The Flirtation Experiment: Putting Magic, Mystery, and Spark Into Your Everyday Marriageনমুনা

The Flirtation Experiment

Phylicia

Funny that it all began with a Hallmark movie. 

It was a little before our fifth anniversary, at the height of those Hallmark Christmas movie marathons. This particular night my husband, Josh, was away at a hockey game while I sat on the couch, a pint of mint chip ice cream as my companion.

The love story played out, and I noticed the tension, the playfulness, the suspenseful “does he like me?” feelings I remembered from my own dating days. 

Love is a choice and an action, but what about that initial infatuation? It plays a part as well. Combining the intentionality of biblical love with the passion and mystery of falling in love is powerful. 

And then there is flirtation. In my conservative teen years, this was a cardinal sin. Girls wondered whether flirtation was okay, what it looked like, and whether or not their friends’ actions toward boys qualified as “flirting” or just friendliness. Flirtation—I was taught—is inherently deceitful and insincere. But is that true? 

Scripture is actually very open to the idea of female pursuit in marriage. The wife in Song of Solomon even dreamed of pursuing her lover: 

On my bed by night

I sought him whom my soul loves;

I sought him, but found him not.

I will rise now and go about the city,

in the streets and in the squares;

I will seek him whom my soul loves.

I sought him, but found him not.

The watchmen found me

as they went about in the city.

“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

—Proverbs 3:1-3

Since love reciprocates and initiates, it makes perfect sense for a wife to cultivate the chemistry she wants to see in her marriage.

So I got busy! I made a list of thirty ways I could flirt with my husband, ways I could pursue him intentionally. Thirty items in hand, I started right away. I called it the Flirtation Experiment.

Fascinated by what was happening in me and my marriage, I told my friend Lisa—married twenty-seven years compared to my five—what had occurred. She was intrigued, and we began talking about how this experiment could work for other women—women of all personalities, ages, and marriages. Would the steps I took work just as well for an introverted wife and extroverted husband like Lisa’s relationship? Or for a couple who’d been married longer? 

Lisa and I have a heart for thriving Christian marriages. We firmly believe that marriage is meant to make us holy—but holiness also includes joy. A godly marriage will also be a happy marriage—and it’s okay for Christians to desire both. They go hand in hand because we serve a God who is both righteousness and joy.

Affection

Phylicia

The first time I took Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages test, I got a zero for physical touch. Nowhere inside of me was there a desire to hug or be hugged, to touch or be touched; doing so made me extremely uncomfortable. As friends approached for a hug of greeting, I’d stiffly bend to meet them, wishing we could settle for a handshake. Is it any wonder my aversion to affection plagued my marriage?

I didn’t realize it then, but my disdain for physical touch was actually fear. I was terrified that reaching out to my husband would result in rejection. This fear of rejection was so paralyzing, it was easier to pull back, to compartmentalize, than to express love physically. 

Once I recognized what fear was doing to me and my marriage, I had a starting point. I couldn’t change years of fear patterns overnight, but I could take small steps to fight back. My first step: touch Josh—not in a seductive or sexual way, but in the simple way one does to say, “I’m here, and I love you,” instead of passing him like a coworker at the water station.

It was new at first. I felt awkward. I was still getting cuddles and hugs and toddler kisses from children all day long, still satisfied without constant touching. But I noticed that these little efforts at affection, with no strings attached, made me more attached.

Josh noticed it too. He didn’t say anything, but he squeezed my hand when I gave it. He came up beside me as I tossed laundry in the dryer and touched my shoulder too. It was like affection was contagious. In a Christian marriage, our model for love is Christ Himself. He opened His heart to be broken by imperfect people and died to reconcile them to God. 

We can look at 1 Corinthians 13 for a foundation of biblical love. This famous passage, so often quoted at weddings, tells us that love is patient and kind, not envious or rude. Love perseveres. It bears all things. In other words, loving other people is intentional. It’s not an attitude of passivity, sitting on one’s hands, waiting to respond. It’s active. And these commands to love apply to both men and women—particularly to those married to each other.

If you think fear is playing a role in your ability to show love physically, spend some time in the Word studying what God says about fear. 

Then decide on a simple act of affection to do today (and tomorrow) that will express your love in physical ways.

Passion

Lisa

I heard him walk through the front door, but I never even looked up. By the time my husband, Matt, came home that evening, I was so frustrated, so frazzled, that his coming home hardly mattered. I kept sautéing the onions and peppers without so much as a glance in his direction. I just ignored him and tried my best to tune out the squabbling of our four young kids hungrily sitting around the kitchen table.

I kept my eyes down, stirring those vegetables as if my life depended on it. And that’s when I felt him come up behind me and slip his strong arms around my waist. I knew I should have felt cared for, but mostly what I felt was annoyed. Couldn’t he see I was trying to make dinner? Couldn’t he do something about the kids who were now throwing their napkins at each other across the table? Couldn’t he do something?

I shrugged him off. Without saying a single word, I let him know that I wanted him to leave me alone. He got the message all right, and I saw his shoulders slightly drop as he stepped back. He stood silently behind me, watching as I sautéed away.

But then, out of nowhere, I had the wildest idea come into my head. What if . . . what if instead of brushing him off, I twirled around and leaned back into him? I suddenly had to know.

What if?

And then, right in that crazy kitchen moment, I turned off the stove, whipped around, and pressed my body deeply into his. And stayed there for a minute or more.

I don’t know who was more surprised, him or me. He stared into my eyes, wondering what in the world had gotten into me. 

How could I have known that one small move like this could start a much-needed, much- desired fire? 

Now, you may be asking yourself what place passion has in a Christian marriage. 

God didn’t leave passion to the world, and neither should we. The desire we have for our husbands is a beautiful part of how God designed us as women. To desire your man is to live in harmony with who you were created to be. Just think: God could have kept our marriage mechanical, but, instead, he gave us that extra spark. And we don’t have to wait for our husbands to make the first move.

Lean into your man. Let the sparks fly!

Respond

Describe your marriage relationship today. 

How have you intentionally included God in your marriage?

Prayer

Father God, I commit my husband and my marriage to You.