The Lie That Hurt My Marriage the Most

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44b

During some of my most spiritually connective sexual moments with Big Guy, I think of our marriage as an earthly relationship that gives us a glimpse of the intimacy we one day will experience with God.

The profound one-flesh mystery of marriage is about both the relationship between a husband and wife and the relationship between Christ and the church.

No wonder Satan puts so much effort into damaging our views on sex. The father of lies deceives us to draw us away from God.

Lies in the area of sex and sexuality sabotage our intimacy and interfere with the one-flesh mystery of the marriage bed. The guilt that many of us have felt about sexual activity before marriage makes us particularly ripe for his deception.

Lies, Lies, Lies

As I am reading contributions for the Sexual Healing and Wholeness series on the blog, I’ve been thinking about the areas where I needed healing. We’ve been talking on the podcast about lies that women believe about sex. (Listen to Lies Women Believe, Part 1.)

It’s no surprise, then, that I’ve been thinking about lies that negatively affected my marriage bed and on my marriage overall.

I’ve written before about some of the lies that I believed:

I am not beautiful.

I am not lovable.

My husband wants me only for sex.

Sex is for my husband, not for me.

My sexuality should look like my husband’s.

These lies overwhelmed my views of sex and sexuality, making me feel undesirable, unlovable, and broken.

I wasn’t any happier about our sex life than Big Guy was. Sometimes I reached out to seek God’s truth about sex by reading the Bible, articles, or books. Sometimes I opened my heart to what my husband was saying.

Occasionally, I would hear God’s truth speaking louder than the lies I believed. At moments, I almost believed I was desirable, lovable, and whole. I almost believed good and godly truth about sex.

Almost.

But not quite.

You see, I’d fallen victim to a sneaky lie that created a significant mental block even when the truth was right in front of me.

Deceptively Simple

Sometimes I would acknowledge to myself that our sex life wasn’t very good or that our marriage wasn’t as happy as it could have been. My mind would begin to pose a question: What would a good sex life look like? What am I unhappy about? What isn’t working right? What can we do to fix it?

Before my mind could even complete the question, the lie stood in the way.

The lie didn’t just block the path. It headed me off at the pass, preventing me from even seeing that a path to God’s truth existed. Satan is a sneaky devil, isn’t he?

Built on a foundation of my low self-esteem, the lie was constructed of material that grew out of my premarital sexual experience.

The lie was deceptively simple:

I don’t deserve a good sex life.

This lie hit me where I was most vulnerable—trusting my husband with my sexuality—and therefore did the most damage. No matter how much of God’s truth I was seeking, this one lie made me believe that truth was out of my reach.

You don’t deserve a good sex life.

It’s a powerful lie.

The father of lies has used it not only with me, but with many other women as well.

Many of us who had sex before marriage have been deceived by this lie. Our specific reasons may vary, but the lie is the same.

I don’t deserve a good sex life, because . . .

I had premarital sex.

I cheated on my first husband.

I don’t know what my number is.

I got an STD.

I got married because I was pregnant.

I had an abortion.

I had an orgasm when I was abused.

I had sex for money.

I had sex in exchange for drugs.

I had sex with a married man.

I had sex with a woman.

I masturbated to porn.

I used to flaunt my sexuality just to get a rise out of guys.

I was part of a threesome.

I was so drunk that I didn’t care who I had sex with.

We have so many reasons . . . and so many of us have believed that these reasons disqualify us from deserving a good sex life.

My sins made me believe that I didn’t deserve a good sex life. Even when I could see past the other lies to behold God’s truth, this sneaky lie interfered with my pursuit of what God had placed in front of me.

“Why is sex so hard for you?” Big Guy would ask.

I don’t deserve a good sex life.

“Are you happy with our sex life?”

I don’t deserve a good sex life.

“Sex is for you, too.”

I don’t deserve a good sex life.

“Will you talk with someone about why you aren’t interested in sex?”

I don’t deserve a good sex life.

Grace > Lie

The lie was persistent.

It persisted even after I began to work on sex. I worked on it for Big Guy, after all, not for me.

It stuck around even after I began to believe that I was desirable and lovable, that sex was for me, and that my sexual response didn’t need to look like my husband’s.

My premarital promiscuity had been a strong part of my identity. The enemy had embedded the “you don’t deserve a good sex life” lie into the sin and guilt I’d felt for years. Until I was freed from the guilt, the lie would stay with me.

I remember the moment when I shed this lie like a snake sheds its skin. I wrote about it in this post, which came right at the end of my Respect Dare series.

Responding in my journal to a question about forgiveness, I wrote about being able to forgive myself for my past:

The only person I haven’t truly been able to forgive is myself. My youthful promiscuity haunts me. . . . It has become a part of how I identify myself in my mind—and forgiving that self is a way of losing self.

Then I wrote about an image that filled my mind:

I see an image of that inner self, . . . wondering who will ever love her. And I know she is me. I see God in front of me. He says, “Come here, child.” I unzip that inner self I have and realize that it is just a skin, an outer shell. Inside that skin is someone else, a woman who is shining and is larger than the skin she just stepped out of. I shed the skin of that old self, leaving it discarded on the ground. I take a step forward. Light is exploding out of me as I reach toward the even brighter light in front of me. And I climb into God’s lap and feel His arms around me, welcoming me home.

It turned out that I never needed to forgive myself. I just needed to accept the forgiveness that God had already offered.

In the face of God’s grace, the enemy’s lie withered.

In the face of God’s grace, the enemy’s lie withered. Click To Tweet

All along, it was grace.

You Deserve a Good Sex Life. Yes, You

When I welcomed God’s grace and put my sin at the foot of the cross, the enemy’s lie lost its power over me. When I believed that I deserve a good sex life, Big Guy and I began to experience a new level of intimacy—profound one-flesh intimacy.

Of all the lies I’d believed, this one had done the most damage. It is no surprise that conquering this lie had the most powerful positive impact on my marriage.

I don’t deserve a good sex life.

If this lie is present in your own life, I know how loud it can be. It can shout so loudly that it distracts you from seeing God’s truth and from believing that God’s truth is for you.

My friend, God’s truth IS for you.

You are beloved.

You are beautiful.

God cherishes you.

You are forgiven. Yes, you. YOU are forgiven.

You deserve profound one-flesh intimacy with your husband, just as you will one day experience intimacy with God.

You DO deserve a good sex life.

God’s grace is bigger than any lie.

Related Posts

Silence the Lies
Transforming the Scars from a Premarital Past
Lessons Learned from Premarital Sex
I thought sex was just for my husband. Here’s what changed my mind.

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