Samantha: Barbara Rainey likens sexual intimacy in marriage to a secret garden—a place that only a husband and wife go together. She says it’s a risky place.

Barbara: It is a place of raw exposure. It is a place of being real with one another. It is the place where we are most transparent in our marriage relationship, so we need the walls of a commitment. Both of us need the security and the comfort of knowing that we’ve got a perimeter around our marriage much like a rock wall around a secret garden. We need that commitment to be in place.
Samantha: Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast, dedicated to helping you be changed by Jesus which will, in turn, transform your family and your home. Thanks for listening!

When she wrote the book Letters to My Daughters, Barbara wanted to help her own daughters and daughters-in-law learn what she calls “the art of being a wife.”

When we refer to the “art” of something, we’re saying it’s not exactly a science. It varies from individual to individual.

That certainly is the case in marriage, and it’s especially true in the area of sexual intimacy. A podcast episode like this one or even a book like Barbara’s will never be able to address every detail of your exact situation.

But there are, of course, general patterns that tend to apply in most marriages… principles that hold true for everyone.

Barbara dedicates a whole chapter in Letters to My Daughters to this subject, and that’s what she and her husband Dennis will be talking about today.

Dennis and Barbara Rainey helped found FamilyLife, a division of Cru, in 1978. In the years since then, they’ve written numerous books, they’ve spoken to hundreds of thousands, and they’ve raised six children of their own. And, as of September 2022, they’ve been married for half a century.

Here’s Dennis.

Dennis: I just want to pray for our audience; because as I was preparing to come in here, reading Barbara’s book, I thought: “You know? Oh my! How broken are we as human beings—how many different perspectives we come at this subject.” There are some listeners who’ve been hurt deeply by their past choices and some are in present relationships. I just want God to intervene and minister to—whether they’re single, married, divorced, single parents—I just want to ask God to meet every person where they are:
Father, You made us, male and female. There is no surprise in terms of how we function. You made us to merge together and become one.

Yet, what You designed, man has degenerated and has twisted. You know that as well.

You know where each listener is, who is tuning in today. I just would ask You to be gentle with each of them. Minister to them just where they are. Produce some hope, some help, and some encouragement to each person listening.

For the guys, who are listening in, Father, I pray that they might listen with some understanding. We tend to be too quick to judgment on this subject. I pray for all of us just to be wise in terms of what we hear and what we apply. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
Samantha: Barbara’s book is written in a question-and-answer style… questions she collected from her own daughters or pieced together from what she’s been asked over the years. Here’s the question that starts off chapter 6:
“So yeah. Sex. You gave me ‘the talk,’ and we had our pre-wedding conversation that was pretty short and hurried. No offense; it was busy. I get it. But now I’m married. And it’s um…different. Fine. FINE. But, well, I have to ask this…what’s the big deal?”

Barbara: It’s a great question. You know, it was one that I just had to think about a lot. Actually, I had to think about all these questions a lot because, as Dennis prayed, this topic—this part of our marriage relationship—is not easy.

It’s not simple. It’s not cut and dried. It’s not black and white. It’s very complicated; and even though it’s very good, it’s very complicated.

My short answer to “What is the big deal?” is that it takes a long, long time to understand what God has built into us, as men and women. It takes a while to understand the purpose of sex. It takes a while to undo things that we’ve brought into our marriage. It just takes time. I think, in our culture today, more than in any other generation, we expect instant results in every area of our lives.
We’re so used to having instant access to information. We just don’t know how to wait—we don’t know how to persevere. We don’t know how to have patience.

I think, in this area of marriage, our expectation for change to happen quickly and for results to be mastered fast, is a misplaced hope; because I think, in the long run, marriage is a marathon. It's a lifetime race. Figuring out why it’s a big deal takes a lot of time. There’s not an instant answer to that question. It’s all about getting to know each other in the marriage relationship. It’s me getting to know my husband, as a man, and him getting to know me, as a woman. That isn’t going to take place quickly.

Dennis: If you go back to Genesis, as it describes two people becoming one—there was a progression that God declared. He said, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one [emphasis added].” One of the problems—and many of our listeners may be experiencing this right now—we have reversed the order.

We’re trying to become one without the leaving and the cleaving—the commitment that really bonds two broken human beings' hearts to one another and gives you the only chance of two broken people experiencing marriage for a lifetime, as Barbara was talking about here.

