Alphabet Date
I present to you the Alphabet Date. The premise is that you start with the letter A and work your way through Z, only doing activities or going to places that correspond with the letter you’re on.
Aftercare
Aftercare is as essential to the sexual experience as foreplay. Foreplay helps you get ramped up, aftercare assists with the come down. It helps to make both spouses feel cared for and not like the sex was a means to an end or the nearest body to meet a need.
Justice & Chastity: The Marriage Debt
In our modern, independent, self-centered world, the idea of another person having rights over someone else’s body is likely to elicit ideas of enslavement and abuse. It will likely come as a shock to many married Catholics that their marriage vows formed a contract by which they gave their spouse a right to sexual intercourse with them. This right to the marital act is called the marital debt (debitum nuptiale). Now whenever we are talking about a debt we are talking about something that pertains to the virtue of justice. If I have something that belongs to you and you ask for it, then in justice I am obligated to give it to you. So when we talk about paying the marriage debt, we are talking about fulfilling a duty in justice.
The Importance of Novelty
Think about when you’re sick and you haven’t left the house or a specific room for days and you start to feel stir crazy. This is your mental health telling you it needs a squash or a pumpkin to keep up engagement.
The Marriage Bed: Holy of Holies of the Family
When you look at your marriage bed, just remember that it is here that lives are conceived to give glory to God for all the rest of eternity and Our Lord went to His cross thinking and loving them. This thought alone should fill us with awe and reverence for this sacred space. If it is the altar, then it is also the cross. It is the cross upon which we sacrifice our pride, our selfishness, our lust, all of our sins and vices. We offer them to God through our spouse.
Safeguarding Your Marriage
We talk about how God is pure. And we’re made in His image. Well if we’re made in His image, then we should be pure throughout marriage and what does that look like to safeguard it?
Making Out with Your Wife
When was the last time that you made out with your wife? Was it the last time that you made love? Was it the last time you had a fight and then could hardly make it to the bedroom in time for some hot makeup sex?
Marital Lubricants: Morality and Efficacy
Please forgive the click bait title. It has come to my attention that some people think that artificial marital lubrication (sex lube) is somehow or other intrinsically evil or is only meant for immoral practices. Hopefully this article will set the record straight and set pious minds at ease.
Back Story
As is now public knowledge, we struggle with infertility. That has led to lots of time talking with Megan’s OB/GYN. One of the things that we quickly learned was that for couples like us, lubes may be medically recommended, but that not all lubes are created equal. A lube that seems safe (non-spermicidal) might be so thick that sperm can hardly swim in it. That has led to lots of research on this topic and was one of the reasons that we were inspired to launch Catholic Intimacy. We would rather spare other young Catholic couples the frustration of trying to be open to life and yet inadvertently self-sabotaging.
Decompression & Reconnection
Is the difficulty of your day hindering your relationship with your spouse? Are you often zoned out, gone to play video games, or distracted? Let’s talk about two scenarios people might fall into and what you can do about it to build intimacy with your spouse.
The Ends of Marriage & Graces
Catholic Intimacy is partially a response to the plethora of erroneous marriage resources claiming to be Catholic. On one side we have Jansenists, who think that they are traditional, and on the other we have liberals who are pure hedonists. Catholic theology on marriage falls well between these two extremes, unfortunately the Church’s teachings on the matter can be rather difficult to find, unless you read Latin and have access to old theological manuals. Fortunately for us, I do read Latin, I do have a collection of reputable manuals in my library, and I have over ten years of formation to know how to read them and explain them for you.
Beauty, Confidence, and Lingerie
In the same way that makeup is a confidence booster for your face, lingerie can be this way in the bedroom. It’s meant to enhance your already gorgeous figure and highlight what your husband probably loves most about your body.
Family Prayers: Spiritual Intimacy
We all know that daily prayer is essential for a healthy spiritual life, but how are we doing on this front? How much and how often should we strive to pray as a family? The short answer is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Some families might have the time and resources to go to daily Mass, weekly adoration, daily Rosary, etc. Other families might not realistically be able to do all that.
Intimacy Amidst Infertility
Of course he wanted to jump in and rescue me from myself, and assure me I shouldn’t feel that way, but I needed to give it to God. James’s reassurance was a band-aid to a much deeper issue that I felt like I should be in charge of my own timeline and I didn’t trust that the Lord would fulfill his promises to me.
A Wife’s Submission
Submission. It can bring up a lot of quick feelings. While I think most Catholic women are aware of this topic and the bible verses that mention it, not so many practice it.
The Servant King: the Nature of a Husband
There is an ongoing debate in Catholic circles, especially Traditional Catholic circles, about the appropriate or ideal gender roles in the family. While that is an important topic and one that we will discuss in greater detail in future blog posts, I think that it is important to remember that being precedes action. So the roles of man and wife should flow as an authentic expression of the natures of man and wife.
Dating Your Spouse
Knowing every single thing about the other person isn’t the goal. The goal is committing to continue to learn about this person for the rest of your life.
Spoons and Scales: Tools for more than just the kitchen
Every person brings their own experience, beliefs, and perspectives to the table for every single interaction. These expectations drive emotions and can either create or destroy intimacy, depending on how they’re handled.
Three Hour Conversations
When was the last time you and your beloved had a three hour conversation? And I don’t mean three hours of smalltalk over the course of a date night. I mean a heart-to-heart, one-on-one dialogue. This website is the fruit of one such conversation. Moving to Saint Louis from Nashville was the fruit of another. Our marriage was the fruit of another. Our first date came of yet another.
Can sex be meritorious?
When sex comes up in Catholic circles it is usually as something immoral (fornication, adultery, etc.) or as that fun thing that married couples do to make babies. It is much rarer to hear anyone say that sex can be meritorious. It’s as though most Catholics believe that even within the bonds of marriage sex is morally tolerated, i.e. a fault or morally indifferent, but not something that is pleasing to God. Let’s look more closely at what makes an act meritorious or sinful to better understand the marital act and what that means for our moral lives.
