Did anyone ever teach you about intimacy in marriage beyond the natural attraction we all had during dating?
Were you informed about how men and women work and think when it comes to sex?
Did you understand your husband’s connection with sex as well as the importance of connecting yourself to your sexual being? Or is that foreign territory for you?
If it is you’re not alone.
I find most women were left on their own to discover how this sex thing works.
From how our bodies work to how to get them to respond the way we want, it can be a very tasking adventure!
That often leads to frustration and a negative relationship with sex.
It’s time we change the paradigm
I just finished teaching Week Eight in Taming Jane Academy, and it is ALL about intimacy.
The ladies learn how intimacy is foundational to a healthy marriage. It’s one of my favorite weeks to teach! So many ah-ha moments.
Watching the ladies embrace a new view and a different perception is inspiring and exciting.
A whole new world is opening for them.
This discussion should have happened before the wedding.
So many problems could be prevented if we were taught the difference between men and women in the sex department BEFORE we got married.
We do speak two different languages. And it includes how we think and feel about sex.
Men and women are different. But we often assume the other is a version of ourselves. And when they don’t respond the way we would, we think there has to be something wrong with them! When in reality we are made differently and as you choose to learn how the other works, it allows for increased tenderness and desire to meet each other’s needs.
That “in-love” feeling often makes us think sex will just come naturally.
Because of the potency of the “infatuation” phase of falling in love, we think it will all work itself out.
It’s natural right. It will naturally work. And then when it doesn’t naturally work, we think something is wrong with us. Or as things change with age we often start to question:
Where is my desire? Why does my spouse have desire and I don’t? Why isn’t my body responding the way it SHOULD be? Why is something that I couldn’t get enough of before, now bottom on my list?
Have you ever felt any of these thoughts before? Or has your spouse? Have you been married for years and wonder where the spark went? Why “it” isn’t working like it did before? Marriage is always maneuvering. It will never just stand still and be the same.
We have to constantly be CHOOSING to nurture our marriages because LIFE often sucks the LIFE out of our marriages.
When your sex life starts to lack, don’t accept this as your fate, and think this is it. Choose to continue to nurture this part of your marriage and make it a priority.
A mind is a powerful tool. We cannot rely on DESIRE to create enough hormones to have a healthy sex life.
We have to consciously choose to make intimacy a priority in our marriage.
A Sexually Frustrated Marriage
When couples decide to end their marriage, the legal papers have a place to check what the main reason is for the divorce.
Irreconcilable differences are the most common reason.
I feel irreconcilable differences often really could include sexual incompatibility.
Therapists and counselors will use the temperature of your sex life as a measuring tool for how bad your marriage is struggling. It carries that much weight! Did you know that? Do you and your spouse understand the importance sexual intimacy is in your marriage? If not, why?
My answer to that WHY is a lack of being taught and the understanding of how the opposite sex works and thinks.
Very few of us were set up for success in the intimacy department. Between society’s unhealthy view of sex and exploiting it and our own personal blueprint, we are left to fumble through an area in our marriage that is foundational to creating a true connection.
Most couples have no idea that a healthy sex life is foundational to a happy, healthy marriage. It really is THAT important.
Men and women often relate to intimacy differently.
We are made differently for a reason.
Our strengths and weaknesses often compliment each other. This includes in the sex department.
We work differently.
But as we choose to learn and understand how our spouse works and thinks, we set ourselves up for success! We are able to understand at a deeper level our spouse’s needs. And because we love them and have dedicated our lives to them, we will want to provide for their needs.
That is the ultimate goal.
But first, you have to be willing to understand your spouse is not a version of you. And then you need to be willing to learn and understand how he/she works.
How men feel loved
For instance, men feel love after being intimate.
Women need to feel loved before they want to be intimate.
It is completely opposite!
So ladies when you use the NO card on your man, what it says to him is, “man she doesn’t want to be with me.” “Does she really love me?” “I just don’t understand if she really loved me wouldn’t she want to be with me?” It literally is how he feels your love for him.
We don’t understand this and we assume saying no, shouldn’t have any long-term effects. We think saying no is just in that moment; it shouldn’t carry over anywhere else. When we think this we are wrong.
How women feel loved
You, on the other hand, want emotional connection before intimacy.
You need to know he loves you. This allows you to be vulnerable and intimately accept his love.
