Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 106

No More Covering Up Abuse or Covering for Abusers–a Plea for Churches

I believe that God created marriage to be a wonderful, intimate relationship between a husband and a wife.

I believe that marriage is to reflect the relationship that God wants to have with us–that sexuality is not just physical, but is about an intimate “knowing” of each other. For that to be realized in a marriage, both spouses need to feel respected, cherished, and valued.

Unfortunately, there are too many elements of the Christian church which work directly against this kind of relationship by devaluing women, and by protecting predatory pastors at the expense of women and children.

While this is not limited to one particular denomination, today I want to dedicate my blog to stand in solidarity with the #ForSuchaTimeasThisRally happening in Dallas right now outside the SBC Annual Meeting. Again, as I said yesterday, I am so thankful that I am not in a church that behaves like this, and I am aware that many of you are not, either. If none of this applies to you, then don’t worry–regular programming will resume tomorrow!

But I feel that I need to speak up today. Over the last month, the news has been full of stories of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s president Paige Patterson, who failed to report sexual assaults to the police, bragged about sending abused women back to their husbands, spoke really creepily about a 16-year-old’s breasts from the pulpit, and belittled women who reported sexual assault.

After a prolonged fight with the board and in the national press, he was finally fired late last month. Despite reports that his attitude towards women was well-known over his long tenure, no one ever did anything about him until recently, leaving so many wounded and bruised people in his wake.

All of this has caused an internal evaluation within the SBC, with people jumping on board saying, “Yes! We value women!” Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says that judgment has come to the SBC.

I am glad that SBC leaders say that they see a problem now. However, many of us have been seeing problems for years, and these leaders did not speak up then.

And so, I would like to ask Al Mohler, and other SBC leaders who are meeting now in Dallas, why did you not see this earlier?

When Paige Patterson bragged in a sermon all the way back in 2000 that he told an abused woman with two black eyes that he was “glad” that she went back to her husband and that she had been beaten, because now her husband had repented,

When he called a 16-year-old girl “built” from the pulpit,

Why did you not see it then? Why is it only awful now, when the national press has brought it to light?

When pastor after pastor after pastor was accused of abusing children and teens in their care, including Paul Pressler, while the church elders did nothing,

Why did you not see it then?

When pastors and SBC officials  failed to report abuse to the police, and allowed abusers to move from one church to another,

Why did you not see it then?

When so many abused women came forward saying that their churches didn’t listen to them, and told that if their husbands just got more sex, the abuse would stop,

Why did you not see it then?

When Rachael denHollander, the brave survivor of Larry Nassar’s assaults who was the first to bring her case forward, said in her victim impact statement that she had lost her church because she had advocated for child sexual abuse victims,

When she elaborated that the problem was that she had challenged her SBC church leadership for trying to rehabilitate C.J. Mahaney’s reputation, when he had never been held to account for allegedly covering up child sexual abuse,

And when Christianity Today magazine joined Rachael in calling for an independent investigation of Sovereign Grace Churches, which are still listed as SBC churches on the “Find a church near you” SBC website,

Why did you not see it then?

When Matt Chandler and the elders of the Village Church implemented church discipline against Karen Hinkley, who chose to annul her marriage because her husband was a child porn addict, and instead supported the husband and allowed him to be in the church around children,

Why did you not see it then? Why did it take abuse bloggers and then the national, secular press to throw light on this incident before anything was done to support Karen and apologize to her for slandering her?

When Andy Savage of Highpoint Church in Memphis was credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor when he was a youth pastor, and the church gave him a standing ovation and said all was forgiven, rather than addressing the severity of what he had done,

Why did you not see it then? Again, why did it take the horrified reaction of the public in the national, secular press to make that church do the right thing?

When 25 different women came to Paige Patterson saying that Darrell Gilyard had sexually abused them, and he ignored each and every complaint because there weren’t 2-3 witnesses to each episode of sexual abuse, and Gilyard went on to other churches to abuse more, and was later jailed,

Why did you not see it then? 

When Beth Moore spoke up about all the misogyny that she has experienced in the denomination,

Why did you not see it then?

When Paige Patterson fired all the female professors at SWBTS, including Sheri Klouda who taught Hebrew, because it was absolutely imperative that no man ever be taught by a woman,

When seminary professors teaching preaching would leave the classroom when a female student had to give her sermon, and would send their secretaries to hear it instead so that they wouldn’t hear a woman teach (sounds like little boys yelling “Cooties!” on the playground), resulting in women receiving a diminished education,

Why did you not see it then?

When the ESV, the Bible translation recommended by leaders of the denomination, changed the words and meaning of Genesis 3:16 to insinuate that women’s desire was to dominate her husband, rather than simply desire her husband,

When noted scholars in the SBC, including Owen Strachan, said that man is made in the image of God in a direct, unmediated fashion, whereas women are only made in the image of God in an indirect, mediated fashion,

When prominent SBC scholars, including Bruce Ware, changed the doctrine of the Trinity to something called “Eternal Subordination of the Son”, saying that the Son was always subordinate to the Father, in order to justify women being eternally subordinate to men,

Why did you not see it then?

When the SBC kept saying, “we’re just a loosely organized group of churches, so we can’t expel a church” to explain that they couldn’t do anything about C.J. Mahaney still being a pastor (or any of the pastors who abused kids and teens or covered up abuse), but AT THE SAME TIME did manage to defellowship churches that ordained women,

Why did you not see it then? Doesn’t that show a strange set of priorities? (A woman preaching the gospel is worse than a man abusing children?)

When Al Mohler joked about the internet outrage regarding C.J. Mahaney’s coverup of child sex abuse when he invited Mahaney to the podium to give a keynote address to the Together 4 the Gospel conference in 2016, completely ignoring victims’ pleas to have abuse taken seriously,

Why did you not see it then?

When Paige Patterson advised Megan Lively, then a student at SWBTS who had been raped in 2003 not to report it to police, but to handle it in house, and put her on academic probation because she had been alone with her rapist,

Why did you not see it then?

No, it was only when it was incontrovertibly revealed that Paige Patterson had told the head of security that he wanted to meet alone with a rape victim in 2015 so that he could “break her down“–

It was only then that you saw it.

So now Al Mohler says that SBC is humiliated, and must treat this seriously. But, quite frankly, I don’t buy it. Al Mohler still supports C.J. Mahaney. He has not apologized for his jokes in the past. He has not called for an independent investigation.

This has to stop.

Dear Southern Baptist Convention: Thank you for now saying you're concerned about your treatment of women. But HOW could you not see the problem THEN?Click To Tweet
This isn’t just unacceptable. This is an affront to the gospel of Jesus.

I personally believe that the majority of SBC parishioners and pastors are actively living to serve Jesus and are trying their best to spread His love. But if you affiliate with the SBC in any way, I believe it is incumbent on you to speak out against these evils, and against the leadership that has perpetuated them.

It is only by casting light on darkness that we can expel it. It is only by SBC churches standing up and saying, “we can no longer tolerate elements of the SBC acting like this”, that we will see something happen.

And so I stand with my sisters and brothers protesting in Dallas today.

I call on the SBC to repent of its historic treatment of women and abuse victims.
I call on the SBC to examine the horrific attitudes towards women that are rampant in its denomination, especially in the more recent years under current leadership.
I call on the SBC to develop policies on how to handle domestic abuse that recognize that the welfare of the abuse victim is more important than the shell of the marriage.
I call on the SBC to ensure that all of its churches adhere to policies designed to protect the vulnerable from abuse inside its walls.
I call on the SBC to develop a registry of those who have abused those under their care, so they can’t keep moving from one church to another.
I call on the SBC to demand full and independent investigations of any pastor who is accused of abuse, or who has covered up abuse.
And finally, I call on the SBC to develop a policy to expel churches who do not deal appropriately with abuse in its midst.

I hope you will all stand with me, for such a time as this.

