The Wedding Night

The wedding feast was over. Beautiful wishes were spoken. Gifts were given. The guests, satisfied and content, went home, while my friends brought me and my beloved wife to my place and, after saying goodbye, left us alone.

Entering the empty room, we both flopped onto the couch and sighed with relief. It is not so easy to be the center of attention all day and also think about making sure that all the guests are happy and entertained.

They say that at night one should sleep, but for some reason on this night we did not feel like it. I looked with a smile at my dear and closest person and smiled joyfully. She was beautiful in her white dress and looked at me with interest, wanting to understand what I would do next. I suggested that we pray, to which my wife immediately agreed, and we knelt and offered thankful prayers to God, asking for His blessing on all our future actions.

Then came the suggestion to relieve the tension of the past day by taking a shower. Said and done. Water is a gift of God.

And so, both clean and wrapped in towels, we stood facing each other and smiled joyfully, not knowing how best to continue our family life. I decided to embrace my dear half, and we gently pressed ourselves to one another.

What happened next we will not tell you. This part of our family life will remain closed to you, friends, forever. This night became the beginning of a new chapter for us, but we also realized: marriage is God’s design for us, and we should approach it with wisdom. For if God created intimacy between husband and wife, then He also has answers as to how to live rightly in this sphere. We understood that intimacy is also worship of God through the unity of husband and wife.

When creating man in His own image and likeness, God gave the command to be fruitful and multiply and placed within His creation certain abilities, feelings, and instincts. The Lord made sex beautiful and blessed within the framework of marriage and covered this act with a mystery that is revealed only to husband and wife in their close relationship.

Through Hollywood, the enemy decided to present his own version of such intimacy to the world and reduced God’s plan to animal passions, adorning this craft with sensual experiences and vivid scenes. And many people took such images as their textbooks and swallowed this bait, wishing to build families with such ideas.

As a result, we see a sad picture of people disappointed in family life, insatiability, various perversions, and adultery.

Few people talk about how things should be, believing that newlyweds will figure it out on their own. And this ignorance Satan uses for his purposes.

If God does not teach us this art through dedicated and wise people, then the enemy of souls will take charge of our education and teach us that which will kill us or make us sick.

The first wedding night can become the beginning of the most wonderful relationship, or it can lay the foundation for various diseases and psychological disorders.

I think everyone who enters into marriage at some point faces a similar question: “How should intimacy be started correctly?” We also stood before this mystery, feeling joy and slight excitement. So as not to rely only on our guesses, we decided to include here the advice of a specialist we consulted before the wedding, which can help newlyweds avoid mistakes and immediately build intimacy on a solid foundation.

The first and most important thing to know and understand is that man and woman differ from each other both physically and emotionally. They will never experience physical intimacy with the same perception and feelings.

As a rule, the husband takes the entire initiative of these relations upon himself, but without knowing the structure of the woman’s body and psyche, he cannot understand what he should rightly do and what he should not do, while the wife waits for what the husband is not able to give her.

To avoid such misunderstandings, it is important simply to discuss all these issues both before physical intimacy and during it.

If a woman thinks that her husband should guess how to give her maximum pleasure, she will be surprised. For he does not possess such intuition, nor is he supposed to. The responsibility for one’s own enjoyment each participant in intimacy must take upon themselves. We are given the gift of speech so that we may use it to express our thoughts and feelings, and this gift should be used also in intimacy, striving to understand each other, explaining our sensations.

The bedroom is not a gym for setting records in speed or number of exercises. It is a holy place where one should invite God and ask for wisdom and blessing for all that happens there. And the Lord will answer.

For a man, as a rule, a few seconds are enough for his imagination to make him ready for intimacy with his wife. A visible image gives a signal to the brain, and the corresponding hormones are released into the blood. A woman perceives this differently, and she needs more time for emotional readiness. Therefore, she should gently restrain her husband’s spontaneous impulses so that he does not rush to start and finish everything quickly.

But if one of the spouses is tired, overstimulated, or in emotional struggle, then they should not be pressured into intimacy.

