It’s no surprise that our own past sexual sin becomes baggage that we carry into our marriages.
Premarital sexual experience contributes to habits, thoughts, and feelings about ourselves, about men, and about sex.
If you have a sexual past as I do, you know that dealing with that baggage can take a lot of time and effort to work through. (If you’re still working on this, see the links at the end of this post.)
We aren’t the only ones who have to work to get past our past. Our husbands often struggle with our past as well.
Your sexual past has nothing to do with him.
On one hand, this makes no sense. The past has nothing to do with our husbands, does it?
For many women, premarital sexual activity (especially promiscuity) comes not from a place of joy but from a place of hurt.
Consider the following reasons that have been shared with me:
- I was looking for affirmation of my self-worth.
- I was looking for the love I never really had.
- My dad left when I was young, and I was searching for approval from a male.
- I had major body image issues and didn’t have a typical feminine appearance. I was looking for affirmation as a female.
- All my friends were having sex, and I didn’t want to feel different or left out.
- Even though I regretted having sex that first time, once I did, I felt like damaged goods. I didn’t think I deserved to hold out for what God wanted for me, since I’d already messed up.
For these women, casual sex was not about wanting to have sex. Rather, it was about trying to soothe hurt in their heart.
For other women, casual sex was about wanting to have sex. While it didn’t stem from hurt, they may well have experienced consequences that caused hurt: shame, disease, an unwanted pregnancy, or a damaged relationship with family or friends.
Very little of this has anything to do with the man a woman eventually marries—so why is it such a struggle for some husbands?
So what’s going on?
Although Big Guy hasn’t expressed any struggle in dealing with my past, I admit that I can relate to this from the other side. Even though I had more premarital sexual partners than my husband did, his past has sometimes bothered me.
It makes no logical sense, but it bothers me that I’m not the only woman who has known his body and his sexual response. I know that I know him way better than anyone else ever has, but sometimes I feel a stab of jealousy.
Just as I’ve heard from many women about their reasons for having premarital sex, I’ve heard from quite a few husbands about why they struggle with this.
Here are some of the reasons they’ve indicated:
- I can’t help comparing myself to her past lovers. I’ve always struggled with insecurity, and it’s hard not to wonder if I measure up in every way.
- She’s told me about giving those guys oral sex, but she won’t do that with me. Why don’t I get to enjoy what those other guys did? I’m her husband!
- I waited until marriage to have sex, but instead of getting an easy sex life with my wife, I get the fallout of her baggage. I love her and know she was in a bad place then, and she’s working so hard to deal with things. I feel so powerless. I want to make things better for her, and there’s nothing I can do.
- I’m jealous. Sometimes I’m angry and resentful.
- It seemed that I was never good enough for my mom. And now I can’t help but wonder if I’m good enough for my wife.
- I knew about her past before we married, but sometimes I still have feelings of moral superiority. I hate that I feel that way.
- I feel like I’m not man enough for her. If I were, she wouldn’t have been with those other men. I KNOW that makes no sense, since she didn’t even know me then. But sometimes that’s what I feel.
Whether these feelings make sense to you or not, feelings are not always logical, and they certainly aren’t fair. In fact, some husbands have told me that knowing they shouldn’t feel upset just adds feelings of guilt on top of what they’re already feeling.
Just as your own past may have had nothing to do with your husband, his feelings really might have nothing to do with you. Instead, they have to do with his own insecurity, his concern about measuring up as a man, his own past hurt, and so on.
You didn’t do this to your husband, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hurt from it.
How can you help?
Do you know if your husband is bothered by your past? Many husbands aren’t—but ask yours, just to be sure.
If he indicates that he has struggled, there might be some things you can do to help him.
It isn’t your job to fix this for your husband. You can’t change the past, and if his feelings stem from his own areas of hurt or weakness, he is the one who has to do the heavy lifting to get past this.
However, you might be able to nurture a marriage environment that encourages your husband to do the work and that makes it easier for him.
Here are some ideas:
- Accept that your husband’s hurt is real, even though it may make no sense to you. Rather than say, “You shouldn’t feel that way,” you can say, “I’m sorry you’re hurting. How can I help?”
- Deal with your baggage. You should be doing this for your own sake anyway, and your healing might just help your husband, too—especially if your past creates barriers to intimacy in your marriage.
- If there is some way your husband can help you with your healing, let him know. While your healing is your job, not his, some husbands find that helping you heal helps them, too.