When he approaches you for intimacy without this emotional connection beforehand we often can jump to the conclusion, “he just wants a piece of me, does he even really love me?” It really is so opposite of the truth. But this assumption causes us to not feel loved and we pull away, not feeling safe. And we for sure don’t want to be vulnerable.
Understanding is key
Men have a very strong connection with their needs. Sex is one of them.
Women struggle with having a connection to their needs because we are givers and adapters. This is a beautiful part of us, as women.
Our differences actually complement each other. It allows us to come together and balance each other out. But so often we let our difference divide us.
As women learn the importance of connecting to their sexual being and allowing themselves to enjoy sexual intimacy with their man, they will have a much more fulfilling life.
We as women are meant to experience pleasure and enjoy sexual intimacy. It is not just a man’s need only. But we fight against our natural DNA as women and give and adapt to others needs to the point of exhaustion and sex often moves to the bottom of our list.
That creates a problem!
For men who have sex at the top of their list, this is often a problem.
He has an upfront strong need for sex. And because of this, it is often heavy on his mind once the need has broken through single-task focus.
As we choose to understand this and not assume he is uncontrollable but that is how he feels the love from us, we can choose to make intimacy more of a priority in our life. And in return, we are blessing our own lives with having a stronger relationship with our own need for sexual intimacy; which creates a healthier, happier woman.
We must embrace our sexual being as women to appreciate all that life has to offer us. Leaving this part out takes away our opportunity of living a satisfied life as a woman.
Stop the negative now!
The problem is not enough of us talk about the importance of intimacy in marriage.
How are women to connect to their sexual being if we don’t talk appropriately about it?
I am sure you can recall a conversation between women about sex, and chances are it was negative.
I challenge all of my ladies to STOP this. It isn’t serving us, and it is harming our relationships.
If you are going to talk about sex, talk about it positively.
Connecting to Our Sexual Being
If you struggle to have a positive relationship with intimacy, then you need to get educated.
Stop settling.
Stop assuming this is your lot in life and must be normal.
YOU deserve to have a healthy sexual relationship and be connected to your sexual being. That is what makes a whole-women. As well as makes a whole-man.
Ladies, we want our man to want us. It is a good thing! And it is an incredible feeling when YOU want your man.
It’s a connection that has no substitute.
Sexual intimacy between husband and wife I believe was a gift given to us by God as a reprieve from the stresses of life.
Intimacy is our time to connect and to forget about the daily challenges. It is our time to lose ourselves in the love that we have for each other.
Has reading this made you feel uncomfortable at all?
Because of the lack of education and understanding how men and women work it can make this subject uncomfortable.
We get so used to our perceptions that it can be a challenge to accept a different view.
My question to you would be, has your view on intimacy in marriage served you? Are you happy? Is your spouse happy?
If your answer is no, then use that as your motivation to push yourself to seek knowledge that will help you create healthy intimacy in your marriage.
It is NEVER too late.
We cannot change what we didn’t know in the past, but you can change how you move forward in the future.
Take this opportunity to break the cycle.
Choose to get educated and choose to set your children up for success.
Men are not taught how women work and are often “expected” to instinctively know. Women are not taught how men work OR how their own bodies work.
We need to stop this silence and find an appropriate way to be educated in a way that allows us to move into our relationship with a foundation that will support what we build on top of it.
Marriage is the greatest decision we will EVER make.
Sex is a BIG part of marriage.
Why aren’t we setting ourselves and our loved ones up for success in this area?
It makes no sense to me now. But it sure was a struggle for me to talk to my own kids who were getting married. I still don’t believe I shared what I should of.
I am grateful for individuals who have chosen to make this their life mission. I have interviewed two sex therapist and I learned so much! Check out these interviews. I promise you won’t regret it.
Share them with loved ones and with couples who are just getting started down the marriage path.
Let’s start embracing this awesome part of life instead of keeping it under wraps or allowing the world’s perversion of it to keep us from fighting for the amazing gift it really is!
I love sex. Always have. Im at a point where I embrace this. Society needs to teach women its ok to be sexual. Con-versation is to women what sex is to men. Talk to us, it’s foreplay.
Bethe, thank you for taking the time to read my blog and for commenting. I couldn’t agree with you more! A whole woman is a woman who is connected to all 6 parts of self, which includes our sexual being!
