So…

During an impromptu counseling session, the person—a divorced guy who was a virgin on his wedding night—shared with me something that I am sensing is an “underground trend” within marriage: “Our wedding night was a huge let down because we both had all of these expectations that couldn’t be fulfilled. We weren’t prepared and it ended up affecting out sex life for a really long time.”

We. Weren’t. Prepared.

Amazing how the Church (in general) seeks to promote purity until marriage but not sexual purpose, pleasure and satisfaction after it, isn’t it? Personally, I’m starting to think that there should be about four LONG sessions on marital intimacy in premarital counseling alone.

Anyway, in my quest to make a bit of sense of it all, as a woman, I went to see what some men claim to need in order to have a healthy and solid relationship. Here’s a list of 18 of ’em that I found from an article entitled, “18 Secrets Guys Wish You Knew“:

Men Will Talk About Feelings
Men Say ‘I Love You’ With Actions
Men Take Commitment Seriously
He Really Is Listening
Shared Activities Form Bonds
Men Need Time for Themselves
Men Learn From Their Fathers
Men Let Go Faster Than Women
Men Don’t Pick Up on Subtle Cues
Men Respond to Appreciation
Men Think About Sex … A Lot
Men Find Sex Significant
He Likes It When You Initiate Sex
Guys Aren’t Always Up for Sex
Men Like Pleasing Their Partner
Guys Get Performance Anxiety
Men May Stray When Needs Aren’t Met
He’s Vested in You

And yes, since I know that we tend to “like” to *idealize* matters, ones like “men may stray when needs aren’t met” may get under some people’s skin. But Scripture kind of implies that as well in I Corinthians 7:5. Anyway, the question for the today is this. Actually, it comes in three parts:

1) If you are a man reading this list, how accurate is it? What would you add and what would you subtract?

2) If you are a woman reading this list, what didn’t you know? What don’t you believe/accept?

3) Oh, and I peeped that sex was seven of the 18 things and so the final question is “What should we be doing to better prepare *both sexes* when it comes to sexual intimacy?”

‘Cause personally, I think if we were more *positively proactive* on these kinds of matters on the single side of education, there would be less *negative reactions* after the fact.

And since sex is a part of marriage, then the topic should be a part of marital preparation.

Sound off…