife were arguing over something ridiculous and a friend happened to be there. He asked her to weigh in and decide in favor of one of them just to end the fight. I suggest you get someone else involved in your situations. Don’t try to live in a vacuum and do it all on your own.

Papa also ends the show with a very pro marriage statement saying it’s “worth fighting for” and indeed it is! Most TV shows are anything but pro marriage so anyone who puts forth the positives can be applauded. Again, it’s not intensive marriage therapy, it’s comedy. And judging from the reviews, it may not be around long. But hopefully the idea of getting others you trust (not strangers or clueless celebrities) to help you walk out this often maddening and complicated relationship of marriage, will stick.

Now, I didn’t say that every time the guy gives his wife a little attention she needs to fulfill his immediate desire (as some readers assumed). Rather the intent was to explain why some men stop paying attention to their wives. If time after time a man gives attention, causing his desire for his wife to grow, and then she constantly stiff-arms him and pushes her husband away, the dude is going to stop with the attention. He will do it if for no other reason than to keep his arousal and desire in check and limit his own sexual frustration.

If you have read my book, Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, watched the DVD of the seminar or attended one in person, you have heard this. But for those who have not, here is some advice for men in the “attention = desire” department.

One important thing that men must understand is that they don’t need to have sex every time they feel the urge. Sadly, too many guys are like that. Whenever they feel the buzz of desire, they assume they must have sex and reach for their wife with such lovely and romantic sentiments as, “Hey, baby! Come here and help me out!” or “Ya wanna have sex?” Not the most conducive to romancing the girl!

What you men must realize is that when that desire stirs in you, it’s God’s way of reminding you: Be nice to the girl. Pay attention to your wife. Spend some time with her. By doing so, you drastically increase your chances of not being shut down later. So what if you don’t feel like spending time talking with her. Who cares if you don’t want to take her shopping? What difference does it make if you don’t like to go for walks with her? Seriously guys, you have to give to get. If you think that she is going to fulfill the desires of your heart—or loins as the case may be—when you give her little to no time and attention, you are simply delusional. Most women just aren’t wired that way. Find out what she likes, what you can do to fill her need for attention. Maybe it’s your time, your help, your conversation, your touch.

And, gentleman, may I also point out that not all touch needs to be of the sexual nature or the first step to “hitting a home run.” Sometime you can give your wife a hug and that’s it. Or try giving her just a kiss and then walk away. Do you ever simply hold her hand or put your arm around her? How about giving her a backrub and then let her go to sleep instead of trying to score! If every stinking time you touch her, the expectation is sex, it’s going to grow old real quick for your wife and she’s going to be hesitant to have you touch her at all.

At the end of the day, the fundamental problem for both men and women in this area is that as selfish, egocentric humans, we want what we want and don’t care all that much about giving the other person the things that he or she needs. Men want sex and don’t see why they have to jump through the hoops of putting any effort into giving their wives attention. Women want their husbands to pay attention to them, but don’t think that they should have to participate in sex to get it.

But what if God intentionally designed males and females differently in this area just to knock the selfishness out of us? What if it was the very purpose of this difference? It’s the perfect system to kill the self-centered nature in us, but most people don’t get it. They say, “I’ll only give my spouse what he/she wants after I get what I want.”

I guess you have a choice. You can sit there being mad and feeling bitter because “he won’t pay attention to me,” or “she won’t have sex with me,” or you can stop focusing on what you want and follow the words of Jesus when he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And don’t be surprised if once you stop worrying about what you want and actually start giving, you get back in return. Give and it shall be given to you… God’s economy is funny that way.

It is not a secret that men and women typically want different things from one another in a marriage. Ask 100 women what they want more of from their husband and most of them will say they want him to pay more attention to them. Ask 100 guys what they want more of from their wife and most of them will say they want more sex… no surprise there! These differing wants are the ingredients for a perfect stand off between men and women.

