For 20 years, as a Protestant, she was a, refusing wife, to her husband.
Gemma recounts the story of her promiscuous life before marriage,
her frigid life after marriage and her journey to Orthodoxy and her marriage bed.
By Gemma
To admit that I had a serious problem with my marriage bed was a sure way of getting booted out of leadership and I was not going to let that happen if I could help it. Yes, “pride” was my guiding force; pride was my god.
One of my readers recently asked me to elaborate on how my past as a promiscuous single affected my marriage, both during my refusing years and also since I have been totally healed. I took the liberty of posting this reader’s questions here along with my response.
The reader asked:
“Do you think the beautifully sexual relationship you two now share has more than "made up" for those painful 25 years? Even if you haven't, I'm sure both of you will continue to pursue "making up" for it, as often as possible.”
Well, that is certainly an interesting way of putting it but to be honest--- If we were trying to make up for the painful past… I mean, how can you make up for it? What could we possibly do today and tomorrow which would erase the yesterdays? The idea of pursuing a great marriage bed now in order to make up for the past is not even remotely in our thinking.... so I do not even "go there". It would be a depressing, self-defeating thought. We live today and tomorrow to make our present and future the best it can be… period!
Then the reader said:
“I'd like to see if you can go into a bit more detail over how your promiscuity hurt your married sex life in a later entry. It's a common stereotype that a promiscuous woman in a relationship will be as "generous" after the vows are exchanged, so maybe a little more detail on your story there could help derail that silly notion.”
I believe I have talked about this a number of times both on a marriage forum and on my blog but I will touch on it again here. First of all, it is no longer a stereotype that a promiscuous woman will instantly and forever be a sexually generous wife. That is just an old myth as far as I am concerned. Contrary to that myth, too many times I have read about women who slept around a lot as a single, then they married and vowed to remain true to their spouse but before they knew it, they were refusing sex because of the guilt that they carried around with them. That common scenario is the more typical stereotype. So yes, the idea that “promiscuous women turn into sexually generous wives” is a totally untrue notion.
While single I lived as a heathen in every sense of the word. It did not matter to me if I flirted and slept with single or married men. I enjoyed them all, falsely believing that the married ones were wrecking their marriages all on their own… that if they were not sleeping with me then they would be sleeping with another gal who was not their wife. That was my reasoning, my excuse to continue the lifestyle. GR and I both grew up as Roman Catholics. In a time period of less than a year-- we met, married and began attending a Protestant Church together. As soon as we started going to church and "got saved” in Protestant fashion our marriage bed began to fall apart. Ironic--- Here we were thinking our souls were being saved for the first time while simultaneously our marriage bed was slowly spiraling downward in destruction.
As we began that Christian walk, reading our bibles and hearing the Word taught and preached, the whole idea of having sex, quickly became dirty and sinful to me. In my mind I could not separate sex as a single girl from having sex with my husband. It all blended together as I disassociated myself from being a sexual being in a foolish attempt to avoid the guilty thoughts.
The cultish churches we were in back then did not help our situation. Marital sex was never mentioned so of course going to the pastor for help was the furthest thing from my mind. Besides, 3 years into our marriage GR and I were being “groomed” for church leadership (ie, the way they "hooked" people in). By the time we were married for 4-5 years we were involved in a number of leadership ministries. To admit that I had a serious problem with my marriage bed was a sure way of getting booted out of leadership and I was not going to let that happen if I could help it. Yes, “pride” was my guiding force; pride was my god.
Any time a person turns from a sinful life there is a process of emotions which they must go through in order to be healed from the guilt. If you try to “stuff it” it will only come back later with a vengeance to bite you. This is part of where my thinking got screwed up. When we "got saved” we were constantly told, “Your past is forgiven. God will never bring it up again so do not look back anymore; only look ahead.” What they neglected to tell us and what I was too young and dumb to know is that we do not instantly forgive ourselves, the baggage does not just disappear when God forgives us. There are things we have to do before we are healthy and whole.
