It's Chris Taylor here with another sex chat quickie. I want to talk with you today about

measuring sexual growth. And I'm talking specifically to the women who are trying to grow in the

area of sex, who are trying to tend to that part of their marriages. I do want to acknowledge here that my own

motivation for working on sex was very selfish and self-centered. My husband was grouchy and

depressed. We were arguing a lot. And I was so desperate for things to just feel better that I was finally willing to work on the one

thing he'd been complaining about for years and that was sex. When it comes to sexual growth,

it's easy to get antsy and want things to just be better overnight, preferably with little to no

effort on our part. When I began to read and learn about the role of sexual intimacy in

maintaining a marriage, it mattered to me that our marriage as a whole was improving, not just the

sex. As I was beginning to make some specific changes in my approach to marriage and sex,

there were times when the progress just seemed so slow, especially in the area of sex. For several weeks,

it wouldn't feel like anything was really different. I would make the same efforts,

or new efforts, day after day, and week after week. I couldn't tell if my husband noticed or was

even responding at all. I found myself frustrated wondering, why am I going through

all this hard work? I'm stepping outside my comfort zone and trying to make new habits,

and it doesn't make one bit of difference. Around three months after I started to make some changes,

my husband still hadn't seemed to notice any of my efforts at all. He was still kind of grouchy and depressed much of the time, and I wanted to give up more times

than I can say.

Then I would pause and think about measuring growth differently.

Day by day, I couldn't see any progress.

And week by week, I couldn't.

But then I looked back. Was our marriage better than it was

...