God and Your Sex Life: Dr. Juli and Mike Slattery

So if a young married couple came up to you and they were going to ask you a marriage question, maybe they're not even married yet or they're newlyweds. They're young and they just got married.

I want to know how to like my spouse because I've fallen out of love. Wow. See, I go, I want to have a great sex life. I thought you were go there too. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. Yeah, I mean, of course, there could be a lot of questions, but I think a lot of couples, and maybe it's a guy's perspective, we get some experts in the studio today that can help us, do want to know how do we have a great sex life, a great intimacy life in our marriage? And they don't always know where to go with that question, especially from a biblical context in a biblical way. It's like they're afraid to ask it.

Yeah. We're not afraid to ask it today. We've got not just Dr. Julie Slattery in the studio today. We've got Mike, her husband, with her. Welcome, guys. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having us. I think we sort of know, but have you ever done this together? I know it's all Julie.

Not like this. Yeah. Maybe on your podcast. Mike, are you excited? Are you scared?

I'm very excited. No, I'm good. I signed a waiver. I'm good. I'm all in.

You signed a waiver? I'm all in. If you say anything wrong, we'll just edit it out. How many years have you guys been married? 29. You looked at me like I was wrong.

No, I was testing you. And you have three sons. We do. But you're in a new field now, Mike. Tell us about it. For 30 years, I was in corporate America, and I was just praying about it.

Like, God, what do you want me to do this next chapter? I was looking in the organization I work for. Some opportunities were opening up, but then they closed very quickly. I was like, oh, what happened there? I just looked at Julie and the team that she works with at Authentic Intimacy. And it was one of those things where I'm like, she works really, really hard, and she needs help.

And that was kind of the impetus behind it and prayed about it. It's like, okay. But a lot of what she talks about, though, I've been trained very well by really good corporations. You're not supposed to talk about this. HR comes in the room when you start breaking this stuff up, so it's still hard for me. You say expert. I'm like, I'm learning.

This is baby steps. Do you guys like working together? Yeah, I love it. I do, too.

Yeah, it's awesome. What's it like to be married to the sex lady? She told us she's the sex lady.

Yeah, it's funny. Julie did kind of pick that title up. Some people refer to her as that, but it is interesting, though, because that's not what she started out doing, right? That was not how it started. If you met her, both of us were very conservative.

Like, if you were to talk about this topic, we turn red, right? That was never part of, you know, you're never in your high school guidance counselor going, what do you want to talk about when you grow, you know, when you're in your 50s? Yeah, I want to be a ministry nonprofit, make a lot less money, and talk about sex to Christians.

Not what was in the cards. But no, once again, it was just one of those things that I noticed that Julie just needed some help, you know, with the ministry. Because it was just such a need. And not that she couldn't handle it, but the need is so big. And that was something that I'm like, okay, and we prayed about it. Like, hey, how do you do this? And we kind of did the finances, we looked at all that stuff, and we kind of prayed about it and prayed some more and prayed some more.

And then made the decision to kind of step into the ministry with her. Julie, I bet you're loving it. Oh, I really am. Yeah. But it is the right season for us to do this.

Like, we talk about five years ago, for a lot of reasons, this wouldn't have worked. So God's timing is right, and this is a sweet season. Yeah, I mean, we're experiencing a similar thing, and it's the right season for us. I depend so much now on Dave. Like, I'm so glad he's beside me. You know, it feels good. Yeah, I feel the exact same way. So let's talk about, you know, the topic we raised a little bit, the four pillars of great sex.

We mentioned yesterday with Jess Julie, so this is going to be fun to have a mic here to give your perspective. But can you recap the first one, faithfulness? Faithfulness is this idea of character and trust. And it's not just sexual fidelity, but it's trusting each other's character. That, hey, I'm not going anywhere.

We're in this together. Even if I'm having a bad day or we're going through a season of marriage where we're not communicating, we're not giving up. It's that foundation of I can trust you. Which is huge, as we said yesterday.

Okay, intimate knowing. That's pillar number two. What does that mean? Boy, this one's my favorite. It's our favorite, too. Mine, too, when I read it. It was so, for me, insightful. And I can't wait for our listeners to hear how you explain it. I think for me, as a woman, this is what I've been wanting to communicate for years, and I've never been able to communicate it. So you put everything I've been feeling and yearning for in this one.

