Sex is Holy? | Part Two

As Hubby and I have journeyed through healing our marriage from his porn use and reclaiming our sexuality from the world, there have been some important realizations along the way.

First, the Bible talks about sex a lot.

Ever read Song of Songs? I read it a long time ago, but it wasn’t until recently, when Hubby and I lay naked in our bed and read it aloud together that the full reality of that little book hit me. Not only do Solomon and his beloved share a very intimate emotional and sexual connection and not only do they fully enjoy each other’s bodies, but there seem to be some references to oral sex in there, too (this was shocking to me!).

Then there’s the New Testament and 1 Corinthians 7.5. It doesn’t say, “Wives, make sure you give him enough sex to keep him satisfied.” It says, “Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (NLT, emphasis added) Of course wives should not deprive their husbands. But clearly the husband should not deprive his wife, either, which means it must be okay for wives to want it!

Second, God made the clitoris.

Y’all, this one fact blew my mind! Hubby and I teach our boys that God made all of their body parts and calls them good–all of them. Yet somehow, culture had fed me lies and made me ashamed of my body parts. Sure, I was proud of my breasts because they nourished babies, but my vagina? Nope. I was ashamed. I felt it was ugly, dirty, smelly, and bad.

Yet when I really stopped to think about the fact that God did, in fact, make all of my body, I was astounded. I knew that the clitoris served no other purpose than bringing about pleasure. And since I believe that God doesn’t do anything by accident, I concluded that He must have intended for me to enjoy sex, too.

Third, sexual intimacy in marriage is meant to unite husband and wife as one–mind, body, and soul.

We are separated all day long while Hubby is at work. We have different thoughts and different ways of approaching the world. We walk about independently from one another. We do communicate and share our hearts, so we experience emotional intimacy. We pray together and share our faith, so we experience spiritual intimacy. But it’s that moment when we come together sexually that we become one flesh. Surely God didn’t mean for that to only happen once every now and then. That’s not the impression I get from Scripture.

Fourth, God designed sex to be a powerful, intimate experience that, when used correctly, unites us with our spouse and glorifies Him.

This realization was huge. God is the Designer of sex, the Giver of this amazing gift, but Satan has taken that beautiful gift and twisted it to a point that it looks ugly, dirty, sinful, depraved, and completely desecrated. In our marriage, that desecration came in the form of pornography. Though it certainly wasn’t pornography alone. Early in our marriage a friend got me started watching Sex and the City, and that, plus the lies our culture tells, the porn movie my friend had shown me when I was a kid, and the church’s relative silence on the issue led me to believe the world’s view of sex: it’s dirty.

But once I wrapped my head around the fact that God designed sex intentionally and specifically–even adding the clitoris for female pleasure–I was able to see that if God designed it, then it’s holy. Because God is holy.

Have we still had challenges to work through? Yes, of course. These lies and misconceptions have been deeply ingrained in my beliefs since I entered adolescence. And pornography complicated things, heaping on additional lies and shame, and twisting Hubby’s beliefs about sex. We’ve certainly had to work through this prayerfully and intentionally, but we’re getting there.

But we’re finally to a place where we see that sex is, indeed, holy.

Some of my favorite resources on this issue are:

• Sacred Sex by Tim Alan Gardner
• The Gospel in the Bedroom by J. Parker (plus the rest of her blog)
• The Marriage Bed by Paul and Lori Byerly

What about you? What lies have you believed? How has culture and/or pornography twisted your view of sex? What hurdles have you had to overcome in your marriage bed? 

Much love,
C.

Sex is Holy?

I’m going to step away from the Unveiled Reality posts for the next couple of days and address one of the biggest obstacles to a healthy sex life I have had to overcome (Hubby and I are both overcoming this, but I’m only writing it from my point of view…I’m trying to talk him into some guest posts).

The view that sex is holy.

