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(So sorry, my computer broke so I wasn’t able to edit and this is late, but I think the content is all there!)

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I was abused and I was completely unaware at the time. Because he was spiritually gifted I trusted him. But he wasn’t exhibiting the fruits of the spirit.

If you’re being abused, it’s so hard to see what’s really going on in your marriage because something that’s inherent in abuse is blinders. Today, I talk about my own experience with abuse in my first marriage, and what it took to get the blinders off for me.

And then not only removing your blinders, but then what is your next step after becoming clear on what’s really going on in your marriage. And then to make wise action towards what I believe can completely transform him.

This is the beginning of a series of DYM shows on abuse. There’s many different levels, categories and types of abuse towards women in many aspects of life. I want to help a woman who is currently in an abusive situation to think through the really difficult areas to walk the hard strategic road to recovery that I believe is possible.

Please note: I am not a licensed therapist or social worker and I cannot provide that “professional” guidance. But this is what I have learned through my story and the suffering I went through and what I have helped some of my coaching clients out of.

Regardless of my credentials, we need to be helping women in this extremely common and devastating arena.

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The resource I referenced about getting support around domestic violence and abuse is www.nomore.org

 

0:00
Hi there, and welcome. This is belah rose. And I am so glad that you are joining me today. I wanted to talk about something that is kind of foundational to this ministry. And something that has been so important in my life, that I kind of forget sometimes that people are still going through this. What I’m talking about is abuse in marriage. Now, I suffered abuse in my first marriage. And when I say suffered, I mean suffered. It was traumatic, it was trauma filled. Two years of my life. A lot of women, probably listening to this podcast, I have been doing it for years and years and years. And my heart goes out to them. By God’s grace, I got out of that marriage. In one piece, a lot of women don’t. And so what I want to talk about today is our blinders. What I’ve decided to do actually on this topic is go through a eight part series about abuse.

1:31
The reason I want to do that is because I feel like a lot of women are in abusive marriages. And they think they’re doing what God wants them to do.

1:46
While being abused. That’s what I thought. And I think women like that are listening to my podcasts and trying to figure out how they can make their marriages better, while suffering this abuse. And I think God has given me the grace to coach women out of that abuse and actually make their husbands happier in the process. And clearly, and definitely make themselves happier, and more fulfilled and more on purpose with what God wants them to do and be. So like I said, it is foundational to this ministry, because if you’re in an abusive marriage, you could do all the techniques are sexual, XY and Z, you could take my courses, you could read my book, but you wouldn’t be able to you there’s, there’s an underlying, gaping wound that is not being addressed and not being healed. So I want to talk about taking off the blinders. One thing that’s hard, I think, especially as Christians is to name something like abuse, is to call it that word, it seems so drastic and dramatic. And it’s like, I must not be going through abuse. And then there’s the flip side of you know, I’m going through abuse. So that means I need to be taking drastic, dramatic action to get out of the abuse. And when I’m talking about abuse, a lot of times our mind immediately goes to being hit and being physically beaten. And certainly there are many, many, many women around the world and in our country that suffer physical abuse. And that is absolutely unacceptable. And I would never I just, I just would never want the content of this show to embolden a husband to abuse his wife in any shape or form. Whether it’s physically, emotionally, economically, you know, mentally sexually. So there’s a lot of these categories of abuse, because I think a lot of women think well, he’s just controlling our finances and not giving me the things I need. So that’s not really abuse, but it is mean And no, that is abuse, you are not being given what you need to, to live, you’re not in control of your, you know, you’re not given the capacity to the agency to live because of the financial control in your marriage, or maybe he’s not willing to go out and, you know, get a job or, or just I’m just throwing out try to get you thinking about whether or not abuse is happening in your marriage, there is actually a great website called No more.org. And there’s a list on there that talks about all the different abuses, some of which I listed, and they talk about what it means to be abused. And again, in my previous marriage, I was abused. And I think I could check off just about every single box. And this was by a Christian man, a very Christian spiritual man who, oh, he could write us scriptures like nothing else, and justify every single thing he did through Scripture. And he could fall to, you know, call down prophet the prophetic things that were true. And for me, it left me really confused. Because here I was, to, quote submit to this man who I didn’t know it at the time was abusing me so terribly.

6:46
And, and I thought, Well, God is giving him these incredible spiritual gifts, it must mean that he’s doing the right things. But it wasn’t until I had space from that marriage, that I was able to recognize what was really happening. I remember I worked in terms of economic abuse with this particular experience is that I worked three jobs. And I want you to know, you know, belah Rose is not my real name. If you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you know, that. So, I’m not defaming this man. Just so you know, there’s not there’s not a way to find out who he is, and that kind of thing. And, and God willing, he has repented and changed, but maybe not. But anyway, so let me so I’ll kind of give you some of the specifics. But I, I was in college, I had three jobs, I was what they call an RA, which meant I took care of a a floor of students in which, you know, I was kind of the chaperone of the floor, making sure they weren’t parties and making sure everyone was doing their, you know, peaceful living and no fights and that kind of stuff. So that was my one job. That took a good amount of time. But it also paid for my room and board. And then I had another job at the library where I was filing books and magazines and putting things where they’re supposed to go and running errands. Then I had another job at the law school associated with the college where I would coordinate young people, volunteers for this particular master’s program. So I was the coordinator of this program, as well as being a full time student. So these were my jobs. And, and then here in there, I was also a TA for another position. I think that was when the library job ended, I became a TA for a class about critical thinking and logic. So that meant I tutored people and I just supported the professor and however he needed. So I was doing all these things while I was married, and at the time, my husband was convinced that though he was not bringing in any income, and instead he was going to school as well. He was much much older than me. So as a graduate program, and I was paying for that with student loans as well as my income. He he was sure that I that he needed the most expensive things like the most expensive phone on the market, the most expensive phone plan on the market. These were necessities he needed to buy the top taller, bike and clothes. And these were things that they were just required for him to be able to do well in, you know, his endeavors. And we weren’t living together because for his studies, he wasn’t able to focus if I were there, and they were just it was, there was this emotional control, because he knew that that’s what I wanted, that I wanted them the emotional support, and he would withhold that from me, so that he could control me. And so that was just one level of the abuse. But how did I not see this? How was it not like clear as day I was a smart woman, I was college, educating, you know, I was running programs, how would I not be able to see that I myself was being abused. When here I’m taking sociology courses, even feminist courses, philosophy courses, I got a degree in philosophy. How was I not, you know, I was taking courses, logic courses, all this? Well, thing is I saw abuse modeled for me.

