So me and my wife just finished the second week of our Ten Dates for Mates with our church small group. Granted, half of what the other couples are saying is filtered and they probably aren’t saying 100% their true thoughts since it could “disturb the peace”. But I learned a lot in how me and my wife are tuned differently from our second date in our discussion with each other . I’m mainly posting this to show how things are in my marriage and I understand every marriage is different. But I think a good discussion could come from it.

Part of the date was to arrange 7 traits in levels of importance to the spouse then predict what you think something is on their hierarchy.

I’ll explain mine and why I picked them in the post.

Mine

  1. Security (this is number one for me because I need to know my wife is down only for me. I could have sex with my wife everyday but if she bangs 3 other chads and me when I get home that defeats the whole purpose. God intended for one man to be with one woman on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.)

  2. Sex (in a marriage based on what god intended , I should only have sexual experiences with my wife. No porn, cheating, nothing...., just me and you. I can have a female friend but that relationship is still not the same. Sex is only something I can get from you, the woman who I chose to stand beside me until death do us part. It is important to me and makes it way easier for me to stick to that if we both prioritize it)

  3. Friendship (at the end of the day, you should enjoy being around your spouse. Let’s say you are only having sex 1% of the actual minutes you are together. You need to enjoy the other 99% as well otherwise you are in for a bumpy ride.)

  4. Encouragement (as human beings it is important to draw self esteem from ourselves, but if you have a spouse that supports you even when your in a low and encourages you in your bad days and draws out the good qualities in you it is amazing.

  5. Intellectual closeness (doesn’t really matter to me all that much. I understand my wife’s views but being in an interracial relationship [im white, she is black] we probably won’t ever see eye to eye but we respect each other’s views. Only issue I see coming about is once children come into the picture and the conversations I will need to have.) We have interesting conversations but I avoid anything related to race and politics since that can be touchy sometimes.

  6. Understanding and tenderness (communication is important. But usually it’s not what you say it’s how you say it. The tenderness aspect is important to me when I want it but she is more into the cuddling and basic acts of affection than I am.

  7. Mutual Activity (I like to do a lot of outdoor stuff like hiking, working out, running, etc. my wife can’t do those things often since she has asthma. My main priority is to make sure I set aside at least two hours a week towards a date for us to go on and spend quality time together.)

Her

  1. Friendship
  2. Security
  3. Understanding and tenderness
  4. Encouragement
  5. Mutual activity
  6. Intellectual closeness
  7. Sex

What I thought was interesting is that our hierarchy was reversed for some of the things I found more important especially when it comes to sex. Thinking deeper on it this made me think about a concept they brought up in the PU community back in the day. Guys show love (the other six attributes) to get sex, and women have sex (to get the other six attributes from their significant other).

While we discussed the differences in our lists she explained that just because that was 7th on her list doesn’t mean she doesn’t want sex a lot, it’s just a matter of importance in a marriage for her.

Who knows maybe things she was saying was all lip service, I don’t really know. But I wanted to open the can of worms in a constructive way to get a better understanding to improve all of our marriages.