Video Transcript:
thank you guys for those who send in questions we love the questions you send in if you’re not following us on instagram you can find us at dave and ashley willis you can look us up on facebook or you can message you can send your questions to nakedmarriagepodcast.com and here’s today’s question which we’re not seeing until right now my husband has been on a work trip for three months it’s so hard to have an intimate relationship when your spouse is away i don’t masturbate on a regular basis but i’ve noticed myself wanting that pleasure when he’s away what is your opinion on doing that when your spouse is away for long periods of time great questions yeah um and i mean we totally sympathize you know we’ve got a lot of friends in the military community uh folks that get on these deployments for you know nine months or even longer and they’re thinking how do we maintain a sexual connection how do we maintain some sexual pleasure when physically we’re completely apart from one another and you know we’ve had questions of like can we can we make homemade porn for each other can we i mean there are all kinds of nuanced questions to it but we’re not going to chase all those rabbit holes right now and we’re going to focus specifically on the question about is masturbation okay um when you and your spouse are away and there’s no other there’s no other option my quick answer would be i don’t i don’t see anything in scripture that says that it’s a it’s a sin to masturbate while fantasizing about your spouse like if fantasy whether you’re masturbating or not if you’re feeding fantasies that aren’t related to your spouse then that lust in itself is destructive and so you got to make sure that your thoughts are on your spouse your sexual thoughts whether they’re physically there with you or not um and in that way i mean i could say not that you need me to referee you know your your home life but um just in my opinion i don’t see a sin issue with it to me the the the thing to be i guess cautious about is getting into any kind of masturbation habit what you can do without meaning to is subtly make sex a solo sport you’re subtly making sex just all about your own pleasure that when you do reconnect and you are back you know in each other’s arms again if you’ve conditioned your mind and your body to just quickly get to orgasm and make it just all because masturbation is very self-focused right i mean it’s no other person’s pleasure is involved in it it can actually make you a less a less effective lover and spouse because you’ve got to get out of the habit of making it all about yourself and i would just be cautious about that because if we get in too much of a masturbation habit then all of a sudden our spouse can almost just become a tool for our own masturbation instead of the the partner that we’re making love with and so just being mindful of those things so to me it’s not an issue of like right or wrong sin or not sin as much as it’s like what’s going to help us not only in this period when we’re away but what’s going to help um long-term and to be most healthy for our sex life right now i think that’s that’s so important because it is understandable that you have these feelings and you want to connect and um hopefully you’re talking to your husband about that i mean i think it’s important to talk about these things like i miss you i really need you and you know and really talk through that a lot of the the couples that we have that live you know in a long distance a relationship for maybe a short time whether they’re military or otherwise they usually do find points of connection um where they can kind of i mean i think masturbation usually is involved where they’re connecting together maybe over the phone right yeah um and trying to kind of have that experience with their spouse and that tends to keep your mind more on um on your spouse rather than other things because that is the danger i think it’s easy to fall into maybe watching stuff that we really didn’t think we’d find ourselves watching but it’s because we’re trying to kind of meet our own needs and um so we definitely want to steer clear of pornography graphic you know erotica slash romance novels that are super you know for just just for sexual meeting sexual needs and and through masturbation so we just need to be really careful with that and i can tell this this wife writing us i mean she knows like she’s very wise and it’s a wife she gets it it’s a wise question and she’s a human being you know and she loves her husband and she has those needs and is accustomed probably to having sex regularly with him and so i would just talk through this with him try to find ways where maybe you can sexually connect virtually with your husband in a very safe way be very careful um when using technology um just because you know if it’s recorded too it’s always out there if you have children you’ve got to be super careful so just yeah i just always say be very mindful of that yeah so and we’ve got some great resources too on that dynamic when you’re physically apart an episode called commuter marriage that i encourage you to look up as a starting point but thank you so much for that question thanks guys for tuning in and we will look forward to seeing you next time