Incidentally, this is a big part of why GR and I no longer subscribe to the doctrine of instantaneous salvation. In Protestant circles people say, “I got saved on October 10, 1989,” as if on that single day they went from being an emotionally crippled heathen to becoming a perfectly healthy Christian. But the point in my life when I began to heal was the point when I learned to view Christianity as a journey which would take my entire life to complete. In the year 2000 when I realized that I had “not arrived” as a wife, it gave me new understanding-- I had to change in a huge way before I would be the wife GR needed me to be. Sure I could say, “I got saved in the year 2000," ...the year we became Orthodox Christians, the year I began to heal, but that year only marked the beginning of a slow healing process.
Here is something I learned on my journey. Getting saved or becoming Orthodox makes us a "new creature" but what exactly does that mean? It DOES NOT mean that we instantly become healthy and whole or that we become better than those who do not trust in God. If it is a "genuine" conversion it only means that from now on God will make us more aware of our short-comings. If it is a genuine conversion we allow the Holy Spirit to sweep in every dirty room and in every dark corner of our life. Sin and pride can no longer take residence in our life when we become a new creature in Christ. That is not to say that we stop sinning but we no longer LIVE in sin. There is a difference.
We cannot ignore our emotional baggage or ignore current or future emotional issues, going on the false assumption that we get saved, God snaps his fingers and BAM… we are instantly healed of everything, that we have no reason to seek help. Those who do ignore their issues only prolong their healing. So this guilt I was carrying set the stage for an emotionally and sexually crippling marriage. It went on for about 20 years while we were in churches which repeatedly preached the message—“… cleansed by the blood, by His stripes you ARE healed”. Those who dared to say, “But I still need help,” or “I need to see a professional,” were told that they lacked faith to believe that God had already healed them. The rule was--- If you had faith, you did not need help so you suffered silently. If you needed help, you lacked faith and was labeled as an immature Christian.
Those were the most difficult, painful years of our Christian walk and hence, in our marriage bed. I compare those years to folks who say, "I would NEVER want to go back to my painful teenage years." There were other factors which also contributed to my refusing. Most of them are listed in the right side bar in the article entitled “About Me” so you can see them there.
The reader asked:
“Do you think the beautifully sexual relationship you two now share has more than "made up" for those painful 25 years? Even if you haven't, I'm sure both of you will continue to pursue "making up" for it, as often as possible.”
Well, that is certainly an interesting way of putting it but to be honest--- If we were trying to make up for the painful past… I mean, how can you make up for it? What could we possibly do today and tomorrow which would erase the yesterdays? The idea of pursuing a great marriage bed now in order to make up for the past is not even remotely in our thinking.... so I do not even "go there". It would be a depressing, self-defeating thought. We live today and tomorrow to make our present and future the best it can be… period!
Then the reader said:
“I'd like to see if you can go into a bit more detail over how your promiscuity hurt your married sex life in a later entry. It's a common stereotype that a promiscuous woman in a relationship will be as "generous" after the vows are exchanged, so maybe a little more detail on your story there could help derail that silly notion.”
I believe I have talked about this a number of times both on a marriage forum and on my blog but I will touch on it again here. First of all, it is no longer a stereotype that a promiscuous woman will instantly and forever be a sexually generous wife. That is just an old myth as far as I am concerned. Contrary to that myth, too many times I have read about women who slept around a lot as a single, then they married and vowed to remain true to their spouse but before they knew it, they were refusing sex because of the guilt that they carried around with them. That common scenario is the more typical stereotype. So yes, the idea that “promiscuous women turn into sexually generous wives” is a totally untrue notion.
While single I lived as a heathen in every sense of the word. It did not matter to me if I flirted and slept with single or married men. I enjoyed them all, falsely believing that the married ones were wrecking their marriages all on their own… that if they were not sleeping with me then they would be sleeping with another gal who was not their wife. That was my reasoning, my excuse to continue the lifestyle. GR and I both grew up as Roman Catholics. In a time period of less than a year-- we met, married and began attending a Protestant Church together. As soon as we started going to church and "got saved” in Protestant fashion our marriage bed began to fall apart. Ironic--- Here we were thinking our souls were being saved for the first time while simultaneously our marriage bed was slowly spiraling downward in destruction.
