Living with a disorder that causes painful sex can wreak havoc on your marriage and, as an extension, your life. It is easy to fall into negative thinking and to feel like it is your fault, at least it was for me.
Sex was always an issue in our marriage, and it seemed like it was the cause of all our problems. The sex issue caused arguments and created feelings of loneliness, dissatisfaction and alienation from each other. Even on the days when we were seemingly fighting about a completely unrelated issue, it always had a tendency to go back to the problem of sex (or at least it always did in my mind). Continue reading
This is my favorite verse and has become somewhat of a theme verse for my life over this past year or so. God brought it to me during the most difficult time of my marriage, just as it was falling apart. I have recited it to myself more times than I can count, and shared it with many others. I remember having lunch with a close friend, filling her in on some of what had been going on in my life. As I told her about the hurt and hardships, unsure about the fate of my marriage, I also had to tell her about the amazing things God had been doing to remind me that I was in His care. When I shared the verse with her, she told me that while listening to me tell my story, she couldn’t find any better description—that I was overflowing with hope.
The three most important aspects of a healthy relationship are…communication, communication, and communication.* Okay, so there is a lot more that goes into maintaining a healthy relationship, but I just want to emphasize how important effective communication really is (so important, in fact, that I expect I will be creating multiple posts on this topic in the future).