Women will say, “I’d make love to him more if he’d just give me some attention and I felt like he cared about me for more than just sex.” Men will say, “I give her attention and that just makes me want her more, but she still doesn’t want to have sex.” And it’s true that when a man gives his attention to his wife, it increases his sexual desire for her! Desire fills him as a result of paying attention to the woman—his sexual interest increases as he focuses in on his wife. Much of the attention that men give, whether women like it or not, is sexually driven. Sex and attention all go together, you can’t separate the two. Whatever we give our attention to is what we end up desiring.

The advertising business knows this because all they have to do is get you to pay attention to a 30 second commercial and the desire to get the product they are selling begins to sprout. Anything you give your time and attention to will also be the thing that you desire.

So it is with men and their wives. And while women love the attention, they are often not so crazy about the desire that follows. They want the attention but say, “No thanks!” to the desire part. Ladies, you must understand that when that man of yours pays attention but you continually stiff-arm him and rebuff his needs, when you push him away and say, “No” to his desire, he is going to stop the attention.

A man doesn’t do this to be mean or to intentionally hurt his wife, but the dude can get so frustrated after a while when he is continually being shut down by his wife. Often husbands will do whatever they can to decrease their desire, to minimize their constant sexual frustration—and that means they stop the attention, so they aren’t going crazy. Then the woman will cry, “Pay attention! You aren’t paying attention to me!” It becomes a crazy cycle.

If women would understand this, they could make it work for their benefit! The guy is much more likely to give you attention when you are fulfilling the desire that the attention creates! Pretty simple solution if you can understand that the desire is actually created when he is giving you what you crave. Believe me, your man will have little to no problem giving you even more attention when you reward his efforts by meeting his need.

If you don’t like the fact that he isn’t a devoted follower of Jesus, or that he smokes or is a slob, or whatever—you fill in the blank—but think by some “magical cosmic force” he’ll be different once you are married, you are fooling yourself. Women will say they want a solid Christian man, someone with a good job and a wonderful mother, but date a guy who stays in bed and watches TV rather than going to church, can’t hold a steady job and whose mother is a banshee. Then they think these things will go away, won’t matter or that they can change him. These ladies are in for a ton of misery.

First, make sure your expectations are realistic. If your list includes a guy who looks like a Greek god, is a millionaire, loves cats, has June Cleaver for a mother, sings like Pavarotti and has the entire bible memorized in 3 translations, you probably won’t find him! Be realistic and then decide which ones are deal breakers. Maybe it’s the future in-laws, or health issues, or values like the depth and commitment of their faith. You have to decide what you can and can’t live with—or live without! But don’t kid yourself into thinking that those things that bug you and those things you don’t like will not matter down the matrimonial road. They will matter and you’ll end up wondering if the road took a detour through hell.

I frequently have women talk to me and tell me all the things wrong with the cretin they are married to. When I ask them if he did those things before they were married, the answer is almost always — yes! Come on, think it through! If you didn’t like these things before, then what made you think it would be different after the “I dos” were said? It’s that inexplicable (and ridiculous) notion in the brain of a woman that says, “But I can change him!” Guys don’t think that way. In fact, most men don’t want the woman they fall in love with to change one bit after marriage! They are perfectly content to have their brides stay just as they are!

You can’t make a man into the one you want him to be or the idealized version you wish he would be. You need find the one that most closely fits your mold…and he still won’t be perfect! There will always be things in marriage that make men and women crazy. Again, make sure your expectations are realistic. If the dude doesn’t make the grade, don’t assume that you can do “extreme husband makeover” on him. You’ll just bring a lot of grief to yourself and the poor fellow you are trying to remodel.

What you need to watch is when the slow tempo songs are played and the couples get together. Look at the difference in how the older couples dance compared to the youngsters. The more mature couples dance beautifully as they glide around the floor in near to perfect rhythm with one another. They turn together in wonderful synchronicity and flow through the dance. You can tell they’ve been at this a while. These couples know the steps, they have it down.

Then look at the “newbies.” Unless they’ve taken ballroom dance lessons, you’ll see an entirely different picture. They throw their arms around each other and waddle back and forth like penguins. If they do try to really dance and actually follow steps, you’ll often observe an awkward display. She barking directions at him while they fight for the lead; he’s stepping on her feet and they are tripping over each other. Hopefully, they are laughing as they try to stay upright and not fall on the floor! They can’t come close to the way the older couples light up that dance floor.

