What do you do if in order to get aroused or to reach orgasm you need to fantasize in your head?
Over the next few days we’re going to talk on the blog about how to bring intimacy back to making love, and that starts with being mentally present. I recently received an email from a woman who battles with this:
Hi Sheila! I am so embarrassed about a problem that I have. I started reading erotica when I was a teenager. I’m now married to a wonderful man who’s actually a great lover. But my body doesn’t respond to him at all. But if I imagine things in my head that I read, then I can get turned on. And I find that I can’t climax without playing a scene in my head (even if it’s a scene I would never ever ever want to do in real life!!!!). How do I stop this and just enjoy sex with my husband?
I bet this woman’s problem is way more common than we think. In fact, I hear the same question from a ton of women, and yet I read so very little about it.
I talked about this in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. There’s a term for it: It’s called dissociation.
Dissociation is when you mentally “leave” your body when you’re having sex and think about something else.
We commonly think of it in terms of abuse victims. When they’re being sexually abused, they go anywhere else in their head so that they don’t have to think about what’s happening to them.
But we can actually do something similar for other reasons. I’ve talked on the blog before about what porn does to us: it rewires the brain so that what is arousing is an image or a video, rather than a person. It’s one of the main reasons men lose their libidos with their wives, or can’t perform sexually with their wives. Porn has made a real person not attractive anymore.
A similar thing happens with women. You see, for women, sex is almost entirely in our heads. We have to be able to concentrate on what’s happening to get aroused. If you’re day-dreaming, no matter what he does, it won’t feel good.
But this also means that if women fantasize, then we can get aroused and even reach orgasm just by thinking our way there. So it’s quite easy for many women to be with their husbands physically, but be miles away mentally.
The difference is that when men do this, sex often doesn’t work very well. When women do this, sex often works all too well.
There’s nothing wrong with “sexy thoughts”!
All of this is not to say that there’s anything wrong with thinking sexy thoughts about your husband or sex in general or your body or his body or anything while you’re making love! I think that’s part of the process.
But if you have to play out a scene you’ve seen in a movie, or play out a scenario you’ve read in a book, then you’re not really with your husband. You’re more using your husband as an accessory to your fantasy. And that’s not intimate. That’s like you running away from your husband during sex, not running towards him.
So how do we stop fantasizing during sex and become mentally present with our husbands?
Here are just a few things that may help:
1. Emphasize foreplay again!
When sex has primarily been about fantasy for women, foreplay becomes kind of a distraction. After all, when you’re touching each other and being active, then you can’t concentrate on your fantasy. And so, in the past, you likely rushed foreplay or told him you didn’t need it. But if you’re going to learn how to be present during sex and how to make sex about feeling physically good and not just about fantasy, you’re going to need foreplay! You need to see that your body can become aroused without the fantasy–just with his touch and concentrating on your husband.
So emphasize foreplay. Even set the timer and don’t let yourself start intercourse for a certain period of time. Drag it out! See the physical effects it has on you. As you learn what your body likes and get used to your body responding, you’ll find it easier to stay mentally present during intercourse.
2. Be the aggressor when you’re making love
That naturally leads to this: When you are the one “in control”, it’s harder to fantasize, and easier to focus on what your body is feeling. When you have to take action, you can’t just let your mind wander.
So don’t just let foreplay be something he does to you; Really “use” your husband! Climb on top of him and make love with you on top so that you can figure out what angle is right. Move around as much as you want. When you’re involved in foreplay, rub against him as much as you can.
When you’re fantasizing, moving can wreck things, because it detracts from what’s going on in your brain. So you may tend to just lie there, and then he does all the work while we’re thinking. If you do more of the work, you learn to focus more on your body.
3. Think about Being Sexy, not about scenarios
We’re going to think about something during sex; thinking about stuff isn’t wrong. It’s focusing on other people, or on trying to “escape” in your mind that can harm intimacy. So instead, try thinking about the sexiest you you can imagine. What would you love to do with your husband? What would be your wildest fantasy? Try to substitute that, and then even get to the point where you can share that with your husband.
