Do You Fear Intimacy?

If we have resisted and avoided sex, working to address our sexual issues can lead to significant improvement in our marriages.

Some of the improvement is because as our husbands feel more loved and accepted as men, they are better able to bring their best selves to our marriages.

But the real reason we see improvement is not because our husbands are having more sex. In fact, it doesn’t have much to do with sex at all.

The things we do to work on sex bring God’s healing into our own hearts.

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For many of us, our reasons for avoiding sex have little or nothing to do with sex.

Note: If you avoid sex due to pain, past trauma, or a husband who is unrepentant sin against you, this post is not for you.

We may have grown up in homes with physical or emotional abuse or with parents who were alcoholics. Or we may have internalized messages that made us feel we didn’t belong or that we had little value.

We fear that others will see our secret truth that we are unlovable or that we have no worth.

We go through life alert for the threat of new emotional wounds.

We feel so broken that we don’t know how to trust even God.

We believe we are incapable of doing things right.

We are afraid that if we don’t do things perfectly, we will be exposed as the failures and frauds we know ourselves to be.

We do the jobs that no one else wants to prove ourselves valuable and to distract others from seeing what we see in ourselves.

We fear abandonment.

We are our harshest judges.

We have a habit of stuffing our feelings because expressing feelings has brought us pain in the past.

We struggle to even have fun, because our minds don’t trust ourselves to be able to truly relax.

We always feel tested and never feel rested.

We feel voiceless.

We feel helpless.

We feel powerless.

We feel hopeless.

Sex is so much more than a mashup of sexy parts—and that is exactly why it can be so hard for us.

Our very bodies are being entered, making us feel powerless in the arms of a man who we are afraid to fully know and trust—not because of him but because of ourselves. Being needed and desired makes us feel like we have no voice and no choice. When a husband asks for something new, we fear that we won’t do it right—or we think that he wants something new because we haven’t been good enough so far.

We are afraid to be vulnerable. We are terrified of allowing ourselves to be known and, once known for who we truly are, rejected and abandoned.

We fear intimacy.

The eyes, they say, are a window into the soul. We keep our eyes veiled and never let our husbands in.

We are afraid. We crave intimacy, yet we fear that it will have devastating consequences.

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I have spent most of my life with low self-esteem, always feeling left out and never feeling good enough. I was so afraid that if Big Guy were able to see who I truly was, he would discard me. At times, I would tentatively open up a little to test his reaction and hope he would show himself to be trustworthy. When his responses weren’t what I had secretly hoped, I became more vigilant and protective of him seeing the real me.

When I began to work on sex, I expected that it would make things easier in our marriage. It did. And it did so much more. I am still amazed by how God used that work to pour healing into me.

Deciding to work on sex and deciding at times to initiate or leave the lights on made me like I had some control. It helped conquer feelings of powerlessness and helplessness.

Learning about God’s design for marriage and sex taught me to focus more on God’s truth and less on my feelings. This drained the power that my feelings had over so much of my life.

Reaching out tentatively to do even the small things I had avoided resulted in a sparkle in my husband’s eyes. I felt confident and capable.

Seeing the changes in my husband’s interactions with me helped me feel valued and successful.

Watching him want to be with me more often (not only sexually) showed me that not only was I not going to be abandoned, I was beloved.

Following the small nudges from God to approach my husband or to develop new responses to his sexual initiation showed me God’s presence in my life.

Experiencing God’s presence in the small ways opened my heart more and more to His presence in so many areas of my life.

Woven throughout my actions, Big Guy’s responses, and God’s presence was an unexpected healing. After many years of fearing intimacy, I found that intimacy was the thing that filled me with joy and acceptance that I hadn’t known was possible

I had waded into a swamp. I emerged having been cleansed by the knowledge that I am lovable, valuable, brave, capable, successful, connected, rested, and heard. No longer was I voiceless, helpless, powerless, or hopeless.

I emerged whole and healed, knowing that I am so beloved.

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Knocking down the barriers in the marriage bed opens the space where we can be truly known and feel fully loved. (See Scott Means’ The Path of Intimacy for a fleshed-out picture of this.)

Reconciling ourselves with God’s design for sex can lead us to reconcile with God, even as we restore our marriages and connect with our husbands.

My friend, working on sex just might be a pathway to your own healing the things that have led you to fear intimacy.

Do you sometimes feel like the walking wounded?

Maybe it’s time to wade into the swamp so you can emerge feeling healed, whole, and fully beloved.

Related Posts

More Than Many Sparrows
Perfect Failure
Do Your Feelings Control Your Marriage?
Teaching Your Husband to Be Trustworthy
Unbearable Lessons

Image credit | suju at pixabay.com