Realize that this is the same in marriage. If you’ve been in it for 10 years or less, while that can seem like a long time, you are still young at this dance. It really takes a while to learn all the steps of marriage; to get in sync with your spouse; to be able to flow together like those couples who have been doing it for 20, 30, 40 plus years. Trust me, when those great dancers started out all those years ago, they weren’t cutting a rug like Fred and Ginger the way they can now. (If you aren’t a geezer, you probably don’t even know who Fred and Ginger even are!)

It is truly those who hang in and keep at it, even when the steps are tough, even when they trip and fall and stumble, that learn to dance so beautifully together. They perfect their dance and know just when the dips and turns come. They know how to move together in harmony. It works the same way in marriage.

Even late in life, when the inevitable effects of aging set in, when illness, surgeries, even dementia and such become a part of the routine… the dance continues. Couples still know the steps. He clears the table, she washes the dishes. He takes out the trash, she puts the new bag in. She starts the load in the washer, he puts it in the dryer. In these twilight years of life, couples have the dance of marriage worked out and can still move and flow together. But it took many years to reach that level of perfection; years of stumbling, grumbling, slips, trips, and falls.

Being good at anything takes time and it takes even more time when there are two of you. Keep practicing and working at the marriage dance with your spouse. And the next time you are at a wedding, draw some inspiration from those couples who are so effortlessly gliding across the floor. Grab your partner, hang on tight and don’t give up. As the song says:

Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Don’t worry about what you don’t know
Life’s a dance you learn as you go!

While there are many possible reasons for couples having little to no sex—from pornography and health issues to overbooked schedules and kids—there is one area I would like to address that can have a huge impact, especially in the early months and years of marriage. I hear frequently from people who knew it was wrong to become sexually involved while dating, yet they tripped up and committed the sin. Afterward they feel badly and let the guilt and remorse interfere with their sex lives years into the marriage. They see it as bad and sinful, even though they are now married and should be sexually active with their spouse. In some extreme cases, they never consummate the marriage or perhaps only have sex to try to get pregnant.

This is wrong. In my mind, denying your spouse and not meeting the sexual needs of your husband or wife is being sexually unfaithful and it’s a sin. Ultimately, they are committing the same sin as before. They are buying into lies that tell them to do the wrong thing. Only the devil himself could be that crafty and convince us that having sex is the right thing when it’s wrong, then turn the tables and equally convince us that not having sex is the right thing—when it’s really wrong!

The same issue is at the root of both sides of this problem: We haven’t learned to resist the devil. We don’t resist temptation and do what is right. Instead, we cave into our feelings and do what is wrong. The enemy of your soul will do everything he can to defeat you and ruin your life. Before marriage he’ll throw all kinds of temptations at you and lies to get you to cross that line, become sexually involved and commit the sin. People report to me all the time that when it happened, they felt so guilty and knew it was wrong. Then after they get married, they’ll continue to be the devil’s punching bag and allow him to mess with them, their marriage, and their family by filling them with all this guilt that says, “You messed up! You should feel bad! This isn’t right and you shouldn’t be enjoying it now that you are married!”

Satan is still convincing people to do the wrong things—but now it’s not having sex. I can’t state it clearly and strongly enough—not having sex in marriage is wrong. It is just as wrong as having sex outside of marriage. It will ruin and destroy a marital relationship. People continue to get the snot kicked out of them and don’t draw the line in the sand to say, “No! I will choose to do the right things and not the wrong things no matter how I feel.” They stay victims to the devil, buying the lies and letting the clouds of their past mistakes darken their marriage for the rest of their life.