4. Don’t Focus on orgasm; focus on pleasure
This is going to sound weird, but if you do find yourself fantasizing, stop and then just focus on the pleasure. What is your body feeling? Your body knows how to orgasm; you’ve done it before. It won’t forget. But get carried away by the pleasure, not the fantasy. Stop the fantasy and think about what your body is feeling.
Here’s the truth: Your body is capable of reaching orgasm, but until now, it really hasn’t. Your mind has. But you can learn how to reach orgasm through physical stimulation rather than just mental gymnastics. When we grow up with porn or erotica, women become even more dissociated with our bodies, and sex becomes almost entirely in our brains. So we have to put our brains to work for us in a different way–deliberately concentrate on what you’re feeling physically. Stop ignoring your body, and start paying attention to what feels good. Concentrate on how things are feeling. And you may just find that you don’t need those fantasies!
5. Make sex super personal
Say your husband’s name out loud. Look at his face. Explore his body. Make sex about your husband, not about your fantasies. The more you’re thinking about your husband, the less your head can go there!
6. Pray and ask God to redeem your sex life
Do you have any idea how much God wants you to have an intimate and deeply personal and deeply wonderful sex life? Seriously, this is totally His will for you! He wants this for you. He doesn’t just automatically give it to you; you have to choose to let the fantasies go and to “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5). But God wants to help you with this! He wants to transform you from the inside out, including through renewing your mind.
So ask Him about it. You don’t need to be ashamed. Ask Him to help you have the kind of super intimate marriage you really do want.
Do you feel like you need a reset on your sex life?
If you’ve been living like this, and you want to start making love and not just having sex, maybe what you need is a big sexual reset!
That’s what 31 Days to Great Sex can do for you. It’s a series of challenges that you do with your spouse that are quick, fun, and super effective. They help you address all three areas of sex: emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, and physical intimacy. So while there are days on figuring out what feels good and how to spice things up, there are also exercises to address your baggage and learn to be mentally present.
And the best part? The ebook version is only $4.99 (though it’s a full size book!) I’m keeping it super cheap so it can help as many couples as possible (though you can buy it in paperback, too).
Now, has erotica or fantasy ever sabotaged your sex life in marriage? How have you been overcoming that? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Hi Sheila. Today I have a question. I have been reading here for quite some time. I beleive we have determined that reading porn is infedelity and adulterous. This woman is reading porn. Yet we are going to fix her sex life? Maybe I am wrong here but I just cant recall an article where when the man is reading porn he is to go fix his sex life. Seems to me they are to repent. Stop looking at porn get honest and stop victimizing their spouse and regain trust. I get your article Sheila. I see the point. The woman wants to repair her sex life. Why is it ok for her to start with being sexual when that is the problem? Is it because the man is mostly physical and the woman is more mental? I guess today I am looking to balance the equation? Very interested in seeing what your thoughs are as well as what others think.
Phil, I get what you’re saying. However, the letter excerpt is a bit unclear as to whether or not the woman continues to read erotica, or if she did as a teen and is affected by it (is she saying ‘…things that I read’ in the past or present tense?). I took it as past tense, but I could be wrong. If she is still reading erotica, then yes, ending that would be step one.
I have read other articles that Sheila has written about it being wrong for women to read porn and how destructive it is. I think in this article she is focusing on what to do after a woman sees a problem and wants to change this.
Hi Phil, I’ve never looked at porn. I’ve never read erotica. Yet I struggled with dissociation fantasies nearly my entire marriage. I can’t remeber when I started. But I also am going to agree with you; the fantasies are usually sinful (at least mine are, Can’t speak for others). Repentance might look different for different marriages. How specific should a spouse be when confessing this sin to his/her spouse? I honestly don’t know.