I grew up in church. That means from the time I hit puberty, pretty much the only message I ever heard about sex was “don’t do it.” Maintaining my purity was of utmost importance in order to give the gift of my virginity to my future husband, and the loud-and-clear message was that my virginity was the most important thing I could give him.

So I didn’t have sex.

I also didn’t really learn anything about sex in church. There was no Christian voice speaking over the roar of culture to tell me the truth: that sex is everywhere in Scripture and that God has so much more to say than just “don’t do it.”

So, most of what I learned about sex came from movies, friends who were already having sex, and the things I overheard from my classmates and peers. Additionally, when I was around 11 or 12, my best friend at the time showed me a porn movie she had found in her parents’ nightstand.

Not a great education.

Then Hubby and I got married at the young age of 20 (because we saved sex for marriage, we weren’t going to wait forever). During our pre-marital counseling with our pastor, the sum of preparation for sex in marriage was as follows:

“If you put a penny in a jar every time you have sex the first year of marriage and then take a penny out every time you have sex for the rest of your lives, you’ll never empty the jar.”

That was it. So I walked into marriage with the expectation that we would have loads of sex, although I didn’t know what on earth I was doing.

Our wedding night was amazing and I truly felt the oneness that sexual intimacy brought. I didn’t climax any of the 5 times, but that didn’t matter. I knew it was okay to be excited about sex, and I was, but that excitement quickly waned on our honeymoon when it didn’t feel as good as I’d hoped it would. It felt difficult, sometimes hurt, and was incredibly awkward.

Oh how I wish someone had explained the necessity of foreplay!

Over the years, we figured out the mechanics of sex and we learned how to make sure each of us had an orgasm every time. We fell into a very comfortable sex life, and there were years where sex was very fulfilling for both of us. My sex drive was always much lower than Hubby’s (thanks to the Pill), but we made it work.

However, as I grew spiritually and drew closer to the Lord (especially as we went to the mission field), sex became less and less appealing. I honestly never realized it, but somewhere along the way I had started to increasingly feel like sex was dirty.

As a good, Christian wife, I shouldn’t want it, right?

Men want sex and their wives acquiesce, right?

Sex was for making babies and satisfying my husband, not for my pleasure. Right?

Only “dirty” women desire sex, right?

I still enjoyed sex and was able to climax, but increasingly, I limited our sex acts to things I felt were “right” and had started to experience a vague guilt each time I did enjoy it a lot. I also started to avoid anything that might be construed as “worldly” or “dirty.”

I didn’t recognize it in myself, so I didn’t realize that I had started to resent my husband for asking for sex too often or asking for his favorite “favors.” I felt that having sex too often was wrong and those “favors” were downright dirty in God’s eyes. After our babies were born, I mostly just had obligation sex and I consistently refused my husband any “favors.”

And we continued to grow apart.

It wasn’t until after my husband’s admission of porn use and the numerous conversations about our marriage and sex that ensued that I finally started making connections.

When I opened up and shared this struggle with my best friend, the conversation that followed was shocking…she shared with me her view of sex within marriage. She’s a mature believer, conservative in many ways, and she wholeheartedly believes that sex is holy and that God wants us to not just have sex, but to enjoy it with our husbands. She shared with me The Marriage Bed website, and what I found there honestly stunned me. Sex is good? Sex is holy? Sex is meant to be enjoyed by both man and wife?!? I couldn’t believe that I was reading “how to” posts on oral sex, stripping for your husband, and positions to help women climax.

Hubby and I started reading The Marriage Bed together, I started reading other Christian marriage blogs (see Blog Love list) and sending him links, and we began reading the book, Sacred Sex, together.

The sexual revolution had begun.

More on that tomorrow!
C.

The Lies We Believed about Sex

In recovering from my husband’s porn use, we have been on a journey to pursue marriage according to God’s design and view sex as holy and beautiful. Through our many, many conversations, we have started to discover just how many lies we’ve believed about sex. The truth is, we will probably continue to uncover lies for some time.