- Invite your husband to a place of compassion for you. Don’t justify what you did, but help him understand why you made the choices you did. He may find that understanding your past pain and shame releases some of his feelings of resentment.
- Express your genuine regret for your past. Apologize. Ask for your husband’s forgiveness for causing him hurt.
- If sex has been difficult in your marriage, acknowledge any ways it has been affected by your past.
- Ask him how you can pray for him.
- Encourage him to talk with your pastor or with a counselor. Be sure he knows he has your permission to talk about your past. Some husbands have said that they want to talk with their pastor but don’t want to be disrespectful to their wives. That is sweet, but this may be one of those times when he needs to share in order to heal. Let him know it’s okay.
Where else can he find help?
If your husband has a hard time with your past, he isn’t alone.
As a Christian, your husband might find scripture helpful. Here’s what other husbands have said helped them:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Galatians 6:15
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17
You might also point your husband to these posts on other blogs:
- But, HER Sin!!! The Generous Husband
- How Do I Forgive Her of Past Lovers? Bonny’s OysterBed7
- Is HER past bleeding into your marriage? The Generous Husband
- Is HER Past Hurting Your Present and Killing Your Future? The Generous Husband
Continue to work on your own healing.
While it’s good to help your husband in this area, it’s important not to neglect your own healing process along the way.
Check out these posts on how your past can affect your marriage:
- Check Your Luggage
- Dealing with Sexual Baggage
- How She Uncovered the Baggage from Having Sex with Her Husband Before Marriage (guest post from Ruth at Awaken Love)
- Is Your Past Destroying Sex in Your Marriage? (guest post at Intimacy in Marriage)
- Lessons Learned from Premarital Sex
- More Than Many Sparrows
- Prodigal Daughter of God: When Past Sin Is Dragging You Down
- The Lie That Hurt My Marriage the Most
- The Little Girl Inside
- Unbearable Lessons
No matter why you have a sexual past, if it is affecting your marriage, address it. Work on your own healing, and encourage your husband to work on his if he’s hurting.
A stronger marriage is worth the effort.
Husbands: What other advice would you offer to a wife who wants to help her husband get past her past?
Image credit | cocoparisienne at pixabay.com
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I have several issues that seem to build on top of one another. I was a virgin who struggled with guilt and shame over seeing pornography as a child when I pulled a magazine out of someone else’s trash. My mother caught me with it and she spent my entire teenage years paranoid that I would become a “skirt chaser” who uses women for his own pleasure and throws them away when they’re not convenient. I had to listen to so many lectures about the evils of my generation and how much she wanted me to be different that I ended up different alright. I was terrified of ever making a mistake with a woman and never had a girlfriend until I met my wife.
My wife, on the other hand, had sex with just about every boyfriend she ever had. She got pregnant four times and had four abortions – 2 in high school and 2 in college. She never told me about the abortions until we had been married for years. By then we had four children and there was no way I would ever divorce her.
But the years had been stressful and full of conflict, especially about sex. She used both active and passive means of depriving. Variations of “I’m too sick” or “I’m too tired” or “the kids need you right now” or “Is that all you think about?” I knew about some of her past sexual experiences but had no clue as to how they might affect our marriage. But until I found out about the abortions, it never occurred to me that she was just as sexually messed up as I was, only in a completely different way.
Year later, my wife rejects any thought that the abortions are responsible for any part of our marriage problems and sees them only as relevant to her own personal relationship to God. She went through abortion recovery at church and now the matter has been dealt with once and for all. She owes me no more explanations. If I continue to struggle with the ramifications of her abortions, then that is entirely my problem to deal with alone with God in terms of acceptance and moving on. 11 years of withholding the truth means nothing to her and so I struggle alone to figure out what to do.
Most of the messages I hear are about husbands needing to sacrifice for their wives and being willing to lay down my life for her. So I give her whatever she wants and prioritize her needs. She places the needs and desires of our children as more important than anything and I often wonder if part of that is out of guilt for having killed four innocent children. Throwing herself into motherhood is her way of making it up to God for her sins. And if my needs get put on the back burner, then so be it. I’m just a man, after all. No different from those jerks who had sex with her and then left her to deal with the consequences all by herself. Forget that I’m the loyal husband who never even had sex with anyone else but her. I must pay for the sins of past boyfriends while they get off scot-free.
I’m sorry you’re hurting. I want you to know that you are not alone in struggling with your wife’s past abortions. What do you think she can and should do so you can stop struggling with the knowledge of those abortions? Is it just about acknowledging that the abortions affected your sex life? Is there something more? If she went through abortion recovery and has accepted God’s forgiveness, she may truly believe there’s nothing more that she can do. I would suggest that you talk with a pastor or a counselor about your own struggles. Perhaps that person can help you prepare to talk with your wife about your feelings in a way that is productive.
Her past boyfriends may be paying for their own sins in their own ways–but even if you knew for sure that they were, that wouldn’t change your feelings.
Mick,
First, I’m sorry. That is a lot to go thru, for both of you. I don’t know that I have anything different to tell you than what Chris said in her post. I can tell you that you are probably right about the abortions playing a greater role in the present than your wife acknowledges. In some ways, you are making that a reality just by bringing them up.
I say that knowing full well what you are going thru. I won’t go into details here, but you can read a bit about me on my blog.
I will tell you that she was not the only one affected. You obviously carry your own hurt from the abortions. The initial concealment was a betrayal, and everything that followed added to the weight of that.
I know that your comment was written about, and not to your wife, but I have to be honest when I tell you that it comes across pretty harshly. I struggled with anger and bitterness for a very long time, and I know what it looks like. I don’t say that as a judgement or a condemnation. It is just an observation, and maybe even a look at my own reflection. Maybe we both have work yet to do on ourselves.
I wish there were easy answers. I am commenting here because Chris asked me if there were any resources that might help in your circumstances, and the only one that I can come up with is straight from 1 Corinthians 4 thru 8. That whole “love is patient” thing can be a huge problem for me sometimes, and I need to remind myself pretty often.
I will close this with a prayer for healing and forgiveness, and restoration, for all of us. I don’t know exactly who needs what, but I suspect that wherever it lands, it will be a good thing.
If you wish to talk directly, I would be glad to listen. Chris knows how to get in touch with me, or you can e-mail me thru my blog at https://manwithoutamapsite.wordpress.com
Thank you for weighing in. I knew you were the right one to ask.
There are no easy answers and thank you for not trying to give any. One of the things I find frustrating is the various boilerplates responses that often get directed at husbands because the assumption is that we care more about problem solving and wives care more about having their feelings validated.
But having feelings validated is important to me too. Saying that I come off as harsh or that I’m dealing with anger leads me to respond with “What was your first clue?” or “Ya think?” As if being harsh or angry was somehow disqualifying. Oh, yes. I am the husband. I am called to sacrifice and to lay down my life and yada yada. It all sounds like more lectures from my mom about “not being one of those kinda guys.” I’m the nice husband who doesn’t trouble his wife with his problems and his concerns. Her issues are way more important anyway because “Happy wife happy life.” Christian wives are more spiritual and Godly and if they are angry it must be because of something their husbands did versus when I am angry it must be because I am deeply flawed and self-centered.
So I know the score. I sacrifice and play the good husband who never raises his concerns about how her abortions and sexual past have affected her willingness to work on our sexual issues. As long as I don’t bother her about it and pretend like everything is okay, then life goes smoothly and she can focus on the kid’s needs. My job is to support her role as mother and to not add to her burdens.
You are carrying a great deal of bitterness, which isn’t good for you, your marriage, or your wife. No one here is saying not to talk with your wife about her past–but how you talk about it can heal wounds or worsen them. The goal isn’t to “play the good husband.” It’s to learn how to be the good husband. Your wife probably has some things to work on, too, but all I’m seeing in your comments here is bitterness and resentment. Work on those, and then it may be easier for your wife to see what’s hers to work on.
This is definitely one of the boilerplate responses – “You are carrying a great deal of bitterness.” The difference between anger and bitterness is that anger can be justified but bitterness cannot be. Calling it bitterness removes from me the sympathy that a “victim” deserves. The wife of a recovering porn addict is a “victim of betrayal trauma.” If you call her “bitter” you are maligning her motives and treating her justifiable feelings of betrayal as illegitimate. To accuse her of bitterness is to victimize her all over again.
But with a man, his feelings are not to be validated. He is supposed to get over it, move on, and seek practical solutions to the problems at hand and not allow his feelings to get in the way. “Man up and step up.” More cliches. More double standards.
Bitterness is what happens when you don’t find a healthy way to express your anger. I’ve said the same thing to women as well as to you, so I’m hardly holding out a double-standard.
In your situation, I would feel very angry and betrayed at learning that my spouse had deceived me for so many years. But staying in that place of anger isn’t good for you.
Let me ask you this: Is there anything your wife could do that would make this better for you?
“Is there anything your wife could do that would make this better for you?”
My wife could do the following:
1. Stop blaming me for bad things that happen that I have no control over
2. Stop blaming me for bad decisions I made 20 years ago, especially about my business where my partner stole money from us.
3. Recognize the damage that numerous divorce threats had on my willingness to share my feelings about our marriage.
4. If there is something she doesn’t want to do in the marriage bed, learn how to turn me down gently instead of getting angry and attacking me for the audacity of my request.
5. If she gets angry when I ask for sex because it always seems to be bad timing, then by all means she can pick out some days when she can plan to be ready so I will know that I will be received with kindness instead of irritation.
6. Don’t get angry at the fact that I am taking testosterone injections to get back to normal levels per the doctor’s instructions. I know she don’t like the fact that it increases my libido but I don’t want to die a eunuch.
7. If I tell her I masturbate during long dry spells, she needs to not yell at me and accuse me of making sex too important. If she wants me to use my sexuality the right way, then she can take a good hard look in the mirror and realize it’s either her or sin. I did not take a vow of celibacy when I married her.
8. Don’t ever ever compare me to an ex-boyfriend in terms of performance in the bedroom like you did several times earlier in our marriage. My confidence was terrible before that and it only got worse after.
This one is for the church:
Husbands have feelings too. They struggle with low self-esteem too. Maybe you can celebrate them on Father’s day like you celebrate mothers on Mother’s Day. (Re: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/fathers-day-to-anybody-who-thinks-an-imperfect-man-cant-be-a-great-father)
It seems that your wife’s past isn’t the problem as much as her present heart. Your wife shouldn’t be doing most of the things you mention, and if she were the one posting here, that’s what I’d tell her.
I want to say something regarding #7. Masturbation itself is not a sin. Masturbation with sinful thoughts or with pornography is. You have a hcoice other than sin. You don’t get to lay “it’s either her or sin” on her shoulders. It’s true that her actions make you more ripe for temptation, but you still make the choice how to respond to her actions.
It sounds to me like you place a lot of your feelings of self-worth in your wife’s hands. That isn’t healthy for either one of you. Although this isn’t a Christian site, you might want to take a look at Good Guys 2 Great Men. You might find some his blog posts to encourage you in some good directions.
Mick,
Your post has been on my mind a lot today. I had to get my thoughts and feelings under control, before I said more. The truth is that some of my thoughts were not “kind”, and I really needed time to decide if I should say anything. I want you to know that I sincerely feel bad for the circumstance you find yourself in. Choices were made, and I have no doubt in my mind that they have had a negative impact in your marriage.
I hope you take what I say in the spirit I intend. It is not my intent to rebuke you or to shame you for your feelings. They are 100 percent valid. I have had my share of them, and worse.
With that said, I grieve for your wife, and the feelings that she carries. I know my own role in my wife’s abortion, and it can bring me to my knees. Both the pregnancy and the abortion were concealed from me, and still, my own guilt can be overwhelming. I know that had I been the husband I should have, my wife would never have found herself faced with that decision. I can not imagine what it must be like to carry more than that, but the truth is that my wife, and yours does.
I don’t know what that looks like in your wife, but I have bumped up against it in mine. There is a certain “hardness” to her. She can be very vocal about abortion in general, and is very much against it. She is also completely silent about her own. That can be a very difficult thing for me to deal with. I have, on occasion, really had to bite my tongue when she remarks about a news story or something similar, strongly condemning a pro choice advocate or Planned Parenthood. I could easily mistake it for hypocrisy, if I didn’t know better. I know her heart, and I have seen the tears in her eyes, when confronted with her own choice. I will not fault her for not facing that choice every time it is thrown in her face. I will not be the one to throw it. Wherever possible, I will take that her pain and my own onto my own shoulders, until she is ready to handle it.