11:20
You know, I won’t go into specifics there. But I will say that, that that was modeled for me. And then, during that marriage, I also ended up being abused by church leaders, that, by God’s grace, it wasn’t physical abuse, but it was spiritual and emotional abuse. And it affected my relationship with God in a very significant way. Because of the way these people were treating me. And so the way I’ll try to, you know, there are things that I’m trying not to be specific about. But also things I want to bring into the light so that you, in your experience and relationship with God can kind of make sense maybe of what has gone on for you. Because a lot of you have suffered emotional, emotional, spiritual, but also physical sexual abuse, at the hands of Christians, it’s reality, it’s happened and happening, and you deserve voice. And you deserve to believe your own story. And you deserve other people to believe your story. And you deserve space to process that story. And for other people to give you space to process, and to love you through that story. Because there was power in your story, and God has given you the grace to and maybe it’ll take a while and maybe there’s you know, processing and we’ll see what God ends up doing. And as you discern His timing and his place, but there’s reason for your suffering. And there’s, there’s a way that I believe God’s gonna redeem your suffering. So So what ended up happening for my marriage was that I was studying for a very important exam I attended to go to law school, and the LSAT is what it’s called. And I was studying for that exam. And it takes hours and hours and hours and to study and I had gone through like a test preparation course, which was actually very expensive. So it was just very important for me to, to get into law school. And because I felt like that’s what God wanted me to do. And and, yeah, I just couldn’t emotionally focus because we were, again, not living together. But we were having plenty of screaming arguments on the phone, and I felt lonely and sad. And I felt incredibly isolated. No one knew what was going on in my marriage. And oh, so, so hard. So sorry, study studying for this exam. And I decided, you know, I, I need a break. I need a break until I’m able to take this exam. And then you know, we can reconvene. And during that break, which I think was two months, I was able to see what was going on. I had the emotional space to actually see what was going on. And the shocking thing is that I was blind. I was literally blind to the abuse. I was suffering. I just I couldn’t I couldn’t see it. I thought that I must be you know I must be a stronger woman. And then these other women, like I can handle this, you know, this is what God wants of me and things are going to get better, or, you know, he’s going to change or, you know, I’m angry and resentful about this, but I don’t know. Like, it’s really, it’s really hard for me to articulate. And it gives me the empathy for the women that are being abused is like, it doesn’t make any sense. What how do you not see that what is happening isn’t okay, how do you not see that and sometimes with my coaching clients, I’m like, what you are going through is not okay, that is abuse. Um, and so I was out of the marriage, quote out for two months, and I was able to see that this was not okay. And so after seeing that, I think a lot of people make the decision. And what happens is women have a decision to make an after this podcast, and hopefully, you’ll stay for the whole series. Because I, I want you to, there’s a lot, I wanted to break this down piece by piece, because I was going to try to do it in all of one podcast, and it wouldn’t make any sense. It’s just way too much information and, and processing that needs to go on. But

16:27
you have a decision to make. Once your blinders are off, you have a decision to make. Now the decision is you can bolt you know that’s, and when you think about the blinders, you think about a horse, right? You’ve got blinders on. And that’s what horses have. I live in New York City. So they’ve got blinders on. And the reason they have the blinders on is so that they don’t see the cars and get scared and get spooked is what it says I used to have horses. And so when horses get spooked, they just they freak, they like jump, and they run and they do all sorts of crazy things, because maybe they saw a rope and they thought it was a snake or something. So anyway, these horses have these blinders on for that reason. So when the blinders come off, that you are experiencing abuse, you have a decision to make. Are you going to bolt? Are you going to run? Or are you going to say you know what, I’m going to believe God is bigger. And I’m going to believe he’s going to change this. And I’m going to accept that this is abuse, awareness, acceptance, and movement, the next piece because if you’re not aware, you have blinders on. But then you have to accept this is where you are your horse in the middle of New York City, with cars beeping all around you, and it looks like you’re going to get hit from every site. Right? That’s what the blinders are keeping you from seeing. But then the question is, are you going to bolt and actually get hit by one of these cars? Or are you going to say, Okay, now I know what’s going on, I’m going to stay in my lane. But then I’m going to get a strategy together to figure out how to do this. Because I think that’s the wise horse is to say, Okay, I see the path in front of me. I know what’s going on now. And I’m going to see, all right, maybe there’s going to be a path a little bit to the right that I can start making and the other cars are going to start shifting because they see a horses coming through. And then I can slowly get over to this other side. And then I can get slowly over to the sidewalk. And then I can start going a little bit faster on that sidewalk and I can just keep going on that sidewalk until eventually, I’m going to get to the open pasture somewhere quite a few miles away, but I’m going to get there. So once again, I love horses. They’re my favorite animal. So so this is kind of a deer analogy. Deer isn’t like endearing analogy for me or metaphor for me. But that’s what I’m asking you to do is take the blinders off, become aware, except what’s going on and then move strategically with the law view of how to get it to change. Because I’m not someone who’s saying, You know what, rollover and the Accept and say that there’s nothing you can do. Because I don’t agree with that unless you’re dead, there is something you can do. So, so yeah, I think there is strategy that you can employ to say that you know what, this is what’s going on. And now this is what I’m going to do to get out of it. So what happened with me, is when I found out what was actually going on, and I think it was God, absolutely revealing it to me because I, I was completely unaware. I bolted, that’s what I did. I bolted. I, I filed for divorce. And that ended up being my best year of college I graduated, I was the commencement speaker of my college, I had a ton of honors that I graduated with, it was the most phenomenal year of my career to that degree to that point. And

