****Trigger warning. These are my raw thoughts on intimacy, nothing is sugar coated. Its my story, my questions and none of them are questions and thoughts that I feel comfortable sharing in sunday school... so know you were warned ;)
What is the purpose of intimacy?
Outside of bringing children into the world- why do we have it?
Why are we filled with those desires?
What constitutes good/safe/healthy/holy intimacy?
These are questions that plague my mind often.
Being married to an addict means my idea of what marriage/intimacy is tainted. Its tainted just by association because the man that I learned about intimacy with, the man I explored this new world with was behind my back looking at and thinking about the filthy, dirty,lustful intimacy. All the while I wondered why I felt like we were lacking. I couldn't figure out why I felt so distant to him even though we were so close. I thought we needed more lust, more sexy lingerie and more sex.
I was wrong, but I didn't know that. I thought we needed to try the rougher sex, we needed to bring in more pleasure to be closer. We needed to be edgy because when we were dating having lines made it all the more desired, we struggled to keep those lines but we loved each other with a passion that I didn't think would ever go out.
Well my attempts didn't work. None of it did. You know why? because a lack of sex wasn't the problem, it was a lack of trust. Trust builds intimacy, without it intimacy is scary and its only one way.
Being so very vulnerable with someone you don't trust is scary. But I am married...its the only way we know how to show each other we love each other. Its our crutch.
We have tried the 30 day sex fast challenges to change that. interestingly enough when you are told you can't have something all of sudden you want it more. Whenever I started a fast with my husband he suddenly couldn't keep his hands off of me, he wanted me, so badly. My weakness? I wanted to be wanted. I CRAVED to be wanted, I wanted to be desired, I wanted to be the object of his lustful appetite. I wanted my husband to want me.
I started reading a book called "Purity and Passion" by Wendy L. Watson (now Nelson) I only have a couple of chapters left but I haven't brought myself to finish it. Its a good book, its a hard book. It challenged everything I rationalized away. Reading it made me realize that I wasn't using this gift the right way. I wanted to have the kind of intimacy the book eludes to... but its not found in the bedroom. Its found in the day to day living, its finding intimacy on other levels except sexual. Its building your relationship spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and physically.
Before reading the book I didn't fully realize that there was more than one level of intimacy! I didn't know that you had to be emotionally connected with your spouse to have good sex. Sex founded on love not lust. I thought it was all the same!
I stopped reading the book because it was too painful to see what I wanted and to know that my husband couldn't give that to me.
The girl inside of me that day dreamed about being married to a prince charming and riding off in the sunset had very different ideas about sexual intimacy than my prince charming did.
My line of thinking was tenderness, soft touch, sweet kisses and caressing, slow, kind and full of love. So much love that it spills out and we don't need passion fueled by a fire to be sexually intimate. We wouldn't need the hot, sweaty sex. That was in movies because there wasn't a real connection, so they had to fake it. I wanted a real connection so we wouldn't need that.
My prince charming and I read some marriage books before getting married, it brought us to the same page and our honeymoon was wonderful. Sure we were still new to the whole sex thing so there was the learning curve involved but he showed me so much love and patience. With a start like that I thought we had found the golden ticket and we had started an amazing marriage that was rock solid. We could do this marriage thing easy peasy.
Well, shortly after returning to life, school, work and living with someone that patience was lost. We figured out how to make it all work for him, for him to find pleasure in sexual intimacy and left it at that. He was too tired to have as much sex, he didn't want to keep playing around, he was always so tired that we just did the same routine or more often than not just a quickie.
You see, I thought that by making sure my husband was never sexually starved I was ensuring his faithfulness to me. Sex is something he has never eve lacked, I have NEVER withheld it from him. In fact, as the months and years progressed I initiated it more often than he did. I was basically begging for sex! and not quickies, I wanted the sexual intimacy that I had gone into our marriage wanting. I wanted soft, sweet and slow. I wanted him. It was hard enough being rejected by him time and time again, what hurts more is knowing now that during those times that he rejected me he was acting out in his addiction. He rejected me for something else. I put on candlelight dinners with soft music and me waiting for him in a nightgown to get off work or get back from school. I only did that a couple of times because I would feel ridiculous, he didn't appreciate my effort or me! his wife sitting in front of him waiting and wanting him. I felt so awkward because that wasn't the reaction I wanted... he acted like I was crazy for wanting sex. He did that a lot. My heart hurts so much still thinking about those moments...those moments in time where I put myself in a vulnerable position and was rejected by someone I didn't think would reject me.