Yeah. Let me ask you, Dave, what jumped out at you? Like, how would you describe it as somebody who had read it for the first time? You know, when Anne just said that, I thought, oh, maybe that's a little bit of what happened as I was reading the understanding. And you can explain it better than anybody, the intimate knowledge of knowing more than a body, more than physical, knowing intimately someone.

And obviously, in relationship to knowing God, I think something went off in my brain. Like, Anne's been saying that to me for not just years, decades. This is what I long for. Now, obviously, I do, too, but I almost don't think about it as a man.

It's like, oh, it's more about the physical. Let's just have. And she's like, I want to be known. I want you to know me. And you know what?

So do I. But I couldn't put words to it. And you just described it. I remember running downstairs to Anne.

Yeah, he did. And she was talking about yada. She's like, what is yada? Well, let Julie explain it. Well, let me just add, too, because of my background, one, there's sexual abuse. Two, pornography was a part of my life since the age of three.

And so I'm seeing. I mean, cousins brought it to you. Yeah, it was cousins. It was not even my dad, but outside family members. It was everywhere.

Even some relatives, they just had posters up all over their bedrooms. And so the only time, too, because I came from a family that they were wonderful, but the only time I was touched was never, actually. And so then I get married and I've never been touched just through this beautiful, innocent, I love you, I'm hugging you, I'm conveying my love to you. To me, love was always connected to sex. And so then I get married and I'm thinking, okay, that's all it is. But I had this yearning in my heart for more.

Yeah, I love the way you describe that because that's so many people's journey. And the way you described it, too, Dave, we're taught to think that sex is about activity. It's about what our bodies do, which is why when there's difficulty in your marriage, like you're not attracted to each other.

One of you's gained weight or your bodies won't work because of some physical ailment or emotional trauma. Like our sex life is broken. It's good for nothing because we can't have intercourse. We can't enjoy each other.

We're fighting about this. But what we need to recognize is that God actually created sex for intimacy. And so helping couples understand the difference between sexual activity and sexual intimacy.

Activity is about your body. It's about how often should we be having sex. It's about how good is the sex.

Intimacy is asking questions about are we on a journey of knowing each other, of being vulnerable, of building this private language that just we share, and knowing secrets about each other that, again, we share. And the beautiful thing about this is I talked yesterday about how sex is supposed to reflect God's love for us. We do the same thing in our walk with God. God didn't create us for spiritual activity, like just check off the list. I did my devotions.

I went to church. That activity is meant to set the table for intimacy. God wants to know us intimately. And when you think about your relationship with God, intimacy is not forged on the mountaintops when everything's going well.

It's forged when hard times come where there's difficulty, where you're crying out to him. And the same thing is true in a couple's sexual relationship. When activity is broken, when there's pain there, it's actually an invitation to intimacy.

Now you're forced to talk about what's happening, about how you feel about your broken heart, about your fears and vulnerabilities, but most couples just skip right past that. Oh, yeah. Well, okay, now that we have them both in the studio. Oh, you want to ask them about their intimate knowing? Like, what has that been like? We assume, oh, this is what you do for a living.

Has it ever been difficult for you guys figuring this out, this intimacy, this knowing? Oh, certainly. You know, I mean, this is something too that, and I know you were talking about it on the program the other day, who talks about this?

Yeah. You know, in the church specifically, you know, and we were just at a conference about a couple months ago and it was all pastors and Julia asked a question about 70 pastors. He asked the question, how many of you had training other than, you know, more than one class in sexuality? Not one hand, not one hand was raised, but yet if you open up your Instagram feed, if you open up to anything, what is the number one topic? Gender identity, sexuality, whatever, fill in the blank.

That's something that we're like, we're ill-equipped, you know, to handle that. So that's something that we were as well early on in our marriage. And then she started talking about this like, oh, great.

Here we go. No, I mean, the truth of it is I just learned and then pass on what I'm learning. So, you know, I've shared very openly, I'd say the first 15 years of our marriage, this was the most difficult part of our marriage. We had problems we didn't know how to talk about.

We didn't know anywhere to go for help. We wrestled with some of the same things that a lot of other couples are, but we didn't have the vocabulary. We didn't even have the roadmap for what it would look like to connect, you know, to have this be actually an invitation to deeper intimacy. But I would say now over the last 10 years or so of our marriage, this has become an area that forges this deep intimacy with us. And it's not just because, oh, it's always fun or things are always great. It's because we have the heart and the vocabulary to say, what's going on? I want to know your heart.

