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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Jen Ferguson of solideogloriasisterhood.com. On this episode, she talks about how porn created friction between her and her husband and made her doubt herself. Jen also discussed how she tried very hard to manipulate and control everything, but she learned to let go later on. And because she had loosened up, she was able to help fix her husband’s porn addiction because she understood more, because she took a step back and saw the entire picture. Together, Jen and her husband fought against porn addiction and for their marriage.
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You’ll Discover:
- How Jen realized that her being too controlling had hurt her and the marriage she was in
- That the only cure for addiction is Jesus
- Her message to women who have husbands addicted to porn
- The problems created by her husband’s porn addiction
- How she realized that all these problems are only temporary
Scripture or Quote:
- Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23
Tweetables:
- If God’s hope is our life jacket, then we can really get through any storm.
- When we’re trying to manipulate and control everything, where does God have the space in our lives and in our marriage?
- Anything that has to do with sex is so precious to God, and Satan is really intent on destroying that – the purity and the intention.
- Porn is not about sex; it’s about fantasy, escape, and control.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
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Transcript
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.
0:19
Hello, hello, this is belah rose, thank you so much for turning us on today. The delight your marriage podcast, we come out every Tuesday. And I want to thank you so much for spending your time with me today. Now I want to share with you an iTunes review that we received. I love reading the reviews, it really encourages me. But this one says, for such a young podcast, the depth of content and beautiful vulnerability shown by belah and the guests is unparalleled. This subject matter is so important and every marriage needs to hear it. I can’t wait for new episodes. This is the very first podcast to hook me well done. So thank you so much for that. That’s just an awesome review. And thank you to everyone that has reviewed before, because it really makes a difference not only to me, it encourages me. But it also makes a difference on iTunes and how we are on the charts. So a review is so so helpful. So thank you so much for doing that for me. All you have to do if you haven’t yet is go to your on your podcast, app search, delight your marriage. And then once it pops up, click on the episode and then click reviews. So thank you so much for that. That’s awesome. Now today, we have a wonderful show for you. I get to interview Jennifer Ferguson and she has just such a beautiful heart, a beautiful spirit, you’ll listen and hear just how much she has gone through. But then also how she’s come through it holding on to Jesus. And I just love the example that she gives for us. But she talks about a really serious subject to pornography and how that addiction in her husband’s life, how that affected her in her marriage. And I wanted to make sure I interviewed Jennifer because I think she’s got a story that can help so many people because so many are struggling with this. I’ve had women reach out to me and tell me this is exactly what’s going on in their marriages. So listen in. I think Jen has got some amazing insights for you
2:30
all right, well, welcome back delight your marriage listener. I’m thrilled and excited to have Jen Ferguson, and she’s actually going to talk a lot about To God be the glory, which is her website, but it’s pronounced something. I’m gonna let her pronounce it. So welcome, Jen. How are you doing today?
2:46
Good. Thank you. Yes. Um, I host a community of women called the soli, Deo Gloria sisterhood. And it’s Latin, for to God alone be the glory. And and basically, it’s a place where we have women’s stories, ranging from abortion all the way to just walking with God and are feeling apart from God, in the hope that a woman would come to this site and with her burden and know that her burden is not hers alone, that someone has journeyed with the same burden before her and have found hope and rescue from Jesus. So it’s just a place where people can come and get a big dose of hope.
3:25
Oh, I love that. Yes, that’s just so good. You know, I was talking to someone. Just yesterday, a good friend of mine, and I was telling her about some difficulties that I’m going through. And I loved the way she just listened. And she just let me whether I was crying or just, you know, having my moment. She just let me and I think that’s a, I think that’s a moment you can realize that someone’s really gone through suffering is when they can hold you in your suffering and say, yep, just let it out. Just let it out. Which is so healing and so good. So that’s beautiful. Now, Jen, would you go ahead and introduce yourself, your family, your day to day life? What it looks like,
4:06
my day to day crazy? No. As we all are, yeah, yeah. Craig and I, Craig, my husband, we’ve been married for 15 years. And we have two kids. And Abby is 11 just started middle school. And Hannah is nine and in fourth grades are 18 months apart. So I feel like we have just kind of traveled as this little unit all together. And now they’re in different schools. And so they’re kind of forming their own identity. And yeah, Craig and I have walked at a good road but a hard road and you know, it really influenced how we parent and how we even tried to shepherd our kids friends and knowing the importance of who Jesus is and why we need his radical transformation in in our lives. So that I basically blog and and disciple women in the hope that we can really impact not only our generation, but I’ve chosen generation two.
5:08
Yeah. That’s beautiful. That’s awesome. It can you tell me a little bit about you and Craig’s personalities,
5:15
we are very different. In fact, we were sitting at the dining room table the other night talking about how different we are, because our kids are very different. And we said to them, you know, what would it be like, if you had two people, parent you that are just like mom, or two parent, people, that parent, you just like that. And they were both like, oh, my gosh, I could either be hyper organized and super, you know, tending toward the rigidly rigid schedule and expectation, or the house would be a total disaster, and everything would be a free for all. So we were just showing them that, you know, God put people together that complement each other, because neither one of those extremes are beneficial at all, um, you know, when you’re only living in that they have their gifts, and they have their downfalls. And so it God to bring harmony into, oh, once to get there. You realize that your way is not the only way. Um, it really does balance out the family. So I’m the type A, he is the relaxed one.
6:26
Mm hmm. Yes, I love the complementary thing that my husband and I are the same way. It’s just it just would be crazy with with both of us being the same. And I totally agree with that. That’s awesome. So I’d mentioned beforehand that this podcast is really all about inspiring wives, to really live wholehearted and in their intimacy and in their marriages. So would you be able to share a scripture or a quote that’s meant a lot to you over the years?
6:54
Yes, Hebrews 1023. It says, Let us hold too tightly without wavering to the hope that we affirm that God can be trusted to keep his promises. That really being the type A and just how I was raised, I thought it was my responsibility to fix everything and keep everything together. And and so when I was confronted with my husband, porn addiction, my first response was to fix it. And not only to fix him, but clearly to fix myself, right? Because I thought that he was using porn because of me. And I, because I didn’t I didn’t know at the time that that, that there was not a direct connection. Yeah, but you know, when you find your husband, looking at women on the internet and your firt, you assume that you it’s your fault, because you are, you know, are don’t have, you know, the boob size or, you know, waist size, right? friskiness in bed or whatever. Right. And so I knew that porn was not something that I could live with. And, and so I just thought, because I was the one that didn’t want it. I needed to get it out. And yeah, I did not it on the surface, I think I turned to God in the sense that I prayed word helped me help me through this, or Lord, heal him or whatever. But it’s one thing to pray the prayer and then leave it at the cross. It’s the other thing to pray the prayer and you walk away with the burden that you brought with you. Right, right. And that’s what I did for many years, is carry this burden around and tried to untangle this huge mess of just sin and my sin and his sin, you know, because we both bring it in to the marriage, right? Everybody does. And so when that verse is just meant so much to me, because when if you go back to the the Greek text, that whole concept of can we can hold on? Is it like we’re wearing a life jacket, and we can, you know, if God’s hope is our life jacket, then we can really get through any storm. And yeah, it doesn’t necessarily change the storm. The storm is still there, but he promises to be with us in that and bring us through it.