Barbara: In the book I tell the story of a book that we used to read when our kids were growing up, called The Secret Garden. It’s the story of a young woman, a young girl, who grew up in a huge manor estate in England. As she was growing up there, she discovered this garden; and it was a secret garden. It had walls all the way around it that were six to eight feet tall, brick or stone walls. As she dug through the ivy, she found a door. The door was locked and she couldn’t get in. Over time, she began to continue to dig around. One day, she found a key and was able to unlock the door and go in.

I use that story in the book because I liken this area of our marriage—this intimacy, this sex in our marriage—to a secret garden.

It’s a place that only a husband and wife go together—no one else is allowed. It is for them only. I think the reason commitment is so important is because it is a place of raw exposure—it is a place of being real with one another—it is the place where we are most transparent in our marriage relationship. We need the walls that that secret garden had. We need the walls of a commitment. We need that security, as women in particular, but men need it as well for us to experience what God intended for us to experience in marriage. Both of us need the security and the comfort of knowing that we’ve got a perimeter around our marriage much like a rock wall around a secret garden. We need that commitment to be in place.

Samantha: This is something that goes way beyond just the biological experience of sex. What Barbara and Dennis are talking about is the Biblical idea of becoming one, in every sense. It’s more than physical. It’s true intimacy. Knowing and being known.

Dennis: I think one of the least understood passages in Scripture—there’s a reason why we can’t understand it—Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 25. I’m going to read it and then I’m going to explain why we don’t understand it—it says, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” That verse comes right after the leave, cleave, and become one. The reason we can’t understand what that means—we have never experienced what Adam and Eve did in the garden before the fall.

Barbara: That’s right; yes.

Dennis: Two people, totally naked, totally exposed, totally transparent with one another—and there was no shame. There was joy. There was delight. There was the experience of God and one another. There was no hiding in a marriage back then.

When it comes to the subject of sex, I think we’re trying to get to that point of being naked and unashamed; but we don’t know how to get there. So a lot of single people are co-habiting—they’re thinking they can experience the sexual delights of marriage without the commitment, and they can’t! Barbara’s talking about a commitment that creates safety around this garden.

Barbara: That’s what we get married for—we get married to be loved unconditionally. That’s our expectation and our hope when we say, “I do”; but we don’t realize that it’s not just the physical oneness that produces that. It’s all of the conversations—it’s learning to be, as Dennis just said, naked and unashamed. That does not happen quickly.

Samantha: Think about what happened in Genesis. Immediately after that verse, where Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, comes Genesis chapter 3. It’s what Dennis referred to as the Fall. Sin entered the picture and messed everything up. When that happened, what was the first thing that Adam and Eve experienced?

Shame. And with it, fear. Fear in general, but specific fears, too. Barbara says the ripple effects of sin coming into the world affect all of life.

Barbara: I think we vastly underestimate the fears that we bring into marriage. All of us come into marriage with fears, even if we don’t have past experiences that were negative or were difficult. We still have the fear of rejection. We have the fear of exposure. We have the fear of being known—just the question, “If he really knew me as I am inside, as I know I am inside, would he still love me?” A man thinks the same thing, “If she really knew what I thought, if she really knew who I was, would she still accept me?”

I think that fear—that we all bring into a marriage—it takes time to expose those fears, because it’s a risk to do so. It takes time to work toward that place of being unashamed. It doesn’t ever totally go away, because it won’t until we go to heaven; but we can make great progress. We can make great strides in that comfort level that we all long for when we get married.

Dennis: And I would ask you, Barbara, as a young wife might come to you, what would you say is the most important thing she needs to know as she approaches this most intimate area of the marriage relationship. What does she need to know and do?

Barbara: I think the first thing she needs to know—and she may already know this—but I think it bears repeating—and that is that marriage is holy. I think that when we see it as—not just a gift, not just a privilege, not just something we get to experience—but there is an element o f marriage that has a holy aspect to it; because God created it and because He lives in our lives, there is a holiness there. I think that helps us put it in right perspective—it helps us go: “Well no wonder it’s so hard! No wonder it’s a challenge to discover the kind of oneness that we got married for.”

Secondly, from there, I want to say, too, that I would strongly encourage any young wife to remember that it’s an important part of the relationship. It’s really a mirror of the rest of your relationship. You may feel like you’re having good sex; but if you’re not really becoming one—if you’re not really being transparent with one another—then you’re not going to be really growing together in other areas of your relationship.