I want to know what you're feeling, what you're struggling with. We have the openness to say when our feelings get hurt, you know, just to communicate. So we've seen both sides of this. We've seen it be something that felt like we were on separate tracks. And then we've seen over the last decade or so it be something that really is bonding and special and just between the two of us at a deeply intimate level.

Yeah. And I also think, have you felt this or seen this in people? Because to be honest, I also, I say I want yada.

I want intimate knowing. There's another part of it that's like, no, I don't. It's scary.

It's fearful. I've said many times it's easier for me to walk on a stage and talk about sex to a thousand people than to walk in my kitchen or bedroom and say, can we talk about our sex life? And I think it was even easier to get naked and have sex with Anne than be intimate.

It's almost like a cover up. Like I'll do this and we're being intimate. We're being intimate, but I'm actually not because I'm not letting you in because it's too scary. This isn't as scary.

Is that common? Dave, what you said is so true. You know, on two points.

First of all. Do you hear that, Anne? We're going to replay that one. We're going to waste my ringtone.

My ringtone. That's good. First of all, there's no intimacy without risk. And so intimacy always means I'm going to show a vulnerable part of who I am.

And that means you can meet me with love and acceptance, or you might reject me or laugh at me. And we've all experienced walking towards intimacy, maybe with your spouse or maybe with someone else where you got hurt and that vulnerability was used against you. And that's why faithfulness is so important. You can't be intimate. You can't risk if there's not trust.

So you're absolutely right. There is deep risk with intimacy, but it's worth it if it's safe. But the second thing you said that is really insightful, the activity can disguise the fact that we were not intimate. Like there are some couples who will hear me speak on this and they'll come up afterwards and say, you know, we've been married for 20 years and we've never experienced sexual intimacy the way you're describing it.

Like we've had sex two or three times a week for most of our marriage, but we don't know how to talk about it. We don't know how to share our hearts. It's like two bodies doing what they're supposed to do. It's an act. Yeah. It's not a journey of shared experience.

Yeah. I was just looking at one of the sentences you put in the book, sex becomes less about intercourse or climax and more about, listen, this is beautiful, becomes more about discovery, safety, vulnerability, and experiencing one another. That's beautiful to anyone. It's like, that's what I want.

But you're right. It's risky. And so it's like, am I willing to be that vulnerable? Can you share, Julie, I feel like we haven't hit it. We said the word yada, but what is the secret of yada? What does that even mean? Yada is a Hebrew word in the Old Testament that means to know, not to know intellectually, but to know experientially. And we see in the Old Testament a lot of times when the scripture is referring to sexual intimacy or sex between husband and wife, they'll use this word yada as a euphemism.

I say yada. That sounds more Hebrew. Actually, the scripture says Adam yada Eve, and she gave birth to a son. They're using this word Adam intimately knew Eve. But if you look at yada throughout the Old Testament, the word is used over 900 times, and it's used to reference sexual intimacy, but most often it's used to reference a deep knowing, an interpersonal knowing, even of God and his people.

So Psalm 139, which is the Psalm of intimate knowing, David is saying, oh God, you have searched me. You yada me. You yada when I rise and when I lie down.

Before a word is on my tongue, you yada it completely. Or if you read Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, which a lot of people would say, that is their life verse. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean on in your own understanding. In all your ways, yada him, and he will direct your paths. So I memorized it as acknowledge him. What's the difference between acknowledge and yada? Like acknowledge is, okay, God, I know you're out there. Yada is I have this intimate communion with you that God is in us, that he's speaking to us. And that is used in scripture, again, both ways. So it's telling us that your intimacy with God should be like the kind of intimate knowing a husband and wife have.

And the same is true of the opposite. If I want to know what a godly sex life looks like, it should have that kind of yada that God calls us to in our relationship with him. Yeah, see, that's why it's so beautiful. I know.

When you guys first got married, did you have any idea like how important this was or even of knowing Julie, what it looked like to know her? Absolutely not, right? Because where are you going to hear this? You know, we don't talk about sexuality because it's awkward. You don't talk about the church and you get it. There's male and females.

There's kids in the congregation. So you got to be careful. But the one thing that I noticed in working with Julie and coming on board to the team at Authentic Intimacy was so much pain. You know, that's the one thing I missed. And I remember that was the one thing that Julie really honed in on is there's a lot of pain. And then if it's painful, I'm not touching it. I'm not going to be intimate.