Oh, Phil, I’m sorry I didn’t include that part of the letter! Usually when people send me questions they’re super long, and I just edit out to the basic part of the question. Yes, this was something she did in the past and isn’t currently doing now and regrets it. I guess I should have left more in to convey more of the story. I just try to make it basic so that 1) it’s more anonymous; 2) it applies to more people because it’s a little more generic; and 3) it’s just plain shorter because I have a big problem with writing posts that are way too long. 🙂
Thanks Sheila. I obviously interpreted the email wrong. My apologies. I know about your long email problem 🙃. I should have known better.
I am having the opposite problem. My husband has had 20 years of porn and isn’t present in love making. He says he’s fantasizing about me but he’s just not present. I am now porn in his head. Where does he find help?
For years I had this problem. But then I had enough, I repented, stopped watching and reading. Then I stopped fantasizing and I couldn’t climax. That’s when I went to God with my whole heart. He asked of me obedience, prayers etc.
After repentance it took about 6-8 months to be completely free of fantasizes. But God didn’t stop there. He redeemed our marriage (porn and erotica destroyed a lot). He redeemed and healed our sexuality.
It’s been fantasy free for both of us. But it’s full of meaning, beautiful, intimate love making for hours.
I’ve never hoped that our sexuality could be restored to the fullest.
Keep on praying and asking God to redeem your marital bed. It is possible!!!
Oh, that’s so beautiful! Thank you for sharing that!
Thank you for this hope!
Hi Sheila! I am so thankful that you addressed this in the Good Girl’s Guide. I had never heard of dissociation before and it was nice to put a name to what I was doing. I was also convicted. The Fantasy Fallacy book helped me get to the root of my fantasies (which were basically rape fantasies but I was the aggressor) and I realized some earlier sexual encounters I had were more traumatic than I realized. In fact, all this Andy Savage stuff has actually made me admit for the first time that what happened to me was sexual assault. I’ve been blaming myself for a long time. Anyway, knowing *why* I used fantasy helped diffuse some of their power for me and make me feel less messed up.
First, I think you have to stop fantasizing cold turkey. Period. You can’t wean off of these; it doesn’t work that way. Second, it helped me to realize fantasy is also based in a fear of intimacy, of being seen. We all want the intimacy of sex yet so many of us hide from each other during sex. No wonder it lacks meaning for so many couples! (Like Kevin Thompson posted about recently.) So my first rule is that eyes must stay open. See and be seen. Eye contact during orgasm feels CRAZY vulnerable but crazy intimate if you can do it. I notice when I am starting to shut my husband out now and stop myself. Second, it actually helped me to stop thinking about what my body feels but focus on really *feeling* my husband. There is a difference between touching and feeling, I think, and too many of us touch each other during sex but it takes truly FEELING in order to go from sex to truly making love. The more focused I am on him and seeing him as I am seen, the more intimate sex becomes. Sometimes I say “I feel you. I see you,” over and over in my head.
And I remember that at least at first, the pleasure isn’t going to be as intense as the artificial arousal I got by cheating through fantasy. But it is OH so much more intimate to stay present. So I stopped focusing on pleasure and focused more on being seen and seeing. *That* is true intimacy. And when you aren’t used to it, it can be so powerful you cry afterward, even if there wasn’t enough “pleasure” to reach orgasm. It’s amazing. And it’s worth the hard work.
This is more what I was expecting based on my original interpretation. I do not want to take anything away from Sheila’s article. Thanks.
But you still don’t have orgasms. I bet he does.
Oh, Kay, that’s so helpful! Thank you for posting that. I think it will help a lot of women, and I totally agree with what you’re saying, especially the intimacy-eyes open part.
I’m glad that some good is coming out of the Andy Savage debacle (seriously, how can they not treat this appropriately? Shame on them). At least we’re recognizing that there is a power imbalance when someone in leadership pressures you to do something sexually. That is NOT consent. And it is NOT okay. I’m glad that you’re able to get more healing from that!
Hi Kay, thank you for sharing these steps. I agree that keeping your eyes open is a must. I had prayed for months that God would help me overcome this, but it wasn’t until I started implementing some of these practical steps that I was actually able to change. Keeping my eyes open was a game changer.