Look, we’ve all done things that we wish we wouldn’t have done. We’ve all suffered from the consequences of them. But at some point you have to say enough is enough and move on. Resist the devil and he will flee is what scripture in the book of James tells us. It’s the same root issue but it just looks different on the outside. People don’t resist, they commit inappropriate and wrong behaviors and they suffer for it. If you have truly repented of your sin, God has forgiven you. Look up 1 John 1:9, better yet, memorize it. It tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Don’t let the lies and mistakes of the past hold you hostage in the present. Don’t let Satan dictate who you are and how you are going to behave anymore. He may have pulled the wool over your eyes in the past. He may have gotten you to stumble and fall, but go to God and confess it. Deal with it. Ask forgiveness, repent and forget yesterday. Quit allowing the devil to mop up the floor with you and defeat your life. Resist the enemy’s schemes, stand firm, stop doing the wrong thing and start doing the right thing today.

I finally came to this simple conclusion: sex makes you stupid. It really does. Having sex outside of marriage clouds your vision. People can’t see clearly and aren’t able to make a wise decision to save their souls. The potent spell of sex causes women (and some men) to tolerate and allow the most outrageous behaviors, continue the relationship into marriage, and then come to me a year, two or three into the deal and want me to unscramble the eggs. When I ask the obvious question, “Didn’t you see this before you got married?” they almost without fail say, “Yeah, but I thought it would be different when we got married.” It will be different, alright… it will be worse!

Becoming sexually involved with someone outside of marriage is a bad idea for many reasons. First and foremost a reason that not too many people, even Christians, actually consider is: because God said so! And when God says so, you think that would be good enough since the Almighty Maker of the Universe pretty much knows what he’s doing. If He says, “No,” it’s for good reason. God created sex and He also knows the power of it, and He knows that it will make you stupid! Stupid outside of marriage, but within the marriage covenant is another story.

This same phenomenon that makes men and women dumber than bricks when it comes to making the right decisions in premarital or extra-marital relationships, has extreme power when the sex is according to God’s plan. The very same idea that “sex clouds your vision” is wonderful and necessary in marriage. God has created sex to have this kind of effect so we can forget and overlook the faults and missteps, the offenses and transgression and forgive our spouse. It’s like a drug you can get a hit of that gives you selective amnesia. It’s also another reason why married people need to be having regular sex… so they can get a little clouded vision to overlook the everyday annoyances like toilet seats and toothpaste caps and sometimes the way bigger things that need to be forgiven. We should be “dumb” to those kinds of things.

The Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. God has given us the gift of sex, one of the very things that will aid and enable us to walk out this kind of love. But it only works to our benefit if the sex is in the context of marriage. Kind of like the analogy of fire only being a good thing when it’s contained in a fireplace. God made sex to be the single most powerful force to bring a husband and wife together and to keep them together. But it has to be in marriage or it is the equivalent of taking the fire and putting it on the living room floor. No more warmth and benefit, just a disastrous inferno.

So it is with this wonderful, God-created phenomenon of sex. While husbands and wives benefit greatly from the “cloudy vision” of sex in marriage, we should not be allowing this “sex-brain” to impact us outside of marriage — where people are definitely making decisions under the influence of stupid.

• Lower your risk of heart attack and stroke
• Reduce symptoms of depression
• Reduce risk of certain types of cancers
• Boost self-esteem and improve your mental health
• Reduce and relieve stress
• Help you sleep better
• Control your weight
• Increase your physical fitness
• Relieve pain
• Reduce the number of colds and flu
• Boost your immune system
• Improve bladder function
• Make you look younger
• Improve your reproductive health
• Prolong your life

And on top of these incredible benefits, this pill has no side effects, is completely safe, and it’s free! What would most people say? “Man, give me some of that!” Everyone would be in line trying to get the Wonder Drug. Point of fact, there is such a thing: it’s called sex. Studies have shown that sex has amazing health benefits. But let me point out that it’s not just any old sex—these studies show that the benefits do not come with the hot and heavy rush of new romance or illicit sex, but rather the sex that is a by product of a calm, stable, committed marriage. It’s not just sex. It’s long-term, married sex that is the Wonder Drug.

Researchers at Queens University have found that couples who have sex three times a week reap the benefits of it, including cutting the risk of heart attack and stroke in men by half. Women are always trying to get their husbands to eat better and exercise to improve their health, and that’s all fine, well and good. But no salad or morning jog can do all of the things that a healthy sex life can.