If you’re a sexual abuse survivor having trouble moving forward, or an advocate who wants to do more to end abuse, especially in the church, do check out The Courage Conference. It’s a powerful time with wonderful people who can point all to healing and wholeness in Christ, and I highly recommend it.

If you want to do something about what is happening in the SBC, the For Such a Time as This Rally has a page of info to point you in the right direction.

UPDATE: edited to say that the ESV was not actually done by the SBC.

My Husband Has Something to Say to Those Who Insult Women

In the 1980s, I used to go to sleep listening to a Steve Camp song.

Steve Camp was a Christian music artist, and I had all of his cassettes. One song in particular always spoke to me–a remake of Larry Norman’s The Great American Novel. The last few lines were these:

You say all men are equal, all men are brothers,

Then why are the rich more equal than others?

Don’t ask me for the answer, I’ve only got one:

That a man leaves his darkness when he follows the Son

That always brought tears to my eyes.

I even went to a Steve Camp concert in Toronto back in those days! I seriously was a big fan.

So it was a huge surprise to me last month when I somehow managed to get in a Twitter fight with him, and he called me emotional, told me I was easily deceived so he should really hear from my husband, and then called me uneducated.

A lot of people insult me on social media (and in the comments section of this blog), and I normally let it go. But this one I want to talk about today, because this is an important week. This week the Southern Baptist Convention is having their annual meeting, and there will be a rally (#forsuchatimeasthisrally) in Dallas outside that meeting to raise awareness about the many, many ways the SBC has covered up sex abuse, counselled women to go back to abusive husbands, allowed those charged with coverups, or even charged with actual abuse, to continue in the pulpit, and attacked those who have come forward with their stories of abuse. I wanted to be at the rally in Dallas, but it just didn’t work out. And so I want to stand in solidarity with them.

If none of this is an issue in your church, then rejoice. It is not an issue in my church, either, and not all churches are like this at all. If all of this just makes you sad, then it’s okay to leave these posts and return on Wednesday.

But when there is major injustice being done, especially in the name of Christ, I have to speak up. And this concerns marriage and sex, and so I feel as if it is right in my purview.

So why talk about Steve Camp today? Because while he was a Christian music artist in the 1980s, today he is an SBC pastor at Cross Church in Palm City, Florida.

And he is the perfect example of the attitudes that are ripe within the SBC, and that have to be addressed.

So let me tell you my story.

(I will try to put in some screen shots and links to the Twitter conversation, so that you can go and see it. I also am including screen shots rather than embedding tweets because I’m afraid he may delete them. He’s already blocked so many people.)

It all started after I arrived back from Australia rather jetlagged, and instead of going to work I went on Twitter.

A woman I follow (Julie Anne, @DefendtheSheep, from Spiritual Sounding Board) had posted an article on submission, and some guy I didn’t know with a weird Twitter handle had replied that it was emotional and didn’t have any clear arguments. I followed the link, and thought it was a good article. So I jumped in with a defense of it, saying that it wasn’t “generalized propaganda” like he had called it. And I was genuinely trying to have a conversation:

As the conversation went on, Julie Anne jumped in, and I looked back over the thread up until then. It turns out that three separate times Steve Camp had called her emotional, when she was simply making an argument. And he had insinuated that we should hear from her husband instead. (You can see all of that on this thread). Julie Anne then told me in a private message who I was talking to, and I was flabbergasted. THIS was Steve Camp? The person I had admired?

I attempted to continue the debate while also asking him to apologize to Julie Anne for insulting her. He said she simply wasn’t up to the task of debate.  I kept making the point that he was a pastor, and so he should be reflecting Christ.

Finally, he posted this:

Now, in what context during a debate with a woman is it ever in good faith to say that women are susceptible to being deceived? Whenever women tried to engage him, he would call us emotional, or else ask to talk to our husbands (he did that with Julie Anne, too), or say that we were being deceived. And again–he is a pastor.

After this tweet he received an incredible amount of pushback, because it went quite big on Twitter. So he tried to redeem himself the next morning by posting an “explanation”:

I retweeted his tweet and called him out on it.

Shortly after that he blocked me. The next day J from Hot, Holy and Humorous chimed in and told him he had been completely inappropriate. He responded this way:

At this point, my daughter Rebecca (@lifeasadare) jumped in, asking for a straight answer on one question: Does Steve Camp believe that women are more easily deceived than men, since he used that as an excuse to end a debate? The thread is quite illuminating–she keeps asking, he keeps dodging.

He never did give her a straight answer, but his wife laughed when another Twitter user told Rebecca that she was the perfect example of why women should stay silent. Right after Rebecca reacted to that, saying that was completely inappropriate, Steve Camp said this:

Suffice it to say, at the end of their conversation Rebecca very firmly told him what she thought of how he acted on Twitter.

And now I have invited someone else to tell him what he thinks of Steve Camp–who remember is a pastor in good standing with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Steve kept saying that he wanted to hear from my husband (and from Julie Anne’s husband). And so, Steve, here you go:

Our very jetlagged selves right after we landed in Sydney, Australia last month

“Another ‘Wives submit to your husbands’ debate on the internet….fantastic,” Keith said (meaning the exact opposite).

The two sides have been hammering at each other for years now. The debate has gotten so much more heated and so much louder now that it seems people are just not able to listen to each other anymore. Case in point, a recent debate between Pastor Steve Camp and Julie Anne that Sheila waded in on last month.

I try to avoid these discussions, but my wife has asked me to chime in since at one point in the debate –I am dumbfounded by this – Pastor Camp specifically asked for my husband’s-eye view on things. Now, I have no interest in getting into any discussions with Pastor Camp about this issue. It seems clear to me from the Twitter feed that his mind is made up and he is not really interested in discussion of any kind. However, I did want to say a few things for the record.

First, my wife does not need my permission to have her own opinions.

(By the way, I can’t believe we are at a point in church history that I have to say that.)

Second, she does not need my permission to share her opinions on the internet.

(The fact that I have to explain this is also absolutely “gob-smacking” to me).

Third, I want everyone to know that when I don’t jump in on these debates it is not because I don’t support her, but because I know she can take care of herself.
Fourth, I want to talk a bit about how our relationship actually works.

At one point, Pastor Camp made a comment that he was glad Sheila was going to “allow me to speak”. This strongly suggests to me that the mindset here is that if I, the husband, am not in charge than clearly she must be. It is a sad a terrible thought to me that some people see the world this way. Unfortunately, my life experience – including hateful commentary directed at me on Sheila’s blog – has taught me that there really are people out there who think like that.

For the record, Sheila and I are a team.

We both submit to God as the Bible teaches. We both submit to each other as the Bible teaches (Eph 5:21). We make decisions together and when we disagree we keep talking, praying and seeking God’s will until we figure it out. If we ever got to the point where we were truly at an impasse, my natural reaction would be to seek Godly counsel from friends, mentors, parents or a pastor. The idea that I would make the decision because “I am the man” is just not in our DNA. I see no Biblical problems with holding this view.

And now my thoughts on the discussion…..

In the Twitter thread, the point both Julie Anne & Sheila were trying to make – and that Pastor Camp totally missed – is that regardless of one’s interpretation of Scripture, we ought to treat each other with respect. At one point, Julie Anne demanded an apology as Pastor Camp had strayed from the issue and attacked her personally as being “emotional”. This I find sadly humorous because it seems to me reading through the feed that the person on the emotional side was Pastor Camp. Whether you agree or disagree with the points Julie Anne was making, she was calm throughout. Pastor Camp got progressively more and more revved up and eventually closed up with a “now the feminists are preaching heretical soteriology!” diatribe. Really?!? It seems to me Julie Anne was just trying to start a discussion on what Paul meant when he said “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her”. If she worded it not to his liking it doesn’t give Pastor Camp the right to twist it into her trying to preach heresy. And not a few tweets ago, he was sarcastically jibing someone else that “hyperbole is not a spiritual gift”. For shame!