Sheila, do you think it would be helpful for the fantasizing wife to be open and descriptively confess her fantasies to her husband? It seems this is becoming more and more a problem with women, perhaps due to the openess around sexuality in our day and the growth of pornography produced exclusively by women for women.
I’m honestly not sure that’s helpful, Doug. Like Kay said, often her fantasies were not something she would ever want in real life (rape fantasies), and you really don’t want to fuel your husband going in the wrong direction mentally, either. I think instead of dwelling on the bad stuff if we start dwelling on passion and intimacy and what we love together, that’s likely a more healthy direction!
Gotcha. I was thinking sharing “safer” fantasies with the husband might be a catalyst to him being more aggressive or creative with his wife, especially if the wife is high-drive and the husband passive and routine.
Interestingly, it was through sharing my fantasies with my husband that made me realize they weren’t okay. We were sharing some of our different fantasies, even if they were sinful, because we were trying to identify the true, legitimate desire behind them so we could build on those. (That’s a totally normal marital activity, right? 😆) But I had never thought about what I was doing prior to that, and after sharing it, I had a freak out moment where I said, “I just described a rape. This is not okay!” And that’s where my journey started.
That said, I hesitate to share that because I don’t think this is normal for most couples, and I give it a “Proceed at your own risk” warning. In fact, I don’t recommend that approach for most couples. I think you can and should confess the sin of not staying present due to fantasy, but I don’t think it is necessary to share specifics. Especially if they involved specific, real-life people. Mine never did.
Kay, thanks for sharing. We are told to confess our sins to one another so we may be healed. What a wonderful thing for a relationship to support being so vulnerable. I realize all relationships are not like this. That said, I recently read two different women’s accounts of pornography addiction, which read much like drug addiction. Absent love and intimacy, the women sought progressively stronger hits. Their fantasizing became extreme and exotic. Both resisted revealing them to anyone from fear of being thought a freak. Both experienced healing when they finally confessed them to someone they trusted. The power of shame was in the secrecy.
I don’t think it’s wise. I do think it’s wise for her to tell her husband about the problem –in general– but not to give specifics. This is no different than porn. Husbands should not tell their wives what search terms they use when they went looking for porn. The specifics will only hurt and don’t matter.
Just like breast implants won’t stop porn use. This is the same thing.
Thank you so much Sheila and those who commented. I have struggled with this for over 20 years!! I knew it wasn’t right, but didn’t know how to fix it- and who do you ask?!?! I was abused by my father as a teenager and I am going to order both Fantasy Fallacy and 31 Days to Great Sex. I feel hopeful for the first time that this can be different in my life. Thank you for addressing this issue and for those who shared.
Oh, I’m so glad it could be helpful! That’s great!
I’d prefer to remain anonymous for this one. I’m a woman. I have a much higher sex drive than my husband. This has caused a lot of hurt and issues. Things have been improving.
However, I want much more sexual intimacy than he does. He would say that is not true, but he is asleep, as usual, and I am trying not to think about him too much! I try many things to squash my desire. I’ll exercise, pray, play scrabble, clean, etc. But it is incredibly frustrating. To my knowledge there’s no porn – he just doesn’t seem to need sex as often as I do. When we are together he enjoys it very much. He’s just not as interested in me as I am in him. This also makes me feel like he doesn’t love me as much as I love him.
His lack of desire makes me feel very undesireable and ugly, and even unworthy. When I let my mind get away from me I wonder why he finds me so unappealing. I start to feel worth very little and I can become grumpy. And lo and behold, that’s about the time he decides he wants sex. BUT I have just spent so many days, trying so hard to squash my desires, when they have finally diminished, THAT’s when he seems to want sex. And at that point it becomes very hard for me to feel turned on. And I start to wonder, hmmm… I wasn’t good enough for him for so many days…why now? Oh! I imagine he must have seen a gorgeous woman on the street, or maybe he saw a bra commercial, or the cheerleaders on the football game piqued his interest. I figure it certainly can’t be me since I’ve been right here, ready and willing, but he had no interest. And so I start thinking about the woman I imagine he is interested in. I imagine he is replacing me with her in his mind. I figure it’s the only reason he would suddenly become interested in sex. And so, I spend most of our time together thinking about them together. Him and this fantasy woman he must be replacing me with. It’s often like I’m not even there. I participate, but my mind is very far away. It makes me sad. Knowing that in my heart, he is being with someone else.