The second important rule for harmony in intimate relations is understanding and caring that the wife first experiences the joy of intimacy and is not left unsatisfied. During mutual caresses, the woman’s hormonal system prepares for the release of prolactin, estradiol, and oxytocin into the blood, and when orgasm occurs, her body, experiencing positive stress, calms down and produces hormones of happiness, which afterwards promote a closer spiritual perception of her husband.

If this does not happen, and the husband rushes, thinking only of himself, then after ejaculation he calms down without bringing the wife to climax, and all of the woman’s internal arousal turns into vascular congestion, which with frequent repetition can lead to serious physical and spiritual illnesses. A woman’s body is not designed to calmly react to the sudden cessation of the process that has been begun.

The ignorance of a husband is in that he judges his wife by himself, not understanding the structure of her body. As a rule, the most sensitive erogenous zones are located not inside the woman but outside, and the husband’s task is to recognize and find these places through kisses and caresses. And the wife can tell her husband where it is most pleasant for her to feel his touches and caresses.

When a man receives what he wants, his body calms down, and he loses enthusiasm to continue intimate play, and the wife’s body and psyche can suffer from this. And when such one-sided relationships become the norm, emotional cooling can occur on the part of the woman, and nothing will excite her anymore.

Intimacy is an expression of love and faithfulness, not just technique. If spouses focus only on “correct actions,” they may lose the joy of the heart. The main thing is not “how,” but “with whom” and “for what purpose.”

It should also be said of a man that when he is brought to the peak of arousal and then denied continuation, he, like a woman, experiences inner imbalance, which can cause serious illnesses of internal organs and the psyche.

Newlyweds should, if possible, first study each other’s bodies, sharing their discoveries with simplicity of heart. They are given to each other for enjoyment. Wisdom in any family sphere will never be excessive.

Newlyweds must remember: the first intimacy is not an exam for success, but the beginning of a long journey. It is important to create an atmosphere of trust where there is no fear of judgment. Mistakes and awkwardness are normal and no reason for shame.

The first wedding night does not necessarily need to include everything at once. Sometimes it is wise just to be together, embrace, sleep, and give each other time to get used to the new. This is also a part of intimacy. Sometimes the expectations of newlyweds do not coincide with reality. It is important to learn to accept each other’s imperfections and to forgive, even in intimacy. This will relieve pressure.

Though we are all different, and not everything described above may apply to your situation, in this matter it is necessary to have a clear understanding of physiology and inner processes. Love in marriage is always a path of learning. Husband and wife gradually discover one another, share their feelings, and learn to hear the heart of the other. Sometimes this happens easily and naturally, sometimes it requires patience and humility. But in any case, God gave spouses time so that they could grow in love and unity.

Love for a spouse helps endure their ignorance and can protect the psyche from destruction. Mistakes and misunderstandings in the beginning are inevitable, but they should not become a barrier. If spouses invite God into their relationship, learn to speak openly with each other, and strive for mutual love, then their intimacy will not be a source of pain but of joy and strength for the whole family life.

1. Please read Ephesians 5:25; Genesis 2:22-25; 4:1; Proverbs 1:20-33; 5:15-19; Song of Solomon 1:1-3; 2:4-6; 4:10-16; 7:2-11; 1 Corinthians 7:3-5; Romans 7:2; Colossians 3:18-19; Proverbs 2:10-11 in the light of this lesson.

2. What did you understand from this topic?

3. Are such topics dangerous for reflection?

4. Should such topics be raised with young people to warn them against mistakes?

5. Do you know any specialists in your church on such questions who deal with this professionally?

6. What relation does this lesson have to family happiness?

7. Can ignorance in such matters be destructive for health and the psyche?

8. Are all people the same in their sensual perception of relationships?

9. What should be done if the problems described in the lesson are already too late to correct?

10. Does the Lord desire that we be wise people in such relationships?

11. Do our lessons help build proper relationships?

12. Did you notice a difference in the perception of what was written between the first and second reading of this lesson?

13. Is it worth learning more about what is not usually discussed publicly?

14. Can such topics be applied to all married couples?

15. For what purpose was this lesson written?