This is a question I received some time ago. I don’t remember when, or through what channel. But, I want to take the time to answer it today.
Do you pray as a couple before sex, after sex, or does it depend on the night?
I am not sure what a godly relationship looks like with regards to prayer at bedtime. I am both higher sex-drive spouse and the more spiritually minded of the two of us. I have prayed both before and after but she rarely ever joins me. I don’t make it a habit as I often feel just as rejected with prayer as I do with initiating sex. I am returning home shortly after being away for work for one month am would like begin to pray with her every night and would love to her what has worked for other brothers in christ. thanks.
Typically, we pray as a couple after sex. It’s generally the last thing we do before going to sleep. Now, there have been some occasions that we’ve prayed, kissed each other good night … one thing led to another, and some time later, we found we’ve prayed, then had sex, then gone to sleep.
Now, during a discussion with some couples in my church, one of the wives challenged us to pray before sex, and about sex. She said that the last time they did so in their marriage, it was the best sexual experience they’d have. Now, I should mention, it was also the first time they had sex, on their honeymoon, a couple decades passed, and they haven’t done it since. So, her experiences might be slightly coloured by both hormones (can you get a bigger dopamine burst than on your honeymoon as a virgin?) and memory (we tend to glamorize good events in our memory).
But, despite all that, I plan to take up this challenge. The next time we have sex, I will do my best to remember to pray first, and to pray specifically for the sexual experience. Now, granted, I might completely forget to do so in the moment, but if I remember, then it will be an odd experience for us. I don’t think we’ve ever prayed to “have good sex”. I know I’ve prayed during sex that my wife will achieve an orgasm soon (I’ve done so a few times over the years), but that was a silent prayer (though it has yet to fail me!). This will be praying together, and that requires more vulnerability, and, in theory, should increase intimacy.
What if your spouse isn’t ready to pray about sex yet? That’s okay. You can just pray for the both of you. Model for them that you can pray about sex. Show them that you won’t be struck by lightning. Pause at the end of your prayer to give them a chance, just not so long that they feel like you’re pushing them. Rather, that you’re inviting them. It’s a hard balance, but I think it can be achieved.
Same goes for spouses that just aren’t ready to pray together, regardless of the topic. Model it for them fearlessly, and give them a chance to pray. But don’t push. You can’t force someone to open up spiritually. You can only invite them.
As for what works for my fellow brothers (and sisters) in Christ…they’ll have to let you know in the comments below.
We have prayed before lovemaking, but not consistently. At first it felt awkward, but as our understanding of God’s plan for married sexuality grew, we began to welcome His blessing on our marriage bed. It isn’t a guarantee that you’ll shake the rafters (although that has happened!) , but more of a grateful thanks for an awesome gift.
We have been married for over 40 years. And yes…sex is still very important to both of us and we plan to keep it that way as long as we can.
We pray before we go to sleep most every night. Because he starts work early my husband goes to bed earlier most of the weeknights so we pray before he goes upstairs. We have prayed before and after sex. Definitely a plus in our relationship. If he is not too exhausted from the meds they had him on we would have sex during the week. Otherwise we make dates for the weekend and make the best of it.
We have had ED issues due to prostate cancer treatment and all the side effects. Praying and giving our sexual relationship to God has been essential. Keeping close to each other at the time of treatment was very hard. He withdrew and I was very lonely. Thorough prayer and counseling we got back on track. Now 9 years later he is cancer free and we are rebuilding our sex life. Unfortunately he did not regain his erection ability after 48 radiation treatments and hormone therapy so we went with getting a penile implant in Feb. 2013. Prior to the prostate cancer we didn’t know a thing about ED or implants. It works very well and we are thankful that we can again have intercourse. I encourage anyone going through an illness that affects your sex life to make prayer a priority. It will make a difference.
Thank you for sharing, God bless you
“penile implants” … gross TMI …
I think anytime you pray together as a couple is good. If you don’t pray before or after sex, then you can pray at other times of the day with each other and ask then for a great sexual experience. There’s no one way to do it.
We have prayed right before making love to each other… I sort have gotten away from it and because of forgetting to do so. I have thought about not having prayed when we are in the midst of making love but don’t want to stop and do so…lol don’t want to mess anything up for her…. Need to get back to doing it again…
With my ex-wife I prayed for sex.
My wife and I try to have a prayer as a couple each evening and sometimes the next thing that happens is sex, and a few times we have sex first then pray as a couple, but its because we try to pray as a couple every night, not because we just had or are about to have sex except for on our wedding night. Most of the time sex happens a while before either of us is turning in for the night so there is no prayer together right before or right after. Sometimes I may send up a quick prayer in my head just before we get started, asking to help me meet her needs well or something like that, and I think I’ve done that during sex too. I always kneel and say a personal prayer before turning in for the night.