Isn’t it amazing how sharing words with our man can feed us! Just like we don’t understand their language, no one has ever taught them either about what our language is.
It is so empowering when we choose to understand each other’s needs and we go out of our comfort zone to meet that need of our spouse. It won’t feel natural in the beginning because it is not how we work. But it will pay off. And start to feel more natural the more we do it.
Thank you again Bethe! I wish you the best with the journey you are on!
Many of these problems would be solved if women just said YES to more sex. You will get that before loving…that intimacy…that cuddling afterwards…that closeness where your man shares everything with you….IF you say YES TO MORE SEX.
What you won’t get is ANY of that if you don’t.
We figure..as was stated in this article..that you don’t really love us if you don’t want to be with us naked.
So….after a man has tried all of those nice things…the romancing….and it fails to work….we give up. We turn to sports…or hunting…or fishing…or the bar…or motorcycles …or cars…or porn…or….even another woman or women.
You ladies have it in you to solve this issue. Quite easily.
Say yes to more sex. Initiate more. Treat your man like you actually love him and want him.
After all…you say you do….show it.
Bob, THANK YOU, for your comment. I have watched this scenario unfold so often in the lives of couples! Because we speak different languages and men and women have a different relationship with their needs we often assume the other is just a version of us. Which is NOT true at all.
Because women don’t understand how men relate to sex, we often feel objectified. This is so unfair to men. Men who have a strong connection and need for physical intimacy. Exactly what you said, that is how you feel loved. That is how you feel you are being the man she needs!
Women often do not understand this. The power we have as women is often buried, we don’t understand it. The world also does a good job at perverting what a real woman is and also telling her “we don’t need men”. This is a lie.
Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for sharing your feelings. Men and women NEED each other. It is worth the time and investment in understanding how each other works and thinks so we can STOP assuming intentions and choose to understand our partner for who he/she really is.
Humans need connection. Intimacy is a big part of that. Men and women BOTH are meant to enjoy this part of marriage.
For women sex begins in the morning and continues to how she is treated throughout the day. As noted in the article women need to feel loved BEFORE sex. So if you want her to say yes more often, then men need to start saying yes to flowers and dishes and romance and laundry and surprises and cleaning and kind words and thoughtful gestures. Speak our love language my friend and we will say yes more.
I’m having trouble in my sex life..first off I was married for 12 years with not much of a sex life, I very rarely had an orgasm, my new man had a history of masterbating regularly. For the first year in a half we were together we had sex everyday sometimes 2-3 times a day, with orgasm Everytime! I was in heaven and addicted to him. I found porn on his phone and it devestated me, it torn my confidence apart like I wasn’t good enough for him. I have low self-esteem anyways. I knew about his past with it but I didn’t think he would need to when we were having sex so much..now everything has changed. now he comes up with all kinds of excuses why he doesn’t want to have sex with me which hurts my self-esteem even more. I still crave him but I do have a hard time getting myself mentally ready, and it is just awkward, I wait for him to start and he waits for me to start then nothing happens, he’s the one that doesn’t want it much anymore so I have a hard time starting cuz if he says no then I’m disappointed and wondering what I did wrong that he doesn’t want to and this was 6 months ago. I had never in my past marriage delt with masterbation or porn, and didn’t know how to handle it I just knew it hurt every part of me. I understand I hurt him to and he lost emotions himself and embarrassed him, he had always done it and didnt care about his exes when they would get upset about it he just did it anyways. He didn’t understand fully why it was a problem for me/others until he finally sat down and listened to how it made me feel. He has stopped doing it but won’t talk about how to get back on track, He hids his feelings so he never shared what he likes or dislikes I just had to figure it out. He just thinks we just let it happen naturally and we don’t need to talk about it but it’s still awkward and there has been some arguments over misunderstanding actions. I want to understand what he’s thinking and how he’s feeling but he won’t talk about it..is there a way I can bring it up without causing more damage?
Monica, thank you for being willing to open up and share such a personal part of your life. One that I know many other women will be able to relate to. I am sorry for the pain you are experiencing. The loneliness and lack of connection I am sure weigh heavy on you.
I wish there was a simple answer for you. So many women and men struggle with the same situation in their marriages. Unfortunately, the worlds view on sexuality and the increase of acceptance of pornography are creating these situations.