His cluelessness is further demonstrated by the fact that afterwards, he accused them of turning the debate into emotions as they couldn’t debate the facts. Again, he is missing the whole point. When they started presenting arguments, he started attacking them personally, first calling Julie Anne “emotional” and then Sheila “deceived”. He turned it into emotions, not them. They were simply looking for an apology so they could continue the debate on civil terms. But instead of an apology for his hurtful words, he rammed right past that with further proof texts. But in what universe is it okay for someone to say, “I’d rather hear your husband’s opinion on this as women are prone to be deceived.”? The thought of saying that would never cross my mind, nor any of the men I know. If a man were to speak like this to a female colleague at work, he would certainly be disciplined and perhaps fired – and appropriately so. But a pastor can say this publicly and no one blinks. This baffles me. And it needs to stop.

I simply don’t understand this need to “prove” to everyone that men have some sort of intrinsic authority over women and that somehow we can’t be truly male unless we are leading or truly female unless we are following. The CEO of the hospital I work at is a woman. If I were pulled over by a female police officer for a legitimate offense, I would submit to her and pay the fine. Neither of these situations is in any way an assault on my manhood. In fact, it would never have entered my mind to think that way except for the crazy stuff I hear spouted from the internet as “Biblical truth”. Honestly, it makes me wonder what kind of insecurity motivates someone to make sure another is “in their place”?

I have always tried to hold the charitable view that these people were honestly worried about Biblical truth being diluted and – although we disagreed on interpretation – they were just trying to be true to God’s Word. Tragically, I must confess that years of seeing women being told to shut up because they are women, hearing of women being sent back to abusive husbands by pastors because “they just need to submit more” and seeing my own daughters told they are somehow less than their male peers by ministers and other people in the church have been making it progressively harder for me to keep seeing things that way.

And now a word to my readers:

Steve Camp normally wouldn’t matter. He’s a pastor of a small church with very little influence.

But there are women in his congregation who need to know that they do not need to accept being spoken to like this.

And Steve Camp is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC obviously has no problem with having their pastors go on Twitter like this. To me, this is part of a larger issue within the SBC, which I’ll be talking about tomorrow in solidarity with those who will be holding a rally asking the SBC to take abuse issues seriously.

Finally, please hear me on this:

If anyone ever tries to silence you because you’re a woman, telling you that you’re emotional, that you’re deceived, that only your husband’s opinion counts- -you don’t have to take it.

It is okay to speak up. It’s okay to have opinions. You matter dearly to God, and He created you with your intellect, your giftings, your brain. You are not someone that is to be easily dismissed.

And when you do speak up–know that even if your circle thinks of women that way, most in our culture do not. Many, many men would stand up for you. Many, many women would, too. And if you are in a circle where pastors think it’s okay to speak like this about women–then quite frankly, get out.

I just have one final question to ask of Steve Camp, and I’ll use his own lyrics to do it:

Why do you think some Christians are more equal than others?

Because Jesus doesn’t.

What if High School Becomes Impossible for Your Kids?

Can high school become a toxic environment?

Absolutely. I want to talk briefly today about 13 Reasons Why (the Netflix show), but don’t worry if you don’t care about that show. I’m going to make a bigger point that applies to all of us.

When the first season of 13 Reasons Why came out, I binge watched it and actually thought it was pretty good (though the graphic suicide scene and sexual assault scene were not needed). I wrote about it and provided some discussion questions that parents could use with kids, and recommended that parents watch it WITH their kids. So many kids were watching it anyway, I thought it was important to give a framework for conversation. And I thought the overall message–that things can look really, really bad when they actually aren’t that bad–was an important one for teens to hear.

That first season did so well that Netflix thought they should make a second season. Only problem? The first season was based on an actual book. So they had to create more problems to put into a second season.

I watched the first two episodes and gave up. It was way too much teenage angst, and I just couldn’t make it through. I know there’s a ton of controversy about the graphic sexual assault scene in this season as well, and I decided it wasn’t worth my time. (You can find some good discussion questions for the first and second seasons of 13 Reasons Why here, though). I certainly wouldn’t recommend the second season. The points were made in the first season; there’s no need for more teenage angst to fuel the fire.

But as I was watching those first two episodes, something bigger occurred to me.

The philosophy of 13 Reasons Why is this: “Teens have problems that seem really big. But if you will just talk to an adult, the problems won’t seem as big and you can get through them.”

They’re showing how teens get caught up in their own emotional state and don’t see the reality of the situation, and they really do need an adult.

So far so good. I think we can all likely agree on that–teens should talk to adults.

But here’s where things get complicated.

In the first two episodes that I watched, the adults did everything right. And the kids still didn’t talk to them.

These were not clueless parents. These were not teachers who didn’t care. These were not hopelessly “uncool” parents who could never understand. These parents were reaching out appropriately, and the kids STILL didn’t talk to them.

Why not?

It’s quite simple. I think the premise of 13 Reasons Why is wrong. 13 Reasons Why is trying to say that the solution to high school problems is to talk to your parents. I actually don’t believe that.

I think that the solution to a toxic high school experience is to get out of that high school.

No amount of talking is going to make that toxic high school less toxic. It may help you to navigate it better, but the truth is that some social environments become so toxic that you can’t remain in them and keep your mental state intact. You just can’t. And that’s what we parents need  to understand.

Not all high schools are toxic environments. Some of us had great experiences in high school. But a lot of high schools do become toxic environments, and if that’s the case for your teenager, the answer is not just to talk to them. The answer, I think, is to get them out.

We tell people in emotional and physically abusive marriages to get out. We tell parents to leave an abusive spouse for the sake of the kids. But if you think about it, as a teenager, you spend more time awake in your high school than you do with your parents. So if that teen would be better off away from an emotionally or physically abusive parent, then wouldn’t they be better off away from a physically or emotionally abusive high school?

The problem with high school is that there is no “out.” If you’re being bullied, there is no real way to escape that social peer group.

I was talking to my daughter Rebecca about this, and she reminded me of the helplessness/hopelessness theory of depression (she was a psych major). Basically, it goes like this: you learn that you’re helpless. Then you feel that it’s hopeless. And that’s when depression starts.

They tested this theory in a rather disturbing experiment with dogs that no ethics department would ever green light today. Experimenters zapped the floor where the dogs were corralled with electrical shocks at random intervals. At first the dogs started running around and trying to keep as little time as possible with their feet on the floor. Eventually they realized there was nothing they could do, and then they just lay down and took it. Even after the experimenters stopped shocking the dogs, the dogs never fully recovered. They were tremendously psychologically damaged.

I think high school can do this to some kids. That’s why 13 Reasons Why is so popular–people intrinsically know what it feels like to be bullied and to feel as if there’s no way out. But it’s also a reason why 13 Reasons Why doesn’t work, because their ultimate solution isn’t a solution. It’s not viable. Parents can’t fix it. Parents and kids inhabit two different worlds. No matter how much a parent talks to a kid, they cannot fix that the child’s world if the school has become a toxic environment.

Think about it this way: as an adult, we never put up with such a terrible social environment.

If your workplace were that toxic, you’d leave. If your church were that toxic, you’d find a new church. Adults can leave. But kids are stuck. And we seem to think that it’s their problem, and the schools should fix it.

But what if school is the problem?

You put all these kids who are hormonal all at the same time at the same stage in a class together and you expect everything to be fine. Now, many times it is. Maybe even most times it is. But sometimes it isn’t. And when it isn’t, there’s no escape that those kids can manage on their own. I think that’s why kids get into drugs and partying so deeply. They don’t know what else to do.

So here’s the solution that 13 Reasons Why should have promoted: You are a parent. If your child is in a bad situation, then give your child an alternative.

It’s okay for it to be a weird alternative.