I really feel for the original question writer. My husband will neither pray with me nor have sex with me either. We no longer have sex at all (before that it was down to once every two months), and I think we have prayed together a grand total of two times, and not a night with sex. On the rare occasions we have had sex, as soon as we are finished, he either falls asleep or goes back to playing games on his phone (sleeping or gaming being the two things he is usually doing before sex).
I’m not sure what I’d prefer myself. I think I’d actually prefer sex during the day, and then prayer last thing before sleep. Or the reverse maybe too. Maybe it’s just my upbringing (I have a mother who thinks sex is bad and dirty and perverted, and while that hasn’t effected my love of sex in marriage, I guess it does have some very small influence on my thoughts about sex), but the thought of praying before sex (when I know we’re going to have sex next), I feel like I wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate knowing we’re going to have sex (although, that may be also related to how little we have sex that I would find it difficult to not be distracted by thinking, YAY I’m finally going to get some!). But at the same time, I know how exhausted I am after sex so not sure I could focus on praying afterwards – I wouldn’t fall asleep like my husband is likely to (no matter what time of day we have sex) but when I’m physically exhausted, my ADHD is worse and my mind wanders greatly. And praying is something I struggle not to have my mind wander during, even at the very best of times.
If we can remember (which only happens every few weeks), we prefer to pray before sex in addition to our nightly prayer together. If the ball is already rolling it can be pretty hard/weird to interrupt for prayer, but the loss of physical momentum is more than made up for in the increase of emotional connection between us generated by the vulnerability of 1) praying together and 2) praying together about such an intimate topic. Inviting God into the bedroom is, I’ll grant, very odd to the Christian “keep the marriage bed only between husband and wife” mandate-but it gives sex a much higher purpose than simply feeling good.
I pray silently WHILE we are making love. I pray and ask the Lord to lead me, and to make my husband’s body feel very good while we make love. I ask HIm for help and He DOES give ideas!!! 🙂
We don’t specially pray together before sex, but while I am waiting for her to come from the bathroom I often pray like mad that I will do the right things as I do have a problem with kink.
My wife suffers from depression and her meds (ssri’s) make it almost impossible for her to enjoy sex the way it was intended. As a husband who loves his wife immensely I long for her to have the satisfaction God designed her to have. I pray for her to experience that before we are together but so far God hasn’t
allowed that for her. It breaks my heart that I can’t take her over the top. (Forgive me if that’s TMI) and I feel like I am failing her as a man. I have pleaded with God for a breakthrough in both her depression and the dysfunction that comes with it. I will continue to seek Gods will in this and try to keep my chin up. If any of you who have delt with this issue have been able to overcome, I could sure use some encouragement.
My wife suffers from depression as well, and while on some SSRI’s and other meds, she struggled to orgasm a lot. Couple things you can try:
1) Try changing drugs. Different meds from different brands have different side-effects for different people. If one isn’t working, try another.
2) Checkout the book The Upward Spiral. It is written by a depression specialist in natural ways to deal with depression and getting out of that downward spiral and working towards an upwards one. I highly recommend it. My wife is now off her meds and doing well. I can’t say it will do the same for your wife, but perhaps she could lower the dosage with some other methods of dealing with depression.
And keep praying.
Thank you Jay Dee. I will definitely check out that book. I want to mention because I think it may be of help to others. This morning we tried an all natural, essential oil product for stimulation. I don’t want to say the name but I can now say God has given me what I have longed for , for so long. God is soooo good. Now we will continue to pray for relief from the snare of depression and praise his holy name!!
Thank you so much for your advice and the tip on that book.
I’m struggling to pray after making love i feel like im dirty ??what i can do?
That’s a big question. I’d probably start by reading Song of Solomon. If you’re having trouble understanding it, maybe check ou the book Intimacy Ignited. We did it with our small group at church, and it was great.
Start there and if you have further questions, feel free to email me at [email protected].
I’m sorry Jay Dee praying re sex is just gross … just because the marriage bed is OK doesn’t mean it is not dirty. For someone who so strongly is anti-solo this attitude just doesn’t jive. Sex is only for procreation, if anti-solo (can’t have both ways), so if older than 40ish should not be doing.
Just because sex is messy doesn’t mean it’s dirty, and it’s certainly not for procreation only.
Check out this post for biblical cases for having sex other than procreation.
Plus, as an aside, women can get pregnant after 40, and men never lost the ability to get a woman pregnant.
And I don’t see what that has to do with solo-sex at all…
We pray for each other while climaxing
that’s sick!!! yuck
Why? I don’t see anything wrong with it. Do you have a reason, or just expressing your hangups?