Pornography distorts a person’s reality of sex. The effects of it often don’t come for awhile. And can often linger long after the participation has stopped. But it is such a battle because society shares that it is fine and will actually add to your love life.
It actually robs you of your love life. As you are experiencing. And not just you but your man’s as well. But it is hard for men to accept this because it should be normal right? And if they stop doing it, why are they still struggling?
Luckily science is finally proving the effects of masturbation and pornography on individuals and marriages. The research coming out now and for a while is showing how damaging it is.
The good news is, it’s never too late to decide we want to change. The hard part is, your man is the only one that can make that decision for himself.
I know you love your man, I can feel it in the words you shared. I am so glad your man was willing to listen to how you felt concerning the things he was participating in. I am glad that he was able to respond positively to you. I would imagine he may still have some personal healing to do. There may be some shame involved like you mentioned.
In my experience, I have often found that men will struggle when things don’t come naturally. I feel like they are almost embarrassed. They are a man who is a natural procreator and it should just come naturally. It always has! And when things change, talking about it, can be hard for them. They may fear it is weakness they do not want to admit.
BUT it isn’t and they are normal. Let’s take a man who never has had a pornography attraction or masturbation issue. As he ages things are going to change. The desire in him will lessen. It will take active intention for him to increase his desire. It won’t be a strong libido most of the time. But for a healthy marriage to thrive, we need this closeness and connection. So it takes each partner being willing to work on their part. My next blog is going to be on this exact subject.
As far as your situation, you only have control over your part. You can’t force him. But the way we communicate with them can make all the difference in the world. First I would do some self-educating. I would learn about you and how you work. A great book for this is Knowing Her Intimately by Laura Brotherson. After you read this, or if you have another book you like, would you be able to approach your man saying, “Hun, can I ask you a question?” wait for the answer, “I love being with you. When we are together intimately it feeds me. I know we have been struggling lately. I recognize my part in it and I apologize. I want to work at being better. I have read this book to try and help me understand me and how I work. There are some things in here I didn’t know. It’s really opened my eye’s. Would you be willing to let me share some of this with you, or if you want we could read it together?” Now stop talking and let him answer, it may take him some time.
If he says no, then just keep working on you. You may need to consider going and seeing a therapist that specializes in sex therapy. You can’t make him go, but you could go and share your side and he/she can give you tools to go back to your man with. And hopefully, you will be an influence on him finding his own healing.
Monica thank you again for sharing your story. I have had a lot of feedback on this blog, which is creating my next blog which will discuss when he is the one that says no.
I wish you the very best on your journey. This is not an easy one. Be kind to yourself. Learn to communicate with your man your needs without them coming out as demands. This will increase his ability to resonate with what you are asking for. He may need to have gentle nudges to help him on the road to his own healing and connecting to the incredible man he is. He will then be able to love you fully like you deserve.
And what if the opposite is true? I have been very in tune sexually, he’s the one who says no, I’ve begged him to get things checked out and fixed because sex is how I feel loved, wanted, and needed, and it is a very rare event in our marriage. So, what do you do when it is the man always saying no or not responding to my sexual advances? This has killed my self esteem, and has caused problems in our relationship. Almost everything I’ve read has been directed toward the woman being the one to deny their partner sex.
Jill, you are not alone. Thank you for your thoughts. I am just finishing up a blog right now that will cover this exact thing. I hope you will find it helpful! Being told no by your man is so painful and it does damage our self-esteem. It is very real! I hope my blog will help you find some answers. Thank you again for your comment.
This article enlightened me. Unfortunately it came after infidelity hit our 26-year marriage. Both my husband and I have been through many challenges throughout our marriage, always sticking it out. However over time, we drifted and didn’t put our marriage first. We saw counselors at times and I even individually. We weren’t connecting well intimately and as a result, was but a few times in a year. We had two beautiful children and now are adults. At the same time our youngest was going off to college 4 hours away, my husband also was starting an expat work assignment overseas. He was finally getting an opportunity to work in a part of the world that he had studied the language and history of.