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and then God did a lot of other things in my life that are really incredible. But I also went away from Jesus for a long time, because that I was so hurt by such a man that I thought was being used and following God. I want to say this, because I think it’s very important. And it’s a very big lesson I’ve learned through that experience is in the Bible, it says you will know them by their fruit. He says, that’s how you’re going to find out and determine if they are doing what I’m asking them do you do? You will know them by their fruit. It doesn’t say you will know them by their gifts. You will know them by their fruit. Because God gives gifts. And there’s a verse in there somewhere that I can’t remember. But it says he doesn’t take them away. And you know something like prophecy? It’s like but God, he’s giving that gift every single time the person prophesize like how? What do you mean, he doesn’t, you know, take it away. That’s not like a gift of teaching or hospitality or something. You know, it seems very God given in the moment. But I don’t know how it works. But it doesn’t mean that they are untouchable, that they are holier than thou or or that they are in line with God’s heart. That’s not it’s his fruits. That’s how we discern if God if that person is in line. The wisdom from above is first of all, gentle. That’s what it says in the Bible. First of all, gentle and full of good fruit. I believe that’s in James You know, so there’s that’s the test. And I’ve run into that, that God, you know that I’ve run into way too many times, which is very sad. But that people think that because the giftings are still happening in their own life, or in the lives around them, that they are impervious to what the enemy wants to use them for. They think that Well, God’s God’s, the gifts are flowing, so I must be on target. Or the gifts are flowing. So that person must be on target. And we must die to ourselves we must follow Jesus. And when we’re when we’re tripping up on the fruits of the Spirit. That’s, that’s not it. We’re not on target we are sinning. That’s what sin means is to miss the target. So what are the fruits, the fruits of the spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. Those are the fruits of the Spirit. So if you see yourself lacking in those fruits, then it’s time to reassess and figure out how can you get more on target. If you see others lacking in those fruits, think, okay, they need to get more on target, or at least I can be aware that they’re not fully on target. And I can be aware because we can’t be blind, you know, when God shows us a character flaw, now we know about it. And maybe we know about it, because God wants us to, to do something. And maybe we just need to pray and not do anything about it. There’s been times in my life, that that’s been the right choice. So that’s the thing, take off the blinders. And I beg you to make it a strategy to decide that you’re going to, you’re going to be patient, you’re going to be wise, you’re not going to bolt in front of traffic, which actually,

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it’s going to hurt. But instead, you’re going to have strategy. And you’re going to be wise. And you’re going to go slowly. And you’re going to have a long view in mind, that maybe this is going to take two years, three years, but think about it out of 100 year life 234 years of strategy of of focused decision making in your marriage of disciplined. Positioning and, and words and decisions, you know, that’s going to be worth it. Because if you have children, your children will be affected for the rest of their lives. About what decision you decide to make, whether or not you’re going to bolt, or you’re going to strategize, and you’re going to implement that strategy wisely. bolts or wisdom. I bolted. And it took me away from Jesus and only by God’s grace, did I come back? I don’t know how or why. But it was God’s absolute grace, that I came back.

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And so you might be saying, well, Bella, what if you didn’t bolt? Do you think your marriage would have lasted he would have changed all these things. And I don’t know what God would have done. But from what I know now. I think it very well could have been completely transformed. Because of what I know now, completely. The other thing I think that I don’t like hearing is that people are saying, you know, while I’m praying for my marriage, and I’m just praying, and I’m praying and praying and praying, and yes, do all that praying. But we also have to apply wisdom. You’re not a fish that’s just going to go through the current. No, no, you got to start swimming upstream. Got to be the salmon that jumps up the river to go lay her eggs. You are not totally beholden to what’s going on. God gives me the strength to be wise God gives me the ability to hold my tongue when I need to and speak when I need to. God help me to implement these strategies helped me to to use my words wisely. And yes, God changed my husband changes the dynamics of our marriage. So yes, pray but be wise, my dear wife, read the Proverbs. There’s a whole book in this whole Bible. That’s all about wisdom, all about wisdom. And there’s so much on the New Testament about wisdom and there’s so much in the Old Testament about wisdom. So wisdom clearly matters. So don’t just, you know, let it roll over and say that, you know, God’s gonna change it. Yes, he is going to change it. But he’s gonna use you to change it. Yes, he gets all the glory for changing it. He he blew the the air in your lungs, you know, he gets all the glory and you’re not going to do it perfectly and it’s not your fault. You know? That, that it gets changed but use wisdom. Apply your heart to wisdom. So those are things I learned Through the abuse of my marriage is that I was not wise. I was trusting people that had character issues that I saw. But then I saw their gifting. And I was, I was confused. And I was trusting the gift of God in people above God Himself, in my own discernment. And you know, that’s the trouble is, well, the trouble I think is the way God works is he will expose people’s the negative parts of people, or he’ll expose things, because he wants you to know that He is God. They might have amazing gifts and talents and character and all this stuff, but they’re still not God, they still are not impervious to either the lies of the enemy, or just faulty thinking, or weird experiences, or just funny, whatever. And I hope that’s how you consider me to so maybe in this podcast, there’s been jewels and nuggets that you needed, and maybe some of the things are just completely off for your experience or what you’re going through. And maybe it’s just for me trying to articulate my own experience and process through it. Or maybe it’s for someone completely different over another place in the world and, and you can just be at peace, that they’re the ones that needed to hear that phrase or that explanation. Alrighty, so that was strategy and blinders. Next week, I’m going to be talking about boundaries. So I hope that you will come back for that one. God bless you. Let me just pray. Father, I don’t know the wife on the other end of this microphone. I do know by God’s grace you. You are using this podcast in ways that I can’t imagine. And I pray, Lord, that whatever has stirred in her heart, whatever she needed to hear, that would direct her towards you. Not away from you, God that she would not grow closer to anyone but you through this conversation. I pray God that you would show her what you need her to see.