9:15
Hmm, yeah, that’s powerful. I, that’s definitely a verse that needs to be meditated on. For me for sure. That’s, that’s powerful. Well, I think you started to tell us, but can you share about a difficult struggle in your marriage, and how you’ve kind of come through it?
9:32
I think that, you know, obviously the porn was, it was a huge blow to me personally and in in our marriage. But I think that what it boiled down to is Craig had appointed addiction because he had whole bases in his heart that only Jesus could fill. And, and what made me realize is how much I was clinging to control, to try to make myself feel whole insecure. And No, the thing is, is that we can try to hold if we hold tightly to everything. And we think that it’s all in our hands. You our external situations might seem like they’re okay. But internally, we’re just crumbling because we weren’t made to hold the whole world in our hand. We weren’t making, we weren’t made to orchestrate orchestrate the lives of our husbands or our family, even though that’s what the world kind of tells us that it is our responsibility as a wife and a mom, we are like the CEOs of our household. And, you know, we say the thing kind of jokingly, but when you think about, like, the burden, that that fits on us, and how that that manifests that, that burden manifests in our lives, we just end up cracking into No wonder like, we feel at the end of the day, like broken or, or even pulled in so many different directions, like how can I possibly continue to keep up at this pace? You know, what if, what if I dropped the thing? What’s that going to look like? And I and I feel like the process of going through Craig’s porn addiction, as God just showed me, Lucjan, I really have got this, you do not have to structure your life so that you, you and everybody else is okay. Like, that’s my job. And when you when you hold on to everything so tightly, you choke out the growth, you know, because I can’t see what is kind of like, you know, sometimes we just have to let our kids fail. And that is so like, hard. I mean, especially for me, I don’t want my kids to fail. But what if they go through life, when they’re young, never experiencing failure? Like what when they hit the real world, I want them to know that God is going to be there. But they need to practice that when they’re young and relatively safe. You know what I’m saying? With our husband, if we’re trying to control and manipulate everything, where does God have the influence in their life? And in our marriage?
11:59
Hmm. Yes, I love that when you’re trying to manipulate or control everything. Where does God have the space? Right? That’s powerful. So So can you tell us a little bit more of the story? So when you found out that he was looking at porn, I mean, what was that like for you?
12:18
I, I had the first year we were married, I had suspicions. And I never thought anything, but like, just and I’m pretty intuitive person. So like, when I would come around the corner, and he would immediately close the window on the computer, or, you know, there was like a stain on the chair, we had a crack chair. And then there was this random Pay Per View charge. And so I had all these suspicions. But it wasn’t until we are in a second year of marriage, that I was on a computer looking something up, and he forgot to clear the history. And so I actually saw what he was looking at. And he was home at the time. And I called him in and I was like, What is this? And he immediately was like, I’m so sorry. You know, it’s just a one time thing. It’s not a big deal. I promise I won’t do it again, whatever. And because I didn’t understand, really the concept of addiction. Yeah, because I did not understand that there was a thing called porn addiction. I was like, okay, all right. I mean, I’m hurt. And I’m like, and of course, I went internal with all of my like, oh my gosh, I’m not good enough. I need to pay I mean, whatever. Um, but it wasn’t until Mother’s Day we’re after our both of our kids were born. Hannah was six months old, that he had gone to get a haircut, which was a big deal, because we have very little money. So like to spend anything on on ourselves was just, it was just a big deal. And so I gone to get a haircut. And when I got there, the salon was closed. And so I drove back feeling very disappointed. But I opened the door and Abby was my oldest was watching TV. And it was so loud. And then I but I could hear my other daughter crying in the bedroom, and I thought, oh, maybe Craig was changing your diaper or whatever. And I go in there, and she’s all by herself. So I pick her up. And then I turned and walked down the hall and I saw the study door closed. And that was like I just knew, and I just knew what it was. It blew my mind because I was like, Okay, so now this is not because I caught him a couple of times in between there and now right? Then the first time and then Mother’s Day, and I was just like, This is not only wrecking our marriage, but now it’s interfering with him being able to be the father that I knew that he could be. And so, um, I walked in and I was like, I mean, I just couldn’t even it was it was awful. And yes, yeah, so he obviously shut down the computer and came out and I handed him the baby and I just went and cried in the bathroom floor and I was just like, we’re what and I’m really sending the What the What the hell did you find you I think that this was gonna be a good idea, you know, all of my insecurities. You know, you know, my parents got divorced right after Craig and I got married and just watch their marriage disintegrate, you know, over two decades. And I was like, I wanted more than this. And you did not you failed me. The very raw, honest conversation, and because at that time, like, like I said, I didn’t know that porn was really a thing. I mean, I knew the thing, but it was like a CD, like, not your average person does this, you know, right, that rocked my world. And then to know that this was something he could not control like that he kept going back to no matter what I had done, no matter what rules we had been put in place. Because, you know, when I first when I realized that this was continuing to be a problem, before the Mother’s Day event, at we set up all these rules, right? Because what do you do when you want to control a situation, you create rules, so that there, there will be some sort of, you know, incentive to, to not write like if their rules and you know, I just did not realize that part of human behavior, I guess, are really the rebellious streak in Cray, and really, that by implementing all these rules, like coming from the top down, like from me down, he felt totally painted, you know?
16:21
Anyway, just after laying on my floor and praying, and saying, God, like, I don’t know why you did this to me, and will this this is never gonna get better. God just said, Okay. You know, do you want to do it my way now? And I was like, Oh, yeah. And at that moment, it was just a supernatural moment where I realized how I was trying to play the Savior. And I realized, like, how exhausted I was, and that I did not have a cure for Craig’s point addiction that I would never have a cure for. cardpointe addiction, because the cure for Craig point addiction with Jesus? Yeah. And two things like number one, I cannot be Jesus to Craig, when I’m all in my own head trying to control and manipulate every situation. And if I am not surrendered to Jesus, how can I really reflect that to him, and it because I, because of my own hurt, and my own you no sense of betrayal. I was reflecting my anger and bitterness. And it didn’t come out every day. And it didn’t come out, like necessarily in conversations about porn, but it came out sideways. And when he didn’t do the dishes, or he didn’t do that, or he could have done that better, you know, it was all that bitterness was based in the point of addiction, but I couldn’t, I didn’t know how to talk about it. And it was almost like I was afraid, well, if I, if I bring it up, then he can remember that he’s an addict and want to go back to watching it, you know, I’m crazy. But I don’t know, I just, I feel like God did such a good work in allowing the porn addiction to continue to come to light. And to not allow Craig to continue to live in that not only that sin, but in that place of despair and desperation. You know, he escaped because he didn’t understand that. It was his own issues of self worth and his own fears of rejection and his own inability to deal with real life when it got hard. And so there was obviously a need for Jesus to be able to rescue him out of that hole and show him that there was a better way, because the world of porn is so dark, and there’s so much despair. And it’s a you know, it leads to a disruption of everything good that God created sex to be. Yes, and not just for the marriages, but for the poor women and men trapped in this sex industry, and in the sex trafficking and everything. And I know, when I knew at this time that Craig is a person of integrity, and he didn’t even eat because he was so trapped up in that physical sensation and that escape world. He, he could, he didn’t equate it to realize like, these are real people being devastated by this industry. And once God started pulling him out, like he realized, oh, my gosh, you know, I would never want my wife or daughter trapped in this. How can I support? How can I view something that is so against what God intended creation to be?
19:34
Right? Right. Yeah. A couple of things I want to ask you. One was when you said you hadn’t no idea the concept of porn addiction, and it being an actual addiction. What did you mean by that?
19:48
I think I didn’t understand that. People could be addicted to sex, you know, and I was 19 when I met Craig and and I just didn’t have a whole lot of worldly experience. You know, I felt I guess I led a really sheltered life. In high school and in in, I was only in my second year of college when I met him. And so I just hadn’t been exposed to that world. And, and now I and I feel like now my kids are so much more, it’s so much easier to fall into that because now because the internet is so popular, I mean, I remember going to college my first year and getting an email address, like this was big news. And now, you know, my nine year old has an email address. Um, and so the Internet porn and and an even, you know, I feel like that is really what continued to entrap Craig, because no longer did he have to go to like the video stores, right and, and people see his car there or whatever. Um, anyway, and so I just feel like that just made it so much more accessible. And with any addiction, the more you’re exposed to, you know, it’s like an alcoholic. The more you go to bars, the more you drink, the more interest you get. Right? Yes. And, and I just didn’t realize that that could happen with sex and it but it makes total sense. Because you’re when you’re having sex, and you you know, have that sexual release, your body is releasing hormones like crazy, right? And right, yeah, you get that dopamine and serotonin and all that feel good stuff. And, and just like alcohol and drugs, like you want more and more, right. And if you’re not using it within having sex within the context of your marriage, it’s going to destroy you. Because it’s just like with drugs, like you have to do a little bit more heroin or now you need to add Coke, or now you need whatever. The world of porn has many different levels. They’re all bad, but they just get darker and darker. And and so
21:53
yeah, I think that’s really true. And I think that’s important for a wife who has found out that her husband is doing porn, or has done it in the past that this is more of a chemical release than anything else, right? Yeah. So you also mentioned that there’s not a direct link between actually having sex and being addicted to porn in terms of solving this issue. So when you were saying that it started to feed on your insecurities to make you think like, why am I not good enough? Or is our sex not good enough? Or that kind of thing? And And how has that changed for you in terms of thinking about this? Well, I
22:27
think it was really helpful for me to realize that Craig, porn addiction started even before he met me. And so he he was using this like, so what what I think is really important to understand is that porn is not about sex. Porn is about fantasy, and escape and control. And so now it has an impact on what God created sex to be in your marriage, for sure. But Craig wasn’t, he knew we, I mean, he knew we could have sex like it was available. But if you think about why men start pursuing porn, it might start out as innocent you know, a lot of boys, eight 910 11 See porn, and it’s a curiosity thing. But because of you, anything that has to do with sex is so precious to God, that Satan is really intent on destroying that the purity yes, that goes, you know, the purity and the intention and everything. If we view marriage as the symbol a worldly symbol of Christ to His church, like that is a powerful symbols of when a man and a woman are created to do and be like, and how they’re supposed to reset Christ in the world. And so anything that Satan can do to destroy that he’s going to, and so um, so I think that point has a direct, of course, in my mind, because of how the world views women and treats women, it’s like, okay, clearly, if he’s having to go over there, then you’re not good enough. And so you’re not good enough, because you don’t fit this mold that every guy supposedly likes. Right? And sorry. And so anyway, but Craig was saying, Craig wanted to go into the porn world, because there he wasn’t afraid of being rejected. You know, there, he could do whatever he wanted to do and didn’t have, you know, there were no repercussions. He calls it like acting like a man, but without having to really be one, right? You don’t have to take any ownership of what you do in this fantasy world, right? It’s just kind of like this freedom to be who I can try on different personalities or whatever. But it’s all in this fantasy world. And so even if you have sex all the time in real life, right, right. It’s not fulfilling this desire to escape. And that’s what they’re doing in this porn world is escaping into this life without responsibility without you know, emotion or whatever. Like it’s just this feel good place. And and we haven’t, you know, most women will tell you like, sex is not just a physical experience. And I think for men because of what sex has been taught, or how sex has been taught, it’s supposed to be this feel good physical release, well then, but when you’re married, you have all sorts of emotions and intimacy issues and all that you have to work through to write. And so it’s a gift, but you still kind of got to work at making that gift enjoyable. And whereas porn is a very selfish, I’m just gonna get what I need,
25:35
right? Yeah, no, that’s so good. I love that you said, you know, porn is not about sex. It’s about fantasy escaping control. And the other thing I love that you said, it’s, it’s gives the opposite gives a man an opportunity to act like a man but not have to be one. Which is so key. So if you think about a wife that’s just found out about her husband’s addiction, can you give her some steps or some ideas of what to do next?
26:02
You know, the first thing I would say is to not only talk to God about it, yeah, but find a safe, trusted friend that you can talk about to talk with it too about it with Ray Ray. It’s because you naturally and have the right to feel betrayed, like he has stepped out of the marriage covenant. And yes, like he could say, well, at least I didn’t go you know, actually have an affair, or I didn’t actually talk to another woman or whatever. But he has had sexual relations outside of marriage, he has engaged in that act, even if it was only you know, himself and it computer screen. And so I just want to validate her first and say, Yes, you are right to feel wrong. And yes, this is hurtful. And yes, um, you need to be able to have a safe place to deal with your hurt and anger and bitterness. Yeah. And then, and then I would encourage her to have a conversation and say, hey, hey, I found this, or, Hey, what do you think about this, or, Hey, this is my suspicion. And you know, that the less I think it’s important to communicate, that you feel hurt and angry, but to communicate that in a way that’s productive, because I made so many mistakes and just lashing out. And it’s, and you know, what, if you lash out, you lash out, like, there’s got to be grace, right? Because this is a hard road to go through, and you’re gonna say the wrong things. And he’s gonna say the wrong thing. But the important is to come back to this commitment. So I would say, you know, if there’s not, there’s not abuse, and if there’s a willingness for your husband to try to overcome this addiction with Jesus help, like, stay in it. I mean, this, Craig and I went through this for over a decade. And it is a long process. But there is hope and there is healing, it is baby steps. And, and I went, and I think it’s so important for wives to remember that porn is a hole filler. And so if they can imagine their husband’s heart just filled with holes, and how he’s trying to pour this porn in these holes, and it just run straight through, right, because point is worthless, like it is, it is not anything that is actually going to have stepped in to make a heart hole. And one of the things that really helped me in understanding I had, wives have to be able to ask God to please help them remove themselves from the situation a little bit. Like there’s got to be some separation, even though I know it attacks the core of the marriage of this of the marital bed and sex and everything. But this is his issue. And if we can find out how we try to fill our holes with things that don’t hold them don’t lead to wholeheartedness it is so helpful, like I used food to maybe to make myself feel better and to and to fill this longing and this void in my heart and so I had this really awful relationship with food and it wasn’t until God brought me to this place of like, okay, so this food how’s this food thing working out for you? Because I see you you might enjoy this for a moment. Just like Craig enjoy the porn thing for a moment. But then you feel so guilty and so ashamed and so I just why I’m if your husband knows Jesus, there is going to be like some shame involved in this and even even if they don’t know Jesus, like I don’t I don’t know but it doesn’t it Porn was not we were not created to desire This kind of sex you know, sex or or right fantasy or escape. So right most of us even if we don’t know Jesus have a moral compass of right or wrong and and I love how sex trafficking and abuse has been put more and more in them in the media spotlight, because the more we can understand how devastating this is not only to marriages but to our society, right, you know, right. Um, so I’m kind of getting off the thing I just want, I just want the wife to hold on, because we leave our husbands because of porn. When you I mean, what were a lot of wives are going to be leaving their husbands be rampant. And I just, if you can ask God to cultivate a sense of compassion in your heart, and it took me a long time to get there. Like I wrote in the book. About I was the product post, I wasn’t the product design private products, and I was the older brother being like, why are you
31:02
doing all of this right? I didn’t have a lot of compassion. But but as God started revealing, to me my own issues, I was like, okay, like, this is really not that different than his standards in his separation from God, no matter what it is, we have different, you know, consequences for different types of sin in this world. But at the end of the day with God, like sin is sin, and it is separation. And so we need to choose to move into repentance. And we everybody in all marriages, or even non marriages have to have to deal with the consequences of sin in our lives.
31:37
No, that’s great. I think your point there is really to have a wife to see the long the long vision and that this is a temporary suffering, absolutely suffering. And I love that, you know, your website is an opportunity for wives to share their stories, and to have support in that. But this is also very temporary. Thank you so much, Jen for being so open and vulnerable with your heart and your experience and your lived out wisdom. And I just want to encourage you listener, just in case, there might be a friend that you have that could benefit from this episode. I just want to ask you to share it with them. Because yes, it’s a hard to talk about subject. It’s taboo. Yes. But it is infiltrating every part of our society. Our society is so saturated with lust and pornography. And I just want to wonder if there is some wife in your sphere of influence in your circle who’s dealing with this exact thing? There probably is. So I just asked you to consider sharing it. Okay. Well, God bless you. Thank you so much. And we’ll talk to you on Tuesday once again. Bye bye.
32:59
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
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Jay Dee founded sexwithinmarriage.com to help Christian spouses in two ways: 1) to dispel the stigma often associated with talking about sex within the Christian context, and 2) to use that new freedom to discuss sex within marriage, facilitating positive change in Christian marriages in order to further glorify God.
He’s been married 13 years, has 4 kids and 1 new baby almost here(!). He shares the difficulties of his marriage, from sexlessness and pornography addiction for years to an incredible and passionate partnership with his wife!
Scripture/Quote:
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with senses, reason and intellect, has intended us to forgo their use. -Galileo
Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them. Prov 4:5
In This Episode, You’ll Discover:
- Jay and his wife struggled with sex early on in their marriage.
- How he understood sex as he moved from singleness with the message of “sex is bad don’t do it” and then in marriage with the message of “sex is good, but you still can’t ask questions”.
- How a porn addiction and a misunderstanding of the purity in marital sex equaled years of a sexless marriage.
- How intimacy with his wife actually allowed him to quit the porn addiction.
- How pornography is an issue that is affecting at least 50% of the church currently.
- What many men feel when they view porn.
- How they’ve adopted a policy where orgasms are to be happening with each other, exclusively.
- Scientific understandings about male orgasms with oxytocin release.
- What an orgasm means for your husband.
Links Mentioned:
Tweetables:
For me, my faith is based on being able to see that God is logical. tweet this
Growing up it felt like divorce was worse than murder. tweet this
Women have about 7x more oxytocin in their bodies normally than men. Men approach that level when they orgasm. tweet this
How porn & negative ideas about sex almost broke them. Listen to their incredible story! tweet this
Transcript
0:00
delight your marriage episode four.
0:03
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast, the 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.
0:21
Hey, I’m so glad that you joined me today, thank you so much for taking your time out of your day to be here with me. And I’m really excited because this is a fantastic interview with Jay D from a website called Sex within marriage.com. And he’s going to talk about his journey in marriage with his wife. And it’s pretty incredible, you can hear that they went through years of struggle and hardship and sex lessness and their marriage and addiction and just difficult things that is actually incredibly common. And people just aren’t talking about it and the roots behind it. So it’s really great. He’s got some amazing insights. And he blogs about these kinds of issues all the time on his blog. So I really encourage you to check that out. And at the end of the episode, this is the first half of our interview. But at the end of this episode, he talks about the results of a really fascinating survey that literally almost made me tear up as he was reading it. So it’s, it’s a pretty great episode, I think you’re in for a treat, so I won’t hold you up anymore. And here is the interview. Hi, delight your marriage listeners. I’m so excited that you are here. And I am stoked to be with JD from sex within marriage.com. How are you, Jay? Welcome.
1:41
I’m very well, thank you.
1:43
Great. Well, I’m really excited that you’re here with us. And I think it’s gonna be awesome to hear a little bit more about your marriage and your journey. And I’d love for you to go ahead and introduce yourself and your family and a little bit about your day to day life.
1:56
All right. So I’m Jay. And my wife is Christina. She writes with me on my blog. So some people who know us might know her a bit. We have four children with a fifth on the way due anytime in the next three weeks. And they’re they’re all ages eight and under. So it’s a very busy house. On top of that, we homeschool as well. So that’s usually what people’s heads explode.
2:28
That’s awesome. Yes. Well, I actually have a six week old little boy as well. So Oh, fun. And a one and a half year old. But the itty bitty ones are a lot of fun. Yeah. That’s awesome. So yes, very, very busy. Could you tell me a little bit about what it looks like, day to day life for you? Oh,
2:50
well, day to day life? It depends. My job situation has recently changed. So for the last seven years, I’ve been in one major contract, which just ended. And so right now between contracts, which means for the last two months, I’ve been at home and been able to just enjoy being with my family all day long. I really don’t leave the house much anymore, except to go to church meetings because I sit on multiple teams on there. So so my day to day life now is not what has been normal. Is it normal for most people. So right now it’s I get up in the morning, I’ve taken over the homeschooling because my wife is super pregnant. So I do Homeschooling with three of my kids, the three older ones from like, nine in the morning till noon. And then in the afternoon, I work on the blog, I work on my marriage coaching practice, which I’ve just started up and also work on trying to find new contracts for my my other job, which is actually software engineering.
3:57
That’s great. Well, I definitely want to hear also more about your coaching as well, a little bit later on. And would you also share just a little bit about you and your wife’s personalities?
4:07
Sure. So we are quite desperate in personalities. I have a very logical, I like facts and figures and very black and white, I tend to be either something’s you know, it’s true or it’s not true. That’s that’s kind of my big thing in life. You know, it’s trying to figure out what is true. And my wife is a very opposite and like if, if I’m, I’m pretty sure I am on the like Asperger’s spectrum, a spectrum. That’s how rigid I am in my structures in my head and conceptually, i She is the opposite. We’re pretty sure she’s ADHD. So she’s very much the wow, look at all the shiny things and what’s this thing over here and what’s this thing over here and always likes to see what’s new and what’s different than, you know, I want to try this and she I tend to be the people come to me and they’re like, Okay, I have a question and I need an answer. And people come to her when they’re like, I feel sad, I want someone to be compassionate. And so we, despite being quite different, we tend to work together quite well as a team. Because then I can be the hard line. This is the truth and what I believe, and she could be the, and this is why we love you.
5:26
That’s awesome. Yeah. Sounds like you both complement each other very well, in those ways.
5:30
Yes, it took us quite a few years to figure these things out. At first, we fought all the time, because we have such differing kind of views and lenses that we see the entire world through. And in one year, we figured out both of them that I probably have Asperger syndrome, and she probably has ADHD. And oh, wow, that just answers everything. And now we’re like, and this is why you’re doing that. And I could respond, and this is why you’re doing that. And then no, we understand each other. And we don’t get like upset and say, Well, you know, why are you doing this, we can understand why we’re doing it. And sometimes we can’t help it. It’s just the way our brains are formed. And sometimes it’s, well, we could work on this thing and try to get a little bit better. But it definitely has made things easier.
6:19
Yeah, well, I love that insight, because it’s just so important that frequently opposites attract. That’s a very common thing in marriage. And to recognize that that actually can be your strength. It doesn’t have to be your your weakness, it can be actually something that just like you said, I love the example of, you know, you might give the right answer. And your wife might say here, and here’s a hug, you know, that’s kind of how it’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful thing. You know, that this, this podcast is really all about inspiring and empowering marriages and wives. And so I’d really love to hear scripture or quote that’s meant a lot to you over the years.
6:57
I probably have two that are meant the most to me. One is biblical, and one is not. But they both deal with God. So I’ll do the nonmedical one first. The first quote I ever remember in my entire life is from Galileo, Galileo. And he said, I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use. And for me, this is just this huge, like, I’m supposed to think through things. Where I grew up in a church that was very much. Whenever I asked questions, people, I was always told why you just have to have faith. Which drives me insane. Because my, for me, my faith is based on being able to see that God is logical. And I view the Bible and the reason I believe the Bible is because it has this huge logical consistency within it. So to me, like my faith is based on Yeah, being able to see that and be able to think through things and work through things. And I know some people are very much the opposite. They’re just like, well, I have faith, and so I’m just going to believe it. And that’s, that’s good for them is doesn’t work for me. So for me, that was, that was a huge thing that kind of ran my life. And, and especially when I was struggling when I was a teenager to get answers to questions, difficult questions. You know, I was always running around asking, Well, why is there a hell? And why is God sending people there? And like, how can he be loving and things like that? And these are all questions that I basically got told, well, either you just have to have faith or stop showing up at this class. And then, paired with that was, I’m a big fan of Solomon’s writings because he was considered to be the wisest man in the Bible in Earth’s history. And so you know, his his, he writes in Proverbs four, verse five, I think he’ll just the first part, he says, Get wisdom, get understanding. And for me, that’s, that’s been like a driving force in my life, too. I want to know everything.
9:05
I love that. I love that I’m interested when you when you would venture out into the, you know, understanding these big giant questions that theologians debate about all the time. I mean, were you were you able to find answers that, you know, or that satisfied you? Or did it just, you know, whet your appetite to just cause you to want to dive in deeper, deeper, deeper? How did you kind of
9:28
both some of my questions, they took me a decade to answer Hmm. I’ve read through the Bible cover to cover three or four times now. This time, I’m trying to do it in Hebrew. So I have to teach myself Hebrew as I go, as I go, which is interesting, but that you get to learn even more things. So some of the questions Yeah, it’s taken me a long time. Yeah, sometimes decades to go. Oh, and that’s why that happens or this is why he didn’t know this, things like that. And, and other things I like, I don’t have The answer yet? And I hope I’ll get the answer someday. But if not, you know, after reading through the Bible, and learning all this stuff, I have seen enough to understand that God is perfect, his plan is perfect. And I can trust the holes that I haven’t filled in yet to be filled in eventually.
10:24
Yeah, I love that I’m right with their with Your wisdom is definitely one of my, my favorite words and favorite things to pursue. And I love also that, you know, God tells us to love him with all of our heart, soul and mind. And that’s sounds like that’s exactly what you’ve been pursuing, even from your first quote to your second. So I just, I just love that. And I’d love to hear how wisdom a lot of times is, is learned through the fire is learned in the midst of the storms. And so I’m interested in hearing a bit about your season of marriage, that was a struggle for you all. And kind of how you all went through that.
11:06
Probably the most difficult part in our marriage was right off the bat. We got married and we didn’t know anything about marriage, I can see i It seems that we grew up and got no training on this subject whatsoever. Which, which is unfortunate because I read so many things in the Bible about how happy you should train up your children to be good spouses and older ones should teach the younger one. Sorry, my daughter is interrupted. So right off the bat, we had struggles. Because we had never learned how to communicate properly as spouses, we didn’t learn anything about sex growing up. It was basically don’t ask questions. Right, which I think is a lot of the Christian experience is, you know, sex is bad, don’t do it. And don’t ask questions about it. Because that’s bad, too. And all of a sudden, we get married, and we’re supposed to have this flip. Okay, well, sex is good. And but you still can’t ask questions. It’s starting to change a little bit. And there’s a lot of us in the marriage blogging community, I think yourself included, that are trying to drive these discussions a bit to try to solve some of that. But I came into our marriage dealing with a porn addiction from since I was, I don’t even know how young probably in I got my first computer when I was 16. So I was at least four years in. Because I’m very technically inclined, I’m a software engineer by trade. And I have been since I was, since I was 12. I’ve been pulling apart computers and triggering everything. So I was on the internet before there was an internet. And, and as soon as people started connecting computers together, the first thing that gets shared is pornography and erotic literature and all this other stuff. So but yeah, by 14 1516, I had found it all. So that’s where I was in our marriage, or in our kind of the sex ideas that we brought in. And then my wife, she, because she didn’t get told anything other than what good Christian girls typically get told, which is, sex is bad, don’t have sex. And so on my side, I’m dealing with a porn addiction. on her side, she’s dealing with all these thoughts that I’m not supposed to like sex, sex is not a good thing. And so for the first, probably seven years of our marriage, six, seven, we basically had a sexless marriage. Which gets defined as 10 times 10 times or less per year. And I know, during one part, I think when we had our second child, maybe our first one, we had a nine month stretch where we didn’t see each other naked, even. We never had sex, we never like went to bed at the same time, because it was just, it was too hard. And we weren’t talking about it. Because you don’t talk about sex. And finally, we kind of just kind of woke up and realized we need to change something in our marriage, or we’re not going to make it. I mean, we don’t believe in divorce. And we both are on the same page on that, but we’re going to hate each other. You know, we might not get divorced, but I might kill you. Kind of thing. Right? And right. We always get this I don’t know, in when I grew up, it was almost you had that feeling that divorce is worse than murder. And at some point you if you don’t start working on things, and you’re constantly in the struggle, and every every time you talk it turns into a fight, because you have all this stuff pent up in everything. That yeah, eventually you start thinking like horrible things, you know about, well, I can’t get divorced, but maybe I’ll die like. It’s not as it’s not quite suicidal, but you’re at the point where they’re like, there is probably no light at the end of the tunnel kind of thing. I remember for a long time, my hope was that I had heard that women sometimes when they get into their mid 30s, that all of a sudden their sex drive increases. And that was my light at the end of the tunnel when I was 20, like to 23 that in a decade and a half, maybe this will turn around. And I’m not even sure what Christina is light at the end of the tunnel was if there was one at all. So that was that was our biggest struggle in our marriage. And then eventually, we kind of just went, Okay, we need to start working on stuff, or else we’re not going to make it. So we started looking around, like, okay, what are the biggest struggles in our marriage, and we weren’t quite ready to deal with the whole sex thing yet. So we started with finances, because
16:05
money is a little safer to talk about not much. So we spent two years working on finances. And recently, we learned how to budget and we actually started tithing for the first time in our marriage. And all these things like we I read through the Bible, because that’s my tendency is to do and find all the scriptures on money, which turns out, there’s more on money than any other topic. It’s incredible. And so we fix that, we started budgeting, and we’re like, Okay, we’ve got finances kind of sorted out, we’re not out of the hole, because we, we made a mess of that too. Again, no training. And I realized, okay, next step is communication. Because every time we talk, we get into a fight. But we learned how to communicate better, we learned how to ask questions in the right way, and how to not get mad when we asked, you know, when we get confronted with something, and then once those two things, those were kind of like big, weighty daily kind of things that were weighing on us. And then we finally said, Okay, we know we need to address kind of the sex thing. And at this point, my wife still, like she had no idea was still watching porn for the last five years of our marriage plus the five years before that. So, but she realized that, you know, she had, she was contributing to the problem as well in being like a refusal and gatekeeping kind of sex, saying, Well, no, that we’re not going to have it. So we I think she probably actually made the first step and said, you know, she spent, she spent a lot of time working through that. And one day, I actually made a promise to me, and she said, I will never say no, again. Which I have to admit, I can’t believe her. And now, now, I definitely believe her. And she doesn’t say no, she, she she will say, I’m really tired. And usually, then I’ll tell her, Okay, let’s go to sleep. But I think, and one of the things that we did, and she kind of did this to almost prove, right, that what I’m saying is real, is we did this seven days of sex challenge that I think I saw on one extraordinary marriage, which is another podcast by Christians about sex. And we we did that. And I was she said it, like, let’s do this thing. And I was like, There’s no way you’re gonna last two days. But okay, we ended up having sex 10 days in a row, taking a one day break and then doing another 12. And it completely changed our marriage around. And then all of a sudden, my brain was like, Okay, well, now you don’t need all this other stuff. And so I quit porn, and then told her that this is what I had been struggling with. So I didn’t actually come out until I, I dropped it. Because I’m a man, and we’re scared. of things like intimacy and being vulnerable. And, you know, we’d like to fix things before we actually tell people we had a problem, and now I solved it. Yeah, so that was that our big giant struggle for the first eight years of our marriage.
19:26
I just I just love that you, you’re sharing so openly the struggle because it’s just such a common struggle. It’s just so many marriages story, and yet no one is talking about it. And thankfully, you are on your blog. It’s an amazing blog. So if you haven’t checked out sex within marriage, you really need to, but it’s just a very very common struggle and, and porn even more. So. Maybe, maybe more. So this is a huge struggle that people just don’t talk about and something that even as a young woman, I struggled with coming upon a it was a site for homework, and then you know, I Talk about that a little bit on my blog as well. But it’s just just a huge thing. And I want to talk a little bit about how you were able to kind of get out of the pornography because I know that there’s so many people that are listening that I mean, this is the issue and it’s driving wedge in between their marriage, and it’s causing them so much guilt and shame, because it feels like you’re living a double life. And there’s just, it’s just a really hard thing that like billions of people are struggling with. So yeah,
20:28
the numbers we typically see is about 50% within the church, are struggling, currently struggling with porn. And if I’ve seen surveys where they surveyed pastors, and it’s the same number, it’s still 50%. Man. And I know I talked to him most of the pastors that I, I know well enough to talk to. And I’m seeing the same thing. The one that was the wall, I admit to it. Yeah, I’ve struggled with it. I’ve, I’ve been very blessed to have pastors who are transparent. And we’ll talk about these things. I wish I had learned to talk to them before I got married, and actually already had resolved their issues. But how did how did I deal with it? I do, that’s a problem. I cheated by having a wife that was willing to say, I will have sex with you every night for two weeks. And, and that’s not advice I can give to most husbands. When when wives come to me and say, we’re having this struggle in our marriage, what do I do? I say, you need to tell him, I’m going to help you with this. And I’m, I will be there whenever you need. You know, barring the obvious look, I’m at work. So we can’t do it right now. Or it’s Thanksgiving dinner, and everybody’s over, we’re not going to sneak off and go have sex. But that’s not typically time’s that he’d go on and sneak off and go watch porn anyway. So that shouldn’t be an issue. So I tell when the best things I’ve heard, and I can’t remember where I heard it, is to have this policy. And it’s kind of crude, but have, they say, the policy is in me or on me. Like, if you’re going to have an orgasm, it bet, like the wife should say, it’d better be on me or in me nowhere else. If I’m not involved, then I’m considering that cheating. Wow.
22:23
And I think that’s the best advice I can give to wives,
22:29
that for their husbands, the best advice is to come clean to your wives. Because as soon as they know what’s going on, you know, all of a sudden, you have this layer of accountability, and you don’t want to let them down. And now there’s a spotlight on it. And it’s a lot harder to continue doing something wrong. When you know, somebody knows you’re doing it. Yep. But that, that’s really hard to do, because it requires saying, I’m, I am hurting, and I’m doing something wrong. And I’m stuck and I can’t help myself.
23:01
On top of that the way pornography feels to a woman is just so painful. But I would be really interested in hearing how a man thinks about that. Because for a woman, it feels like he’s cheating on me. But for the man, it doesn’t feel like that. What does it feel like for a man?
23:23
We I can’t speak for all I could try to I could try to extrapolate based on who I’ve talked to and my experiences. But I know for a lot of them, it’s it’s less about sex, and more about intimacy. They have there’s this. It’s not all men, like some men are in marriages, and they’re having regular sex, they’re still stuck in porn. Yeah, and I think a lot of them, it’s just, it might just be a straight addiction. And then you’re dealing with something almost a little easier. Because if it’s straight, like psychological addiction, that’s a little easier to break because you have a marriage to fall back on. That’s mostly stable, more likely stable, but it’s in the marriages where they’re not having sex during a sexless marriage or their frequency is very, very low, like on that borderline kind of clinical sexless term, like 10 times a year or less, that often what they’re looking for is a sense of intimacy. And this whole feeling of orgasm makes us feel good because we get this huge rush of oxytocin, which is this hormone in us that makes us feel bonded and safe and secure. And I think God designed it to be that we feel this when we’re with our spouses, and it binds us together. It makes us feel safe and secure. And I don’t know if other people have noticed but if you can have a conversation right after your husband has had an orgasm, it will probably be the best conversation of your Marriage, because right at that moment, he feels absolutely secure and safe and happy. And if you can manage to get him not to fall asleep, you can have some really good conversations. And women get women drive on oxytocin, they have, I think it’s seven times the level of oxytocin that men have in their bodies. I think given period, the only time we get close is the 30 minutes after an orgasm, and then it levels off again, and we’re back to normal. So, so we see this constant struggle. That’s why generally not all the time, but generally, men, if they haven’t had sex in a couple of days, they’re like, I don’t feel loved anymore. Because they’re completely depleted of oxytocin, it’s gone. They’re like, on empty, and their wives are still like, I feel fine. But like, because they, they could generate so much of this stuff just in and of themselves. So I think, I think for a lot of men, it’s much more of an intimacy thing. I mean, there’s definitely a whole, you know, it excites your brain. And there’s the whole physical feeling and everything like that. But that can be that can be replaced, right? By your spouse. If you have a spouse who who shows genuine genuine interest with in you, and is willing to have fun in the bedroom, not just be like, Okay, it’s duty sex time, let’s go have it. Hurry up. Then, that’s what I’ve seen a lot of men say, say, you know, I finally kicked born. And it only happened after our marriage started getting better, we started having more sex. And it’s, I think a lot of it is driven by this this issue of intimacy.
26:58
Yeah. Yeah, I love that insight. And I think it gives, really, it gives so much hope to wives listening, that if you found out about an addiction that your husband has to porn, there’s hope in that there’s hope in this in the story from Jay, and it’s my experience as well is that when sex is happening in the marriage, it doesn’t have to be happening on the computer. It’s, it’s something you can change in your marriage. And I know as a wife, and as a woman, I think, the intimacy piece, hearing that that’s what’s happening through the pornography addiction, that helps us to understand and to forgive, and to move forward and to say, you know, it’s, it’s not that he’s choosing or trying to, necessarily choosing this other, you know, these pictures above you, if you could give to him what he needs, it’s possible to really move past that. And so I just want to encourage wives out there that that, you know, it’s going to take a lot of support. And you might need to reach out to other wives that can support you in this, you know, and to get to a place of healing and forgiveness. But to also get to action where you can be helping him through this, you can be potentially making a way that he can, like you said, kick the habit, you know,
28:15
not everybody there, I definitely come in contact with wives that say, No, we have an active healthy sex life. And he’s still addicted to porn, what do I do? And I basically said to you, he needs accountability. Like you can’t keep this in the dark, go and get him to talk to his pastor or someone else in his church, someone he trusts, chances are the person that he’s talked to me, he’s got a 5050 chance to say, they’re struggling with it, too. And if they’re not, there’s a pretty good chance they have in the past, and they kicked it. And they know where he is. And I don’t know what that number is of people who have dealt with porn in the past. But if it’s 50%, now we’re struggling with it. I imagine it’s a pretty high number of people in our church that have, you know, either are currently struggling with it or have in the past. I think most people are afraid of like, oh, no, if people found out my life would be ruined. I think a lot of people will be like, No, if you they found out they’d be like, Yeah, me too, buddy. I’m struggling with that true, we should form a group. Like, and I know, for a lot of us, like for myself, I was constantly I knew it was wrong. Half the time I’d rationalize it and say, Well, you know, my wife doesn’t want me so it must be okay kind of thing or, you know, whatever you find ways to rationalize it.
29:30
So the process of kind of getting out of this, it sounds like was a lot of your wife’s proactivity I mean, did you feel that you? You know, were a part of things working better. How did it kind of go?
29:43
Oh, definitely. I mean, I’ve always been kind of the researcher in the realm of marriage and sex. Because, well, I’ve been fascinated with sex since I was a teenager never really went away. So I was constantly sending stuff, you know, to my wife, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And I think earlier on on that, I don’t think I did that early early on in our marriage. But once we actually started kind of talking about things and realizing we had issues, and we have to fix them. Because first, I think for the first while, we actually thought, well, this is normal. Everyone hates their spouses. You know, marriage, because all we hear is like, oh, marriage is hard work. And we’re like, okay, so it’s hard work. And there’s no joy. I think about five years, then I started sending her like articles I had seen from some of the early bloggers, or threads on the marriage bed, which is a forum for discussing sexuality and marriage from a Christian perspective, as well. And one day, she read something, and it was talking about refusers, which is the term kind of we give to spouses who say, No, we’re not having sex. And she flat out asked me one night to use the camera refuser. Me being the not always so compassionate, or politically correct. Answer said yes. She was like, Oh, okay. That was that was kind of it for the night, I think. But after that was, I think what started her big shift, you know, for her to actually, like she saw in herself. What I’m doing is not right. And not that what I was doing was bright by any means. But she, she managed to beat me at tackling her issues before mine. And so, I did I play a part in it. I think I definitely did play a part. And I was as much as you know, I said, Yes, you definitely fall within that category of refuser. As we define it kind of thing. I was out, she, my wife tends to beat herself up a little bit like, Oh, I’m not good enough kind of thing. At least she used to. She’s gotten much better at that. But, you know, I would always constantly say no, you know, you’re my wife, despite all our problems, I still love you the way you are. I want us to be better. But it’s not that you’re not good enough. So I was constantly trying to reaffirm her. And that and every step that she took, or backflip or whatever, it was always I was always trying to say, you know, it’s okay. It’s the fact that you’re working on it is amazing. You know, I think that’s, I don’t see that in a lot of spouses, like a lot of them that come to me. You know, they say things like, well, if she tells me No, one more time, I’m going to divorce her. Like, but she’s been working on it. Why would you do that? Like why? You need to recognize that she, she’s human, she’s sinful. You know, just as you are. Even when we try to work on our marriages, it’s not going to be perfect, we’re gonna mess up, we’re gonna say the wrong thing. We’re going to backslide and say no to sex, or we’re gonna backslide and watch something. We weren’t supposed to watch it or porn or read something or whatever. And I see it from wise to be like, No, if I ever cut my husband watching porn, that’s it, we’d be divorced. And be like, really, for one for one. You know, thing, you divorce him? I mean, how many times have you done something wrong in your marriage? You can’t be perfect. But that we tend to pick and choose these kinds of things that oh, this is worse than this one. And, and in a lot of people’s minds. You know, I hear from a lot of wives that say no, if I ever catch, catch him watching porn, we’re divorced. Like, Well, you got a 50% chance of catching him. Like you might not want to decide on that right
33:56
now. Yeah, I think as a wife, we need to recognize that in our husbands that this is a significant, significant temptation, a significant reality that that many, many men struggle with. And it’s cuz we’re designed and wired to really enjoy sex and really let it be such a bonding experience between man and wife. So So anyway, I I’m, I venture to say that Jay, some of the things that you’re saying, may be completely perspective shifting for some of our listeners. Because I think that’s common. I think women are so threatened by pornography, because it’s just like you said, the thing that I think we struggle with probably the most in intimacy is I’m not good enough. I’m not sexy enough. I don’t look good enough. I’m not all of these things. And so as a as a husband. You know, I love that, you know, your tactic was really to be affirming and to really say, you are good enough, and this is exactly I want you exactly how you How do you think wives can get over themselves in that mind game of I’m not good enough? How can they kind of be proactive and do that?
35:08
I think that’s an issue even regardless of the porn. Mm hmm. Like, I think a lot of wives. Actually, I ran a survey once. Because a wife emailed me and said, You know, I, I don’t think my husband finds me attractive. And she’s like, it’s not based on anything, or whatsoever, but I just have this sinking feeling that he doesn’t. So I ran a survey. Because it was an anonymous question. I couldn’t respond back to this person, I had no contact information for them whatsoever. I ran a survey basically asking wives, and husbands, you know, how attracted you are you to your spouse? And How attractive do you think they are to you? And I can’t remember what the number was for wives. I think it was something like under 40% of wives felt that they were attracted attractive to their spouse, like to their husband. And 96% of the husband said, No, I’m definitely attracted to my wife. In fact, the 96% said, as much or more so than when we got married. Wow, 96 and other four other 4% they weren’t like, No, I don’t find my wife attractive. They were just like, Well, maybe not as attractive as when she was 20. Like, for those 4%, I’m still like, what are you kidding, like? But it was such an overwhelming response. And I was like, Wow, 96% So I posted this thing. And, and immediately, I got this other email, like the next day, and from this same woman who had asked the original question, and she was basically told me, she was in tears, reading the survey results. She said, I had no idea. And she’s like, I wonder how many other women struggle with this too? Like, well, I can tell you from the data, most of them, right? So I think there’s this this huge issue.
37:06
Yeah, J, I’m gonna have to stop the episode here. But when he said that, and I, during the interview, I literally was starting to tear up. I mean, it’s just something that women don’t realize that they are so gorgeous, they’re so valuable. They’re so beloved by our Creator, God, and by our husbands. So, Jay, thank you so much. You just had incredible insights and wisdom. And the next episode is chock full of a lot more. So definitely check that out once it comes out. But I want to mention if this is maybe one of the first times that you’re really getting exposed to the male psyche, and how he thinks about sex, and what it means to him as a man, I’d really encourage you, I’ve written a book called delight your husband, and it’s really getting women through each one of their reservations. So that includes whether or not sex is godly, what he thinks about sex. It’s also going through all of women’s insecurities, in terms of our body image in terms of being vulnerable in front of our husband. And then it also goes through the very specifics of delighting your husband in the bedroom. So there’s a lot of things that women can be insecure about. And one of them definitely is whether or not I’m doing this right? Or is this is this the right way of going about it. So I really encourage you to check that out to let your husband calm. And it’s just a wonderful resource. It’s also a workbook, to really get them into go through and process all of these fears and anxieties and emotions, to get to the other side and really feel confident and free in your marriage and in your bedroom. So really encourage that. But again, thank you so much for joining me today. And there is a lot more to come. And I really believe that it’s going to be a delight to your marriage. So God bless you. I love you, and I’m praying for your marriage. Until next time, bye bye.
39:08
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