You can switch schools. You can homeschool. You can do online school (many school boards offer credits online). You can take the GED and then do apprenticeships. At 16, you can take online classes in university (that’s what we did with our kids through Athabasca University. Then they transferred those credits to the University of Ottawa later). I wrote about this a while ago in a post on high school alternatives.

Or you can help them get super involved in something outside of school so that school doesn’t matter as much. I worked about 16 hours a week when I was in high school and loved it. My jobs became my life. They made me not care about high school. I went through the motions, I walked home for lunch so I never had to eat in the cafeteria, and I was considered popular, because I didn’t care one whit.

So, yes, it’s important that teenagers talk to their parents. That’s a good message for teens to hear. But the bigger message that this sends us, I think, is that sometimes the world we ask our kids to live in is absolutely unliveable. No amount of talking can fix that. 

What do you think? Would you ever choose an alternative for high school? Let’s talk in the comments!

The Ups and Downs of Marriage: A Timeline

Every marriage has ups and downs.

Last week I was talking about the patterns we get ourselves into in marriage, and comparing it to knitting. Sometimes we’re in a good pattern, and you know it, and you memorize it, and you can just keep going, and it makes something beautiful.

But sometimes you make a mistake, and things get messed up, and the only thing to do is to rip back a few rows and uncover the problem, and start again. You need to identify what’s wrong.

In the comments, I talked about how at different stages in our lives we’ve had to “rip out rows”, so to speak, and it’s been painful. But it usually brought about another good phase. People asked me to share what this was like, so I thought today I’d provide a timeline of our marriage, and then a bit of a commentary.

All of this is very vague in my memory of course. How do you know what triggered a good season or a bad season, or when that season was? But I’m going to try to take a stab at it here:

Years 1-3: DOWN. Getting used to each other

Our first few years were really rough, and as I’ve shared in my books, a lot of that had to do with sex. I found it awkward and uncomfortable; Keith wanted it all the time.

What we did right: We truly did love each other and we wanted to work through the issues. We sought help with counsellors; we kept trying to do fun things together; and we talked about the issues.

What we did wrong: I can’t speak for Keith, but I think I was so desperate for the marriage to be great that I rushed healing in all sorts of ways, and I tried to make things look good from the outside. Instead of really dealing with the root, I made it so that we could each feel happy, at least temporarily. And we were.

Years 4-9: UP. Loving our babies and establishing our life

These  years started out in a tiny apartment in downtown Toronto where Keith was completing his residency in pediatrics. They ended in our house in Belleville, where he started a busy practice. In between we had three babies, one of whom passed away at a month of age. They were years of sleeplessness and grief; diapers and endless laundry–but I think they were still good ones.

What we did right: We just plain enjoyed having our babies, and we made sure that we did things all together as often as possible. Keith was working ridiculous hours, and so I tried to do all of the housework so that when he was home he could either sleep or spend time with the kids. We explored Toronto, we went for walks with strollers, we had a lot of fun. When Christopher died, we didn’t grow apart, because we knew we needed each other even more.

What we did wrong: We didn’t take enough time separately to get some rest. It was such a busy time for both of us, and we didn’t get into good patterns of finding some outlets and relaxation when we needed it. That did lead to a lot of burn out.

What triggered the next low stage? Just getting tired, and having it all catch up with you.

Years 10-12: DOWN. Homeschooling and Busy with Work

We settled in in Belleville, enjoyed our church, made some friends, and I began homeschooling the girls. I loved homeschooling, and we had a ton of fun together. But Keith was just so busy. We had a lot of tension of both of us realizing that life was becoming unmanageable. I wanted some time to write, and Keith wanted some time just to himself (he was often on call 2-3 times a week, plus he had a 5-day full clinic).

What we did right: We tried to take fun vacations in the summer, but daily life was busy. We had a ton of fun with the children, and were very involved in church, and had great friends, but we didn’t have a lot of time to just be US, either individually or as a couple.

What we did wrong: When we were individually frustrated and tired, we tended to blame the other person instead of seeking a different solution. And so it became a bit of a one-upmanship: who is worse off?

Years 13-17: UP. Getting in a new groove

Keith made a major change in his work–he closed his practice and decided to only do call. So he ended up being on call 10-12 times a month, but then the rest of the time he was home. We took our first two trips to Africa as a family, and they were wonderful and really bonding.

What we did right: We created so many family memories with the kids at this stage. I know they say you’re supposed to have time, just the two of us, but we managed to get that even with the girls around. Keith cut back on his work when it just got unmanageable, and it freed up a lot of time for me to start my ministry as well.

What we did wrong: We did become a little too kid-focused and church-focused, and then, when church went wrong, it hurt me a lot.

Years 18-19: DOWN. Lots of transitions and realizations about yourself

Two years of upheavals. We moved and switched churches after many run-ins about whether it was okay for me to be a praise team leader since I was a woman (and, as a woman, was I allowed to say things like, “no matter what you’re dealing with this morning, let’s leave it at the feet of Jesus. Look to Him as you sing this song”–because that may be preaching. The deacons board debated this for a year, and Keith was on that deacon’s board, and it was very painful for everyone).

Both moves, to a new house and to a new church, ended up being good ones. But they took a lot out of us.

What we did right: We realized that our life wasn’t working, and so we made some important changes.

What we did wrong: With the upheaval, it seemed like EVERYTHING came out. And we tried to tackle too much at once, especially too much emotional stuff.

Years 20-22: UP. Loved the teenage years.

We did love the teenage years with our girls. We returned to Africa; we got involved in Bible quizzing with them; I had a great time meeting their friends. The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex came out, and that was a big celebration, and I won a huge award for that.

What we did right: We did a lot of celebrating together, and we tried to create a lot of memories for the girls before Rebecca left home.

What we did wrong: I’m not sure, but it strikes me that these were the years when I started getting very busy on the blog, and all of a sudden there was an area of my life that Keith didn’t know a whole lot about. At the same time, Keith took a job in Kingston, an hour away from us, and suddenly he wasn’t home as much anymore.

What triggered the next low period: When Rebecca left home, I started to realize my stage as a mother was ending. And was I happy with my life?

Years 23-25: DOWN. A lot of adjustments, and a lot of distance.

Us speaking together–no idea what we were saying, but the expressions seemed right!

I’ve shared some of this in 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, but there wasn’t a whole lot wrong with our marriage, and then everything seemed really bad. And I think it stemmed from the fact that we were distant from each other–Keith was working far away, and we just didn’t see each other as much.

What we did right:We talked about the problem and identified it pretty quickly.

What we did wrong: I stopped talking to Keith about my daily life. I started creating a life almost separate from his because he was gone so much. And soon you feel like  you don’t know each other.

NOW: UP, I think.

We’re still readjusting to having two girls married. Keith’s job is constantly in flux. We still haven’t figured out how we want to manage my speaking schedule. But it’s good.

As I look back over this timeline (and I’m not sure it’s really accurate; I think the bad periods were shorter than this, but it’s hard to pinpoint dates), what occurs to me is that most of our bad periods were precipitated by being very busy with work and with starting to live distant lives, but that was not the cause of it. That was the trigger. But as you feel distant, you start to wonder why. What’s the problem? And when you ask that question, you don’t just see the distance from work. You see all the other things that you’ve been bottling up, that have been bothering you. And those things become the problem.

So the real trigger isn’t really work distance; it’s honesty.

A good period in your marriage is almost always preceded by a more difficult period triggered by going to a deeper level of honesty–becoming more vulnerable, more authentic, more transparent.

These bad periods, you see, may feel bad, but often the catalyst for them is that you’re dealing with some hard stuff that has been hidden for a while. So while it feels bad, it’s actually very useful in your marrriage.

