Really strong urges to fantasize on Tuesday. I fought and fought, trying to turn these lies over to God and replace with truth. The temptation to go searching for imagery followed. I reached out to AP, went to gym, didn’t cave. It’s obvious that the mental discipline has to be the forefront on this battle for me. If I can live abiding in Him and not my old self, this is a winning battle. On day 88 of 90 day hard mode My wife hasn’t been feeling well. I’m thinking the best way to end hard mode is not by expecting sex, but waiting patiently for her to be ready and expecting nothing.
And really, this is the way to live the rest of your life. We deserve nothing and can expect only Christ's unfailing love. Everything else will fail us.
Congratulations on your successful fight with temptation. You are doing well and I promise you with each success, your response to God's grace will get stronger and the strength of your temptations will get weaker. One of the many things that keeps me from succumbing to temptation is the knowledge that in times past, when I gave in after a streak of purity, I went on a binge and when that binge finally ended, I felt the deep loneliness and fear of being far from God. What a black and dark place that can be. Dear Lord, never let me go.
Thank you @WilliamJ.F., @value, @Myfortress, @Tao Jones and @CPilot for your encouragement here. After that day of urges and mental temptation, I had very little temptation Wednesday and Thursday. This reminds me how an urge victoriously defeated makes us STRONGER. We should therefore look forward to the urges as a chance to forge our minds. “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are punished by Him; For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He punishes every son whom He accepts.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is impaired may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” Hebrews 12:4-13 NASB2020
Well folks, I got to 90 days of hard mode and still going strong! My wife hasn’t been feeling well. The crazy thing is that I don’t feel the same overwhelming pressure for release as i did pre-reboot. In turn, I haven’t had to pressure her for an HJ when she’s not feeling well. This is a great step forward in our marriage. God’s design for my marriage is BEAUTIFUL.
From this vantage point, it probably even seems a little gross that you would ever ask your wife to do something like that when she wasn't feeling well. We begin to see just how selfish we once were. Recovery can be very humbling.
Yes indeed. When I am tempted and I pray to the Holy Spirit, my thoughts are turned to see the temptations for what they are rather than what my mind would build them up to be. Memories of past behaviors can be very humbling but I also cling to the knowledge that the version of me who idolized such things is dead and today a I am a new man. A new man, walking in the bright sunshine and breathing the crisp, clean air of a cleaner conscience.
Thinking about how I had treated our sex life shows how incorrect my understanding of healthy married sex was. But that’s in the past. I don’t think I’m capable of dwelling on any sort of sexual desire in a healthy way. Thinking about sex just creates pressure in me, which I transfer to my wife. My hard mode reboot ended peacefully at day 97. Now comes the task of not creating an expectation for the next sex, or not dwelling on sex. We all know this alone is impossible, and that we must walk towards something and not just away from something. I’m walking towards my identity in Christ! I am finding such joy in going to bed after a day not plagued by ‘white knuckling’. This is the peace and joy we get from being dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ. This all sounds like cliché religiosity, but I am seriously so happy and feel more free than I ever have. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all time; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. So you too, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:8-11
It's only cliche if it is mere words. When it becomes our lived experience, it is life itself. *This* is the life Christ promised us! We *can* attain it and establish it as the norm. *This* is why we share the Good News in whatever way we can, because we want everyone to know this peace and freedom for themselves, just as we now do. Awesome testimony! Keep close to Christ, one day at a time.
I relate closely to what you have written. Sex is still something I look forward to but if it is not my wife's wish at the same time as mine, then I can now take that in stride. I won't say that there isn't some disappointment but it is manageable and the feeling no longer has the power to lead me to sin. I think you have crossed an important milestone in your fight against sin, welcome to freedom!
Hi friends, Glad to post again. I spent 8 days in Panama, and have been home for a couple weeks since. I felt triggered on many occasions there and also have felt triggered a couple times since I’ve been back. By triggered, I mean I wanted to go looking for sexual content, though I did not. I’ve been able to recognize this desire in myself and keep my phone away, my computer locked down during these urges. I go through periods where the joy of the Lord seems vague, distant, unreachable. And the temporary satisfaction of searching out lust seems so close, attainable, tangible. In short, I was white knuckling for a couple weeks. It wasn’t until I met with my APs last weekend that I felt reminded of how much joy there is in recovery itself. The pain of slavery to sin is awful. It’s terrible not being able to control your thought patterns. On the other hand, the freedom of thought gives me permission to have fun, to enjoy my wife’s company, to enjoy worshipping the Lord. That is what I want, not slavery!
Good to hear from you again. Keep reaching out. We are in this fight together, encouraging one another every step of the way.
I struggle to understand it but many Saints and some good Christians that I know confided that they went through "dry spells" where they did not feel the Lord close to them. Perhaps God challenges us in this way in order to build our strength and our faith in Him? The book of Job tells such a story. Despite incredible tribulations, Job did not give up His faith in God and in the end God rewarded Him. I congratulate you on your two weeks of determination. Well done!