Between the lies we heard from peers growing up to movies and entertainment to pornography, there are so many misconceptions and twisted views of sex floating around in our culture.

One thing Hubby and I have had to work particularly hard at is taking back sexual intimacy from the world. God is the designer and giver of sex. Satan took God’s beautiful, mysterious, powerful gift and twisted it a multitude of ways, making it something ugly and painful for so many people, us included.

Sadly, even Christians are not immune to these lies. While there are Christian voices growing louder (see Blog Love for some of my favorites) and speaking up about the truth of sexual intimacy within marriage, we still have to fight against the roar of culture to hear that truth.

So what are some of the lies we believed? In no particular order…

• Sex is dirty. And the alternative, sex is not holy.
• Men want sex all the time.
• Sex is mostly just meant for men to enjoy.
• Good, Christian wives give their husbands sex, but they don’t strongly desire it (my lie).
• There are only a few sex acts and positions that are okay for Christians. The rest are worldly and dirty (mostly my lie).
• Only fit, thin, beautiful people have great sex lives.
• Women can and should have multiple orgasms every single time (his lie).
• Women should be able to orgasm quickly with little need for foreplay (his lie).
• God should be a part of every area of our lives, except the marriage bed.
• Anything that can be seen in porn should be off-limits within a Christian marriage, because it’s clearly depraved, dirty, and sinful (mostly my lie; also from what I understand, that would rule out literally everything).
• Vaginas are ugly and a source of shame (my lie).
• Sex is a purely physical act meant for making babies and giving men physical release.
• Married sex grows boring with time.
• We shouldn’t openly discuss sex, sexual preferences, and sexual desires with our spouses. It’s dirty to talk about sex.
• We shouldn’t openly discuss sexual intimacy in church. It’s a private event that should remain unspoken.
• Women should become aroused at the mere mention of sex and be ready to go quickly (his lie).
• Men should become aroused at the mere mention of sex and be ready to go quickly.
• Men’s sexuality isn’t affected by stress or emotions (my lie).
• God is embarrassed and chooses to look away when we have sex.
• Oral sex is particularly dirty and shameful (my lie).
• If wives are into it too much, that makes them dirty (my lie, and letting go of this has been a process).
• Wives should keep their husbands satisfied, but their sexual needs are less important (my lie).
• There is no room for masturbation in marriage. Ever.
• We should love our spouses sacrificially in every area, except the marriage bed.

I plan to confront some of these lies in coming posts, because the truth about married sex is so much more beautiful, freeing, and holy than I could have ever imagined. We haven’t figured it all out yet; we are still learning.

We have had nights full of passion, deep emotional connection, and uninhibited pleasure in which we get glimpses into what God meant when he gave us the gift of sex.

But we have also had nights of insecurity and struggles, with the pain of the betrayal causing shame where none should exist and the consequences of sin causing dysfunction years before there should be any.

But I want to join the voices of Christian men and woman fighting to reclaim married sexual intimacy from the world!

What lies have you believed? Do any of the above lies resonate with you? What truths have you discovered to counter the world’s lies?

Much love,
C.

More on Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction

I left off on my last post with our anniversary weekend, when I wore gorgeous lingerie for my husband and he was unable to sustain enough of an erection to make love to me to climax.  If you haven’t read that post, go back and read it first, then come back here.

After that unsuccessful and very hurtful, failed lovemaking over our anniversary, the only thing that made sense to me was that he told me he desired me, but really (thanks to porn) he was turned off by me and all of my flaws. He wanted to desire me, but I just didn’t arouse him the way porn had.

And that just about killed me.

Over the next couple of weeks, we had some of the worse conflicts since I discovered his porn use. I was deeply hurt by the way he kept insisting that the ED was just because he was tired, insisting that he truly desired me and that I really did turn him on.

Yet his excuses didn’t line up with reality. Sometimes, he was running on a handful of hours of sleep, and his penis worked fine. Other times, he was well-rested and it didn’t. Still others, he was tired and it didn’t work.