When we speak at FamilyLife Canada marriage conferences, we often speak alongside Neil and Sharol Josephson, the co-directors of the organization. They tell how the roughest year of their marriage was year 17. They dubbed it “The Year of Honesty”. Everything came out that year, and they realized there were a whole lot of conversations they had been putting off having. And so they decided that that year, they would stop putting them off. When something came up, they would talk about it. And it was painful. But sometimes you have to push through that to get to the next good cycle.

Something that trauma or abuse survivors find is that healing is ongoing, throughout one’s lifetime. You could think that you’ve been healed, and you could find fullness in life again, and then something will trigger the pain: getting married; having a child; having a child the same age you were when you were abused; having the abuser die. And at each stage, you will learn something new about how the abuse affected you. It wasn’t that the healing wasn’t real in between these triggers; it was just that the healing went as far as it was able to go until you learned more about yourself. And as you see parts of yourself that were previously closed off to you, and God slowly starts to pull the veil back, then the healing becomes ever more complete.

I think that’s what it’s like in marriage, too. Each of our downtimes was preceded by a good time (I suppose that’s a given, by the very definition?), and each was also triggered by a deeper level of honesty. But that doesn’t mean that we weren’t really being honest during those good years. I think it was that in those good years, we felt whole and healed after the previous revelations, to the extent that we were now able to see other things, deeper things. The good times laid the framework that more could be revealed.

Us on the day of Katie’s wedding

So that’s what our timeline looks like (and thanks for asking). I’d love to hear about yours. Did you have a good first few years, or bad ones? Do you feel like honesty has to do with triggering different phases? Let’s talk in the comments!

Does Your Sex Life Need a Pick-Me-Up?
Maybe it's gotten stale. Maybe it's never felt that great. Or maybe you just feel like you're missing something!

The Menopause Pep Talk You Actually Need

With thanks to Estrogem for sponsoring this post.

Hot flashes are awful.

Even your hands sweat. Your wrists get all wet. The back of your neck gets clammy. You want to strip in public–which is generally not a good idea.

You start to forget things. I’m starting to make grammar mistakes and silly spelling mistakes–and I never do that. The other day I texted my son-in-law with “here” instead of “hear”. I haven’t gotten something like that wrong since I was 6.

Your sex drive can plummet, too. You start to feel foggy. It can be harder to focus, and harder to motivate yourself.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that I get a LOT of emails from women in their late 40s and 50s saying that they feel as if they should just accept it–life as it was is over, and this is the new me now.

And all too often, the new me does not involve sex.

The drive is gone. It’s not as fun. It’s a lot of work. And haven’t we earned the right, after all these years, to just focus on what we ACTUALLY want to do, instead of always having to focus on what our husbands want? Is that really too much to ask when the hormones are going all wacky and you’re tired anyway?

Okay, ladies. I get it. I do.

I’m in the throes of it, too.

But let me tell you something: Menopause does not have to be awful.

Certainly there are changes that we’re going to have to get used to. But menopause does not mean your life is over. Menopause signals a new stage in your life, and that stage can actually be quite fun!

You have no more periods (or at least lighter and far more infrequent ones). Think about that for a moment. No. More. Periods.

No more having to look at a calendar to figure out if you really want to go away that weekend. No more wondering if a trip to the beach will be a bad idea that day. No more having to be afraid you’ve leaked, you’ve forgotten a tampon, or you just plain feel icky.

In our early years we’re often focused on other people’s satisfaction and happiness: especially our husbands and our kids. With menopause often comes a stage of life where kids don’t need us in the same way anymore, and our relationship with our husbands has often gotten “into the groove” (or at least a good pattern), so you can ask yourself: “who do I want to be? What makes me essentially me?”

This is a great time to try new things.

Eliza Hamilton, wife of the now famous Alexander Hamilton, didn’t start her Orphan Asylum until she was 49–and she continued working there until her death at 94. Before then she had dedicated her life to her husband and her kids, and she wanted to give back.
My aunt, an anaesthetist, started flying around the world three times a year to do medical missions trips, beginning when she was 53. She continued until she retired at 70, visiting The Philippines, Nepal, Rwanda, and others.
Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t write her books until she was 64.
Susan Boyle appeared on Britain’s Got Talent when she was 48.
Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister when she was 54.
Martha Stewart started her magazine at 49.
Corrie ten Boom was arrested by the Nazis for hiding Jews when she was 52; her speaking and writing ministry followed after the war, and lasted until she died at age 91.

Menopause does not mean your life is over. Menopause means your new life may just be beginning.

So please, let’s not give up. I know this is such a difficult time for many women. Night sweats can mean you never get a good night’s sleep. You can be cranky. Irritable. And really frustrated that you don’t feel at home in your body anymore.

But may I suggest something?

Please don’t settle for the good years being behind you.

When you hit menopause, there’s almost this lightbulb that goes off that says,

“I don’t need to care so much about what other people think. I can rest in who I know God made me to be.”

If at 50 you are still not part of the cool kid’s club, it is high time you build your own clubhouse and invite all the other interesting, passionate and amazing people who never made the cut either. You clubhouse will be more fun, do bigger things for the world, and have way better cookies. Promise.

Kathi Lipp, from Clutter Free

I used to be SUPER sensitive about the idea of leaving my 40’s behind, when I hit 50 recently. The dreaded “middle-aged” label seemed like such a dead end. But now I realize: God really has given those with more experience, more to share with others – and more ability to be heard! Of course, we have plenty to share with the world when we’re in our 20’s, 30’s and 40’s… but once we hit 50 we have all that same insight AND the benefit of years of experience AND the benefit of people giving us credit for that experience! It’s actually kind of fun!

Shaunti Feldhahn, Author

You can stop worrying so much about whether you’re pretty enough. You often get extra energy to start a new exercise regimen, as you start to realize that if you don’t take care of your body now, your senior years may be difficult.

I have learned to be comfortable in my body but to still work hard to take care of it so I can live longer and stringer for God. And I have learned marriage gets sweeter year after year if you keep investing in your love.

Pam Farrel, author at LoveWise.

You often have more time and more money than you did a decade ago, so you can get together with friends more. You can pursue new hobbies. You can take pilates! You can spearhead a charity.

And in the middle of that, as you get more confident in yourself, you can even get more confident in your sexuality.

You can embrace sexual confidence because you’re more willing to speak up about what you need. You start to realize that if you don’t get this right now, you’re never going to get it right! So you can start telling yourself, “Sex was created for me, too, and I’m going to make sure that I get all the benefits of sex myself!” You stop thinking of sex as something that’s for your husband, and you start realizing, “I need to make sure this is for both of us!”

I have seen too many women go a different path. They just give up. They use menopause as justification for not having to try in different areas of their lives. But that’s just sad to me. You have so much ahead of you!

And if menopause has knocked you flat, I feel you. I do. But you can get back up again!

One of the things that I’ve found has really helped me with feeling foggy and with hot flashes–well, has really helped me feel more like me–is Estro-Gem. It’s not ONLY for menopause. It works to balance hormones and to help your body regulate your hormones so they don’t go all wacky on you, and you don’t get as many “bursts” that can cause hot flashes. But it can also help regulate the ups and downs over the month so that your libido is higher, so that you don’t get as many “lows”, so that you just in general feel better.

I’m so glad that EstroGem is a big sponsor of this blog, because they sent me a bunch of freebies.

A True Life Story of Healing after Sexual Shame: Beauty from Ashes

One of the things the #metoo and #churchtoo movements have highlighted is the burden of sexual shame.

Sometimes that burden comes through no fault of our own–we were targeted, and we were victims.

Other times shame comes because we made mistakes. But even those mistakes are often hard to tease out. Let’s face it: many of the bad decisions that we make in our lives have their root in real pain, even if that pain was not intentionally inflicted. Combine that with some intentional pain, and it leaves real brokenness.

Not all of our mistakes stem from simple sin and selfishness, you see. Many stem from brokenness–from pain that isn’t processed and isn’t brought before Christ.