I know this is sinful and wrong, and after typing it out, a little disturbing. But if I’m not good enough for him any other day, I figure it’s the only explanation. At least he gets what he wants when he wants it. I just wish that I was who he wanted. And even sadder, he is always saying he loves me, I’m pretty, blah, blah, blah. But unfortunately his lack of desire for me speaks louder.
Perhaps I will try some of your suggestions and maybe “she” will go away.
I suffer with this from my porn addiction…. I feel so guilty, but to g get to the big O it’s faster to disassociate, I was also raped 3 times by my ex husband and sexually, verbally abused by my alcoholic stepfather… My current husband and I have been married 27 years and he’s an amazingly patient lover and knows I go out of my head during sex… I try and try to not do that, but a therapist diagnosed me with disassociative disorder due to the severe trauma of my childhood and first marriage, how do I learn the right way to make love instead of striving for the big O? This has been ongoing for a while…. I feel so guilty to my husband, I feel like I’m cheating him and me on the real intimacy God intended for marriage…
What do you do if you use dissociation because you don’t like your husband? Touch and sex make me nauseated now. The disgust factor is no longer overcome by the attraction factor. I’ve tried the fake it until you make it for 5 years now. Acting loving and hoping my feelings will follow. But it kept getting worse until I was almost getting panic attacks with sex. I asked for a two month break from intimacy and after that, I now don’t get panicky but I still get grossed out by sex and distressed all day when I know it’s coming. Dissociation made it easier to get through but now that I realize it’s wrong I try to stay focused on my husband. But I just end up sad or disgusted or nauseated.
Oh, Erin, that’s awful. I’m sorry. I think you need to fix the underlying problem–that you don’t like your husband. Is it that he treats you badly, or is it just that you can’t respect him or just don’t like his personality? Have you tried finding hobbies to do together? If you truly don’t like him, I wonder about seeing a counsellor so that the counsellor can talk you through things? Sometimes dislike is caused by underlying resentments that can be worked through, and then it does feel like a burden is lifted.
I think in our busy world sometimes our minds wander. I heard someone describing “living in the moment” and talking about eating an orange slowly and thoughtfully. How it smelled and felt while peeling it and savouring it as you eat it. I bring that to our marriage bed.
This is my second marriage and it is a big change as my present hubby is a strong Christian. He is careful not to do or watch anything that would be unchristian but our love makes it exciting. The connection we have is wonderful and fulfilling even if it’s not like porn movies.
Hi Sheila – Thanks for this article. I especially like the idea of being more assertive during sex. I think that women sometimes have a tendency to sit back and let our husbands do most of the work when it comes to sex. (Which probably stems from the lie that sex is mostly for him.) And it’s easy for our minds to wander when we’re being passive. But when we’re taking an active role, it’s easier to stay focused on what’s actually happening, rather than focusing on a fantasy.
I love this post! My parents didn’t really explain sexuality to me as a teenager so I learned about it on my own through watching r-rated movies and through self pleasure (I did guard myself from porn though). I knew it was al wrong and got control of it before marriage through prayer and God’s redemption.
When we were first married, I would really bring to mind memories of movie scenes and such. But after a short time, I knew I had to change that by “taking thoughts captive” as you said. I started by imagining just my husband and then remembering the times he made me feel good. Without even trying, my thoughts moved to a place where I wouldn’t even fantasize about us because I realized he was right in front of me. I was blessed by God to have him right with me and my thought life in bed has been so much better (and the sex life too). I still think about the two of us sometimes but God has freed me from the disossiation for sure. Thank God!!
Praying for anyone who still struggles. God can redeem you and provide the same freedom!! Just ask and keep trying!