There was no way to predict what would happen, and I was So. Tired. of putting myself out there sexually only to have him not get aroused enough to make love to me.

It was humiliating.

And then one day just a couple days before Christmas, I was researching erectile dysfunction after porn use. I discovered the website, Your Brain On Porn, and as I read story after story from men who had experienced this, I realized that our experience matched porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED) perfectly.

When he got home that night, I had him read it, too. He finally agreed that it did sound like he had PIED, which was a very difficult thing for him to admit. For a lot of men, it doesn’t start right away after stopping the porn use, and it can last anywhere from a few days to several months. Every man is different.

But discovering this meant that we were able to let out a huge sigh of relief. He admitted that the whole situation had completely confused and frustrated him, and I was really hurt and confused by it, too. Finally, we actually had a very reasonable explanation for why it works sometimes, and why other times nothing at all happens.

Over the next couple of days, as Hubby continued to process this information, he realized that his “flatline” days (we call them low days) presented themselves as feeling tired; however, as he analyzed them more carefully, he realized that it was more a feeling of depression and a complete lack of interest in anything, not just sex. They are zombie days. But other days, he feels fine and thinks about sex a normal amount, is aroused easily, and orgasms without frustration.

We also realized that often, when he has an orgasm, it’s typically followed by a couple of “flatline” days. From everything we’ve read on YBOP and watched on Reboot Nation, this is a normal experience and eventually gets better.

Since that day, we’ve changed up our strategy some.

Before that, we had been taking turns initiating lovemaking so that we were both being vulnerable and thinking about how to excite the other. The problem with that was that I never knew when his penis would work, so sometimes I initiated and he hardly responded or had a lot of trouble. And those days hurt so much. It seemed to confirm all of my insecurities and made me feel like I STILL wasn’t enough for my own husband. It was awful and caused a lot of pain.

Now, we don’t surprise each other by initiating lovemaking. If I’m feeling in the mood, I tell him early in the day and find out what kind of day he’s having first. He feels free to be open about whether or not it’s a low day.

We’ve also kind of scheduled sexual activity. We had read that consistency will work to rewire his brain (and help us build intimacy). So we’ve decided to be sexually intimate at least 3 times per week. And on those days, even if we start foreplay and notice that it’s a lower day than he thought (and therefore he’s struggling to stay erect), we simply enjoy each other. We may just kiss or touch or lay with one another naked instead.

We also read a lot about making love without orgasm. For some men, it’s the orgasm itself that throws them into the “flatline,” which seems to be Hubby’s experience. Instead of climaxing every time, we have agreed that some days we’ll make love slowly, gently, and without climax. This gives us a chance to simply enjoy being aroused, focus on each other, enjoy the amazing sensations of sex, and experience intimacy. This type of lovemaking also helps him to rewire his brain as he heals and recovers from his porn addiction.

It’s bizarre and completely uncharted territory for us. It’s still frustrating for both of us, and some days I get mad about it because he did this. We’re in our early 30s dealing with ED because of his poor choices. So I’m constantly having to surrender my frustration to the Lord. We’ve spent a good deal of time praying about healing in this area, too, and feel like we just have to keep at it. Eventually we know that his brain will be rebooted, his mind rewired to me instead of porn, and the ED will be gone.

But for now, we are patient and prayerful.

Have any of you gone through this? What worked or didn’t work for you? Any advice you could throw our way?

Much love,
C.

Dealing with Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction

I cannot even believe I’m having to write that blog post title. And I’ll warn you that this post will be pretty personal and sort of graphic, because of the nature of the topic.

Here goes.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, has been easy or straightforward about healing after porn addiction. I’ve been writing about how Hubby and I have worked to recover our sex life after porn, and that alone has been a really difficult journey.

When we first resumed sexual intimacy, it was soon enough after he’d stopped using porn that his mind was still over-sexed and his sex drive was really high. He managed it (meaning he didn’t push or pressure me at all), but we ended up agreeing to a sexual fast just a few weeks in because of several concerns we both had (more on that soon).

