Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn't Good Enough (23 page)

But here’s the truth: when the past isn’t dealt with, it will always affect your present.

You can’t experience sexual intimacy out of a heart that is sexually impure. If you are waiting on your sex life to magically get better but there is sexual impurity in your marriage, you will be waiting forever. The extraordinary sexual intimacy we desire is found in purity. For the last seven years, Trisha and I have worked hard to develop and maintain sexual purity in our relationship. It has been brutal and painful and embarrassing at times. But being fully known in our marriage has allowed us to restore sexual purity in our hearts and in our relationship.

Conflict Avoidance

I (Justin) had this assumption that did so much damage to our marriage. The assumption was that if Trisha and I had a healthy
marriage, then it would be free from conflict. That isn’t true at all. A healthy marriage isn’t void of conflict; it is void of
unresolved
conflict. I can remember so many arguments that Trisha and I would get in, and I would say, “Just tell me what I need to apologize for!” My goal wasn’t to resolve the conflict; it was to avoid it altogether.

Unresolved or avoided conflict becomes a cancer that eats away intimacy, trust, passion, and sexual attractiveness. When there is unresolved conflict in your marriage and you are ignoring it, blowing it off, or minimizing it, your spouse doesn’t see you when they look at you; they see the conflict or the problem you are avoiding.

So many couples take pride in that they have never had a fight. I have to question the depth of intimacy and life that exists in a marriage that has never had conflict. When I avoid conflict or allow conflict to go unresolved, I become less trustworthy to Trisha. How can she fully trust someone who has no interest in the pain or hurt she is experiencing? Without trust, there is no foundation for intimacy. If Trisha has wounded me and I don’t share that wound with her, I am communicating that I don’t trust her enough with my pain to share it with her. I prove that I value counterfeit peace in our relationship more than I value being fully known.

Maybe your marriage is in an ordinary place sexually because you have been doing your best to avoid conflict. By avoiding conflict or allowing it to go unresolved, you have withheld a part of your heart from your spouse. Avoiding conflict will never foster sexual intimacy. This principle is why so many couples experience some of their most intimate moments sexually after a high level of conflict has been resolved. Unresolved conflict can be a huge barrier to physical intimacy.

STRAIGHT TALK TO LADIES

After devouring all the reading material I (Trisha) could get my hands on while on my quest to figure out what my and Justin’s
roles are in the area of sexual intimacy, I realized that Justin and I had to be on this journey together. I had to ask hard questions and prepare myself for uncomfortable discussions and even harder answers. As I read different material, it prompted me to ask Justin questions like:

• Do you think you watched porn because you have sexual addiction, or was it a place of escapism?
  
• Do make-out scenes in movies cause you to struggle?
  
• Do you think that “bouncing your eyes” away from sexual triggers is an effective strategy to avoid lust?
  

Honestly, I wish asking hard questions and being open to the ensuing discussion was a one-time thing, but for us, it’s the way of life in the extraordinary. This by no means is a pass for your spouse to engage in sexual sin as long as it is confessed. Asking questions and being open for discussion means getting to the heart of the matter before it becomes an issue.

One of the struggles we often end up having tough conversations about is how Justin and I differ in our desire for physical intimacy. This seems simple to write in a sentence, but this issue could wreak havoc on our relationship if we didn’t constantly keep this conversation going. Justin will most likely always desire it more than I will, but one thing we have come to recognize is that when Justin is feeling insecure about our relationship, his desire to be intimate with me is heightened. His drive at that point is a desire born out of fear, not a desire for mutual intimacy. What I have come to realize about myself is that although I really do enjoy being intimate with Justin, I left all the pursuing up to him. I have to make a conscious effort to pursue Justin as much as he pursues me, and when I don’t, Justin knows he has permission to call that out in me.

We didn’t choose to put this chapter at the end of the book
because it’s less important than the rest. Rather, sexual intimacy is of great importance, but to fully embrace the gift that God has meant for it to be in our marriages, we need to take a deeper look into matters of the heart before we bring our hearts to the bedroom.

