An Era of Prohibition in my Marriage

"...this meant no sex with themselves or other, invluding not getting into
relationships. For others it also meant "drying out" and not having
sex with the spouse for a time to recover from lust."

--From "The Solution, Page 204 of SA's White Book

This was a really hard thing for me to deal with when it came up almost 2 months back. My wife and I are basically in a co-dependent relationship. She would be in a place in which she wasn't sure if she could trust me but she would give herself to me physically and all would be right for 10 minutes but then she would feel worse about us, herself and the situation.

When I had failed to do the things financially that I was supposed to do (not moving money to savings when it should have been and moving money out for things and not letting my wife know beforehand that savings is how we were affording these activities) I went to be that night in the front room. A few months prior when my "acting out"/fantasy/inappropriate banter had shown up (really it was lust pent up in me) we had been apart for a short period of time but our "need" for each other ended that quickly one night when I was invited back into the conjugal bed.

Now, even though we are at times sleeping in the same bed (more often than not) it has been right about two months. Though I yearn for my wife it is different now than it was before. Before I could have lust filled sex with my wife. Literally lusting after her and wanting sex to go certain ways because that made for the better high. I wanted the high to be with her but the high was for me. She was at best an object of my desire for my benefit.

Now I know something else and I am learning what it is to have physical attraction for my wife and to desire her but to want to do so intimately. I want to give myself to my wife. Words like tender have replaced words like animal. Now, physical intimacy is a fruit that will come from the other types of intimacy. As we plan for school next year, talk about our children's future and our future children, my wife has read this blog and she is free to continue doing so. I just want her to know and I will continue to tell her that she is beautiful and I desire to hold her again and to be able to tell her again, "I don't know where you begin and I end."

Under the Mercy

The problem with our culture isn't that it overvalues sex. The problem
with our culture is that it doesn't have a clue of the value of sex.

--adapted from Christopher West

My fear about ridding myself of lust.

One thing that I want in my life is the removal of lust from my being. I struggle to surrender that to God and work to lessen its control over me every day. Lust is my vice that I struggle with. My fear is that in trying to remove the impulse of that vice I am afraid of what may happen.

Most people as a knee jerk answer will say that purity is the coresponding virtue that I need to develop to fight lust and its ill effects. Purity just seems to have such negative connotations for me or from how I hear it described. Purity seems so very dispassionate in my heart. My mind knows better but my heart doesn't.

An important item of note is that my wife and I are practicing continence (no sex) right now, by choice as we are healing the damage in our relationship. The physical expression of my desire for her is muted, and while I do not wish to lust after her at times I want nothing more than lust filled sex with her. Don't get me wrong, at times I have very pure motives of desire, self-donation and the want of union with the other half of me. The times that I most lust after my wife is when things are tense or stressful and these also happen to be during times that if we were being sexually active currently, it would be logistically impossible.

The problem that this lust for my wife creates a time where I am vulnerable or feel very weak in my ability to deal with lust if it should present itself at the store, on the way to work or wherever I may be. However, with God's mercy these times pass.

Returning back to my fear that with the removal of lust via suppression of sexual desire by promoting 'purity' I will end up with no desire for my wife. I feel that purity is a quality of my actions but not a way of life. I have started to think that the best way for me to fight and conquer lust is to promote a virtue that will combat all of my being a 'love-cripple'. I believe that the answer is practicing intimacy as a virtue.

Intimacy is the appropriate sharing of my being with others in all aspects of my life and in a special way with my wife. It is a gift of me to another person that they can receive or reject as they will. Lust is me taking from something for my own personal gratification. Intimacy is receiving another as gift but more importantly giving myself without demanding or expecting anything in return. Today I pray to God for the gift to worthily and freely offer myself to my wife.

Under the Mercy