Since our fast, we’ve noticed that he has increasingly had difficulty in bed. He seems to have no trouble getting aroused a lot of the time, but sometimes he really struggles with remaining erect. If I’m not directly stimulating him, he’ll lose his erection, and sometimes even direct stimulation won’t keep him erect.

Other times, he’ll keep his erection just fine, but we’ll make love and he won’t be able to climax (delayed ejaculation). This is a DRASTIC shift from Before, when he genuinely suffered from premature ejaculation (he even bought condoms meant to help him last longer because it was such an issue).

I had been absolutely devastated by his porn use and the betrayal trauma that it caused. But because I knew how important true sexual intimacy is in a marriage, I worked hard to overcome my insecurities (or at least put them aside) to resume lovemaking with my husband. I struggled through feeling like the women in porn were obviously more attractive, more sexual, more everything than me, while he assured me repeatedly that he didn’t feel that way at all.

But he was suddenly having a difficult time staying hard enough to either make love to me or to orgasm when we did make love.

I know that men are incredibly sensitive about any kind of issues with their penises, so I hesitated to bring it up. The first couple of times it happened, he told me he was tired and I dismissed it without discussion.

But then it kept happening.

Finally, one night as we talked on the couch, I asked if he really desired me. He seemed surprised by the question. That started the conversation about his erectile dysfunction. But initially, he still refused to admit that it was a consistent problem, still adamant that he’d been tired those times.

Except some of those times I had specifically made sure he’d gotten plenty of sleep the night before and come into the experience relaxed. And now he was telling me he was still tired?!?

I didn’t buy it.

The final straw happened over our anniversary weekend. We had taken the kids to his mom’s and gone away for the weekend just the two of us for the first time since our 3-year-old was born. It was a big deal! I had purchased a very pretty, very romantic piece of lingerie that made me feel lovely and beautiful.

We slept in that Saturday morning, enjoyed a day of lounging around, talking, and even napping. That night, we showered together and he waited in the bedroom for me to dress. I came out and the look on his face was perfect: he looked absolutely thrilled and excited about my body.

And yet we struggled terribly that night, and ultimately gave up without either of us finishing. He had a really difficult time getting an erection, couldn’t keep it up even while we were making love, and stopped after getting too discouraged.

I was crushed.

Again, he told me that he was tired. But this time I knew for sure that wasn’t the issue. So that night as he slept, I wept.

Of course it’s me. I’m not thin enough, my breasts are too saggy, my stomach is too soft. He was probably so disgusted by seeing his non-sexy wife in lingerie that it completely turned him off. Is this it for us? We’ll never be able to have a normal sex life again? Am I destined to a sexless marriage thanks to HIS sin?!?

More to come tomorrow.

Recovering Our Sex Life after Porn | Part Three

It took us a couple weeks of talking and laying that foundation for sexual intimacy before I felt like I was ready to be intimate with my husband again. Once we had talked a lot (and we keep on talking), established boundaries, and developed a certain level of comfort and trust, I finally felt like I was ready enough to start being physical again. And even then, we started slowly.

We eased into physical intimacy by kissing and touching. I spent a lot of time asking, “Is this okay?” Because everything scared me. I had no idea what all he had seen or fantasized about, and I didn’t want to simply reenact his porn fantasies (on that note, see this great post by Julie Sibert called Be His Porn Star? Here’s the Problem…).

Pretty soon, I decided that I was ready to make love again. I was NOT over my insecurities or to a point where I fully trusted him (still working on both of those things), but I was to a point where I knew he was serious about his recovery, serious about the Lord, serious about rebuilding our marriage, and serious about my comfort and sense of safety. He had been so slow and so tender with me as we eased back in that I knew he understood the responsibility and weight of making love to me. I knew that sex was still twisted in his mind, but I also knew that God is in the business of redemption, and that includes our sex lives.

