Many people are surprised just how challenging it is to create a healthy sex life in marriage. Both men and women have different issues that contribute to this. In this post I wanted to quote from a fantastic blog called The Generous Wife where the author explains how she worked past some of the barriers in her own marriage.
OK, so I’m going to get a little personal here (just fair
warning).
I started out with huge sexual issues when I married my guy
(childhood sexual abuse, bad family messages about sex, acquaintance rape, a
painful first marriage). Over the years I learned not to fear sex and then even
to enjoy it some. It was still a struggle at times, but it was getting better
and better and I figured it would keep on that way. I was intentional about becoming
healthy sexually and it was working.
Then a couple of years ago “something happened” and sex
became easy, fun and very good, almost like someone flipped a switch. I’ve
always wondered what exactly happened, but it wasn’t until the other night that
I think I figured it out.
My husband and I were talking about “tipping points” (where
you reach a point of critical mass and push over into something new (and
hopefully better) and I went “ah-ha!” In my head I saw a set of scales. On one
side were all the sex-negative things and on the other side where all the
sex-positive things. At first the negative side was clanking on the counter
because of all the mess in my life. But over the years I added sex-positive
things and worked very hard to dismiss and push off all those sex-negative
things. At some point the positive outweighed the negative and the scales
tipped! All this time I’ve been looking for that one thing that was responsible
for the change, when it was the cumulative effect of a number of changes that
finally tipped the scale.
My point in sharing this with you is that tipping points
happen and you can build a happy, healthy sexual life if you will work at it.
Actually you could do that with any area of your marriage or your life, but I
wanted to speak specifically to sexuality because so many women struggle with
sex in marriage.
I made a point of changing what I believed, what I thought
and what I did. Over time that made a difference. I think that is why I
harp on reading books and blogs, because they will help you challenge what you
believe and give you ideas to try. At first it’s hard work and it feels
unnatural, but over time you can rework your belief system and change your
habits. You can take sex-negative things out of your life, add sex-positive
things and tip those scales.
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