A Moment of Hard Truth

At some point, between the years of “no” and avoidance on one end and the journey toward full intimacy on the other, there is a moment.

While the moment may not be the same for every wife who experiences it, it will be profound and earth-shattering.

The moment brings clarity. Conviction. Consciousness. Recognition.

It is a watershed moment that changes her. The moment is a crossroads that has the power to change the trajectory of her marriage.

I’d like to invite you into my moment—the moment I first understood how my sexual avoidance had caused my husband emotional pain.

The Time Before

It was a Sunday morning—September 5, 2010. I sat on the couch in our living room. I was angry at God for the troubles in our marriage and couldn’t bring myself to walk into church, so my husband had gone without me. It was just a battle we fought each week.

I was worn out. I was tired of all of our fighting about sex. We’d had one the night before. I was worried because he wasn’t asking as often and he had said he was trying to resign himself to a sexless marriage. I was scared because his depression was making him withdraw from me and from our family. I didn’t want to think about these things, since they upset me too much.  I tried to distract myself by checking out news sites online—and I saw an article about Christians and sex. I clicked on it—and my life turned upside down.

I knew that I was saying no to sex. I also knew that it was a bone of contention in our marriage, and that if I “put out” more, we would have less tension in our marriage. However, because I also knew that I, too, was hurting, it never occurred to me that saying no was a problem. I had no idea that I was truly hurting him. That is something I didn’t know until my moment.

My husband had tried to tell me. He had opened his heart and was vulnerable—and I would reject it. I wouldn’t hear what he was saying. So he sent me links to articles and blog posts, all written by women. He figured that since they had been written by women, I wouldn’t be able to dismiss them as just another man trying to convince women that they should be providing more sex.

I read the links, but I didn’t like them. They were showing me a picture of the kind of wife I didn’t want to be, that I didn’t know how to be. When my husband asked me if I’d read them, I lied. I was afraid that if I said I did and acknowledged even one bit of truth in what I read, he would jump on me and say, “See? I told you it was you!” And then I would have to be the one to change who I was while he got to lie back and enjoy it.

Not only was I resisting sexual and emotional intimacy, I was also refusing to seriously address the situation. A few months earlier, I’d wondered about really trying to figure out what was going on, but then I had the thought, What if it turns out it really is me who is the problem? What if I’m wrong? I don’t think I can bear to be wrong, and even if we fix sex, what about my feelings? If I do this thing that he wants, I’ll be giving up what I want from our marriage. It was easier not to face what I suspected would be hard.

As I read the links my husband sent me, some ideas started to sink in despite my best efforts to keep them out. I was beginning to recognize that I wasn’t a very good wife. It occurred to me that my husband deserved better. Since I didn’t know what to do, or how, I did nothing and hoped things would get better on their own (in other words, with no effort on my part)—but I understand now that God was using those women’s words to soften my heart for what came next.

The Moment

So there I sat, on that September Sunday morning—worn out, worried, and frustrated, with a heart that had begun to soften toward my husband. I clicked on the article and then looked at some of the links in the sidebars. I began to click and read. I ended up at The Marriage Bed, reading through articles and discussion forums. I read marriage blogs—and this time, I read the comments. I was exposed to the hearts of countless men whose wives avoided sex. I hadn’t believed my husband’s words—but somehow the words of all these other men got through to me.

It was awful.

My husband’s anguish began to take shape in front of me. So many men wrote about how unloved they felt by the one person who they thought would love them the most. As I finally allowed myself to imagine how that would feel, I felt like my gut had been punched in. It was a moment of very hard truth.

In an instant, my husband’s pain washed through me. I knew that although my feelings mattered, so did his—and my actions had placed him in a place of deep hurt.

I sobbed—soul-rattling sobs. It took me some time (over a year) to fully come to terms with how much I’d hurt him, but at that moment, on that morning, I knew something I had not known before. I knew that I had made my husband feel rejected, unloved, and unworthy. I had done that to my own husband out of my own self-centeredness.

It took days for me really process my realization of what I’d done to my husband.

But, oh, that moment . . . it was the moment I was broken.

It was the moment I began my journey of healing.

As hard and soul-wrenching as my moment was, once that moment was over, I knew that healing had begun.

The Moment After

I often pray for wives who are close to that moment, or who are closer to it that they were a month ago, or a year ago.

My email is filled with messages from wives who hate sex or who are so hurt that they cannot see how to knock down even one brick in the wall around their hearts. The thought of facing this moment frightens or angers them. It is hard to let go and face it. I remember my moment, and I also remember the moments leading up to it. The hurt in my own heart and my confusion about intimacy in our marriage left permanent impressions in me.

I’ve prayed, too, for wives who have recently lived through that moment themselves—wives who have been confronted by husbands, who saw the prospect of a lonely future, or who finally got tired of the way things were. These wives have been through the moment and are figuring out their first or second steps on their journey.

We may not all get to that moment in the same way. My moment was hard for me—but it was such a relief when it was over.

And in that next moment—the one that follows after the moment of hard truth—you can find hope, faith, and love. There is hope for doing better. There is faith that your marriage can heal. And there is love for your husband.

It is the moment that comes after that moment—the next moment—when your journey begins.

Have you faced such a moment? Has your journey begun?

---

You don’t have to walk this journey alone. Click the image to learn about Intimacy Mentoring.