I need to stop reading articles...
I'm making myself ill. Surely, I should be desensitized by now, so why does the thought of marital infidelity make me want to vomit? I can't handle it. I can watch the most violent slasher film ever, and yet I have to turn off movies that even allude to cheating. It's not like I'm unaware of the reality of infidelity in our world, but I cannot accept it. I feel like I have to fix something. I feel so helpless.
It devastates me when I know it has happened to someone else, so I can't imagine the betrayal of actually being subject to it. I understand the path that men and women travel to justify the behavior (even when they convinced themselves that it could never be them), but it still doesn't register.
I need a testimony...like now. I need someone to share how much they love their spouse without the need for external stimulation. I need this because I have to believe that God has empowered us to remain pure -- sexually and emotionally. I need this word, because I also desire my future wife to approach our relationship with the same level of hope -- that regardless of how the rest of the world responds to their problems, our bodies will only belong to one another. If I lose faith that this is possible, I'll be done waiting for a wife. I have no doubt what I have purposed for her, but Lord show me that I'm not alone in this. She needs to believe that men are capable of good choices through His Spirit.
I feel grieved, as if I should repent on behalf of mankind. I don't want to appear arrogant, but I need sexual immorality to stop -- in all of its forms. Honestly, I'm a guy...I look forward to sex as much as any man, but it can't be good without everything God provides in marital intimacy, can it? And yet, most who are sexually active have never experienced sex in its only wonderful context. I have to believe that it's the most beautiful covenant that can be shared between two people.
Or am I living in a pipe dream?
3 comments:
When I was pregnant my husband admitted to me that he had looked at some porn.
I was devastated, in many ways. Through they years my husband has made it a point to train his mind so that he no longer does a "double take" when a woman with a nice body walks into a room.
Even when he watches a movie and there is a female showing skin he will look away. Not because he may have a problem with it but out of respect for me.
It has been hard for him. Especially when all he hears from male Christian leaders, "oh, don't worry about that, we all deal with it."
WELL THEN DEAL WITH IT!
As for me, I was walking in a Christian book store a few weeks later and noticed a book called, "Every Woman's Battle, Healing in the Wake of a Husbands Sexual Sin"
this book saved our marriage.
My husband has not had a sexual thought in 3 years.
I hope this is one of those encouraging testimonies you were looking for.
It has taken a lot of Jesus and a lot of Discipline.
Thank you, Anonymous. I have a couple thoughts:
1) I do think we have a leadership problem in regards to men finding freedom over sexual sin. When I read "don't worry about that, we all deal with it," my immediate thought is that leaders' hands are tied because they haven't found freedom. They cannot testify about a grace in which they have not known. So the next best thing (if we are tired of the cycle of guilt) is to call it common and give up the battle.
2) Christians also deceive themselves into believing that because something is common, it is acceptable behavior. We forget that "common" is an antonym of "holy" -- that we are not just called to be better than what is typical, but rather that we would be set apart from anything that separates us from our Father.
3) Not unlike the pure design of sexuality, sexual corruption is also not simply a behavioral act. When we approach sexual sin as if it is a common struggle, we dismiss the core issue that is fed by the sin.
For me, I struggled with pornography intermittently through my twenties. Whenever I was in a relationship, I was clear of it. It never even crossed my mind to look at another woman. However, whenever I felt lonely or isolated, I struggled. For other men, sexual sin fulfills a very different need, whereas they can be completely happy in a relationship and still struggle. I had to get to the root of my sin (and have truth revealed within the pain) to find freedom, which sadly was a corruption of a Godly desire to be monogamous and experience intimate love.
However, if we treat every person as if their sexual addictions are the same, we only treat symptoms. The harmful effects of sexual sin are fairly standard, and this is why men sit around and empathize over one another's common incapacity to find freedom. I think this is why accountability groups are largely ineffective, when the believers are unwilling to explore the deeper issues. There's not much help in "I stumbled this week -- try harder next time."
I am extremely pleased to hear that you and your husband were willing to do what was necessary to save your marriage, even when others passed it off as nothing. Without Jesus, we are all lost. I am certain that the two of you have experienced many blessings as a result of walking through it together. This isn't the common story -- praise God for His love and grace.
i have never been more in love with my husband that i am today. just saying :)
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