All, I’m continuing on my journey and getting closer to God. I know that He has a plan for my marriage that is bigger than my understanding. My wife and I are in a transition between a sex life that aims to consistently give me a release and moving towards a sex life that provides mutual pleasure. It is a difficult transition as my wife has a once every 1-3 month libido. Hopefully making sex more pleasurable for her can increase frequency. I am really struggling with our frequency but understand this is a necessary growing pain for our marriage. I am using stayfocusd software to help me avoid needless web browsing. I have had to shut down browsing to avoid slipping into the ‘lust hunting’ behavior. I am also struggling to expel lustful thoughts. They seem to initiate without my permission, and I am required to stop them to avoid the misery that comes with. It’s difficult to remain in a place where I do not want to see P. I know that living in a place of not desiring P is my new life in Christ. For the past few weeks I’ve felt like I’ve been white knuckling it. How do I get back to a place of genuinely not wanting to lust?
Lust is the opposite of love. It is a self-centered dead end. You have been buried with Christ and resurrected into a new kind of life in him. This new life looks outwards toward others, putting their desires ahead of your own. So, why would this new creation want to lust? There is nothing in lust that will fuel or fill you any longer. All of that is in the past. I may have asked this before, so I apologize if I am repeating myself: Have you and your wife read through The Great Sex Rescue together? It was a very insightful read for my wife and me to read and talk through as a couple. Great research and lots of straight talk about the many reasons women (esp. Christian women) may suffer from low libido.
Hey RedeemedIowan, I have been following your journal with interest since you turned up in mine. Once every 1-3 months is hard. Right now, I can really relate to this and it looks like I am also headed for a period of potentially extended abstinence (in short, my wife has had pregnancy sickness for 7 months, and now it turns out she has possibly terminal cancer too). I would keep talking to your wife about it, loving her, putting her first and staying away from PMO and MO with the help of God and others. Loving her looks like being patient and not seeing your sex drive as a need. But loving you also looks like acknowledging you have sexual desires and a higher libido (even though that does not entitle you to sex or mean it is a need). The received Christian wisdom sometimes seems to be arriving at a compromise: Add each partner's preferred frequency together, and divide by two. If she wants once every two months and you want twice a week, could you agree to aim for once a month? Or once every two weeks? I don't know if that necessarily works though. I think this is basically what the marriage researcher John Gottman calls 'an unsolvable problem' and you just have to live with it and get by as best as you can until it resolves or goes away. And on the other hand, I have seen some research reported that says that once a week is the ideal frequency, and that more does not actually affect reported levels of happiness, but less does. And apparently testosterone spikes on the 7th day since the last O, and Jews used to have sex on the sabbath, so back when sex was a more regular thing for me I liked to aim for at least once a week... I think talking about it together is important. Every counsellor I have had has recommended that. I would also recommend: -The 'Sexy Marriage Radio' podcast episode 'Abstinence in Marriage' Also, for learning how she can enjoy sex more: -Book 'Intended for Pleasure'--but just the stuff about the mechanics of sex, not the other stuff which is often not so good advice (also, warning, has line drawings which could be triggering). -All of Sheila Way Gregoire's books (31 days to great sex, Good girls' guide, Good guys' guide, Great Sex Rescue) -Book 'Come as You Are' by Emily Nagoski Go well. I will continue to follow.
Really appreciate the Input @Tao Jones and @Rebooter2021. I feel very loved in this community with you guys’ positive messages. My wife and I started reading ‘31 days to great sex’ but have paused since chapter 4. Asking my wife to read this makes her feel pressured. I think we are in a tough transition between a husband-gets-his-release-every-few-days sex life and a sex life that views the wife’s pleasure as the building block of our sex life. Like, I know this is the right direction to go, but we’re in a sexual wilderness given that it’s not very pleasurable for her yet. She has had 6 reconstructive hip surgeries in these 4 years, so she lives in hip pain. @Rebooter2021 I will be praying for you and your wife. When will you have a more clear diagnosis?
Six hip surgeries in four years, wow. That sounds so tough. Sounds like a relatively unusual and unique circumstance to me. I think mutual pleasure should be the building block of a sex life; with each partner focused on the other (which means our job is to pleasure our wives). But that sounds like a really hard circumstance to pursue that in. Have you thought about going to a Christian sex therapist or something similar? I don't think it's controversial that a mutually satisfying sex life should be an ingredient of a good Christian marriage, and I imagine most wives would sign up to that, if their own pleasure is being prioritised and pursued, like 'Great Sex Rescue' says. Many married couples find manual stimulation of the wife by the husband (as detailed in '31 days', and the mechanical bits of 'Intended for Pleasure') is a game changer, but it can take time and practice to work. Our next medical appointment is Tuesday. More detail then, about specifically what type of lymph cancer, treatment options, and how it will interact with the birth and new baby. I am terrified but living just in today, which I learned from recovery.