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You would remind her God that you were taking care of her, as she doesn’t have to be afraid that when the blinders have come off, she doesn’t have to fear. She doesn’t have to run. God she can apply herself to wisdom goddess, she can take courage, because you go with her on this journey. She is not by herself. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Okay, I realized this after recording that I wanted to mention, if this has stirred something in you, and maybe you’ve done a little research and you are deciding that yes, what you are going through is abuse. I want to caution you to more than likely not tell your husband, that’s what you have come to the conclusion of I’m going to be talking about abuse for a solid six to eight weeks. And we’re going to be talking about the strategy to turn things around. But it will set your marriage back a long way. If that’s what you tell him. I’ve got a lot of understandings that I want to make sure we walk together with. So if you can just be patient, and you can talk with a girlfriend about this, but not your husband specifically on it. I would suggest someone who is a trusted friend potentially, that you can discuss, you know if you need to share with someone but not not your husband at this point. Anyway, I want to talk more about this next week when we talked about boundaries. God bless you. We’ll talk soon

 

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah rose

0:18
Haye, and welcome. Thank you so much for joining. If this is your first time to the show, welcome, welcome. I’m so grateful that you have decided to go ahead and tune in. And I hope that this is going to be an encouragement to you. It’s kind of a challenging topic. In fact, it is a really challenging topic and sadly affects far more women than you would expect. So yeah, so we’re going to talk about some of that, who it affects and why, why this happens to women, why if you have experienced, it may have happened to you, what’s going on in our culture, and then I want to talk about healing steps of healing and sorting through and, and how you can heal even through your marriage. And even specifically through sex, which may seem completely counterintuitive, but I want to just give you a lot of hope. So yeah, let’s let’s dive in All right, well, so first off, I want to just say that I have not been quote, sexually abused in the maybe traditional sense, if that makes sense. But I have experienced quite a lot that I think warrants the discussion I don’t want. I don’t want to make the bar so high, that we can’t talk about things that we haven’t, quote, experienced. Because the problem is, if we require the victims to talk about this, and they’re the only ones that have the authority to talk about sexual abuse, why then it doesn’t get talked about because it’s too painful. It’s too hard. You know. So I’m coming into this conversation with a lot of humility, because maybe you on the other end of this microphone are saying, You know what, that’s not really my experience, or that’s not really how I feel through this. But let me just tell you this as a first step, I’m hopeful that this will get you feeling like you’re not alone. I’m hopeful that this will get you feeling like there’s someone out there that cares, even if she can’t completely relate. What she can do is say, You know what, you have a story, and you have a voice in it, there should be space for it. And you should have the ability to be healed and be freed from the the pain that haunts you. So. So yeah, I hope that you’ll kind of listen with an open heart and soft. You know, Grace filled mind as I, you know, talk about things that I’m hopeful will encourage you and at the very least let you know that you’re not alone. So yeah, why are why am I talking about it? Number one, it needs to be talking. It needs to be talked about. You may know about the me to movement that’s happening right now and actually was started about 10 years ago, I heard a talk by the founder recently. And I didn’t realize that it’s been going on for so long, but she was a victim. And her purpose in this movement is to give victims a voice and let them know that this is happening. And it’s not to demonize men not in the least, the whole purpose is to give victims of sexual abuse, space and hope and healing. So that’s number one. Number two, I have experienced very close to date rape a number of times and by God’s grace, really only by God’s grace, was it did it change? Did it not happen? So one time I had to physically push a man out of my apartment and he practically fell down the stairs because he was actually trying to push me into my room to date rape me. He got into my apartment because he lied and said he just needed to come in and use the bathroom after he and I had had drinks that night. So I think it was just adrenaline that I was able to like yell at him and scream and push them out. So that was really a God thing.

