Drop by our website to find out how a healthy sexual relationship with your spouse not only benefits the two of you, but your kids too! Guest blogger, Julie Sibert, wrote this article especially for our Intimate Couple.com website readers. Click here to read the article now!

Having Needs, or Being Needy?
The Intimate Couple.com is all about helping couples develop intimacy in their marriages. The success of this development is largely based on whether couples are having their needs met—or whether they’re just needy! It is difficult to forge intimacy with someone who is needy.

The difference between being needy and having needs is self image, and identity. When a man and a woman know who they are in Christ, and recognize that their worth stems from the value God places on them, and not on their performance in life—they will be secure and whole. This is how all of us should enter marriage…whole.

When we enter marriage as a needy person, we place a burden on our relationship God never designed marriage to bear. Then, when we attempt to meet the needs of a needy spouse, we always come up short and unable to really help. The reason? The primary need for our spouse is identity, feelings of worth, and self confidence: these things are from God. I can’t give them to my spouse—she needs to get them from her relationship with God!

Ultimately, this is why when a couple love each other, and love God, they will learn and develop over the years to get closer to God, and become confident in their personal identity as Christians. The result? Healthier individuals and a better, stronger marriage!

So, don't allow yourself to become lazy about keeping yourself healthy and whole (physically, emotionally, spiritually). Your marriage will suffer for it. Needy individuals become a drain to the marriage. Instead, as you and your spouse each work on becoming whole and healthy, your relationship will benefit. Two healthy individuals coming together make for a solid, strong, fit marriage!

Viagra for Women!

…we’re not talking about a little blue pill! We are speaking metaphorically! Husbands, do you think your wife needs a little something to help her get prepared and ready for sex? The answer is not a prescription—it is foreplay—the "Viagra for women"!

Here are 5 things to help…

1. Words of Affirmation
   Everyone needs to hear words of encouragement! It has been correctly said that encouragement is oxygen to the soul.
2. Stop Critical Speaking
   Nothing will quench the embers of romance more quickly than harsh words and a critical attitude. Just stop!
3. Active Listening
   Dr. Louann Brizendine, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco states in "The Female Brain" (Broadway Publishing, August 7, 2007) that "A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000." When a man arrives home from work, and has already used up all his words—his wife hasn’t even started yet! He will have to engage in focused, concentrated effort to actively listen to her! The reward for his attention, though, is her feelings of being important, and being cherished.
4. Sharing Emotions
   Unlike most men, when a woman hears her spouse sharing deep emotions, it’s a turn-on that makes her more open to intimacy!
5. Non-Sexual Touch
   When a husband has learned to stroke his wife’s arm as she passes by, caress her cheek softly for no particular reason, hold her hand when walking, place his arm around her, and lean forward to give a hug unsolicited, he is engaging in non-sexual touching. The more non-sexual touching that takes place in a day, the more likely that sexual touching will occur later!