But he did reject me.... and I don't know if I will ever fully understand why he could and would do that to me.
Well after I caught him acting out the first time, we tried the sex fasts. We had long, open conversations about what we wanted, I read books, listened to talks and worked on establishing ground rules for healthy sexual intimacy. It never lasted long though, "passion" always over ruled it. It has gotten to the point now that I can't engage in that kind of sexual behavior with him without feeling so incredibly guilty, because I know I will hate myself after for doing that again. I will hate myself for letting me down again. Alma counseled us in the Book of Mormon to "bridle all of our passions that we may be filled with love"... every time we/I didnt bridle anything I felt so guilty. I know that what we have isn't what I want.
We had a conversation about it again a couple of weeks ago...thankfully we were out of town and other things have come up so the opportunity to be intimate hasn't come up. I prayed about it again... what does healthy sex look like?? what does sexual intimacy based on love not lust look like??
My husband likes to lie a lot, comes with being an addict. So I asked him if he had watched a certain show. He said no.....then corrected that he hadn't seen a whole episode. I asked him if he just looked up the raunchy parts... he didnt answer. Multiple times I have asked him if he has let behavior or ideas from what he has seen into the bedroom, if he has used me that way.
Every single time he has said no. It is different with me.
well you know what? I looked up on a parents guide what was in those shows that he didn't watch the full episodes on so he didn't "actually" watch. SO many of those sexual encounters looked like they came right out of my bedroom! I don't know if it was the Spirit trying to tell me "hey look!!! you can't spend hours and hours watching porn and not let it affect your marriage!" or if my self worth had gone that low that what we did could be described like that.
now before you go on thinking that its anything like 50 shades of grey its not... just the way they talked about stood out to me, screaming at me, that my sexual life mirrored that wayyy too closely.
So I haven't let him touch me for 2 days(which is a lot!)...we still share a bed. its hard... I don't know how to put into words my feelings of hurt and anger into a way that he would understand or appreciate my pain.
I was praying about this intimacy thing again... I am at such a loss. I know nothing else, he knows all the nasty stuff...what is sexual intimacy the way God intended???
Well after a long day of pondering a light clicked for me. Maybe I am wrong, but maybe this is right.
Maybe sexual intimacy doesn't have to be "passionate" or rough or anything. Maybe if we are both doing the things we should be doing, reading scriptures, praying daily, working hard, working together and enjoying life as a family maybe that will provide enough love in our life that it can spill over without needing to add fire to heat things up. Maybe just letting it be and focusing on loving each other again, loving myself again, maybe that can bring the intimacy I crave.
At the end of a long day of taking care of children, paying bills, serving in the church and in the area...maybe I can one day look at my husband and feel so much love for him, so much respect and trust in him that I can want to be intimate without needing foreplay. Maybe him being him and me being me could be enough that we don't have to put on masks (not literal btw) pretending to be something we are not.
Maybe it really does come back to that scripture.. bridling my passions will fill me with love...
this idea is something I am going to keep pondering.... because surely God has a better way of intimacy than what pitiful empty sexual intimacy we have been using.
***update because I can't stop thinking about it so I need to get it out.
One of those times my husband rejected me I especially wont ever forget. We had been married a short while and I was a couple of months pregnant with our child. He had a late class that night so I made dinner, had candles out and was waiting in a sexy nightgown for him to come home. I greeted him at the door and instead of a happy to see me expression he looked puzzled and uncomfortable.
my heart sunk, I smiled and pretended to be so excited to see him. I sat down with him as he started eating dinner and he looks up at me and says "aren't you uncomfortable in that?" ouch ouch ouch ouch!!!!! who says that to their wife???? I was confident in what I was wearing until he said that. Then I wanted to crawl into a hole and die... I felt so embarrassed, rejected and ugly.
moral of the story... if your wife not only offers to have sex with you but greets you at the door in something you should have been all over don't reject her!