Disclaimer: everyone is different and every couple’s journey is different. Though we hadn’t had a robust sex life prior to discovery, we had never stopped having sex completely. So for me, having the truth completely out in the open and finally experiencing true emotional connection with my husband made me feel safe to resume sexual intimacy again much faster than some wives may feel (especially because Hubby’s sexual sin never progressed to physical affairs, so there wasn’t an issue of health risks, nor has he ever been abusive in any way).

We took the kids to my mother-in-law’s house for a whole day, and we spent that day with each other. It was slow and it was awkward, much like our wedding night, and I cried a lot. But it was a beautiful reunion, and it felt entirely different than it had ever been, because all the walls between us had been torn down. The veil had been lifted, God was in the middle of it, and we were completely vulnerable with one another.

Since that day, we have continued to grow in this area. We’ve been slow and we’ve been cautious. We’ve continued to talk at length about sex, sexuality, and all the lies we’d believed. We’ve spent time reading and discussing Sacred Sex by Tim Alan Gardner (SUCH a great book), and we’ve prayed about our sexual intimacy repeatedly. We’ve invited God into our bedroom (He was always there, but we never, ever acknowledged Him) and kicked our kids out (our one-year-old had still been sleeping in our room).

There have been some real challenges. We’ve had to work through my insecurities, our fears of initiating and being rejected (both of us), our expectations, and the myriad of ways that porn has affected our intimacy (I’ll be touching on PIED soon).

But lovemaking has also helped in the healing process.

Hubby has experienced that holy sex is HOT SEX, combating the lie that married sex is boring. He’s also experienced that sex is better when we’re emotionally vulnerable with each other: the connection is deeper and the lovemaking more profound and fulfilling. He’s rewiring his mind and experiencing full acceptance in a way he never has before. I’ve been able to affirm, love, and minister to him through lovemaking.

I’ve experienced what it’s like to truly let go of the lies and a lot of inhibitions and discover that I REALLY enjoy hot sex with my husband. I’ve also experienced that him being emotionally vulnerable with me stirs up in me a desire to be sexually vulnerable with him. I’m experiencing truly being his one and only in a way I never have before. He’s been able to affirm, love, and minister to me through lovemaking.

We’ve discovered that our sex drives are pretty evenly matched, which is not something we ever believed. We’ve discovered that emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy are so tightly connected, you cannot truly have one without the other. God intended for sex to be a deep, emotional and spiritual bond, going well beyond the physical realm. We both knew it intellectually, but we’d never experienced it personally. We’ve discovered how absolutely fulfilling holy sex is within the context of a Christ-centered marriage.

And we know it will only get better with time and continued healing.

Because, are we still healing? Absolutely. Do we still have times of struggle, hurt, and confusion in this area? Yes we do, more than we’d like.

But for the first time in our marriage, we are not holding back. We are talking about it, working through the issues as they come up, and surrendering our sex life to God.

Much love,
C.

Recovering Our Sex Life after Porn | Part Two

In my last post, I told you that we started recovering our sex life on the couch, long before we started making love again. We knew we had to tear down the mess we had made of sex before we could build something strong, healthy, and beautiful again.

Here’s where we started.

Talking about sex.

The first couple of weeks post-discovery, we spent hours and hours on the couch talking. We talked about everything from the porn use to our marriage to our disappointments to our various sin struggles to our sex life and on and on. We cried, we asked for forgiveness, we extended grace. We had never had open, honest discussions about sex before, so we felt like that was probably the best place to start in restarting sexual intimacy: talking about it. We discussed his views on sex, especially in light of porn, my views on sex, our desires, our preferences, our hopes, and our fears.

Praying about sex.

The next thing we did that was, in my opinion, the most important thing was to pray about our sexual intimacy. Pray about sex?? Yep. We prayed together that God would show us His plan for sex, how we should proceed in restarting our sex life, that He would heal the deep wounds porn had caused us both, that Hubby’s mind would be renewed and those images would fade, that we could view sex as holy and right and good, and that God would be in the middle of our lovemaking. We prayed over each other’s bodies, body parts, and minds. We prayed that we would both desire each other and feel freedom in expressing that desire. We prayed for grace and sensitivity as we walked through healing, because we knew that I, especially, would be super insecure and need a lot of time and reassurance.