One of my favourite posts on this blog is a longer one from the 2014 archives, where I shared a personal story from by Joy McMillan, who asked me to review her new book XES: Why Church Girls Tend to Get it Backwards…And How to Get it Right. I read it and wrote an endorsement. But I was so touched by her personal story of sexual shame and redemption, and I knew my readers would be, too, that I asked Joy if I could run an excerpt from her book on the blog. I did that a few years ago, but her story seems even more relevant now. So I’m going to run the first part again today (and the second part is linked below, so you can keep reading!).

Here’s Joy:

My older sister and I were born in Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up in Windhoek, Namibia, where our parents moved to a few years later to avoid the discrimination of the apartheid government. That may sound unusual coming from a white South African, but my parents were passionate about us growing up in multi-racial schools, and felt led to transplant our family in what was then called South West Africa. A few years later, my younger sister arrived, and 3 years after that, our baby sister.

If you’re doing the math, yes, that’s 4 girls. And a mum. And yes, my dad is a rockstar.

Random fun fact: with my dad also hailing from South Africa and my mom from Zimbabwe, our family of six were born in 3 different countries across Southern Africa.

I have many fond memories of my young childhood, and a startling amount of negative ones. Not because there were more negative than positive, not by a long shot, but because I think that this tends to be the way our brains process life. And the way the enemy of our souls wages war on the battlefield of the mind.

It floors me how, looking back, I can recall things my parents did in complete innocence that were misinterpreted and twisted in my vulnerable little heart. My older sister, with her skinny little body, did ballet. I, however, was “muscular,” so I did gymnastics, even though I ached to dance. Sarah, with her beautiful brown eyes, looked lovely in pink, so she got a pink ballerina dress. A blue dress was a natural fit for me with my piercing blue eyes. Sarah’s hair was straight and long. Mine, on the other hand, was curly. Only nobody knew this. We lived in a semi-arid desert climate, much like Arizona, which is very unsupportive of follicularly swirly girls. And let me just tell you, if you’re going to brush a gal’s hair like it’s straight — when it’s not — and not give her any anti-frizz serum to make it look good, it is not going to cooperate. And it didn’t. My super fine, frizzy hair went every which way, except when we made trips to the coast. Then it curled and looked lovely. Who knew!? So, my mum kept it cut short because it was the only way to manage my mop.

Blue dress. Short hair. No ballet. Large Unabomber glasses. They all spelled out the same thing: “You are not feminine, Joy, in fact you’re sort of like a boy.” It didn’t help that I naturally gravitated to the boys, because they were uncomplicated and fun, which further alienated me from the girls. When my body started to do weird things and the boys wondered what was going on, I simply lifted my shirt and said, “Yeah…check it out…isn’t that crazy? I’m sprouting boobs! Wanna touch em?” I was just one of the boys, and while I loved feeling like I belonged, I ached to feel accepted within my own tribe…

I started snipping diet tips from beauty magazines and compiling health folders before I hit my double-digits. I became obsessed with my appearance, desperate to battle the bulge before it battled me. Watching my mom struggle with her weight for as long as I could recall, and seeing the resemblance in how we were built, struck a fear in me that fueled my obsession.

Despite the lies I believed about my lack of worth and value, I became that girl. The one making out with the boys at every middle school dance, not because I really loved to suck face, but because it made me feel pursued and valued, and was, admittedly, rather fun to shock the other girls. I had a new ‘boyfriend’ every week and lapped up the false sense of confidence it provided me.

While I started to appear happy and confident on the outside, I was empty and broken inside.

My family moved to America near the end of 1994, where I attended my second high school. Talk about culture shock. By the time I had found my feet and nestled into a good group of friends, our visas had expired and we were moving back home to Namibia. With the difference in school year (our school year mirrors the calendar year, while a school year in the States runs from September through June), I begged my parents to allow me to try correspondence schooling, rather than repeat 6 months of school, and struggle once again to fit in with the other kids who’d maintained their friendships in my absence.

The few friends who had stayed in touch with me during my 18 months overseas, via snail mail, were eager to hear how life had treated me. And I was not one to disappoint. I conjured up all sorts of stories about beach volleyball and cheerleading, of which I knew nothing, because the pitiful time I’d spend shuffling through the halls, trying not to be noticed, was too painful to relive. Lying became second nature to me, and with no one to contradict my stories, I simply painted the picture of the life I’d wanted to live. I created the image of the girl I wanted to be, and they bought it, hook, line and sinker.

It seemed, for a time, that life was looking up for me, but the veneer was only paper thin.

After years of childishly dabbling in promiscuity, and yet never crossing the virginity line firmly established in our conservative Christian home, I started dating older boys on the sly. In September of 1996, shortly after I turned 15, I met the sons of one of my dad’s colleagues who were visiting from England. I quickly connected with the older one and started spending more time with him. Little did I know of the competition raging behind the scenes in this testosterone-charged household, and the night before their family flew back home, they spiked my drink and the younger one took me downstairs to his room. I don’t recall much of the rest of the night, except spending the wee hours of the morning rocking in the fetal position in my older sister’s bedroom repeating, “I’m not a virgin, I’m not a virgin, I’m not a virgin.” And then there was the phone call I received from a very angry older brother who wanted to know what the hell I’d done with his brother (that I’d refused to do with him) the night before.

I knew little, but I knew enough.

This was a pivotal point in my journey. Life as I knew it had officially changed. The little value I felt I had left had been taken from me, and I suddenly had no reason to say, “no.” I threw myself into the arms of any interested male in a hopeless attempt to find significance. I used people and pleasure to temporarily numb the pain, desperately trying to quench my thirst for meaning and value.

Following in the steps of Adam and Eve, I allowed my shame to drive me into hiding, away from exposure and away from God.

The deeper I slipped into promiscuity, the harder it was to get out. Not only was I worthless, now I was dirty.

I jumped from relationship to relationship, going home from the bar with boys I barely knew, often much older than myself. I was only 15, but looked much older, and in a country where underage drinking was the norm and no one was carded, I continued to slip beneath the radar. I had a love-hate relationship with this thing I had going on. I loved the temporary thrill of being pursued, but I hated that it only briefly drowned out the loneliness and isolation. Once over the high, I slipped further into the dark.

“One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” Proverbs 27:7

I remember lying dazed in some guy’s bed late one night when his housemate returned home. There had been no tenderness, no affection. Only business, without any form of protection. And now, with a third person in the room, there was no introduction. No closing of doors. No respect. Only a sick awareness that I was his prey for the night and the joke was on me. He threw me my clothes and quietly drove me back to the bar where he left me. The next time I saw him was on the rugby field, where I discovered he played for our national team.

You might have thought, by the way I strutted my stuff around town, that I was making a bold proclamation to clear up any doubts about my questionable femininity, “See people, I have a vagina…and I’m not afraid to use it.” But it was nothing that blatant. Or glamorous.

It was a well assembled front that afforded me the attention I craved, while quietly destroying any remaining shreds of my identity.

I’d nab the boys with my charm and enjoy the temporary thrill of feeling valued. But then it would be time to cough up the goods, and I’d feel stuck. I couldn’t escape the hell hole I’d dug for myself, so I learned quickly to run away mentally, while remaining present — albeit half-dead — physically. A habit it took me years to break once married.

I was drowning, and no one knew it.
'I was drowning, and no one knew it.' A real life story of dealing with sexual shame: Click To Tweet

Looking back I’ve wondered where my parents were while I traipsed around town, wasted and used. But as I get older and wiser, and after several hard conversations with them, I’ve realized that they were battling their own devils. Knee-deep in good works, they were busy proving their own worth and value, while raising 4 girls.

While my older sister had openly rebelled and fast earned herself the label of ‘black sheep’, I was still trying desperately to keep my iniquities hidden. I had seen the devastation my sister’s exit from our faith had caused my parents, and had determined to not put them through that again. So I was a respectful, hard-working student by day and a faithful pew-warming kid on Sunday mornings…and a bar-hopping floozy by night.