That’s wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing. I think that will encourage a lot of people.
Hi Sheila!
Thanks so much for this explanation – it’s super helpful! The issue for me is similar but a little bit different. Before we were married, my husband and I did not have sex, but I did have a lot of orgasms from dry humping (always with our clothes on and without touching anything directly). I knew this was wrong at the time and we fought to stop that habit, but now that we’re married, i sometimes struggle with replaying those scenes in my head of when he gave me an orgasm before we were married. We’ve only been married for six months, but it’s been difficult to have orgasms, especially during intercourse. But i find that if i imagine one of those scenes from pre-marriage, i can often have an orgasm and that’s usually the only way I’ll get there. I’ve talked about it with my husband and he doesn’t mind it, but something still feels not right. And I want to be able to enjoy what he does now, but it just doesn’t have that same “forbidden fruit” feel as the things that would lead me to orgasm before marriage. Any ideas of what could help this?
I’d love to know what you suggest for this too.
Thank you Sheila for talking about this topic – I think all to often, women in the church are made to feel like they don’t struggle with issues such as sexual fantasy or porn. I wish I had seen an article like this a few years ago when I first got married!
My own story is that I came across porn when I was around 12 years old, and watched it consistently well into my teenage years. I thought it stopped impacting me when I stopped watching it (before I was a Christian) and then when I subsequently repented when I became a Christian as a young adult. However, the images I had seen reared their ugly heads again when I got married. Whilst having sex with my husband, I would imagine we were doing things that I had seen, even though I wouldn’t actually want to do some of those things in real life, and I know that my husband wouldn’t want to either. I would pray and pray regularly that God would help me to be free of this, but then every time we had sex my mind would go back to that place. It felt like all that experience in my early life had hardwired my brain to only find sex pleasurable (and to reach orgasm) if I disassociated and went deep into my mind, even though my husband is very physically attentive!
However, one day I was at church when a male preacher spoke about his own struggles with porn, and how he had to speak to someone he trusted to break the power of it. I decided to tell my husband that evening. I was so worried about hurting him, so I didn’t share specifics, but I explained to him that I would be making an effort to stop disassociating and that as a result, I probably wouldn’t orgasm for a while, but that I was determined to deal with the issue. He was very understanding. To my surprise, within a few weeks I was reaching orgasm without fantasising.
I believe that the enemy uses shame to force us to keep things hidden. As soon as we bring something like this into the light (either with a trusted friend or with your husband) in order to be accountable, the enemy loses his hold over you. Of course I still have to keep my thought life in check, but it can be done! If you are going through this, please know that you are not alone, but also that you can overcome this issue and have a healthy, intimate sex life that it enjoyable and fulfilling for you and for your husband. God has redeemed our sexual intimacy to be something beautiful as He intended.
Thank you so much for sharing your story! It really does mean so much. More women need to hear that they are not alone, and that they can break the cycle!
Hi Sheila,
My question is a bit different. How do you enjoy sex with your husband when you’re worried he is the one fantasizing (about other women)? My husband has viewed porn on and off throughout our marriage which has been incredibly painful for me. He wants to recover, but ultimately slips back into it time and again. I don’t think he is honest with me 100% and I’ve seen on our phone many, many, times where he will look up sexy images (though not technically ‘porn’) of women he watches in action movies. As much as I want it, we don’t really have intimacy.. mostly just sex itself, so I fear he is in La-la land with another woman in his mind while I am just a figure to act out on. I sooo resent sex and would rather not go through the act because of the shame I feel. But I don’t want to dishonor the Lord by depriving my husband. I just wish there was real intimacy physically and emotionally. But my husband is just not having it and I cannot make him change. (We’ve already talked and talked about this so I don’t think sitting down having a conversation with him is the way to go, I need other options/solutions for my own well being)
Oh, Kathy, that’s a tough one. I think it comes down to making sure that he’s really over the porn. Just because he isn’t watching very often anymore doesn’t mean he isn’t still “going” to these images. Has he ever been part of a recovery group? That’s really important. Or Covenant Eyes has some great resources. But stopping alone isn’t enough. You have to deal with the root issues that got him there in the first place. So don’t be afraid to keep pushing for real intimacy!
