Marriage Counselor, Wife Discuss Dishes, Laundry as Foreplay, Misconceptions About Women, Sex
CP: Culturally women are not encouraged to talk about sex in the same way men are. So how do you want to reach women with this series?
Ashley Willis: I think you've really hit the nail on the head right there. Just first of all we want to get women talking. I was actually at a women's retreat a months of weeks ago. It was all women and we were just hanging out and one woman, I can't remember how we got into the conversation, but she basically said that she was just kind of disgusted with her sex life. And it was funny, just because she brought it up, there were a few other wives who kind of chimed in saying "I know, we struggle with this too." And it was probably the first time that I have been around a group who was able to be open and honest and I could tell that when she first said it she was a little reluctant and a little embarrassed but then it really got the conversation going.
With this series, we really just wanted to get women talking and not just with each other, we really want them talking with their husbands because that's kind of what with the women I was talking to, that's what it really came down to. I was like have you ever told your husband this, have you ever talked about your feelings, your disappointments and feeling like it's a chore (and) she said "no, I just feel embarrassed and I feel like he won't understand." With the series Dave and I and the other couple really encourage people to not be embarrassed. If you can't talk about it, then it's never going to be fixed and you're never going to have the sex life that you want.
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Also… a lack of communication about sex in marriage can lead to either being just really dissatisfied by the sex life or people even looking outside the marriage and so it's just so important to be open to talk about it.
CP: What are some misconceptions about women and sex that women might believe about themselves or that husbands believe about their wives?
Ashley Willis: I think a lot of times, like you said before, that men – people assume that men are much more comfortable talking about it because studies show that men think about it more often than women. But that doesn't mean that we don't think about or we don't have desires.
I do think when we are being raised, especially in Christian homes… our parents teach us to be chase which is biblical, to save ourselves for our husbands. But in that process, we're taught that sex is a dirty thing or it's the thing we just don't talk about until we're getting ready to be married. I understand where parents are coming from but I think a better approach would be to talk about what a gift sex is, that God designed this amazing gift for marriage and it's like the best gift you get to celebrate on your wedding night and that's why you want to save yourself. But it's not dirty at all but it's very powerful and so if it's used in the wrong way, it could hurt you and it can hurt that other person. I think that's how we need to approach it
I think so many times and me included and I actually talk about this in the series, I was raised kind of in that way where it was something we never talked about, it was something dirty and I know my parents did this solely to help me. I know they had the best of intentions but it was very hard for me to flip that switch when it came to getting married and you deal with so many emotions. You feel – if you've been taught your whole life that sex is kind of this dirty thing and now you're married, you can't just automatically become this person who feels completely comfortable with sex. So I do think we're doing a disservice to our daughters if we don't raise them up to know it is beautiful and we teach where sex is supposed to take place.
CP: I asked your husband about this but I want to pose the question to you too, how can couples use the key marriage principals to build and strengthen the sexual relationship?
Ashley Willis: With the cleaning thing we always tease and say if you're doing the dishes, that's like foreplay to us or putting away laundry. But I also think women especially – and this is what Dave talks about, with men it's easy for them to kind of put everything else on the backburner and just have sex. I don't know if they're just wired differently that way but with women, even if Dave and I had a fight that day or if there's something that I haven't told him that I'm kind of angry at him about and he may be completely unaware of it, it's hard for me to get in that mood because there's something that's unresolved. So I think obviously a healthy part of a healthy marriage is that communication, you know, not letting things be unsaid, don't build up resentment, don't let a fight go unresolved and just like with that being a heathy part of communication. I do believe that directly affects our sex life as well.