Establishing clear boundaries about sex.

I am mostly the one who established the boundaries. I thought a lot about what I would need in order to feel secure enough with my husband to be sexually intimate again. I ended up making a list and sharing that list with him. He was amazing and responded with so much love and understanding. Some of the items on the list were things like lights on, lots of eye contact, running dialogue during lovemaking, praying before sex, and me leading the way. I also asked him to be completely honest and to STOP at any time if pornographic thoughts or images popped into his head. And I asked him to be honest about triggers and tell me if there are any sex acts, positions, etc. we should avoid right now (or forever) because they might trigger him (and he has told me a few).

Practicing Non-Sexual touch.

We had let passion die out in our marriage. My refusing and gatekeeping had hurt him, and his porn use had further isolated us. It had been a long time since we had both desired each other and felt a burning passion for one another. We knew that to rekindle passion, we needed to start by simply feeling physically close again. Because I had been so desperate to avoid sex, I had also avoided almost any kind of touch so as not to give him the wrong idea. So that’s where we started: holding hands, snuggling, hugging, and kissing. We had a few make-out sessions that took me back to our dating years, and I remembered how much I had truly wanted him. We also started sleeping naked together. We had never done this our whole marriage, but it has become one of my favorite times each day…when we slide under the covers and his naked body spoons my naked body. He holds me close, we pray together, and we fall asleep wrapped around each other.

Changing the language we used about sex.

It hit me one night when we were talking that we had never, in our entire marriage, referred to sex as “making love.” We had always called it “having sex,” and while it never seemed like it mattered at the time, we both now see how profound a shift it is to change the language we use about our sexual intimacy. So gone are the days of “having sex.”

All of these things set a foundation and paved the way for us to begin rebuilding our sexual intimacy. I’m not going to lie and tell you it has been easy by any means; it has been a terribly difficult, sometimes hurtful and confusing, journey. But we have reentered into sexual intimacy and discovered great, beautiful depths of healing and redemption between the sheets.

For Part Three, click here.

Much love,
C.

Recovering Our Sex Life after Porn

This one is hard. The truth about pornography use is that it’s not actually about sex. It seems like it is, since it’s images of nudity and sex that the user is viewing and masturbating to, but it’s not really about sex. It’s about numbing pain. Porn is a “drug” of choice.

But even though it’s not about sex, it IS sexual in nature and it IS infidelity. So my husband’s porn use was a deep, sexual betrayal and it left me feeling so utterly violated. I wondered how many times he had thought about the women of porn when he was having sex with me, how many times he had wanted things that were a direct result of what he’d seen in porn, how often he had seen my naked body and picked apart its flaws, or how often he’d needed to think of having dirty sex with other women to become aroused enough to have sex with me.

So initially, I felt like I’d never want to be sexually intimate with my husband again.

However, in my prayer times, God gently (ever so gently) reminded me that even though I was hurting and I felt way too insecure and violated to want sex with my husband, ultimately we are in a covenant relationship in which sex is meant to be foundational (in addition, of course, to emotional and spiritual intimacy).

So even though I felt God’s grace and my husband’s patience to take my time easing back into sexual intimacy, I knew that it was going to have to happen at some point, as terrifying as that seemed, if we were ever going to start rebuilding our marriage.

The very first thing we did to begin the recovery process was to abstain from sex. He knew that I was way too hurt, violated, and distrusting to just hop back into bed. And I knew that he needed some detox from the pornography. We quickly agreed that we would not proceed being physically intimate until we both felt comfortable.

So we actually started recovering our sex life on the couch, just talking and praying, well before we started making love again.

For Part Two, click here.

Much love,
C.