Unfortunately about 5 or 6 months later he had his first encounter at a strip club. Throughout last year I had hoped to try to work on our intimacy issues when I was flying over and spending time with him. We thought, with our youngest just leaving home, and pets and a house to take care of, that I would make visits the first year. For all the times that I went to stay with him, he was a bit distant romantically. When I approached him, he said he just resigned himself to a sexless marriage. He caught me off guard as I knew him better. He had always a much higher libido than I, which was one of the reasons for some of our counseling. Because of this, he took to his own pleasuring on his own. I would often find magazines, dvds or other materials that I saw he probably used to give him relief.
After my longest visit with him late last fall, I came home to discover I had breast cancer. It was quite shocking for me as I try to maintain an active life if exercise.
I had surgery at the end of last year when my husband came home for the holidays. Then in late Jan thru Feb, I had radiation. Throughout most all of my breast cancer diagnoses and recovery was alone, except for the surgery.
On my last visit to see him, a little over a month ago, I confronted my suspicions. He acknowledged. I was so numb and heartbroken. We sat in silence for most the day leading up to my departure. I did manage to get some questions answered though and it only put the knife through my heart even more. I found out he had invited one of the stripper/prostitutes to our apartment in this country he is currently living in, plus, he continued his meetups even while I was going through radiation treatment. He said he still loves me and cares about me, but I just couldn’t believe his words. Over the past year, he had been secretive, deceitful, dishonest and hurtful to me through his double life.
We are both in therapy now, but I have little to no communication with him after about 5-6 weeks since finding out. I am working on rebuilding myself and trying to heal mentally as well as physically due to my cancer diagnosis. I am supposed to start hormone therapy but it has been put off because of all this. I have never, ever felt such pain in my life as I did with going through this! Not even when my parents passed away in their later years.
Being we are nearly on opposite sides of the world right now, it’s hard to know where we stand or what our future holds. He has at least another 1+ years on his assignment.
I only wished that our past therapists would have been better at helping us to reconnect with our different levels.
Renee my heart is hurting for you right now. I can’t imagine the pain you have been through physically, emotionally, and mentally. First, I pray that you will be healed of this cancer and regain the strength of your body. Physical sickness requires such mental strength, one I am sure you are struggling with from your recent news about your husband. Renee, I am so sorry you have had to go through this. The pain from infidelity has no limit. It is felt through your entire being. I will not pretend to know what that feels like, not experiencing it myself, but I have worked with many women who have. I have friends who have as well. My heart hurts for each one. I am truly sorry.
I am sorry for what your husband has chosen. There is no excuse for it. It is wrong. Marriage is a constant maneuvering machine. We need to take responsibility for our part. Your man needed to be open with you, instead of trying to shut that part of him down. He needed to be honest and say hey I am not happy, would you help me figure this out? Choosing to step outside the bounds of marriage to find that “temporary” pleasure, is wrong. Hurtful. A pain you can’t really put into words. And extremely hard to be healed from, but I do believe it is possible.
In my research, no one really teaches us the difference between men and women besides the well-known verbiage, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. But even that doesn’t say what to do about it in a clear enough way that it becomes applicable. At least that was my experience. I would read self-help marriage books and come away more frustrated with my partner because he wasn’t doing this and that, and how in the world was my marriage to work if he wasn’t doing his part.
It wasn’t until I chose to take a look at my part, that I discovered how there are very definite differences between us, that not understood, become the root of so many problems. One of those is sex. I had no idea how my man related to sex, and I had no idea that I gave and adapted my needs for intimacy away. Because he wasn’t a version of me I thought he was selfish and just always wanted a piece of me, and couldn’t he see how hard I work and how tired I am?
What I have learned has changed my life. I had to share it with women. Help them to discover a different perception. Once I stopped assuming my man’s intentions and started to allow him to be different then I, our world changed.
Renee, I don’t believe it is too late for you. If your man is on board, and he is willing to own his part and willing to stop his actions and choose to work on his marriage, it is possible. If he is not then, you can only take care of you. I do agree with you; you need to work on becoming healthy to do this work on your marriage. I am glad you are in therapy and him as well. Being so far away from each other brings in a whole other dynamic. I hope you will be able to get to the point you can open the communication between the two of you. I think it will be vital for you to do some therapy together, through skype/webinar. When you are ready.
Be kind to yourself. You have been through so much and still have so much in front of you. I hope you have a support group around you that will allow you to mourn your health and loss of the life you thought you had, but will also build you, strengthen you, and give you hope.