5:03
But it easily could not have gone that way. So I really don’t know how I was able to get him out because he was definitely bigger than me. So another one is I also had to physically pull a friend out of a bathroom where a man was trying to push her inside, so he could rape her, like it was this very awkward like, it was in a bar. But it was like this bathroom that was just in the middle of like, where the dance floor was, and he was trying to push her in there. And it was, it was really scary. Another time, I ended up getting into some guy, because I felt like we had already gone too far. In the evening we had spent together and he paid for everything. And I just felt like I had to what you might be saying, Bella, that’s not abuse you you let that happen? Well, let’s talk about that more later. I’ve also had plenty of dates where men’s expectations were sex because we had a meal and drinks or a conversation and the assumption is, well, that’s, that’s sufficient, that means that sex is on the table. Another one is, I’ve also just had sex with my husband, many times when I didn’t want to, and it wasn’t, you know, a lot of times, you know, I even encouraged women, like, maybe it’s going to start out that you don’t want to but when you change your attitude, when you change your perspective on it, like you start to change your body chemistry as well, like it starts to shift. But it’s different if you’re having sex and the whole time, you’re thinking I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this that’s making you feel abused on the inside, whether it quote is abuse or not. That’s those are those feelings of unsafety. And, and just being used for your body. And so let’s talk about maybe something that is more severe than my experiences. Certainly, I’ve grown up in this, this society where I have felt like a piece of meat many times and I have been criticized for my body or criticize myself and felt like the whole purpose of my body is to please a man. And I’ve gone through those stages of of womanhood and had to come to the realization that that is not the purpose of my body. Yet it is a privilege and marriage, for us to enjoy that, but not the purpose in a society. As a woman, I am far far more than what my body is. So once again, this is very important to talk about because so often, we are not talking about it as Christians in churches in groups of women together, it’s affecting one in four women this year will be sexually abused. So that’s being raped, date raped. It’s molested as children, sexually harassed, these are just horrific, horrific statistics. And these are your mothers, your sisters, your cousins, and more than likely, you will never never know about it. And these may very well be your wives if there are any husbands listening. These are deep, shameful things that women have to live with. And it’s very, very hard. And it’s so sad, because so often, even when a woman comes out and says she indeed has been sexually abused or raped, she’s shamed for it. She’s not believed. And it’s so painful, because who wants to be known as the woman that was raped? No one wants to be known as a woman who was raped by some powerful man. You know, some some person that was you know, some celebrity or something, you know, no one wants that. So why, you know, why is the automatic thing to not believe the woman that finally comes out and says it so it’s very painful for women to even share but then so frequently, it’s it’s just swept under the rug, and not even addressed or validated or listened to. So I want to say to you right now, on the other end of the line, I’m listening. I want to help I want to support you. I want you to know you’re not alone and far more than you think have gone through this horror as well. What happened recently is I talked to a very strong dear friend of mine who’s

9:52
Yeah, who’s amazing and is doing so many good things in life loves the Lord has a great husband a great Um, job and what she does and, and she was at a work function and they had a happy hour after work and I guess this guy had gotten drunk. And he sexually harassed her in front of all of her co workers, or at least several of them. And and she wasn’t able to really react, it was so shocking. And I’m going to talk more about that in just a bit. But he literally bent her over and humped her from behind and felt her up in the front, and she was like, unable to even respond, because she was, again, so shocked. And there’s, again, more things that I’m going to talk about for that. But one of the things when I was talking to her about that, is you part of the reason she felt like she kind of gave up was like, well, this isn’t as bad as other things that have happened to me. And I so can connect with that. I so can connect with that without giving you more details of my past and sexual abuse. I can connect with this idea of like, well, I’ve already, you know, done worse this, you know, I can deal with this. And so, yeah, so let’s talk about some of the things that we blame the victim for sexual abuse, and we as in society. One I think a lot of people say, Well, she was asking for it. And I want to talk about that. Because I think first and foremost, I think she was unaware. And the thing is what I actually, part of my purpose with this podcast is to honor the feminine nature in women, because part of the feminine nature is trusting. You know, every fifth search on the internet is for porn. That’s one in five searches. And those are mostly men that are searching. women’s minds are not thinking about sex all day. They don’t have, for the most part far, far less, I’ll say, of women are addicted to pornography. So their minds are not constantly thinking about sex the way men’s are very often. So when she wears what she wears, she’s thinking her body looks good. But she’s not thinking she’s doing this because she wants other people to want to have sex with her. That’s not what she’s even thinking. She’s thinking, Oh, wow, I look so cute. My body looks good. That’s why I’m wearing tighter clothes. But she’s not thinking. If I walk into a room, men are going to look at me and be like, Wow, I really want to have sex with her. And they start visualizing her body underneath her clothes. That is not what she thinks. And that’s a natural, feminine, again nature for her to trust. Another thing is she wants to be adored, that is a deep desire, of the feminine is is wanting to be attractive and wanting to be adored. And in marriage, that’s an appropriate desire for that to be met. In our culture. Sadly, there aren’t good marriages that that reflect this Adoration of the feminine. And so in our culture, so many times women have not experienced that respect and desire of a single man that a single isn’t like one man who gives her that. And so in modesty makes her adored by, you know what, what kind of the societal norms are for what the way people dress when they’re immodest. They get more attention because once again, that’s the way men are thinking they’re thinking sexually and so that’s what they’re thinking about her body and, and that’s why women wear very tight clothes. For example, let’s say tight yoga pants, exercise pants, which shows all the curves of her butt and legs and all that which is super sexy. And men, they don’t wear tight things when they go exercise. Because women don’t care. We don’t care about we’re not thinking about sex with men, when they walk by we’re thinking, you know, he should cover up because I don’t really want to see that stuff. That’s not my husband. So women think very differently. That’s that trusting nature.