It’s important that you keep that area of your marriage healthy and growing and keep it alive. The temptation is—when it gets hard, is to just say, “Well, forget it!” but you can’t give up on it because it’s one of the important parts that God has built into a marriage. Because God created it and God sanctioned it, then we need to learn what He wants us to do with it—we need to figure it out.

Samantha: What would Barbara say to a wife who says, “I like the idea of sex in general, but when it comes down to it, too often I’m tired and I lack the energy.”

Barbara: I talk about that in the book, because that is such a common complaint for women. I get it! I was tired all the time—and Dennis used to say he would be a very wealthy man if he had a dollar for every time I said, “I am so tired!” [Laughter] Right?

Dennis: Right! [Laughter]

Barbara: But even if we are so tired—and we are—and a lot of women are exhausted all the time because of the responsibilities of jobs and kids—and just the emotional weight of being in life. There are just so many ups and downs that we feel so deeply; and yet, it’s learning to prioritize your life.

It’s deciding, during a particular day, that you’re going to take a nap so you’ve got more energy for your husband at night or it’s choosing not to add these things to your schedule so that you can have more energy and more focus for your marriage. It’s choosing to keep your marriage a priority—make it a priority. That’s hard to do sometimes. There were plenty of times when I would take a nap in the afternoon and I’d still be exhausted at night.

Dennis: That’s correct! [Laughter]

Barbara: It’s not a quick and easy solution. [Laughter]

Dennis: I just want to insert something. There are men, who are listening right now: “That’s right! She’s just tired too much.” To which I would say to the guys: “Are you cleaning up the kitchen after dinner? Are you helping to get the kids ready for bed?—brush their teeth, read them a story, pray with them. Get down on your knees, next to them, and look them in the eyes and ask them how their day was,”—but take some of your wife’s load off of her and assume it yourself!

There is a concept in the Bible called “bearing one another’s burdens.” I do think some guys—they want sex, but they don’t want the process of loving. That means nourishing, which is creating growth, and cherishing, which is creating value. They don’t want to do that with their wife. When you help your wife with her household duties, with the kids and all—you’re making a statement of value to your wife that she ultimately will hear.

Samantha: Barbara says for some couples, the wife is interested, but it’s her husband who’s not.

Barbara: I interviewed a couple of young women when I wrote this particular portion of the chapter because I wanted to know what they thought, and what they felt, and what they were experiencing. It’s interesting—I don’t have statistics to back this up—but I did do some research and talked to a number of different counselors and different people.

I think, oftentimes, there are issues in a young man’s life that are keeping him from wanting to have sex with his wife; and typically, it’s pornography.

In the women that I talked to—when I was preparing to write this chapter—that was the issue with most of these young men. There was so much shame attached to them as men / as young men because they were exposed, when they were children or when they were teenagers, and they just didn’t know how to handle it—they still don’t know how to handle it. That shame is keeping them from wanting to be one, sexually, with their wives.

Whether it is pornography or whether it is something else, the encouragement that I got from those that I talked to and that I would offer to you is that this is a concern that you need to carry with him. Dennis just mentioned, a minute ago, the verse, “Bear one another’s burdens.” Once you become married, your burdens become one another’s. You need to carry those burdens together.

I would encourage a wife, who is in that situation, to say to her husband: “You know, I know this is hard; and this is hard for me, too. Let’s go find someone who can help us; because I’m committed to you for a lifetime, and you agreed to be committed to me for a lifetime. Let’s figure out what we need to do. Let’s find what challenges we need to face. Let’s do the work together to make our marriage what God intended it to be.”

I know—from talking to these women—that it can change / it can be redeemed. God can change those broken places in both of our lives and bring you to a place where marriage is what you wanted it to be and where sex, in particular, is as God designed it to be.

Samantha: Well, again, Barbara Rainey’s book is Letters to My Daughters. And the subtitle is The Art of Being a Wife. It includes an entire chapter on sexual intimacy in marriage.

And right now, you can order a softcover copy of Letters to My Daughters when you make a donation of $30 or more to support the ministry of Ever Thine Home.

For all the details, just head to EverThineHome.com/letterspodcast. We’ll send you the paperback edition of Letters to My Daughters by Barbara Rainey with your gift of $30 or more. That website is EverThineHome.com/letterspodcast.

I’m Samantha Loucks, thanking you for listening to the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home.