Earlier I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:2-6. The reason this passage gives me so much hope is that God’s design is stronger than the ordinary we typically settle for. Isn’t it comforting to know that sex is so much more than just a physical act used to satisfy our husbands? Sex is something to look forward to, not something that is dirty, wrong, or sinful. It is a gift that God gives to a couple when they mutually and sacrificially give their bodies to one another in order to be fully known. This doesn’t mean that cranky kids, the car breaking down, or a deadline at work won’t get in the way of this type of intimacy. It doesn’t mean that lights will automatically dim, candles will ignite, and a love song will start to play as you mutually offer yourselves to each other. What it
does
mean is that the act of offering yourself—“to serve the other, whether in bed or out”—continues to draw you to each other well after you’ve been sexually satisfied. And that is extraordinary.

As you confess, process, and strive for healing in the area of sexual intimacy, Satan will pounce on you to surrender to fear rather than truth. There will be days when you will have a tough conversation and walk away feeling defeated rather than enlightened or thankful for the confession spoken. There will be times you will need space to process, forgive, and pray to know what your next steps should look like to find healing. There are times even now when Justin and I find ourselves at a place of struggle in which confession alone is not enough to bring about healing. Sometimes confession will be the starting point, and you will need to seek help from a mentor, pastor, or counselor.

I pray that as you start this journey together to unpack sexual brokenness, you will not give up. I pray that you will rest in the knowledge that we are
all
flawed people. We won’t get it right
every time, but our hope is in knowing that Jesus will never leave us, forsake us, or abandon us. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, who “helps us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26). You will have to fight for an extraordinary marriage, and each time you do, its attractiveness will outshine the dullness of life lived any other way.

STRAIGHT TALK TO GUYS

In Exodus 32, the Israelites had just witnessed God’s amazing rescue from Egypt. God had fed them with a substance never seen before. He showed up in thunder around Mount Sinai and gave the people the Ten Commandments, the second of which commanded that the Israelites should never make an idol.

God’s presence was powerful, God’s presence was frightening, and so the people begged Moses to stand between them and God. Moses went up the mountain to meet with God. Yet when Moses spent too long on the mountain doing the work the people had given him to do, the people became antsy. They told Aaron, “Come on, make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt” (Exodus 32:1).

The irony here is thick. The Israelites had earlier groaned to be saved from Egypt, and the Lord heard them. Egypt was a place with many gods, and one by one, God passed judgment on them all, showing his supremacy through the plagues. He brought his people through the desert, skirting the more powerful nations who were living there, in order to reveal more of himself. The Israelites recognized God’s power, but they didn’t recognize his lordship. It was comparatively easy to take the Israelites out of Egypt; it was much, much harder to take the Egypt out of the Israelites.

Back to the story: Aaron casts an idol of a calf using the people’s jewelry. He reveals it to the cheering Israelites, who said, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4). Aaron is swept up in the energy of the moment, and then he makes a perplexing statement: “Tomorrow will be a festival to the L
ORD
!” (Exodus 32:5).

This would be almost comical if it weren’t so disastrous. Aaron was Israel’s high priest, the one who would stand between the people and God in offering sacrifices. He should have known better than to make the idol in the first place, and he certainly should have known better than to mention the Lord and then worship an idol. The First Commandment, after all, was to have no other gods. That Aaron could remember the Lord’s name (and thus probably his commandment) yet indulge in idol worship is telling: there is often a disconnect between what we say we believe and what we do. We can attempt to change our behaviors, but without a change of heart, these changes are in vain.

And that is the problem as we talk about sexual purity. For ten years, I worshiped God on Sundays, taught God’s Word, and led people spiritually, yet I had allowed sexual sin and brokenness to be a part of my life. It is so easy to say, “Don’t lust. Don’t look at pornography. Don’t fantasize about other women. Don’t compromise your sexual purity.” It’s easy to call those behaviors out in one another, and we can do our best to try to live up to that standard, but if our hearts don’t change, then we will struggle and
fail in this area over and over again. We will become prisoners to our own sexual sins.