During this same year, I started shop-lifting. It started small, with a lipbalm here or a pack of gum there, and grew to include near daily fixes of clothes, CDs and make-up. Getting things for free became such a thrill, despite the gnawing awareness that what I was doing was wrong, that when I finally committed to stop (years later), it was incredibly hard. Unless you’ve experience the pull of an addiction, and the cycle of adrenaline and pleasure you experience, it’s hard to understand the way in which it sucks you in and then quickly spirals out of control.

I lost two little side-jobs that year as a result of stealing. I even stole several home pregnancy tests that I hurriedly took in grocery story bathrooms, vowing to God that if he would not make me pregnant, I would stop what I was doing. I knew that if that little line were to imply ‘with child’, that I would be thrust into a new world of scary choices and heart-breaking consequences.

When my parents discovered I had stolen their bank card and had made several withdrawals, and after they’d driven around town early one morning trying to locate me after I’d lied about where I’d spent the night, they knew correspondence schooling had afforded me freedom I had no place managing. Into my third high school I went, where I earned the nickname “the body” and started dating the older brother of a school friend. I kept the fact that he had a son a secret, as I was sure my parents couldn’t handle the truth.

More secrets, more separation.

As the crowd I spent time with morphed into a different breed of people, pornography became something I was regularly exposed to. Once again fueling the dump of adrenaline that coursed through my young veins, I got sucked further out to sea.

When we got the news that our visas had been renewed, and that we would be returning to the States, I was all too happy to leave a country that had grown to represent a season of so much guilt and shame.

Two weeks before we flew out, while visiting family in South Africa, I met a young man. I had just turned 16, and he’d just turned 21. We got hammered, along with 2 others, then went for a joyride out on the town. Trucking down a main street in Cape Town at a ridiculous speed, we hit the broadside of a taxi that had pulled out in front of us. The next thing I knew I was getting a morphine shot in my butt and surgery scheduled for my jaw, broken in two places. You would think that the events of the evening would act as perfectly clear warning signals, but I was too blind to recognize them.

Our relationship continued, long-distance, over the next two and a half years.

I viewed moving across the world as a much-needed fresh start, and I could, once again, present the image of the person I hoped to be. Only this time…one unblemished by sexual baggage. I started my senior year at a small town school (my 4th high school, if you’re keeping track), and slunk into the background. Sadly, having an accent makes you stand out by default, but with ‘insecure’ written all over my face, I became prime real estate for those meanies looking for a target.

I had transitioned from a young girl who loved people and thrived in school to a shattered young woman who was afraid of letting people in and who hated the emotional torture of school. I was terrified of my mask slipping, convinced that if anyone knew who I really was, I would be hung out to dry.

While I wasn’t physically bullied or tormented, the battle that raged in my head made any encounter with unfriendly people miserable. If someone laughed in the hallway while I was walking through it, they were laughing at me. If more than one person smiled at me when I walked in to the room, it was because I was the butt of their joke. When people didn’t greet me in passing, I thought it was because they didn’t like me. I longed to be invisible, and yet, watching others blossom in things I was too scared to try out for — like sports or theater — made my heart ache for more. I was desperately jealous of their confidence and courage, but the thought of risking failure was too much to bear.

So I stayed in my shell, dragging my dirty-girl secrets everywhere I went. When my boyfriend would come up to visit, for months at a time, I’d quietly slip back into the lifestyle I’d lived back home, and then seamlessly revert back once he left.

After I had graduated, and while working on my massage therapy certification at the local community college, this boyfriend of mine popped the question. It wasn’t really a lovely surprise seeing I’d sort of pushed him into it. I was convinced he was the only one who would ever want me, so I informed him that this was the natural progression of our relationship. I bugged him to hurry up and buy me a ring… while simultaneously insisting that we stop having sex. Not really a good combination for the average male.

God had started to woo my heart and there were certain things I knew I had to weed out of my life in order to get my life back in order.

Little did I know, a new girlfriend had popped up on the other side of the globe — one who wasn’t insisting on a ring or pushing for purity — and when the email arrived that 18th day of February 2000, informing me that it was no longer working out and that we should go our separate ways, the world as I knew it crumbled. I slept and wept, unable to get out of my bed, spinning that meaningless new ring on my finger.

Renewed

But this, my friend, is where it starts to get good….

Read Part 2 of Joy’s story here.

And find out even more–with a ton more of her story–by buying Joy’s book XES today!

If you’ve enjoyed these excerpts from Joy’s book, XES: Why Church Girls Tend to Get it Backwards…And How to Get It Right, pick it up now! She shares not just her own story but also what she’s learned along the way about how to nurture a fulfilling sexual relationship with her husband, too–despite sexual baggage, exhaustion from kids, or shame.

Joy McMillan is a freelance graphic designer, writer, conference speaker, and tea drinker extraordinaire. She is the founder of Simply Bloom Productions LLC, a creative little company with a big heart and an even bigger dream.

Joy & Joe have been involved in leadership & marriage ministry for as long as they’ve been married (2003), and with one foot planted firmly in the law enforcement world, they feel a tremendous burden to champion and celebrate God’s passion & purpose for marriage.

Originally hailing from Southern Africa, Joy lives with her scrumptious husband and two beautiful loin-fruit in Michigan.

I’m Answering Some of Your Sex Questions Today!

I know a lot of you have some pretty specific sex questions you’d like answered.

I’ve tried to tackle some of them on the blog (you can see a huge roundup of some of my most important questions about marriage here). And when I give my Girl Talk event in churches, I have a time where people can submit anonymous questions, and I try to cover as many as I can in 15 minutes.

I had a few questions left over from my events in Australia that I just couldn’t get to. Last week I ran 18 sex questions in a post. Then I decided that I would record some videos to answer the ones that I didn’t get to there.

Now, for those of you who are reading this on my blog, I’m not sure if you know, but every Friday I send out an email to my subscribers with a roundup of all the posts from that week, as well as links to the most popular posts on all my social media channels. Then I include something extra–a new freebie, some personal pictures and “behind the scenes” look at what’s happening on the blog, extra information from one of the blog posts I didn’t get to. And I try to do some videos every month as well.

And it’s all free!

Last Friday I sent out this video answering two more sex questions, and this Friday I’ll be answering a few more.

Even though I don’t normally share the videos that go out to subscribers (they’re private and just for them), I thought I’d include this one here, just so you can see what subscribers get.

Now, it’s not super edited or anything (I don’t have time to do that), but it is a much more personal touch. I actually like answering questions in video format, and I may do that more on the blog in the future!

But in the meantime, if you want to make sure you’re not missing anything, why not sign up to receive my emails? Like I said–it’s free!

Are You in a Good Pattern for Your Marriage?

When we were on our speaking tour in Australia in May, we drove a grand total of 6000 km.

Or rather, my husband drove 6000 km. In a campervan. On the wrong side of the road.

There was no way I was driving that thing! (My husband is a good man with far more spatial ability than me).

Thus, I had a lot of time on my hands. Literally. And when I have time on my hands. I knit.

I brought with me a pair of socks that I had been knitting, but had put down a few months ago. On the trip from Canberra to Sydney, I pulled them out again. I had knit one sock almost down to the heel, but that was it. And as I reached for them in my bag, I realized that I had forgotten the pattern at home.

I had a brief momentary panic, but then I decided, “don’t think too hard, Sheila. You know how to do this. Just knit.”

And so I started.

And I realized something. With socks, you don’t really need a pattern, because there just IS one.

The heel is half the number of stitches of the whole. You do half the number of THAT in slip stitch repeats before turning the heel. To turn the heel, you have half the number of THAT of stitches between the decreases. To pick up the heel flap, use the number of slip stitch repeats. Decrease for the toe every other row until half are decreased, then every row until half are decreased again.

