Get Your Marriage On! with Dan Purcell

There are so many parallels between money and intimacy when it comes to marriage. For many people, money represents security. When money issues creep up, it can threaten our ability to trust our spouse. Issues revolving around spending habits in a marriage can add a lot of stress to the relationship. We also bring to a marriage two different world views on money, creating an opportunity for growth – requiring both people to lean in to each other and get more honest with each other throughout the process. Today I interview Juli and Thomas from Marriage Puzzle. They are marriage coaches who help others overcome pain points around money, intimacy, and communication so that they can go from feeling overwhelmed to feeling secure in their marriage.

You're about to meet my guests on today's episode, Zach and Darcy Spafford. Zach used to struggle with habitual pornography use and Darcy struggled with trying to figure out what to do with her feelings of hurt and mistrust. After applying certain tools and committing to serious growth together, they've not only overcome but are now thriving together in their relationship, as you'll see! They now host a podcast titled: The Self Mastery Podcast: Overcome Pornography Whether or not porn use is part of your story in your marriage, I hope you learn as much as I did from Zach and Darcy's courage and the action they took! You might also be interested in my Life After Pornography App!

Initiating sex can be a very powerful way to communicate love and desire to your spouse. Initiating is a powerful bid for connection. It's a way of saying, "I want to connect with you." Initiating can be very intimate. And it's very validating to be wanted sexually. To prepare for this episode, I ran an informal survey of our Instagram followers to get a better idea of what other couples struggle with when it comes to initiating. The answers were enlightening and I saw several patterns in the responses. I hope you find this episode just as insightful! Enjoy.

I'm interested in doing a podcast episode primarily for men about understanding intimacy, especially if it wasn't modeled in your home growing up. To be clear, I don't mean "intimacy" as a euphemism for sex. I mean Intimacy as in relational closeness: a willingness to know and be fully known by your spouse. Many men struggle to get emotionally close to their spouse. They confuse intimacy with sex. They think showing emotion is a sign of weakness (with the exception of anger). I don't know how accurate this is, but I once heard this cliver quip about how men want to penetrate their wives sexually and women want to penetrate their husbands emotionally. Yet so many men have never learned how to let another person into their heart. Today I interview Dr. Randell Turner, who's done a lot of research and ministry around teaching men intimacy skills. He's got an interesting story that you might relate to as well!

In every marriage, there is a spouse with higher desire for sex and a spouse with lower desire for sex. In this episode, I'll talk about the benefits of being higher or being lower desire. As the high desire spouse in my marriage, I know what it's like to feel anxious or "needy", and it's not attractive. I'll share some thoughts on what we can do about our anxieties to improve intimacy and connection in our marriages coming from a place of strength rather than weakness.

For this week's episode, we continue a Q&A session with Jenny Rose about sex and intimacy. Jenny is a family lifestyle influencer. She asked some questions from her audience that I tackle in last week's and this week's episode, such as: How do you balance time with yourself and with your spouse when you feel touched out at the end of the day How to transition from Mommy mode to Wife mode What to do with mismatched sex drives Toys, frequency, pregnancy, And many more wonderful questions Let's jump back in where we left off last week.

This episode is unique! Jenny Rose, a family influencer known as @princessturnedmom reached out to me and asked if she could do a podcast takeover and ask me some questions from her audience. How fun! Jenny likes to say she has Jesus in her heart and Disney in her veins. She was SO fun to have on the podcast. Check out PART ONE of two where we discuss your questions about sex and intimacy.

Today's podcast is for the husbands out there that want to make sex great. There's far more to just the mechanics and geometry of sex to being a good lover. There's romance, creating exciting erotic contexts, sharing mental loads, and much more that go into making love with not just your body but your heart too. This might just be my experience as a man, but we men don't get as much helpful education on how to be a good lover. So I'm excited to have Keith Gregoire along with his wife Sheila, author of The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex. I've read this book and it's excellent. Keith and Sheila have been writing about sex in marriage for 10 years, and is respected for her approachable easy-to-relate to, and humorous style towards improving sex in marriage. Be sure to listen to the very end because I'm giving away copies of their books, The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex and revamped The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex. Those details are after our interview.

It's normal to seek validation from our spouse in marriage. By validation I mean to get a sense of our legitimacy as a person and a spouse, such as being told we're sexy enough, pretty enough, and desirable. And it's normal to seek that validation. But what do you do when you don't feel it? What do you do when you feel like your spouse isn't interested in you romantically or sexually? What about those times you don't feel cherished or respected? If you're hoping to feel inspired today, you've come to the right place. Jessica shares how she grew more solid within herself in her circumstances and as a result has found great strength, even in her darkest moments. I think there's something wonderful in her message for everyone to hear! Jessica is a devoted Christian, is married to her sweetheart for over 17 years, and has four children.

Like most kids, I loved taking on new roles when I'd play with my friends and siblings… whether it was cops and robbers, or ninjas, or race car drivers, there's a creative & playful element to trying on new roles and identities. As an adult in a romantic and committed relationship, you can bring that same creativity and playfulness into the bedroom through role play! Many couples role play instinctively to one degree or another as a way to add healthy newness and creative fun to bedroom play. My wife and I have always been interested in what role play sex is and fortunately, we met Jon and Katie Runyan, who are experts at role play sex and the founders of Faithful Fling. Whether you're new to the concept of role-playing or have a lot of experience getting into character in your encounters, I'm sure you'll love this episode!