As we began that Christian walk, reading our bibles and hearing the Word taught and preached, the whole idea of having sex, quickly became dirty and sinful to me. In my mind I could not separate sex as a single girl from having sex with my husband. It all blended together as I disassociated myself from being a sexual being in a foolish attempt to avoid the guilty thoughts.
The cultish churches we were in back then did not help our situation. Marital sex was never mentioned so of course going to the pastor for help was the furthest thing from my mind. Besides, 3 years into our marriage GR and I were being “groomed” for church leadership (ie, the way they "hooked" people in). By the time we were married for 4-5 years we were involved in a number of leadership ministries. To admit that I had a serious problem with my marriage bed was a sure way of getting booted out of leadership and I was not going to let that happen if I could help it. Yes, “pride” was my guiding force; pride was my god.
Any time a person turns from a sinful life there is a process of emotions which they must go through in order to be healed from the guilt. If you try to “stuff it” it will only come back later with a vengeance to bite you. This is part of where my thinking got screwed up. When we "got saved” we were constantly told, “Your past is forgiven. God will never bring it up again so do not look back anymore; only look ahead.” What they neglected to tell us and what I was too young and dumb to know is that we do not instantly forgive ourselves, the baggage does not just disappear when God forgives us. There are things we have to do before we are healthy and whole.
Incidentally, this is a big part of why GR and I no longer subscribe to the doctrine of instantaneous salvation. In Protestant circles people say, “I got saved on October 10, 1989,” as if on that single day they went from being an emotionally crippled heathen to becoming a perfectly healthy Christian. But the point in my life when I began to heal was the point when I learned to view Christianity as a journey which would take my entire life to complete. In the year 2000 when I realized that I had “not arrived” as a wife, it gave me new understanding-- I had to change in a huge way before I would be the wife GR needed me to be. Sure I could say, “I got saved in the year 2000," ...the year we became Orthodox Christians, the year I began to heal, but that year only marked the beginning of a slow healing process.
Here is something I learned on my journey. Getting saved or becoming Orthodox makes us a "new creature" but what exactly does that mean? It DOES NOT mean that we instantly become healthy and whole or that we become better than those who do not trust in God. If it is a "genuine" conversion it only means that from now on God will make us more aware of our short-comings. If it is a genuine conversion we allow the Holy Spirit to sweep in every dirty room and in every dark corner of our life. Sin and pride can no longer take residence in our life when we become a new creature in Christ. That is not to say that we stop sinning but we no longer LIVE in sin. There is a difference.
We cannot ignore our emotional baggage or ignore current or future emotional issues, going on the false assumption that we get saved, God snaps his fingers and BAM… we are instantly healed of everything, that we have no reason to seek help. Those who do ignore their issues only prolong their healing. So this guilt I was carrying set the stage for an emotionally and sexually crippling marriage. It went on for about 20 years while we were in churches which repeatedly preached the message—“… cleansed by the blood, by His stripes you ARE healed”. Those who dared to say, “But I still need help,” or “I need to see a professional,” were told that they lacked faith to believe that God had already healed them. The rule was--- If you had faith, you did not need help so you suffered silently. If you needed help, you lacked faith and was labeled as an immature Christian.
Those were the most difficult, painful years of our Christian walk and hence, in our marriage bed. I compare those years to folks who say, "I would NEVER want to go back to my painful teenage years." There were other factors which also contributed to my refusing. Most of them are listed in the right side bar in the article entitled “About Me” so you can see them there.
_______________________________________________________
I am Gemma, a 50-something year old wife married to my very hot, slightly older 50-something year old husband. For over 25 years, from the beginning of our marriage until Dec 2006, I was a "refusing wife". Now, I thoroughly enjoy passionate, frequent sex with my husband.
...
If you're curious to know the details ... immediately following my transition, please read on. Be forewarned- You may see some startling similarities to things in your own marriage.