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So when she dresses a certain way, she is not quote asking for it. She is simply not thinking about it. She wants to be adored and she assumes these people are adoring her without ulterior motives. And that’s the same in when she goes to their apartment after a date. She thinks they’re going to have a good time. He’d wants to spend time with her. Not that we’re going to his apartment to have sex. That’s not the automatic maybe maybe because of her experience that’s becoming more of a her thought process, but I would say for the most part, in the beginning, she’s thinking, this is totally benign. And I’ve been there I have been there literally. And this was not even when I was a virgin this is after I had been dating, I remember going to someone’s apartment. And my assumption was, it was because he wanted to, I don’t know, just hang out more and drink some more wine. And, you know, and his assumption was very different and I had to leave. So that trusting nature Another one is that men and even that just the society, the culture victimizes or, I’m sorry, accuses the victim, and says something like, Well, why didn’t she stop it? You know, she’s a capable woman, why didn’t she stop? What’s going on? Well, I think there’s a lot of reasons, but I’m going to give a few. One is she can’t believe it’s happening. Once again, going back to she’s not wired to assume the worst around sexuality. She’s wired to trust that’s, I’m going to talk about the feminine nature and a little bit. Another thing is, she just thinks he’s going to stop, you know, if he sees that she’s not enjoying it, or she just thinks like, he’ll clearly stop what he’s doing. Like, he can’t be such a monster to, you know, do something to her while she’s in pain or giving her giving him bad looks like why would he, you know, he must be a monster to do such a thing. She just, there’s this just gut reaction that he’s not going to do something awful. And I actually the the guy that I pushed out of my apartment, I remember. I remember not being that scared, honestly. Because I, even if I wasn’t able to get him out, I was more so getting out. Because I was just frustrated that he was like, trying to get me back into my room. I was like, get out. I don’t want you here. Like that was kind of my response. But it wasn’t this fear reaction of like, oh, my gosh, he’s about to rape me. And that was the same response. When I was pulling my friend out of the bathroom. I remember, like, it was more like, Hey, don’t do that to my friend. You can’t just put her in there. She doesn’t want to go in there. But it wasn’t this fear of like, she’s about to get raped. And it’s strange, like me, as a woman, I just don’t assume that I, you know, now years and years of, you know, doing this work. And later, I can see that no, no, no, that’s exactly what was going to happen. But I think, you know, as women we just don’t, that’s just doesn’t go through our head. And so another one is number three, like what, maybe it hasn’t happened before, so she doesn’t know what to do. So she’s kind of has her guard down. And then the other flip side of that is, maybe it has happened before. And maybe she, you know, wasn’t able to stop it or didn’t expect it or all that. And so then she has this almost like precedent in her mind is saying, Well, why stop at this time? It’s already happened, like I’ve had worse. And I feel like that is kind of like my friends story of how she was sexually harassed at her work function. In her mind, she’s probably like, she was thinking, and she even told me this, you know, like, well, I’ve had worse why, you know, why stop at this time? And so that is another reason I think, victims kind of freeze in the moment of this, like, you know, well, you know, we’ve already gone this far. That’s another one that I’ve also felt victim of his like, well, I’ve already you know, let him do XY and Z. I mean, what’s the point? And then, you know, no, I didn’t enjoy what ended up happening at all. But at the same time, it’s and I felt horrible and gross and wrong and dirty and self loathing, but at the same time, then it’s this. You know, well, I deserved it, because I’m the one that let him do it. So another one is, number four is this one’s a difficult one. Because I think this happens a lot, especially and in any in any case of sexual abuse, but I want to kind of especially say, for those that have been sexually abused and molested as children.

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I think there’s a lot of shame of thinking that Well, I must have wanted it. Because there was a sexual response physically. Because you felt something maybe you felt tingling or you felt, you know, swelling of your vulva and, you know, or if it’s a man, you know, you had an erection because of the sexual nature of what was going on. But the problem is, is that there’s, well what there’s There is there’s this wonderful woman all have a her TED talk in the, in the shownotes. But she talks about sexual non concordance. And what that means is that even though your body is sexually becoming aroused, or maybe sexually aroused, it doesn’t mean that you want it, quote, unquote, you know, you don’t want it just because your body is responding. And I think, in our culture, that’s the assumption is that, you know, if you’re getting wet as a woman, that means you want what’s coming to you. And the same thing as a man. And so that’s a real problem, because that’s when women feel like, well, I started getting turned on, so I must have wanted what was coming, but I feel so you know, down and degraded, and I feel so negative and all these things. And it’s like, no, you don’t have to have, you don’t have to have wanted something just because your body responded. When their sexual content, your body responds, you may or may not have experienced this while listening to my shows at times, but you might have felt titillated or, you know, sexually aroused, just because I’m talking about sex, but it doesn’t, it’s not because you somehow want what what I’m specifically talking about, like people sexually become aroused when they talk when they hear about horrible sexual violence, but it’s not because you want what just happened, or you think that’s a good thing. But what it is, is because it’s sexual content, there’s their sexual content being described, or whatever. And that’s how your body’s responding to it. So how do you know when you want sex, is when you say I want sex, when you decide because of your values, because of your situation, because of who this person is, because of what you decide in power as a woman, that’s when you want sex. It’s not when your body starts feeling aroused, or all that, like, that’s beside the point. What it is, is when you decide you want sex is when you want sex. And that’s how consent should be approached and be talked about when you’re talking to young women and young men that she wants it when she says she wants it. And I think this sexual non concordance gets really confused also, just in terms of young people learning about their sexual identity, their assumption is because their their sexual response towards a particular person, the assumption is, or particular situation or particular visuals or whatever their assumption is, okay, I must be attracted to this. And once you focus on something, it grows, but sexual content is attractive, it is arousing. And so it’s not. It’s not You’re not saying you know, because I’m aroused by the female form. But I’m a woman. That doesn’t mean that there’s an identity that you need to ascribe to as being someone who’s attracted to women, it’s know that sexuality that you are seeing, and so your body is responding. Alright, so that’s one thing of like, as a child, maybe you felt like you wanted or maybe you even sought it out after you experienced it from that uncle or you know, someone who abused you. That is not your fault. You were not old enough to have consent, you were not old enough to say yes, I’ve decided I want this. You were a child, you were too young. And even as an adult, if you haven’t had the understandings and been able to make those decisions of, Wow, he wanted to have sex with me. I didn’t know that. And then I got coerced into it at the situation. You can realize that that that’s not consent, that you can take off this shame. I mentioned just a little bit ago about having sex in marriage, when you really don’t want it and throughout the whole sexual experience. You don’t want it you don’t want it you don’t want it that makes you that would make a woman feel abused and used. Now I’m not saying that she is being abused by that kind of a situation. It’s tricky, because in my coaching, we would have to look carefully about what what changes we can make. So that you get the emotional needs met and you feel cherished, and then it happens in your marriage that you can feel loved in intimacy.

