She wakes up every day feeling unattractive and out of touch with her body in a way she can't quite explain. Not because she is necessarily, but because she feels that way. Life is unexciting, and the last way she would think to describe herself about anything is ‘turned on’ - except maybe by that little junk food pick-me-up she gets to look forward to at 3pm. Or, perhaps, by the sense of power and control she has over a very fit body - that she is reluctant to share.
She hasn’t had sex with her husband in anywhere from a month to over a year. Or if they do regularly, it’s pretty uncomfortable and definitely lackluster.
Her feeling is that her husband always want sex, and she rarely does. She wonders if it’s ok to say no when she’s not in the mood.
The last time they had sex it was pretty miserable - he seemed awkward, disengaged, and like he was going through the motions, a little embarrassed, and she was pretending to have fun while having incredibly insecure thoughts about her body, worrying about what he was thinking of the sex and her, thinking about dinner and other chores but trying not to, and not really being able to get her head in the game because she feels unattractive, uncomfortable, and a little bitter. And frankly, it kind of hurts, and there’s only a 2% chance she’s going to have an orgasm anyway.
She wants to feel close to her husband, she wants to feel attractive and happy in her body, and balanced in sharing it and loving that interaction, but that feels confusing, impossible, and miles away, and like closeness in his view is going to ‘require’ sex, and that annoys her.
This cycle of insecurity, anger, confusion, and bitterness keeps her in a circle of becoming more and more distant from her husband, unhappy in herself, punishing her body, and questioning her marriage.
Sex is not fun, and sometimes it is even painful, and she rarely if ever orgasms. That leads her to finding ways to subtly turn him off or avoid him and stay up late so that sex becomes difficult, impossible, or unpleasant for him to bother to pursue with her.
This makes her feel safe and even ecstatic in the short run - like she managed to wiggle out of it again - but in the long run it is killing their marriage.
Her husband drags himself through life like a man whose has had all of the zest pulled out of him, and he’s more happy and engaged with his guy friends or watching sports than with her, which angers her and hurts her deeply.
He has likely resigned himself to not being intimate much, and secretly fantasizes about other women, looks occasionally or frequently at porn, and has played with emotional or physical flirting affairs with women at his office who seem much more fun, happy, attentive, and sexually engaged than his wife. He hides this, and is both excited by it, and ashamed of it - yet feels pretty justified.
Her daughters look at her and don’t want to be like her, and are rebelling against traditional marriage and even church and Christian life because this is what they think being a Christian woman is all about: being a-sexual and distant from your so-called lover, and they don’t want any part of it. She tries to be more ‘pure’ and ‘holy’ and involved in church to pull them back in, but that is only backfiring.
It makes her sons disdainful of women and distrustful of marriage, because they see the ‘trap’ their dad got into - promised the woman of their dreams, and then never satisfied romantically or sexually.
Church feels like a safe space for her, until they go to marriage conferences and the inevitable topic of sex comes up ‘for men’ and she has to deal with the reality that she is not being faithful in this area. But because it’s presented as something that only men want or need, instead of being a rejuvenated area of their relationship, it leads to obligatory, lame sex, and even deeper resentment and insecurity.
5 years later, their marriage is on the rocks and they are hiding it from their church community, their sex life is non existent, her weight is higher than it’s ever been and she is continually yo-yo dieting, their son has been discovered to be using drugs, their daughter has been discovered to be sleeping with her boyfriend, and the life and family she dreamed of is a wreck.
She blames it on her husband, for not being a good spiritual leader or a strong enough head of the family, and she is more involved in church activities than ever, keeping up appearances.
Meanwhile, her husband is quieter, more distant, and less engaged and romantic than ever. She senses that he resents her, and that is the reason he has checked out, but she’s sick of trying to get him to have meaningful conversations with her, and she resents him too.
They aren’t able to hide it as well as they think they are, of course, and anyone with eyes can see that things aren’t as they should be, or as they are pretending that they are.
This is what the world sees of Christian marriage, and it backs up their claim that it’s a foolish, old-fashioned institution, and you should stay single and have fun and sex while you’re wild and free, and avoid such a restrictive, miserable commitment as much as possible.
That is also the opinion of her children.
What an example. And how different it could have been if she had had or taken the time to study and learn to live out the Biblical vision for sex.