Nope. And we were fortunate not to have abuse in her background, but we had our problems. We had our struggles. And it took us many, many years.

And she's a clinically trained psychologist. Now, I was in finance, so I don't have no obligation here. But that was something that we had to learn over years. And we're still learning. That's the one thing I always want to tell people when we go to a conference or something.

We don't have it wired. There's no formula that you can go this, this, and then you've achieved. I think it's just this process. It's a spectrum we're on. And God is kind of bringing us closer and closer as you mature in Christ.

This is something that's been revealed to us. And is this yada, which is risky and intimate, to know God, to know your spouse. Is this one of the reasons men and women go to porn? Because there's no risk. It's superficial knowing, but it's not knowing. And yet there's a rush. And so you sort of feel like, but it's not the real thing.

But it's easier and nobody's complaining. Is that something going on there? Yeah, there is no risk with pornography. And actually, pornography is a promise that I'm not going to reject you. But Dave, we talked about how there are four pillars to a great sex life. We talked about faithfulness.

We're talking about that yada or intimate knowing. Another pillar is passionate celebration. That's the last one.

That's the last one. But that's the one that people want and they go to for pornography. Because they want that pillar. They want the high. They want the dopamine hit. They want the excitement.

But they don't want to build the other pillars. And that's why it's so unsatisfying in the long run. Because you cannot be sustained by just this one pillar of pleasure.

But I'd also say that for a married couple, your sexual relationship is going to feel incomplete if you have the other three pillars, but you don't have the passion and the fun. Is that what passionate celebration is about? Yeah. So if we look at our relationship with God, again, that's the model. But it's this idea that what if you were a Christian and you were faithful, you were obedient, but you had no joy in the Lord?

That just described most Christians I know. Sorry. Yeah.

Why is that like that? No, I'm kidding, but it's sort of sad. It is sad. It's like, where's the joy? Is that what God wants?

No. You know, he actually commands us to rejoice in him, not just individually, but corporately. And when we get together on Sunday, it's a worship celebration of his bride, just celebrating our love for him. That's what worship is. It's crying out to God how much we love him, how beautiful he is.

There's this interchange of our love and his love. And it's meant to be joyful. It's meant to be a reprieve from the hard things we're dealing with in life. And God has created sex that same way. He's made it so it's pleasurable. It's meant to be ecstatic. It's like dessert.

Yeah. I mean, we're told to be intoxicated with sexual love, so that as difficult as marriage might be, we have a place to go together, this sanctuary where we can laugh and have fun and experience pleasure that helps us deal with the hard things of life. But Dave, you're absolutely right that we go to pornography because we want that pleasure experience, but not the hard work of the other pillars. Yeah, and it's so empty in the long run. And I think this relationship we're talking about between a husband and wife takes work, takes time. It's risky. It can be hard, especially if we're busy, if we're tired.

We have a lot of kids that are little. It's exhausting at times, but it's so worth it. But it does make you think. I'd love to know your guys' perspective about joy in the bedroom.

Yeah. A lot of couples, even when they talk about their sex life, it's sort of boring. It's sort of like, well, we do it because we're married, and we enjoy it, but there's not joy. Is that lacking for a lot of us?

Yeah, I really think it is. It's something that for a lot of couples, including us, it's something we have to work on. It doesn't come naturally because you are tired. It feels like it's the last thought at the end of a long week or a long day.

You have to invest in it. I like what Dr. Doug Rosenau once said. He said, you don't work your way to a better sex life. You play your way to a better sex life. Oh, that's good.

We need to hear that. We need to laugh and have fun. Yes, and we take ourselves so seriously, and there's a time for that. There's a time to do the work of addressing pornography and learning to communicate and addressing the pain, but there's also a time just to say, we are told to enjoy this very imperfect marriage with two very imperfect bodies. And if you're not sure about that, just wonder, why did God put the book Song of Solomon in the Bible? It doesn't seem to fit other than to say this is an important part of the covenant of marriage, and that sense of celebration and rejoicing is also an important part of our relationship with God.

And they didn't make love every time in the bedroom. Just throwing that out there. There's other places you can go. Okay, we have one more pillar, and there's somebody going, you said four.

I've only got three. I've got faithfulness, intimate knowing, passionate celebration. I love this one. It's sacrificial love. And this is the pillar that none of us really want, and it's the one that surprises us when we get married, especially if you grew up with pornography.