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But I want you to know in Just have a little bit of revelation that more than likely you feel abused and you feel used because you are having sex when you don’t want it. And that feels just like the world’s view of sex. For women that they just have to take it because that’s what a man wants. And her only purpose is to be his sexual pleasure. So, I guess just, you know, put a pin in that and kind of think about that in your heart of like, if you’re feeling that way, if you’re doing that in your marriage, I want to challenge you to get to a place where you actually do enjoy sex, and you do want to be all that you can be in sex in and have a yes to sex rather than a. I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, but he needs it. And, you know, that’s what I’m purposed for. And all this kind of stuff. It’s gross, and it’s wrong. But there’s, there’s ways out of it without like a stark, we’re not having sex until I want it. Because I don’t also believe that’s the right way. So just, yeah, just kind of let your your heart kind of think about that. Pray about it and see what you know, maybe from this, you know, part of the episode, you just needed to know that you’re treating your sex life like abuse, you’re allowing yourself and maybe it’s time to get that changed. And like I said, if we were working one on one, I’d have the opportunity to really explore that with you. And it would take some time, but by God’s grace, I think he can change that for you. Alright, so let’s talk more about sexual abuse and marriage. And so for a woman that you know, has been abused previously, it, it affects her, it affects her view of her value, it affects your ability to be vulnerable, I’m going to talk more about that. It affects her ability to take sexual touch as positive and not scary or tense up or kind of like numb herself, guard herself to what’s about to happen to the experience. Let me tell you something very important about women’s experience of sex. First and foremost, for her to enjoy sex in any way, shape, or form, she has to feel safe. Now, you might think, you know, women outside of marriage don’t need this, and maybe not. And I can talk about that in a bit. But for a woman to truly long term enjoy sex, she needs to feel safe. Yeah, shorter term, just living together girlfriend boyfriend, the way the world sees sex, it’s different. It really is because there’s not an expectation and there’s not this assumption of commitment that you can feel free that you can feel safe. So we’re going to talk more about the like the feminine and the masculine nature next week. But let me just talk about this a little bit. So you get a sense of some of the next steps that I think you can take as a couple to get yourself to a more safe place with your sexuality. So you may know this already, but women and men both have testosterone, and they both have estrogen in their bodies, and that is natural. And and those particular chemicals are have particular strength traits. So for example, testosterone is something that builds muscle, and for a man allows him to be able to have erections and it’s kind of a strength chemical and or hormone and then for women, when they have a good amount of testosterone, they have high libido which means they want sex in the appropriate you know, in a healthy way. And for estrogen and testosterone. Also for men, if they’re lacking testosterone, a lot of times they feel weak, they don’t have a lot of energy, they don’t have a lot of sex drive.

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So that’s, that’s a healthy part of men and women. Estrogen. The same is that you know, something for women. Estrogen is really important in the health of their menstrual cycle of ovaries of preventing urinary tract infections, of supporting their mood. There’s so many functions and then for men, it also estrogen plays a really important role in their prostate health. in making sure that that their bones are strong. In fact too little estrogen can predispose men to osteoporosis and lead to bone fractures. But then too much estrogen can lead to actually men’s development of like, like larger breasts, and also can be as a result of being overweight and those kinds of things and can have unhealthy measures there. So, there’s a scientific backing to my, what I’m going to be talking about next about like, there’s more feminine and masculine natures. But see, testosterone is is more in men and estrogen is more in women. And that’s healthy and good, but both men and women have both, and it’s very important to their health. Okay, so let’s talk about the nature of feminine Oh, and let me just also say there’s biblical precedence for this feminine and masculine nature in both men and women. And I’m going to be talking more about that next week. But I just as a cursory overview, the nature of the feminine is trusting, vulnerable, receptive, nurturing, empathetic and motherly, and the nature of the masculine is powerful and leader and decisive and penetrating and protective, and fatherly. So, a woman may present as masculine, you know, greater masculine traits unless she feels safe, to allow her femininity to be revealed to be held to allow herself to be vulnerable, for example. So in sex for her femininity for her ability to surrender and to feel vulnerable and to experience the deeper orgasms, she has to feel safe for her ReSSA to enjoy what is happening and I call Reza is the vulva, the labia majora, labia, menorah, other vagina, all of the beauty of what’s in between the woman’s legs that jewel, the clitoris, all of that I call the rest of receiving Him into her essence. I don’t believe there’s a such terms that we have that are significant enough and more and beautiful enough to describe it. So I say ReSSA R E SSA. Um, so anyway, it has to feel safe for her ReSSA to enjoy what’s happening. So the way I frame it is, there’s two different types of sex. There’s connection and intimacy sex, which is the feminine. Typically in non Christian settings, you might call that Trent tantric sex, they really, I believe, what you would say is they really explore the sex that’s very feminine. And then the powerful and fierce sex, the masculine sex, the typical sex, there is porn, pornography, that that’s catering to the masculine. And so and, you know, my seduction course, is all about basically the masculine sex. But it’s it’s focused on, you know, making yourself feel powerful. So, basically, both the connection and intimacy, sex, the more feminine sex, and then the powerful and fierce sex, the more masculine sex, both are good, and should be enjoyed by both men and women. So a whole man is able to enjoy the feminine sex, and a whole female whole woman is able to enjoy both the powerful and fierce sex as well as the more feminine sex.