There have been so many times in our marriage that Trisha and I would hear a speaker talking about sexual purity, and Trisha would ask me if I struggled in that area. “No, I don’t struggle with that,” I’d say. “I struggle with pride and arrogance (and lying). That is my battleground, not sexual purity.”

After the affair, I found myself needing a lot more than just my behavior to change. I had spent ten years promising myself I wouldn’t look at porn anymore, yet I continued to do it. I had always had great intentions; I just wasn’t intentional in allowing my heart to change. My intentions weren’t going to be the measurement anymore. I had to choose differently now.

The first choice I made was to stop deceiving myself. I was able to lie to Trisha so easily because I had lied to myself first. For us as guys, to have the sexual intimacy we desire with our wives, we have to refuse to lie to ourselves. Here are some of the lies we often tell ourselves:

• I’m just window shopping. I’m not buying.
  
• No one is getting hurt by my looking at porn. It doesn’t affect me like it affects other guys.
  
• I can stop anytime I want.
  
• I can manage my lust, my thoughts, and my desires.
  
• It’s not that big of a deal; I’m just flirting.
  
• I don’t need to talk to anyone about it; I can handle it.
  
• The movies I watch aren’t that bad; they could be a lot worse.
  

The problem for us is that our capacity to compartmentalize our lives is amazing. We have the capacity to say we are deeply in love with our wives and yet at the same time deeply desire another woman’s body. In our minds, those two things have nothing to do
with each other. But in reality, they have everything to do with each other. If you want to find the path to sexual purity so you can experience sexual intimacy, you have to stop deceiving yourself. You need to admit your struggles, weaknesses, addictions, and sins. I don’t know what that looks like for you, but for me it meant getting help.

What I realized is that porn wasn’t my problem. What kept me in bondage to a sexual addiction was pride. It was a lack of surrender. My pride wouldn’t allow me to admit my problem. My pride wouldn’t allow me to seek help. My pride was more important than submitting to Christ and to my wife. My pride was bigger than my porn problem. My pride kept my porn problem big.

Shortly after our family moved away from Genesis Church, I began a nine-week program to break free from my addiction to pornography. Trisha and I had honest and open conversations about my struggles and about things that trigger my desires and how she could help me and pray for me. It was uncomfortable for me to be up at two in the morning talking about pornography and masturbation with my wife. But in order to have a different marriage, we had to start doing things differently. I continued to go to counseling to talk through my abuse issues and sexual brokenness.

If you want to change this aspect of your heart and not just alter your behavior, you must guard your heart and mind. As we come to terms with the battle that we as men fight every day, it is a battle for our hearts and a battle for our minds. It is not nearly as important to monitor our behavior as it is to guard our minds.

Philippians 4:8 says, “Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (
NIV
).

At the beginning of our separation, our counselor challenged me to fast from television until Trisha and I reconciled. My initial response was, “Like, not even Sports Center?” I was willing to do anything, so I agreed. For the next two months, I didn’t watch any
TV. I spent so much more time praying and so much more time in God’s Word. I realized how many of my thoughts weren’t centered on what was true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy.

Here is what’s wild: I used to teach this passage on Sunday mornings. I quoted this passage to guys I met with who had pornography addictions. I often shared this verse with friends I played basketball with who couldn’t stop cussing. I knew this passage, but I didn’t apply it. Well, I guess I applied it to the point that it felt comfortable, but not when it conflicted with
CSI: Miami
or
Grey’s Anatomy
. I never quoted it when I was trying to talk Trisha into watching an R-rated movie that “only has one sex scene that we can fast-forward through.” I never broke out this verse as I was walking into the movie theater to watch a movie I knew had sexual content and nudity. I knew this verse was true, but I didn’t take seriously the consequences of not applying it to my life.