# Affection, Honest Talks and Grace: Adam and Ashley Mesa on Intimacy Pastor Adam Mesa and his wife Ashley talk about physical touch, honest conversations with teenagers, accepting a spouse's past, and the kind of home where children tell the truth. Source: Pray.com — https://www.pray.com/articles/affection-honest-talks-and-grace-adam-and-ashley-mesa-on-intimacy Author: Adam Mesa Category: Love & Relationships Published: 2026-10-22 Last revised: 2026-10-22 --- ## Key takeaways - **Couples differ on touch.** One spouse may crave closeness while the other likes more space, and both can be normal. - **Affection can get stuck on one track.** If a husband only receives touch through intimacy, he may expect every touch to lead there. - **Grace is not permission.** Admitting that purity is hard for teenagers helps them trust you, and it does not excuse the choices. - **Silence leaves young people alone.** Both Adam and Ashley say nobody talked with them honestly about their bodies and emotions. - **A spouse's past is a decision.** Adam says you either accept the person, scars included, or you walk away before marriage. - **Safe parents get told the truth.** Children who expect grace are more likely to confess early. ## Two comfort levels with touch The conversation on the Beyond I Do podcast opens with plenty of laughter. Pastor Adam Mesa and his wife Ashley compare how they like to be touched, and they do not agree. Ashley says she enjoys it when her husband touches her or makes her feel special, but she often holds back from saying so because a simple touch can turn into something more. Adam describes himself as someone who rarely initiates affection with Ashley, and who then hardly knows what to do with it when it comes. He compares himself to a Doberman, a breed known as a Velcro dog: pet it once after long deprivation and it will not leave your side. He says he is very affectionate with their sons, and that once upon a time he was affectionate with Ashley too, until he realized touch was not at the top of her love language list. The couple also agree that everyone has a limit. Adam says he does not like to feel smothered, and the two joke about running hot, sweaty hands and eating side by side. Behind the humor sits a plain point: closeness is wanted in different amounts by different people, so spouses have to talk about it. ## When affection only leads one way Adam then turns to something more serious. He tells about a Sunday when he shared a story about his dad praying for leaders who do not have good relationships with their fathers. Afterward, he says, 15 to 20 men under 30 came to him and asked for a hug. Some had tattoos on their faces and teardrops by their eyes, and they were timid about asking. Adam had not invited anyone to come for a hug, so he reads it as a sign of how deprived many people are. As he put it, "most people like some type of physical touch." He applies that to marriage. If a man has few close relationships, he asks, when was the last time anyone held him? Adam says that when a wife is not naturally affectionate, the result can be this: "the only time he does receive any type of affection is through intimacy." The husband then pursues that every time, because it is the only framework he has for being touched. Adam says this can be broken from both sides. A wife can offer affection more often, so that touch is not a rare event. A husband also has to train his mind to receive a hug or a back rub as love, and not as a hint. Adam adds that, in his view, men simply tend to have a higher sex drive, which is part of why the pattern forms. ## Teenagers need honest conversations The talk moves to how Adam and Ashley grew up. Adam says the messages he heard as a teenager were that anything physical meant going to hell, delivered by leaders who talked as if they had been born 30 years old and married. He wanted realness about how hard it is. He notes that in biblical times a teenager would have been married young, and he does not say that is how it should work now. His own advice is to limit sexual partners and, if you can, enter marriage as a virgin, because that gives a marriage strong chances. He pairs that wisdom with grace. Adam says he pastors teenagers and their parents, and that parents who use his language report that conversations go better. In his words, "me acknowledging that this is hard doesn't also mean that I'm giving permission." As a teenager, he says, he felt broken for having the desires he had, and no one told him otherwise. Adam admits that his own motive as a teen was unhealthy. Having learned about the five love languages, he figured that if he could discover what a girl wanted, whether words or gifts, he could meet her needs so she would meet his. Ashley says she had her own gap. She was only affectionate with her parents, was taught not to be intimate with anyone, and was never asked what she was feeling. Adam says a section of the book he is writing, due out next year, covers how parents can make these conversations intentional. ## Taking a spouse's past into marriage Adam also recounts what happened when he and Ashley were engaged. Ashley had lived a very different life than he had, and she told him about her past, including that she had a clear health test. Adam says he had never imagined facing this with someone he loved, and it threw him for a loop. He knew that people can be healed and forgiven, yet there are things they still carry into marriage. Adam says he decided within about a day that he would accept her, because he saw that she was a new creation who had surrendered her life to Christ. He says he has not thought about it since, and Ashley adds that he has never brought it up in the 11 years since. He has said that to lose Ashley over this would have meant missing their two sons. He gives the same counsel to other couples. Ashley has always said that if you were not in someone's past, you cannot judge it. Adam says that before marriage you should decide whether you accept the person, scars and all, or end the relationship, but you should not make them feel like trash. He also describes the line he drew about men from Ashley's past who had pursued her or dated her: those ties had to end so that the past would stop dangling. ## A home where children tell the truth Ashley describes a video she saw of a father and his seven-year-old son. The boy confessed to saying a bad word and whispered it in his dad's ear. The father said they do not say such things, then added, "thank you for trusting me and telling me that word." The boy began to cry and hugged him. Ashley says the son had already recognized his mistake and did not need a reprimand. She says she hid things from her parents when she was growing up because she never wanted to be seen as a disappointment. Adam shares a similar story about his father, who was strict during Adam's teens. When he was caught with a girlfriend, he says, his phone was taken and he was locked in a room. Adam says his father had never seen anything else modeled, and that his dad changed after going through cancer. Years later, Adam says, he told his father about a mistake from his early twenties, crying as he spoke, and his dad hugged him and said he loved him. Adam says, "That forgiveness and grace gave me the capacity to want to do better." He says he wishes he had known that version of his father at 12, 13, 14, and 15. He wants to model it for their sons, knowing it will not go perfectly every time. ## What this means for you If you are married, the first step is simple: ask your spouse how they like to be touched and what it means to them. Many couples never have that talk, and Adam and Ashley say they are still having it. Ask also whether touch in your marriage has become tied to one outcome, and whether a hug on the couch could just be a hug. If you are raising children or teenagers, consider what they would expect from you if they came with something hard. Adam's point is that you can say plainly that something is difficult without giving permission for it. You can also thank a child for telling you the truth before you correct them. If you carry a past, or you married someone who does, the message here is that a decision is available. For Adam and Ashley, that decision to accept, forgive and leave the past behind opened the way to the marriage they have today.