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So when I say whole, I mean someone who is able to embrace the full nature of how God made them. And they’re able to kind of fall into that and enjoy it deeply. And the connection and the spiritual gift that sex is. So for a woman to heal from the sexual trauma, that what she needs is as a priority number one is to feel safe. And what I believe is a focus on the connection and intimacy sex for a while, because what she has experienced is the more masculine, powerful fear sex that has not allowed her to be healed of the trauma that she has experienced. And so what I suggest is to do consistently What I call connection sessions. And this is a type of sex where the focus and the goal is not orgasm. In fact, that is a prerequisite of not being part of the experience. So these connections sessions are actually what it is, is I can’t describe it very detailed on the podcast, because I, I don’t feel it’s the right place for it. But if you go ahead and email me at belah, at delight your marriage.com, I’ll actually send you a description. And I’ll also send you some very wholesome. And like, animations, I guess, of the of positions that would work for it. So there’s nothing crude or negative that you would receive. But essentially, these connections sessions are to make a woman feel safe. And I describe that very practically, in what I’ll send you. So this would allow her to not have the focus on him. And the focuses instead on her and her feeling of safety. Now, what I suggest is not that you would trade all of your sexual experiences for just connection, sex, and you wouldn’t orgasm necessarily, ever, but that this is incorporated into your sexual life. Maybe every other time you make love, or maybe once or twice a week, so that slowly, it becomes more trained in the woman that she is safe in your connection together. And that your member in her ReSSA is actually a healing force, rather than a trauma inducing force. So that’s really important. The other thing, obviously, hopefully, obviously, is counseling, I really encourage you to go to a therapist or counselor or speak to someone that’s going to be able to walk you through here your trauma, listen to what happened, believe your story. That’s very, very, very important. Also, there’s some resources that I would love for you to watch that TED Talk that I’m going to have on the on the show notes page, you can just go to delight your marriage.com and click on Resources. I’m sorry, not click on Resources, click on this episode, and you’ll be able to find it there. The other thing is the No more.org is a phenomenal website that’s, that gives support to women of all types of abuse. Sexual abuse is just one of their many focuses. But that’s definitely one of the bigger ones. And then also to explore the no more sorry, the the me to movement, which I think is really key. And there’s tons of resources around that. And see if you can take it out of the context that a lot of the media has put it into, of being this demonizing men. And it’s not that it’s not the purpose, the purpose is to support those victims who have had to experience the trauma and give them a voice and safety and healing. Alright, well, I hope that you will return next week, because we’re going to be talking more about this feminine and masculine nature and what it means in your marriage to change your marriage, so that you are receiving the emotional needs, that you desire, but not forcing them. So we’re going to talk about that and, and actually practical ways to change it. But let me go ahead and pray for you. If if this has meant something to you the sexual abuse conversation, again, whether you’ve, you know, had very extreme horrible trauma, or you’ve just lived in a society where women have been treated like meat.

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And that’s just for the pleasure of men or maybe you’ve lived in your marriage where you have felt sexually used and that is just something that needs to change for you. So I just pray, Lord, God, you are the healer, you are the one that can go in and do open heart surgery on us. But then also to just heal, you know, slowly and peacefully and calmly. You know, sometimes we do need the really strong changes, but sometimes it’s gentle. You know, it’s day by day. It’s week by week, month by month that takes time. God I just asked for the woman on the other end of this line. Go ahead that what she’s experienced breaks your heart that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t okay. Laura I ask that you would touch her heart God, that you would let her know that she will be healed completely 100% that she is not a broken person, because this happened to her. God, I ask that you take away all shame of this experience God that whatever this situation was God, that you paid for it by the blood, Lord, that you went to the cross and all of the sin and shame and brokenness you took with you God. And this woman, this darling daughter doesn’t have to feel broken, or dirty, or sinful, or stupid or ignorant or oblivious that she can feel redeemed, she can feel confident, she can feel holy, because you look at her as holy because of Jesus. Lord, I asked God that you would do a miracle in her heart and the way she sees herself. And God, I asked that, for those that are in marriages that are not at a level where they feel safe in their sexual lives, I pray God that you would just begin to start turning the wheels of her heart and in her mind, to start being patient with herself and start considering and journaling and processing what this might mean for her God. Lord, You are holy and you are good. And we trust that you are doing this amazing work. In Jesus name, Amen. All right. Well, I look forward to talking to you next week. God bless you. I love you. Bye. Oh, and do go ahead and email me bel a H at delight your marriage calm, and I’ll send you right over the instructions for the connection sessions. So that can be a support for your marriage. God bless the E L H at delight your marriage.com Okay, talk to you next week.

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Thanks for listening. Stop by delight your marriage.com to check out all the show notes as well as many more resources and articles. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion