Growthtrac Community

[veggiemelt]

I have been recovering from the effects of my husband's moral infidelity for the past two years. God has shown me grace and compassion for my husband and has helped me to understand his battle. My faith has grown through this difficult time and I pray daily for his guidance in my marriage.

The problem is, I still have so much doubt about my ability to please him and to what degree his sexual satisfaction in me has to do with his temptation to seek gratification from the internet.

We have been married over 20 years, but neither of us has ever been with another person. I would have never doubted my ability to please him until I discovered porn in the internet. I have always taken excellent care of myself and have never let myself go. I have always been proud of the body that God blessed me with and never doubted my sentuality or sex appeal or my ability to please him. He never told me that he wanted or needed anything different. My husband has never had a very high sex drive toward me, once a week for most of our marriage was normal. I never really questioned it, until I found out that he has always sought gratification outside of me and he never saw it as wrong.

The things that he has told me over the past two years have got me really confused and I can't seem to shed them from my mind. He told me that once a week is enough for him because he does not think about me "like that", and that I do not give him sexual pleasure. He told me that he loves me and that he thinks that I am beautiful, sexy and desirable, but we have been together too long and he is not effected by it.

He is jealous and does not like for other men to look at me, he claims that he wants to keep me all for himself, whatever that is supposed to mean. I don't really understand any of this or why he has said these things to me. In every other way, he is a really good husband and I feal bad for making this such a concern. Though things have changed a little between us,he does touch me more and there is more playfulness outside of the bedroom, but there has not been any change in frequency and I wonder often if he is still unsatisfied.

I do not understand how or why he can say that he does not find all that much pleasure in me. There is literally no reason for it, I am totally uninhibited sexually and I don't have a problem with anything, there is alot of variety and I am visually pleasing. I believe i have done everything within my power to be what God intended as a woman and as a wife. I am a loving compassionate person and I do not nag or criticize.

I really don't know what else I can do and I don't know how I will ever know if I really am satisfying to him and I guess to some degree, I don't even really know what he is even looking for. As much as I pray, God has never given me a clear answer and my head just continues to spin.
Any Advice.




Now it is different though

[SAM]

Have you been to couples counseling together?

And, there a people you can speak to at Faithful and True Ministries that may be able to minister to you and your husband.

www.faithfulandtrueministries.com/

Mark and Deb Laaser have both written books that are pretty awesome.
Deb Laaser's book is called Shattered Vows.

And, lastly - your beauty is not found in the eyes of your husband. Look for your beauty through the eyes of God. Your husband lenses have been permanently clouded, where God's lenses are crystal clear. There is a book by Angela Thomas called Do You Think I'm Beautiful? that I would highly recommend.

[km]

From the male's perspective here - I can't figure out how a man would find his wife "not satisfying" if indeed she were available, accomodating and active in the love life with him, and had kept up her looks/figure reasonably well.

It doesn't make sense to me either - unless perhaps he has adopted the mindset that a roving eye and desire for ever new, ever younger stimulation is aceptable (and a porn addiction might help to foster such an erroneous mindset).

[rdsmith3]

If the husband/wife has a sincere and selfless desire to please his/her spouse, and if they are able to communicate with each other, then they will surely be able to please and satisfy one another. I don't think the issue is really experience, technique, or even looks (within reason). Like km, I cannot comprehend how a man (or woman) would not prefer the touch and attention of a real, loving person over images on a computer.

I don't really know much about a pornography addiction, but I do not think that it is caused by a spouse's inadequacy in the bedroom.

There must be some erroneous belief that he has, or some lie that he is believing, and you cannot change that. So unfortunately I think all you can do at this point is pray and continue to show him love.

[veggiemelt]

Thanks for responding. I have been thinking about these answers for a couple of days. As I said before, I pray daily, but have no clear answers other then that I do not feel that God is asking or telling me to do more.

I do have a solid and ever growing faith in my savior and I do seek to be beautiful in his eyes. I know that Christ is my true source of fulfillment and that he truly loves me just as I am. It does not however change the fact that there is a divide in my marriage for which I feel a sense of loss.

I believe God is working in my husband to help him purify his heart from moral sin. However, I think that my husband is still partially in denial.
I think the line for sexual purity is very different from one individual to the next. Some men may need to blind themselves almost entirely to stay faithful, while others may only need to remove or avoid excessive stimuli.

I think that God made women beautiful so that men could enjoy their beauty. I do not think that a glance is a sin and I do not feel threatened if my husband glances at another woman. I guess it is things beyond that I wonder about. For instance, my husband agrees that viewing nudity online is crossing the line, but he do not see any harm in watching the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on TV. I guess I could find that a little intimidating depending on how he reacts to me during and after the fashion show, but I don't nessesarily think him watching it is morally sinful. I guess the determining factor in my mind is what he does with those images later.

We have not been to counseling and I can tell you that he would never go.
In fact if i even try to talk about anything to do with this issue, he gets really cold and usually says that maybe if i am so unhappy I should just leave. I am left to heal from his mental infidelity in silence and my only proof of his commitment to me is that there is no longer porn on our computer and he says that he doesn't need it anymore. i believe in my heart that he thinks he has done what he needed to do to save our relationship, but I am not sure that he understands what moral infidelity even is. He is a christian, but i wonder sometimes if he isn't clearly hearing God in this area. I put it entirely in God's hands and just pray in silence, but I have yet to feel free of my pain and secure that he is seeking physical fulfullment in me.

I guess I am not willing to let my marriage fall apart fighting over this issue, so I have just prayed that God would help us through this on our own. I believe that My Lord and Savior can quietly help and heal us as he can do all things. Then again, maybe I am just looking for the safest way to go on with out losing my husband. I honestly do not believe there is any more that I can do other then wait and pray and continue to support my husband in silence, even approaching the subject always just makes things worse. I'm probably not making any sense, but thanks for letting me ramble.

[SAM]

I asked my husband what his thoughts were about sitting and watching the Victoria Secret Fashion Show on TV.

1) He said it would be very disrespectful to me unless I was comfortable with it, and we were picking something out together that I could wear for him.
2) Men still have porn addiction with Victoria Secret, underwear models in the newspaper and catalogs.
3) If a husband refuses to get marital counseling for this issue, the wife needs to seek a support group and counseling on her own. Over time, it will destroy her self-worth and self-esteem.
4) If we have to turn off Victoria Secret commercials to protect our six year old grandson from oogling these women, then your husband should turn it off too due to his prior history.

[veggiemelt]

Sam, Thanks for your comments. I think the "respect" issue, is kind of where things get confusing and possibly where I could be to blame for some of this.

I think if I feel uncomfortable with something we are watching, he should be happy to turn it off out of respect for me, there was a time when he would have done that on his own without being asked. Now, he would not do it on his own and would be annoyed if I asked him to turn it off. If it makes me uncomfortable, my only recourse is to jokingly act like I don't care, or leave the room.

You are right about it destroying your self esteem and at this point I am fighting for myself with what could be viewed as either spunk or rebellion.
Here is an example. I rarely go in public in a swimsuit, we haven't been swimming in decades. I do however sunbathe in my back yard. The only swimwear I own are bikini's for sunbathing. We went to the beach on a spur of the moment trip. My husband was not thrilled when I walked out in a bikini, he asked if we could go buy me a one piece so that I could cover up because he does not want to "share me" with other men. Not wanting to cause a fight on vacation I replyed, "I would gladly do that out of respect for you, are you going to avoid looking at the other women in bikini's out of respect for me?" His reply was "probably not", so I said,
"then I am wearing the bikini."

I don't really know how God feels about me wearing a bikini in public, I have never really thought it was a sin, I am just usually much more modest then that because I am fully aware of how easily it is for me to draw attention. Am i wrong?

[rdsmith3]

In fact if i even try to talk about anything to do with this issue, he gets really cold and usually says that maybe if i am so unhappy I should just leave.

I don't know where your husband's heart is, but this approach is very manipulative. He is shutting down communication and he is not showing a willingness to put your needs ahead of his own. He should read Philippians 2:3-4

[veggiemelt]

I think somewhere inside my husband is a heart that truly loves me and if it were not covered by a thick coating of worldly concerns, he would be able to connect with me and with God and hear what God is telling him.

But we are in the midst of a financial and business situation that has consumed his mind. Like me, he is never free of a tremendous amount of strain, stress and confusion, but my mind spins from the aching in my heart and his spins from the burden on his shoulders. We are both spinning out of control and in opposite directions. I pray that God will help us to find a common ground, a place where we can connect, and there are days for just a moment that it happens. It is in that glimpse of what we really are that I continue to find hope and perseverence. But the times in between are long and lonely. I turn to Christ for strength and fulfillment, but even in the arms of Jesus, I long for the loving touch of my husband.

My husband and I work together and most days are not apart longer then an hour or so. But mentally, we are living on different planets divided by the trials of our lives. Though I know that all couples have problems and obsticles to overcome, the road that my husband and I have traveled is far from common. I feel that in so many ways God has truly blessed me in my life and my marriage, but he has also tested us on very difficult territory. I believe that we need some outside help to recover from some of our afflictions and to heal our hearts from what we hold inside.
But my husband buries himself in the pressures of the moment and nothing, including me or maybe even God can pierce the crust on the surface.

He has no idea how ignoring what he does not want to face inside himself is slowly withering away the woman that he loves. I am fighting to stop myself from becoming the kind of person I never wanted to be. His distance is tempting me to let myself be taken over by self pity and bitterness, resentment and negitively.

I probably sound like a rambling crazy woman, but I really need a place to vent and try to sort this stuff out. I can't afford a counselor and don't live anywhere near a support group. So whoever is out there that might have taken the time to read this, Thanks for Listening.

[SAM]

My husband and I used to own our own business. It consumed him, to the detriment of everything around him, and to the detriment of our marriage. It made me a bitter and angry woman. I would often tell him our business was his mistress.

Every moment was a financial struggle, and he finally came to the realization that we could no longer hang on to the business without losing everything - our house, our marriage, and the kids.

We closed the doors and filed bankruptcy. And, I went and saw our pastor for counsel. There are also many non-profit services available through various county organizations that can provide counseling for free. It takes some legwork via numerous phone calls, but it is out there.

So, dear sister, I empathize. It is a very hard place to be and sometimes very difficult decisions need to be made. Luckily, we did not lose our home. It took us five years of hard work to get back on our feet, but we did it.

This period of time broke my husband. He had nowhere else to look but up, and he gave his heart to Christ - completely and fully.

[veggiemelt]

Sam, that is exactly what we are going through. We owned three businesses, one was his, one was mine, and one was ours. We have recently closed my business and the one we ran together and have returned everything including a large piece of real estate to the bank. I have gone to work for him and we are in the process of trying to rebuild everything including ourselves and our marriage. It is a continual process of gaining and losing ground. Did you go to counseling by yourself, and how did your husband react to that?

I can always tell where my husband is spiritually by his personality. When he is listening to God, then he is softer and open to me, he is the man I fell in love with and I feel free to be myself. When he ignores God, then he is off in his own little world and becomes harsh and cold. It is when he is in this place that I struggle, and untimately turn into someone that I am not. It sounds like a world that you know. Sam, are you better now, is your marriage a place of true happiness for you? I know all things are possible in the love of Christ, but not all things are probable in what he plans for our lives. I get angry sometimes with God because I don't like the challenges I face. And much like what I experience with my own husband, many times when I reach out to touch my savior, I cannot feel his hand.

[SAM]

I was angry at God during this time and threatened by husband with divorce several times. I am grateful that there were women in my life who were willing to step forward in loving truth to tell me, as a Christian woman, this was not an option God gave me in scripture.

I spent many weeks speaking with my pastor alone. Eventually, once everything crashed, then my husband was willing to go for counseling.

We had a tendency to want to blame the other for the situation we were in. When, in fact, we both had enough issues to put on both of our shoulders. Once we stopped the blame game, and owned up to our own portions, things got much better.

The hard part is knowing when to give up. When is it time to walk away from the business, stop pouring personal funds into it, and stop. Because we are fighters, ever hopeful - however, sometimes the writing is on the wall.

Yes, we are healed and in a good place now. I have no work at this time, and it looks like my husband's work will be done the end of December, with no prospects in sight. We have been through this before, and we will survive it, and God will take care of us - of that I am sure. He is forever faithful - he tells us we will have troubles in this world - that is guaranteed. He never promised us a rose garden in this life.

I always have to consider, there are many who are worse off than myself during these difficult economic times.

[veggiemelt]

Sam, I have felt you praying for me. God has used your prayers to open my eyes and change my heart. I was totally looking to find answers in all the wrong places. I think you will understand when I say - My chains have been broken and I have been set free. I finally surrendered my will and submitted to God. I said "yes" to him. Thank you.

I understand now what it means to be "independent" of my husband and whole in Christ. I guess it is something that can never be explained. I have always thought that my husband was in denial and kept praying for God to show him the truth. Now that I am really starting to see myself through God's eyes, I had a pretty good case of denial going on in my own head.

It is a completely different mindset. I feel wholely filled with happiness and positive energy, I feel like dancing in the rain. I finally get it.
The love of Christ is amazing!!!

[SAM]

I am so grateful God was able to use my words to touch your heart.
Blessings to you.