You grew up believing sex is all about me getting my needs met. And then we Christianize that and say, God wants me to get all my needs met within the marriage bed. But in reality, God's ultimate goal for us is to learn to love the way He loves. And if He created marriage to be this reflection of His love for us, really the cornerstone of God's love for us is sacrifice. It's Him giving His Son. It's Jesus laying down Himself for us out of love. If marriage and sexuality is this reflection of our covenant with God, why would this not be baked in the cake that we can't have a great sex life unless we learn to sacrifice for each other, unless we're growing in unselfish love?

Mike, what's that look like for you and Julie? It's a great question. You know, one of the things, it's interesting. You look at the Christian life, it's always about sacrifice. Christ said if, you know, one mile, go two miles. Give more, give of yourself, give to the poor, except in this area, right? We in the church of misses, you know, it's really been more myopic, more self-fulfilling.

And that's something that's really been something like as I go through online Bible studies or online book studies with these guys through this, I've got a group of guys I go through. That's one that it's like an aha moment. Like, oh, that's right.

You know, the Christian means serving, not being served. And it's almost like you see a light bulb click, you know, turn on for them. Where it's like, oh, yeah, that's right. That's why my wife doesn't feel she's being heard or she's being listened to or whatever, you know, fill in the blank.

That's something I think is a really cool thing to look at. But once again, we don't equate that to Christianity in the bedroom, right? We're not supposed to serve. No, you are. Why should that stop at the, you know, at the door?

So that's something that's, I think, been a great pillar to kind of focus on. So that's something of taking your selfishness and trying to be absolutely unselfish in the bedroom. It's not about me. It's not about my wants and desires.

How can I serve? You even wrote in the book about your struggle with that. Yeah, yeah. I think God has created the differences between men and women so that you can't have a great sex life without learning to be unselfish. And I do want to say, Dave, there is an element of healthy selfishness in marriage where to enter into pleasure, you have to say my deeds matter first.

But you have to have both. It's first, how do I love you? How do I please you?

How can I make this fun for you? But it's also receiving. And so if you have a marriage where only one person has that sacrificial attitude and the other remains selfish, you have a very potentially even destructive sex life. So it has to be balanced with the other elements of what healthy covenant look like. And I'm guessing that a lot of this content that are in your book and your workbook, is that something you talked about on the New Art of Marriage? Yeah. When we interviewed you for that video, you couldn't get all of this in there, but you got some of that in there? Yeah, we got a lot of it in there.

I think they asked me like probably 20 or 30 questions. What would you say if? And so it was very, the art of marriage is very practical in terms of, okay, so how do we address our mismatch desire? How do we address if you find your spouse looking at pornography?

How do we address it if I can't enjoy sex? So there's a lot of practical advice that comes through in that course. Man, those three right there make me want to get it. I know. Guys, those are, I can't ask you what your answers are, but it's in the New Art of Marriage. And you can sign up for the Art of Marriage preview event through the link in the show notes, or you can go to familylife.com slash coming soon. You guys, thank you. It's great being with both of you. Thanks for all you're doing. Thank you. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Julie and Mike Slattery on Family Life Today.

It's been a conversation, hasn't it? If you know and love the original art of marriage, or are curious to know all about why we're so excited for this new marriage small group study, we'd love it if you'd join us on November the 1st for an exclusive look inside the study and to hear from the teachers of the study about why you should care about this new marriage curriculum. It's going to be amazing.

On November the 1st, we're going to be kicking off pre-orders as well, so you can go to the show notes, find the link there, and sign up. We can't wait to share the all-new art of marriage with you. Dr. Julie Slattery has written a book called God, Sex, and Your Marriage. This book challenges the common assumptions couples have about sexuality and really presents the richer biblical narrative of sex as a metaphor of God's covenant love. Dr. Slattery applies that biblical framework to the practical challenges of sexual intimacy, and we could all use some help there, right? So you can get a copy of God, Sex, and Your Marriage at familylifetoday.com, or you can give us a call at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today.

Guess what? Today through Sunday, the Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway is happening in Raleigh, North Carolina. We'd love it if you'd pray for all the couples who will be attending there. And with over 40 events across the country still happening between fall and spring, there's still time to find a location near you to attend the Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway.

You can find all that information at weekendtoremember.com. Now, coming up next week, marital transformation happens in the context of approaching God in prayer. David and Ann Wilson are going to be joined next week by Paul Miller to talk about praying together as a husband and wife for marital transformation. That's coming up next week. On behalf of David and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.