How I Went From Being a Refusing Wife to Becoming My Husband's Whore: The Story Of My Awakening
A transformation has taken place between my dh, GR, and me. From the time we were married and for over 25 years, I put him through torture by refusing sex. At first we were having sex a few times a week. Then it dropped to once a week, then once a month, once every few months, once a year. At our lowest point, it was as seldom as every 2-3 years. Frankly, I'm still amazed that he stayed with me and remained faithful.
Not to excuse my sin of refusal, I was battling with many emotional and physical issues. To name a few of them:
1. past history of low self-esteem in who I was. This was not based on my physical looks but on my basic personality.
2. promiscuous lifestyle prior to meeting GR
3. infertility in both of us
4. 20 married years of legalistic/abusive churches
5. severe female problems necessitating emergency hyster at a young age
6. use of BC pills on/off before and during marriage to help manage the female problems
7. my wrong thinking that dh only wanted me for sex
... and the list goes on. For many of those "refusing" years GR tried to interest me in enjoying sex; nothing worked. Finally, he reached a point where he saw that all the begging, pleading, pushing and prodding was not going to move me. He stepped way back and began a life of hard, intensive prayer. The more GR prayed the more God changed his heart. You see, he was teachable, I was not.
GR and I often prayed together but the focus was rarely on my sins as I (wrongly) thought I was the more spiritual of the two of us. On my own, I frequently prayed and read my Bible while simultaneously living in my "sin habit". During this time we were fully involved in legalistic church leadership, always there when the doors were open..... while behind closed doors, I refused sex to my dh. All our friends thought we were the loving Christian couple. (Sounds familiar?)
We seriously needed a dramatic church change because our church life was not helping our marriage, in fact, it was doing more harm than good. In the year 2000 we walked completely away from the Protestant Faith and we walked towards Christian Orthodoxy. This one change made a huge difference in how I viewed Christianity (ie, No more hidden sin.) and how we related to each other as husband and wife.
As GR's prayers became more intense, God turned our relationship upside down. I saw a side of my husband that I had never seen before and it caused me to desire sexual oneness with him, although, I still didn't know how to achieve it. Because of years of me sexually rejecting him, GR wasn't reaching for me emotionally or sexually and I still wasn't reaching for him but by this time we were both, individually, praying hard.
I stumbled upon Dr. Laura Schlessinger's book: _The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands_ and had a rude awakening when reading it. Later, I ran into the forum at themarriagebed.com , where I lurked for weeks trying to understand how sex in a Christian marriage could be fun and fulfilling and how it could lead our relationship into healing and restoration.
As I lurked at TMB, armed with Dr. Laura's wisdom, a light bulb turned on and I finally could see that I held the key to jumpstart our relationship. I told GR what I was learning and in December 2006, on MY initiative, we began acting on my awakened sexual desire. For the first time in over 25 years we were finally and frequently enjoying passionate sex.
Our communication has moved up to a totally different level. Just the other night I asked GR how many times a week he'd like to have sex. You can imagine after 25+ years without, he's still not ready to accept that this awakening is "for real" and he's setting the bar low to avoid disappointment so he replied, "Oh, I guess about once a week would be nice. What do you think?" I told him, "2-3 times a week for starters! Is that OK with you?" Only.......
We never did put into practice the 2-3 times a week frequency. Instead we went straight from "no sex" to having sex every single day and often twice a day. Thus began our lifestyle of passionate, daily sex and of me joyfully becoming "GR's whore". I wear that title as a 'badge of honor'. It is a reminder for me to always put my husband first and to keep him sexually satisfied at all times.... which he does for me as well.
Have hope. Pray hard. Talk earnestly with your spouse. Get counseling. Don't put off the things you CAN do to begin turning your marriage around. I changed after 25 years; others can too.
This is a very compelling perspective however I think that the timing of this feature is less then perfect. It would benefit all more to focus on the joyful sorrow of repentance then sexuality. Yes repentance is all about healing but remaining within the spirit of the season. I'm just saying...
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