Yes we already have Covenant Eyes, though I haven’t found it to be too helpful. Of course they flag obviously inappropriate material, but not necessarily the things my husband views. I’ve seen the reports give him a “everything looks good” status when he had been looking at women in bathing suits etc and then admit to me he had stumbled again. Never thought of a porn recovery group though, I’ll have to look into it. Thanks Mrs. Sheila!
Have you looked at their resources for guys’ recovery, though? Not necessarily just the filtering, but they do have a great recovery group you can sign up for, and some really good ebooks that can show you that recovery is more than just quitting porn. If you just look around their website you may find some great stuff!
Faithful
Hi Shiela thank you for your blog I used to cheat on my husband before I was saved and used to imagine the person I was cheating with when making love to my husband,and I was saved and changed my life and also changed my name there more I read the bible and pray the more was transformed into a new person but still struggling with bad memories but God has helped me to deal with them thank you so much for your blog now I understand more clearly
I’m so glad I could help!
Thank you so much for this. The article was good-but the discussion below it has really impacted me. I have been a Christian my whole life; however, I have had times when I have strayed and then come back to God. One things that made me struggle with my faith when I was young was the concept of adultery. It was one of those difficult things in the Bible that you don’t particularly like, and so you choose to make excuses, or “interpret” it, when you know deep down that God is clear, and that there is no room for negotiation.
When my husband and I first started seriously dating, we were sexually active. We had both been sexually active in previous relationships, and it seemed natural and beautiful (and incredibly intimate) to be with each other-with the person we loved. We had both recently come back to God (one of the things that brought us together) after struggles with our faith. I (obviously), was still struggling with truly accepting God’s word and having true faith, as I was still making the choice to ignore it when it came to sex outside of marriage. My husband (then boyfriend) was struggling too, and he made the decision to stop having sex. I was hurt and confused, but I loved him and knew he was the man I wanted to marry, so I agreed. But my heart wasn’t in it and I started to resent him. I also started to masturbate. A lot. And somehow, through that, I developed a serious problem with fantasy dissociation (nice to put a name with the problem). After we got engaged, we would have sex once in a while, when he was tempted and I was eager, but the sex had changed. It was dirty-it was wrong. I held that against him too (I know-I sound like a real dirt bag). The sex continued to feel dirty and wrong after we got married. I prayed and prayed, but upon reflection, I simply wasn’t open to God’s answers.
My husband and I have been happily married for 7 years now, and are trying to conceive a second child. I made the conscious decision years ago to stop masturbating, but the dissociation has remained a problem, seriously exacerbated by trying to conceive (11 months and counting). I have opened up to my husband about my past masturbation, and about my feeling that sex is dirty and wracked with guilt. He has been very understanding, and has admitted to masturbating during the time I did. Things got better-for a while-after opening up, but trying to conceive (and the pressure associated) has let the fantasies creep back in. I have never admitted this part to my husband-I am too afraid of hurting him. It’s insane that only in hind sight can I truly understand why God has made his rules about adultery.
I have been living in shame, and praying for change, trying to stop dissociation, and losing hope for so long. Maybe this is why I can’t have another baby-maybe God is leading us down a road where I am forced to address this before we throw another child into the mix and make sex even more difficult with the added pressures of breastfeeding and sleep deprivation.
Anyway, thank you so much for this-because it has given me hope. I thought I was screwed up forever-that I would never be able to enjoy sex with my amazing husband who I love so very, very much. That my choice was either completely unsatisfying sex (which my husband can tell-and that hurts him too), or sinful fantasy (when I am then wracked with guilt and separating myself from God). But it seems other women have been able to conquer this and now I have a little hope that I can too (with God’s help). I never leave comments on blogs but I had to get this out. I am going to talk with my husband and I hope and pray that he is not hurt.
I struggle too! And I hate it!!!