-Have sex often! You both need this time together regularly (3-4 times a week is a good start. lol). And when you may not be able to actually have intercourse for a period of time or for health issues, find other ways to have fun and be intimate. Let your spouse know that you’re aways [sic] available. Guard against fulfilling sexual desires alone. Be open with your spouse about your desires and change things up to keep it exciting! (Philippians 2:3-4; 1 Corinthians 7:5) If you’re struggling with sex with your spouse, GET HELP! See a doctor and/or licensed counselor and don’t be afraid to get second opinions!
Like most advice written by Duggars, your mileage may vary. I think couples are better off deciding how often having sex makes sense for them rather than trying to hit a number that works for Jill and Derick. There's something about the way this section is written that sounds exhausting rather than inspiring. Nothing can get in the way of having regular orgasms with your spouse. Not illness, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, or menstruation apparently. Oh, and just doing whatever works well for both partners is not enough; you have to keep sex exciting!
The quote from Philippians 2 follows Paul's explanation of how some other Christian preachers are jerks who are preaching against him, but good preachers preach out of love for Christ rather than glory. That's what Philippians 2 is discussing, not the importance of hand jobs in a marriage. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 7 starts and ends with the caveat that Paul believes being celibate is spiritually superior to being sexually active - but having sex with a married spouse of the opposite sex is better than being involved in orgies.
Being ready for sex with your spouse at any time is a fringe belief in the history of Christian religion. The Old Testament requires that husbands have sex with their wives - but that is to give the wife a chance to produce a son who could support her if she outlives her husband. Within that context, there are still plenty of times where intercourse is forbidden like during menstruation, after a child's birth and during certain times of national mourning. Early Christianity believed that Jesus was returning any day now so abstaining from sex made a lot of sense when the world was going to be plunged into disorder and war which is a bad time to have a toddler. Eventually, Christianity moved away from the idea of an immediate return of the Christ - but even then - the idea that men and women should have sex whenever they wanted just because would have struck people as insane. Men and women had a ton of work to do each day to earn a living, prepare food, prepare textiles, and care for dependents. That didn't leave a lot of time for spontaneous sex when your husband came home just because you could.
Next sex-related tip:
-Look nice for him. It’s easy to get home and throw on the frumpy pjs and wash your makeup off, but make sure that a few times a week you enjoy time together looking like you would hanging out when you were dating! Plus, even if you work from home, just getting fixed up in the morning can give you a boost to your day!
This tip sounds like Jill took a piece of advice from Redbook on looking great for your husband and tried to make it more relevant by ad-libbing what Jill thinks life is like for moms who work outside of the home. Unfortunately, since Jill's experience with working for wages is limited, her advice feels condescending. On days that I stay home with my son, I'm busy enough that I don't have time to change into jammies as soon as I get home from his therapy appointments or running errands. Even if I wanted to, I have a tired, hungry toddler to take care of first and various chores around the house and yard to finish after that. I am more likely to throw on jammies when I get home from work, but that's because my shifts often go to 10pm at night and I'm tired. My husband is fine with that because he's an adult man, not a self-centered, horny teenager. I did like trying to wear nicer clothing and makeup when I was in the weeds of being a full-time SAHM, but that was for my benefit, not my husband's benefit. Taking a few minutes to feel like I was dressed in flattering clothing and wearing some makeup reminded me that it was ok to carve out some time for me while caring for a medically complicated baby. (I'm also pretty solid at getting baby barf stains out of clothing, so your mileage may vary. )
Next sexy tip:
-Go to bed fresh! It’s easy to just want to shower in the morning to wake ourselves up, but showering in the evening (and sometimes before he gets home if you arrive home before him!), and even putting on fragrant lotion in front of him can be another way to say “I care” and “you’re important to me,” and lets him know you’re up for fun whenever he is.
I've been a night showerer all of my life. Wrestling three kids through showers while two adults were getting ready for work in a one-bathroom house was a no-go, so we all got used to showering in the evening. I suspect many CP/QF bread winners take showers at night, too, because working in food service, retail, manufacturing, machinery repair, and every outdoor business I can think of makes a worker hot and dirty.
I asked my husband if my habit of showering in the evening was a way that communicated "I care about you" or "I love you!". He said no.
Jill's idea of putting on fragrant lotion in front of my husband makes me feel itchy. My skin reacts badly to a lot of added scents. My husband's skin does too - so slathering myself in something he's allergic to is not very sexy. I guess I could try sexily rubbing Eucerin all over myself - but is it sexy when your partner feels like a greased piglet and shines with an oily glow?
Ignoring the prickly sensations from my skin for a moment, I'm curious how this goes down in a house with a toddler and a preschooler. Are they still running around? Is this for after-bedtime hijinks for parents? Do the Dillards try and pull of quickies while the two kids are temporarily distracted? That wouldn't work well for me. I'd be so busy listening for a toddler bursting into the room we were in and yelling "Ello!" or - conversely - wondering what is keeping the toddler occupied so quietly while out of our sight that I wouldn't enjoy our time together.
-Be confident about your body. Chances are, he is less concerned about the things you’re worried about him not liking than you are. He will be happier when you are confident about yourself. And if there are things you can change or do to be more confident about yourself, then maybe it’s worth doing, or setting a goal to eventually get there!
I like the idea of women being confident about their body. I differ in that I believe women should be confident for their own good rather than so that their husbands will enjoy sex with them more. I love my body. I use it to lift heavy objects, grow food for my family and cuddle my son. I appreciate how my body has overcome a crazy amount of obstacles like being born at 29 weeks with way too much blood due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, repaired two burst lungs from a respirator, and survived a liver-vs-placenta war when pregnant with my son. Being down on my body because I'm fat would be ungrateful - and I practice gratitude.Jill's advice is poisoned by telling her readers that it's ok to wait to be more confident in their bodies until the readers manage to fix something they don't like about their body. Guess what? The way to become more confident is to become more confident! Choose to value your body. Make a list of everything your body does well. Create an affirmation you repeat throughout the day to retrain your brain away from negative thoughts into kind thoughts.
I wonder if Jill's struggles with body-negativity are related to her mom's struggle with bulimia. In the book 'authored' - but ghost-written - by the Duggar daughters, the combined older daughters discuss how their mom struggled with bulimia as a teenager until she met Jim Bob. Jim Bob acted as an accountability partner and *poof* her bulimia was overcome. My read on the situation is that her control issues found another outlet when they joined IBLP and started producing a baby or two a year for several decades. Either way, I hope that Jill moves beyond disliking her body - and that Michelle did too.
CP/QF culture teaches that there are two steps to keeping men from having affairs. The first step is for their wives to be sexually available all_the_time. The second step is for wives to cling to their husbands like a limpet. The final post in the series will look at Jill's tips for becoming a marriage mollusc.
Which reminds me once again: Imagine being married to a CP/QF guy with a lower libido than you. Good luck keeping a healthy self-image when half your waking hours are dedicated to getting hubby to enjoy your Eucerin-slathered at LEAST 3 times a week when he started out wanting to do so only once a week and is now feeling so pressured he doesn't get into it more than once a month.
ReplyDeleteWow...that's quite a mental image, isn't it?
DeleteLike most problems in marriage, talking about libido is better than trying to slime your way into being the best wife.
Not to mention being allowed to try out what sex is like before you commit for life, so as to avoid extreme incompatibility. All the rest you can talk about.
DeleteWhy is she trying to write advice for working moms? I thought she didn't think women should work. Or are these women getting home from the grocery store? That seems silly. Why would they be shopping in the evening? Getting shopping done on weekday mornings was my favorite part of my brief unemployment.
ReplyDeleteWell second favorite, first was taking my son to the library.
DeleteI assumed at first she was writing to other SAHMs - but that made even less sense to me. Running errands with a small kid in tow sucks - and I doubt it gets easier with more small kids - but I couldn't work out a situation where changing into jammies after running errands made much sense. With Spawn, I occasionally have triple appointment days where he has two therapy appointments in the morning and I have therapy or a medical appointment for myself in the afternoon. Those are exhausting for both us since I either cart him to and from my parents' house before and after my appointment or bring a curious/nervous toddler to my medical appointment.
DeleteEven on those days, we're out of the house from say 9am-6 pm but I still keep clothes on until after I eat dinner. (Thank God for takeout on those nights!)
This whole thing reads like Michelle Duggar speaking. How long have these two been married now? Five minutes? Honestly, I really don't feel like however long they've been married is enough time for her to give advice.
ReplyDeleteIt feels a lot more like advice she heard from her mom her whole life and now that she's married she feels like she can wax sage as well.
Definitely does not sound like someone with actual life experience talking.
Jill and Derick have been married 5 years. It's been a fairly eventful five years between the public announcement of Jill's sexual assault by her brother, Derick's continual job hopping, and Izzy and Sam's home births gone terribly wrong.
DeleteHaving said that, the job hopping and home births were due to choices the two of them made rather than unforseen outside events.
Personally, I think writing a blog post about how to make a marriage last at 5 years in is either a sign of being very naive or that Jill's unconsciously trying to convince herself she's got a better marriage than she has.
I kind of think no one's been married long enough to give advice being the "this is what works for us" level. Maybe long time marriage counselors have the training and experience for generalized advice but everyone else only has there one experience to go by.
DeleteHey Mel! I need your expert opinion on HSCT. I'm getting a pile of what sounds like woo woo and I need the input of someone with science knowledge
ReplyDeleteHey, Calulu! It's pretty straightforward. HSCT (hematopoietic stem cell transplant) is standard treatment in a variety of disorders of bone marrow (which generally fit into categories of cancer, massive immune dysfunction or massive blood dysfunction) because bone marrow transplants are straightforward outside of the dangers of a treatment that has a 40% death rate within one year. One dude was successfully cured of HIV using a bone marrow transplant - but no one recommends that as a cure unless you need a bone marrow transplant for some other reason since a HSCT is far more dangerous than living with HIV on current medications. There's been some research showing that MS can be cured by HSCT - but, again, the risks of HSCT are pretty massive as well.
DeleteUsing human stem cell transplants outside of bone marrow / blood system is really sketchy unless you are enrolled in a real clinical trial attached to a major university or medical center. That's not to say that HSCT may not work; we just don't know how to tell a stem cell that it needs to become a cardiac cell instead of a malignant fibroblast or a dermal cell. Until then, well designed research has lots of safeguards for the patients who are proceeding with a treatment that might create more problems rather than solve a current problem. Signs of a real clinical trial include having all costs of the treatment covered by the trial (including complications) and having sat down with a real human who walks through a multi-page informed consent document with you. You should also receive information about who to report unethical behavior (usually a committee or department that is overseeing the study.)
If you are paying for the medical treatment and have no way to report unethical behavior, it's unlikely that you are in a properly run clinical trial that could be submitted for approval by the FDA. Sometimes medical studies are done by just reviewing patient records - but that's for medical treatments that are already being used widely for one condition that might affect another condition positively. Example: I was given betamethasone to hasten my son's lung development when I developed HELLP. Researchers used patient records to see if using betamethasone provided any benefit in terms of slowing down or reversing HELLP in the mother. The research has found that betamethasone is neither helpful nor harmful to women as a large group, but does help infant outcomes.
Hit enter too early! Patient record reviews can be useful - but not if the treatment is still experimental AND treatment can be delayed without killing the patient - and HSCT outside of bone marrow transplants is still experimental.
DeleteI think a lot of these QF kids try giving out advice the moment they do something new and big, bc they were raised thinking their family's equipped to tell people how to live. It feels like marriage is still new to Jill, so she's trying out things and repeating them to the world at about the same rate.
ReplyDeleteGood grief, their book was ghost-written?
And CP/QF seems especially prone to publishing entire books written by people under 25 years old, so Jill is relatively old and experienced compared to Josh Harris, the Botkin Sisters or Jasmine Baucham!
DeleteYeah, the book was ghost-written according to Jill: https://www.crossmap.com/blogs/interview-with-jill-duggar-prior-to-the-publishing-of-the-duggar-girls-book-the-growing-duggars.html
Yeah, at least Jill has some experience. I had no idea about their book! Interesting, thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteNo problem!
Delete