Welcome to The Forgiven Wife. My name is Chris, and I spent a lot of years resisting the sexual component of our marriage.
I’d brought baggage to our marriage that made it easier for me to build walls between my husband and me than to work through our challenges. I avoided sexual intimacy when I could. When I couldn’t avoid it, I was still controlling it. (Sometimes I’ll refer to the avoidance and control as refusing and gate-keeping.)
You can read my story in my first two posts: The Pit of Refusal and Crawling out of the Pit. I chose the name for this blog to capture the fact that I have repented of the harm I caused my husband and our marriage—and myself—and that I am moving forward, forgiven and growing and trying to do better.
Maybe you’re here because you’ve decided it’s time to work on your marriage and intimacy. Maybe you’re here because your husband has begged you to just please, please, please look at some marriage resources he’s found. Or maybe you’ve already made a lot of progress and are looking for some encouragement.
It may be that simply being here, reading this, required a huge step on your part. I’m so glad you’ve landed here. I want to be a soft place for you. I am known to hand out kleenex and chocolate to women who need to pull themselves together and figure out how to move forward.
I was wrong to dismiss the importance of sexual intimacy in our marriage. Once I realized that we were having problems and that sex had become a source of tension, I should have pursued healing. Instead, I let the hurt fester for far too long.
Although my journey began as an effort to do something for my husband, it became a transformation for me. I have grown in my relationship with God as well as my relationship with my husband. I’ve learned to embrace my sexuality, too–and not just for my husband’s sake.
My role here is to share my own experiences, open my heart, and encourage you as you figure out how to take some steps to move toward improved intimacy in your own marriage.
Getting Started I have several kinds of posts here. Some are about getting started on a journey of sexual transformation. If you are new here, that’s the best place for you to begin. You can click on the Categories drop-down over on the right to find the Getting Started posts. These are about some of the challenges I faced as I tried to figure out how to begin to change my behavior and attitude toward my husband.
If you are just beginning a journey of healing the intimacy in your marriage, I’d like to suggest you read the following posts, in this order:
Other posts are about the early stages of my journey toward sexually healing my marriage, and some are about parts of the journey that are further along. If you are still trying to muster the courage to make any changes, you may want to avoid those other areas for a while.
I have been on my journey of improve sexual intimacy for more than seven years now. The journey has gotten so much easier as I’ve gotten farther along. It is still a journey, though, and I still stumble from time to time.
Dear sister, I am so glad you’re here on this journey with me.
~Chris
If you are on your own journey of sexual healing and transformation and are facing a challenge you’d like me to try to address on the blog, you can email me at chris@forgivenwife.com or contact me using the form below.
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Thanks for wanting to read more!
In one of your posts you
Mentioned the first step was participating in sex. What exactly does that look like and what does it mean?
It means that I wasn’t mentally checked out. It used to be that I would often just lie there mentally making a grocery list while I waited for my husband to finish. Participating meant that I focused my mind on what my body was experiencing. I tried to enjoy being with my husband rather than waiting for it to be over.
I am absolutely guilty of checking out just waiting for it to be over so I can get on with my life… is it just practice and focus that helped you stay there mentally?
Even before practice, I had to learn awareness. Just recognizing that I was doing it was a challenge. Sometimes it wasn’t until afterward that I realized that I’d done it.
I knew that two phrases that often popped into my head during sex were “How long will this take?” and “What do I have to do tomorrow?” I decided that when those phrase came into my head, I would try to push them out with positive thoughts, such as “My husband loves me” and “I like being held.” Having some go-to positive statements ready made it easier for me to be more present when recognized what I was doing.