When you are ready, there is a book that may be helpful to you on this journey. His Needs, Her Needs; Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard F. Harley. It was in this book that I really understood the possibilities of healing from infidelity. Won’t be easy, but it is possible if it is the desire of your heart and his. My thoughts are with you. Thank you for sharing such a real part of your life. No doubt it will touch many others as it did me.
One of the issues that we saw was stress and flat-out exhaustion. We both worked very stressful engineering jobs. As a mother, that’s two full time jobs. He used sex for stress relief. Sex was the last thing I wanted when I was ready to keel over. Husbands, pay attention to your wife’s energy level. She’s not going to be a drop of the hat sex-kitten after running full tilt for the last 16 hours and no help with chores or children. Consider turning off the TV or PC and helping with the chores (and yes, I was doing most of the yard work as well). Staying at home has made a significant improvement in our marriage, if not necessarily our finances.
You mention that the woman has to feel loved first. What am I supposed to do when this just isn’t happening? For years I said yes to sex just because I knew he needed it, even though I felt unloved and ignored. Saying yes to him didn’t ever increase his attention and affection to me. I’ve told him how I’ve felt and still nothing changes. He always says if I just gave him more sex hed be more loving to me, but I’ve tried that tactic for twenty years and I know for a fact that doesn’t work. He just takes it and ignores me. Now I’m to the point where I just feel used and I’m not willing to do it anymore. It kills me inside. We’ve been to counseling multiple times, and talked and talked and talked about it. But he just won’t be loving or attentive to me. He’ll do oar or two token things here and there and be angry if it doesnt result in jumping in bed right away. It just isn’t enough. It’s been 25 years. I don’t know what to do.
Thank you for sharing your situation. I do not believe you are alone. Unfortunately, not enough is talked about the “How” to love after we say our I do’s. We think that the natural infatuation that brought us together will carry us through. Not realizing that is a temporary state. Real deep love is nurtured and created through conscious intentions. I have found that there are individuals that struggle with this concept. They think it should just work! Unfortunately, that is a false belief that we need to expose. Each of us feels love a different way. From what you shared I would guess your husband feels love through physical touch. And he assumes it should work for you because it works for him. We often assume our spouse should be a version of us. This causes a lot of problems. Nicole, you most likely feel “loved” in another way and your man needs to be willing to love you in that way. I recognize this is a problem, because how do you convince your man that he needs to consciously love you a different way? The book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman goes through 5 different ways we feel love. Take the test. Find out how you feel love. (Even if you have done this before, do it again) If you can get your man to do this with you and read his book, it may open his eyes to a new perspective he hasn’t thought of. Society doesn’t teach us this. It is a huge misconception to think that loving another doesn’t require us choosing to LOVE them in the way THEY feel loved. The book His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley is also a very good book to read about fulfilling each other’s needs. We need TOOLS and actual action plans to put into place. Waiting for it to just happen is a recipe for failure. Now that being said, I would also advise you to choose to concentrate the majority of your efforts on your own part. This can be a struggle when you aren’t feeling the love reciprocated back. But you can’t change him. You can’t fix him. You only have control over your part. I have watched women change their marriages around by choosing to understand how their men think and work, at a deeper level then we think we already know. They are in no way a version of us. Often we think if they would do this or that it would make everything better. Focusing on their part only causes us pain and resentment when they don’t follow through past the initial attempts. I would encourage you to seek resources to understand your man better. This may open your eyes to being able to get your needs met as well, by asking for them in a way that resonates with HIM. We really do speak 2 different languages. I do have a 10-week online course that I teach about our different languages. It is empowering for you to understand HIM at a deeper level as well as understand yourself at a deeper level! I wish you the very best. I want you to know you are not alone. Chances are your man was never taught that this LOVE thing takes work. He can’t understand how you are not happy when he feels he is doing his part. Not realizing that his part also includes loving you back in a way that resonates with you. So so important. I am sure he is a good man, but you two not understanding each other’s language is where the resentments have built from. Resentment kills love. I understand this because of my own journey. As I worked on ME and understanding how he thinks and works, which is so different then I, I was able to rid myself of those resentments and now I am able to ask for my needs in a way that my man is happy to provide. Remember we don’t need to settle. There is knowledge and information that can help us. I encourage you to find resources that will help you. I wish you the very best in your journey! 💕