I don’t know you, and I only have the words you have written here to go by, but I believe you are an honorable man. You have chosen to honor your commitment to your wife despite what she concealed from you. I also think that you struggle with no small amount of bitterness as a result. It comes thru loud and clear in your post, and I am forced to wonder how much it comes out in your marriage. I wonder whether your wife finds compassion and forgiveness in your presence, or if she finds only accusation. She has a terrible burden to carry, of her own making. You had nothing to do with it. That doesn’t mean you can’t make things better for her or worse, depending on your own choices. It might not be fair. Hell, it isn’t fair, but it is your life, just as it is mine.
The truth is, that’s life. We all live with the consequences of others actions, and in every case, we can make things better or worse depending on our own.
My anger is less directed at my wife than it is directed at the double standards that have become accepted. “I know that had I been the husband I should have, my wife would never have found herself faced with that decision.” No. No. NO!
You are not to blame for your wife’s decision to abort your baby. That is not a reasonable reaction by a wife to inferior husbanding. Getting angry, fine. Going to live with her parents for a few days. Fine. Refusing to have sex for a few weeks. It’s a sin but understandable.
But killing an innocent baby is not a reasonable response by a rational human being who was designed by God to love the child within her. Desperate unmarried teenagers have an understandable motive, but it is still not an excuse. A woman married for years to a husband who is still living with her has no excuse. You are not responsible for her extreme reaction.
Don’t we tell husbands they are not supposed to blame their wives for their porn use? Is this not one of the cardinal sins of porn addiction recovery? “My wife made me do it”? If you want to make the guys at Covenant Eyes blog or Dr. Doug Weiss really angry, just tell them “my wife forced me into porn.”
But you are blaming yourself for your wife’s decision to kill a baby.
I may have made mistakes as a husband. But there is no way I would have ever knowingly or willingly been a part of abortion. Fortunately, I have enough self control and a big picture perspective to realize that there are some wounds that will not heal and I cannot force my wife to recognize the gravity of the situation. But I will not sit by quietly and listen to the Christian intellectual elites lecture husbands about what failures they are while simultaneously telling Christian wives that their greatest sin is a lack of self-esteem. (Re: https://bereanresearch.org/the-cult-of-womens-self-esteem/)
That isn’t what’s happening here.
I agree. The fact that you are not moderating my comments into oblivion is definitely a new experience. Thanks for that, BTW.
Because my blog is a ministry for women, I usually moderate men’s comments quite heavily. This post I’m not, because seeing some raw pain in men can better help my readers understand what their own husbands might be experiencing. I might be nearing the end of my patience soon, though. 🙂
Mick,
As a courtesy to Chris, and so as not to monopolize her site, I want to respond to some of the things you said, and then I am going to bow out. If you would like to continue our dialogue, we can do so on my site, or maybe exchange contact information.
My first response to some of your remarks is to “jump hot”, and defend my wife’s honor, and maybe leave a little destruction in my wake. I’m not going to do that for a few reasons. First, I make a deliberate effort not to be that person any more. My anger will likely always be a struggle, but thankfully, responding in writing gives me a chance to measure my words carefully, and hopefully not create offense. Sometimes I don’t do that well in real life.
Secondly, my wife does not need me to defend her honor. She is a beautiful soul, inside and out. I can not hold it against you that you do not know that. Here and now, I will just say that as hurtful as that one act was, it does not define who she is. I would love to tell you all the good stuff. I haven’t always appreciated them, and sometimes even resented them, and I was wrong.
You should also know that I don’t blame myself for her decision. I blame myself for my own actions. Had either of us been better, it would not have happened. Acknowledging that fact does not “let her off the hook”. It is just stating what is true.
You should also know that I don’t deny what she did, and how wrong it was, but neither do I blame her. I have to confess that I had my own struggles with “what kind of woman does that”. In her case it was totally contrary to who she was. The truth is that I may never know for certain what thoughts and feelings led her down that path, but I think I have some idea. Hurt, fear, desperation, insecurity.
I haven’t always known that, and I made all of those things worse for her. Much of it she brought into the marriage from an abusive childhood. I was supposed to be better, and I wasn’t.
I don’t fault you for your anger. I don’t believe for a moment that I am better than you, and I certainly am no “christian elite”. I am just a guy that has walked in the dark, and by the grace of God, and whole lot of love from a lot of wonderful people, I’m not there any more. I can still fall in the pit sometimes, but I try not to stay there. I have the curse, or maybe the blessing, of knowing the full cost of my failures, and that motivates me to not repeat them or make new ones.
I am going to close this by saying to you that when I tell my wife that I love her, that she believes me and feels loved. That alone is worth the effort.
Any sin my spouse has committed and the pain and guilt she has endured keeping it inside I know was very painful for her to finally admit to. I’m no saint myself and in the end we chose one another.
Our love has grown beyond allowing the past to bring us down. I don’t want her to constantly meditate on her sins nor did I want that to define who she is as a wife, mother and my lover. I also don’t want to constantly meditate on past mistakes I’ve done, though sometimes I still do.
I want to keep growing with acts of kindness, politeness and be considerate, even when we are intimate. We have been married 38 years and it is actually better now, but I blame myself for failing to be a thoughtful communicator and sometimes being hung-up on past hurts.
I also tended to be a loud communicator, which triggered her to be one at times. When in truth marriage should be all about navigating through any challenge, even when it comes to how we communicate with our own kids WE agreed that if our voices become elevated that one or the other should say “oops, we can get through this” or “baby, lets be careful” This methodology causes us now to put the brakes on and actually hug one another.
As our marriage matures, I’m realizing that I could’ve been more nurturing than I was, though I thought I was nurturing her already.
When it came to intimacy, I even read a self-help book written by a woman, (when I was closer to age 40) which the author gave guiding words, that a man should be intimate with his wife, slow and unhurried, going at a snails crawl, while her arousal climbs so high, she is going insane, which stimulates the mind of both lovers, instead of fast and furious. I share that because it makes the intimacy exclusive between our own spouse and only focused on one another and not the past.
It was difficult at times to do the things that allow anticipation to grow, when there were kids still in the house. It was way more difficult to have little getaway’s, the dating, even walking behind her when she is washing the dishes and softly kiss and nibbling the back of her neck and shoulder area (a major erogenous area) with kids still in the house. She didn’t want her knees to tremble in front of the kids.
My wife is a sweet and kind little hottie and I feel blessed that she chose me, because in truth, she could’ve had anybody that was decent, that she wanted.
I realized that forgetting about the past, involves having a vision to where i want our marriage to be now and in the future, because there are no do-overs in life so we can’t dwell on past mistakes, but instead learn not to do it again and move on.
Thank you for sharing that. I think you’re so right that keeping our eyes on the horizon and the future redirects our sight from looking behind to moving forward.
Thank you Chris. This dialogue and responses is deep. I’m grateful my spouse chose me. The journey has been worth it.
Looking back, I believe how my wife’s gentle spirit and lead by example, that the past is where it belongs. Maybe it was her, that inspired me to have a broader vision to savor every day we are together.
Replacing negative thoughts with acts of kindness mutually stimulates the mind and can heal past hurts.
Mick,
I believe circumstances are unique in their own way in all marriages. I know in mine, my spouse and I didn’t have parents that were emotionally connected, so we had no mentors to help us understand what is was. I see that in a lot of marriages even within the Christian Community, where parents weren’t “connected emotionally” while raising their own kids.
It was trial and error tor many years for my spouse and I in discovering who the person we married was really like or how to communicate in a thoughtful and polite way.
We needed to get back to the very basics, that had nothing to do with sex or went beyond infatuation, attraction. I (and her) needed pursue the same wants, interests and goals without verbally colliding but instead discover compromise.
I prayed and meditated for years, when God started to give me the diagnosis and also the solution.
My spouse was a bit of a free spirit, in that she wasn’t brought up in a family that embraced goals and I was brought up to be a conformist. Hence, we weren’t wired the same, so I wanted to force feed my will her and because of her lack of pre-caution it felt as if she was doing the same to me.
If I wanted to heard, I needed to loosen up and become a better communicator and be more nurturing in spite of her past mistakes. As a result I began to see life through her eyes and she in turn began to do the same with me, in spite of my past mistakes.
Here is the thing, we have kids who witnessed us bickering. We have apologized and even went so far to explain what it meant to “connect”, (don’t be bitter, yell or say mean things) so history doesn’t repeat itself.
Regrettable past mistakes can’t be undone, so when you can just continue to give your wife a soothing and loving hug, you can make her feel safe in your arms and allow emotional connection to develop, which is good for intimacy.
I sense you don’t want her to continually feel like you can’t forgive and forget, which could trigger her to feel a continual life of guilt she is constantly thinking about the past as it may put a mental wall inside her heart as a protective shield as a way to maintain her sanity. You might be hurting, but I think she is as well.
The good news is, it can be fixed, after all she chose you to be her soul mate.