Another benefit is fewer colds and flu according to a Wilkes University in Pennsylvania study that says individuals who have sex once or twice a week show 30% higher levels of an antibody which is known to boost the immune system… Sex actually keeps you healthier!

In addition, other studies have found that hormones released during sex and found in semen can reduce depression, relieve pain of everything from migraines to arthritis to PMS. The same hormones can help improve sleep—even in those who suffer from insomnia, and they also reduce stress and improve mental health.

Check it out! These are just a few of the details on these studies! Yet, if I said this to women, the vast majority of them would snarl at me and say, “I’m not doing that!” This is absurd! This “miracle drug” is out there, free for the taking. This is one of the most beneficial things two human beings can do. Truly there is nothing else that exists that can do what sex does—yet the majority of people don’t take advantage of it.

We’ll do all kinds of other things, diets, exercise, medications, procedures, etc.—some with incredible side effects and risks associated with them, but we can’t manage to do the one thing that is risk-free and has been proven to improve not only your health, but your marriage as well. Wake up people! It’s time that we discover the Wonder Drug!

The truth is you may have to deal with some of these issues until the day one of you dies. Many couples think that once they’ve hashed something out, it will never come back and cause trouble again. But it’s not the reality of it. I’ve seen interviews with couples married a long time—like 65 or 75 years!—and when they are asked about how and when they resolved their differences, the answer is: they haven’t! They wrestled over the same things all these years later.

That’s life! It’s just the way it is. There will be some things that you continuously have to revisit. It can become exhausting and people can grow very weary. And the longer you have been married, the more tiring and discouraging it can be. The danger comes in when one spouse starts to think or say, “I can’t do this anymore.” It implies that you are giving up, that you won’t try and that you won’t fight for your marriage anymore. That must never be an option. We must always be willing to revisit and clean up the mess… no matter how often it appears.

It’s like being a dairy farmer cleaning up after his cows. Now farming can be very profitable and a person can get great gains from it, but the farmer also has to contend with all the mess! What if he or she went out to the barn one time, took care of all of the poop, then expected it to never come back? That would make no sense at all. It’s exactly the same in marriage where we have to keep cleaning the barn… even if it’s the same mess over and over. Because we are fallible human beings, living in a fallen world, we can mess up repeatedly and we just have to be willing to deal with it.

People live under the delusion that because they have talked about something or tackled it once, that it should be done, but it’s not true. Often problems arise from differences in temperament or just ingrained habits. But honestly, so much of what couples are faced with in marriage has a lot to do with pure selfishness on our parts. And because dying to self is a life long process, so is dealing with all the stuff that happens in our relationship in the meantime.

Wouldn’t it be great if just one discussion with your spouse early in your marriage took care of all the problems, issues, and garbage that could possibly come along? But that’s not how it works. Even the Apostle Paul wrote in that “he who marries will have trouble in this life.” Paul knew that being married was fraught with trials. We expect there to be problems in other areas, like in our jobs, in the church, with our kids, but some how in marriage we think that there should be a “one-time-fix-all” solution.

Parents will show, explain, teach, and discuss many times something they want their child to learn. They generally have the perseverance that it takes to stick with raising their kids and dealing with issues repeatedly. Parents who don’t, raise hellions! But that’s a whole other problem. You need to apply that same perseverance to your marriage and keep at it. You don’t clean your house one time and then think that it’s supposed to stay clean and perfect. Same is true for your marital relationship—you have to continuously take out the trash, deal with the stuff and junk and then you get a bit of a respite. But realize that the garbage will keep on coming and you will have to revisit it again.

Don’t grow weary; don’t give up. Readjust your expectations and know that it’s ok. Maybe you “can’t do this anymore” today, but regroup. Take a deep breath, face the issue yet again and remember that it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with your marriage because you are arguing about the same thing for the 547th time. Be like the dairy farmer and just clean up the mess and enjoy the “in the meantime” until you have to face it again.