Covenant marriage joins together a man and a woman where the intimacy of sexual relations is right and divinely approved. This couple, once married, then join in a process of creating their expressions of sexual love together. This sexual stewardship is unique and sacred to every couple. Each individual, coming from different childhood experiences, develops attitudes and ideas regarding sexuality. These subliminal understandings or meaning infiltrate our ability to embrace ourselves as sexual beings. They limit our growth in becoming sexual stewards in our marriages. The meanings, the predisposed, precipitated, maintained and contextual factors, or the things that we believe about sex, cause most of the psychosocial difficulties in sexual expression and development. (Althol, S. E., Needle, R. B. “Psychological and interpersonal dimensions of sexual function and dysfunction in women: An update”, Arab Journal of Urology, 2013 Sept, 11(3); 298-304).
As I have worked with couples throughout the years, I have found that it is helpful for each spouse to individually process his or her sexual standards of behavior. This process involves reflecting on and writing the understanding you had in your family of origin, Church lessons, schooling experiences with teachers or peers, and information from the Internet. Once you and your spouse have written your sexual “rules” independently, it is important to share them with each other. This experience must be done in love, with the purpose of better understanding each other and creating together a marital sexual plan to which both agree. This may take some soul searching; it definitely will require understanding, patience, teamwork, and time.
As you determine what rules you want to have in your relationship, think about what you want individually and as a couple. What type of sexual expression is wanted to enhance the goodness and strength of your relationship? Create together a plan for your sacredly unique and fully covenanted loving style. Some guidelines may look like this:
- We will pray for more sexual understanding and cohesion.
- We will be the only two people in our bedroom—physically, emotionally, and mentally.
- We will create a time and space to regularly nourish our marital intimacy.
- With courage and respect we will explore the passionate aspects of our relationship.
As you develop your own marital “rulebook”, you will begin to develop ideas about how to better become each other’s sexual stewards. God ordained marital sexuality. This is part of “…a divine plan designed by Heavenly Parents who love us.” (M. Russell Ballard, When Thou Art Converted: Continuing Our Search For Happiness Deseret Book, 2001, p. 62). Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has said, “Our theology begins with heavenly parents. Our highest aspiration is to be like them.” (Dallin H. Oaks, “Apostasy and Restoration,” Ensign, May 1995, p. 84.) One of the most significant ways we can become like Them involves loving sexual expression because it brings a wife and husband closer together, uniting and replenishing them.