(As an aside: If you understand what that means, find me on Ravelry. I’m sheilagregoire!).

And so I knit two socks. I finished the pair the day before we could do laundry. I had run out of socks, and it was very cold, and I was grateful. (Granted, I took this picture when we got home, but you get the idea).

It occurred to me over the trip that marriage can be a lot like that. You get in this rhythm, and you don’t have to think about it very much to be able to do the most complicated things.

Keith and I were living in a tiny box for a few weeks. It was cramped, but because of our rhythm, we made do. We can finish each other’s sentences. We know what each other is thinking. He knows how I like my eggs and fruit in the morning; I know how he likes the bathroom and kitchen stuff organized so we don’t trip over each other. We have a rhythm of what to do when we wake up; when we cook; even when we end up at a gas station. And we don’t have to say anything.

And we can laugh as we drive. We can share in short form. We can say half a line from a movie out of the blue and laugh for five minutes. We know how to get ready to speak at marriage conferences with very little preparation now, because it’s all one big rhythm. And it’s nice.

That’s what happens when you’ve been married for 27 years. You develop a rhythm, and you don’t have to think, “how do we act right now? How do we show love right now? What does my husband need?”

But what if the rhythm that you’ve established isn’t a healthy one?

I’m grateful for the rhythm we have. But this week I’ve been reminded that a healthy rhythm that builds something beautiful is not what we all experience.

One comment left this weekend was so raw and  honest and I appreciated it so much. A woman was replying to the post I ran last week asking, “what if YOU’RE the reason your sex life isn’t great”, about how sometimes a husband can do everything, and it won’t work because she doesn’t actually want it to work. And she said this:

Our marriage is solid in every area except sex. And I am the problem. And I hate it. Because I know it hurts my husband. And I hate hurting him. And I feel like there is no good reason for it. But I can’t seem to get around it either. My issues stem from two places: Purity culture and I am a control freak (I went and read the linked article). I recognize that these two things are the problem. But I just don’t know how to get past them. As far as purity culture, consistently reading TLHV and other Christian marriage blogs has definitely made a difference. I still struggle with body shame, etc. But, I’m getting better though. And I have hope for this particular issue. But I have no idea how to stop being a perfectionistic control freak. I understand why it is damaging, why I need to work through it, but how? HOW?

She’s out of sync. It’s not working.

What I’ve found with knitting, especially complicated patterns, is that if you’re off by one stitch, all the cables stop lining up and the lace stops lining up and even if you try to take a stitch back a few rows it may not always work. Sometimes the only thing to do is to rip out a few rows. Maybe even a lot of rows. But that’s the only way.

And sometimes that’s what we have to do, too. We have to look at the layers that we have built in our marriage–the habits, the coping patterns, the rhythms that we have got into, and we have to rip them out and start over. We have to say, “we’re doing this wrong. This isn’t helping.”

In her case, she needs to rip, rip, rip and see what the root of her issue is. Why can she not be vulnerable (since a failure to be able to be vulnerable is often at the heart of control issues)? Speak to a counsellor. Study the heart of God. Find the root. And then, slowly, with patience and care, start that pattern again.

But sometimes everything can seem fine, and then, after a few years, it all falls apart.

You’ve been walking and wearing and dancing and running and everything worked, until the weak spots started to give way. Holes formed. Problems became clear. And you were stuck.

One of the beauties of knit socks is that, when the undersoles wear out or holes appear, you can rip out and reknit. You can take a perfectly good pair of socks that has been hurt and damaged and make something new again.

Sometimes you have to use different wool, because the old stuff won’t work. Sometimes you have to change what they look like. But they can be comfortable and warm again.

As some of you who follow me on Facebook may know, I’ve been involved this week in a Twitter “episode” with a Southern Baptist pastor with whom I was debating submission, who, when I started to make some arguments, accused me of being emotional, easily deceived (as a woman), said that he should talk to my husband instead, and later called me uneducated and said he was praying for poor Keith.

I’ll write about it more later; if you want the details, follow me on Twitter or look at my Facebook Page.

I’ve had some pushback, with some telling me I’ve been very negative this week (I think much of that, honestly, is jetlag!).

But it is not all jetlag. What I have seen, over and over again on this blog, is that sometimes we can have a good marriage, a good heart, a lovely family, and a church can hurt us. We can be wounded. We can have holes put in us.

Not all church congregations act like the body of Christ. Sometimes, instead of acting like our Saviour who poured out His life and was wounded, those churches wound others.

And in those moments, it’s easy to want to give up. To abandon the whole thing. To throw up your hands and say, “God can’t be real; God can’t love me; God can’t be loving if people can act like this.” I have seen so many say this–to me, to others on social media. So many who are hurting.

I get it, dear reader. I hear your pain. My family has been in some beautiful, life-giving congregations, and we have had to leave others tearfully, with grief, because of the pain that was caused to us and our children.

But Jesus does not wound. Jesus does not throw darts. Jesus does not make holes; Jesus mends them.

And let me say–if someone has left holes in you, Jesus wants to reknit that (and excuse me for stretching the metaphor).

There has been so much in the news this week about the wider church, especially in the United States. Some of it has been disheartening; some of it has been encouraging. It comes on the tail end of depressing story after story. If you know none of this, rejoice and don’t worry about it. Excuse me if you’ve found me negative; I think these things are important and God is bringing them to light, but if they are not part of your world, Hallelujah!

If, on the other hand, you are hurting from it, please know: not all churches are like this. 

Let me repeat that.

Not all churches are like this.

The body of Christ exists, and it is knit together, with Him as the head, and it honestly does function and heal. If you are in a congregation that has wounded you or wounded your marriage, it’s okay to find another congregation. It’s okay to go looking outside of your normal comfort zone. And please, do the looking. Do the searching. Don’t give up.

Keith and I are in a beautiful rhythm, and I am grateful. But life is not always like that. Sometimes you don’t know the pattern, and you have to go back. Sometimes you have to rip out and make something new. But don’t give up. Keep going.

And knit with God something beautiful.

When Air Canada Wouldn’t Feed My Husband After He Rescued a Passenger

Last Thursday I got back from Australia, flying Air Canada from Sydney to Vancouver and then to Toronto.

And I am SO TIRED. I have major jetlag. I was actually worse yesterday than on the weekend. It’s really hitting me. And I’m not sleeping even though I’m so tired (and taking tons of melatonin).

So I’m seriously not that coherent, and I had an awesome post about menopause I wanted to write for today, but I don’t think I can be coherent enough.

I thought, instead, that I’d just tell you a story about what happened to us on the flight home.

Sydney to Vancouver is a LONG flight–I think about 15 or 16 hours.

We were fed a hot meal shortly after take off, but airplane meals are so small. Like less than the size of a dessert plate. Halfway through the flight we were given chicken caesar wraps. Then, about an hour before we landed in Vancouver, they came around with a hot breakfast–an omelette, a hashbrown, a sausage, and a roll and an apple.

Keith ate the roll and the apple, and he was about to eat the hot meal when an announcement came over the loud speaker.

“If there is anyone on the flight with medical knowledge, can you please assist a passenger and the crew at the back of the plane.”

Without a word, I stood up (I was in the aisle), and my husband got out and went to the back of the plane. A short time later a flight attendant handed me an envelope with a legal document excusing Keith from being sued for anything, and a voucher for 30% off another flight, which was kind.

I didn’t see Keith again until after the paramedics took the man off of the flight when we landed, and he rejoined me. (The man was fine; I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t serious).

However, we figured that one of the reasons the man had issues is that after 14 hours in the air, with little food and not too much water, you’re just hungry and dehydrated. And as we got off the plane in Vancouver, Keith confessed that he was rather hungry, too.

We had to deplane in Vancouver to go through customs, but then we were supposed to get right back on the plane. So we dutifully shuffled through the customs line, filled out our little forms, showed our passports, and then headed back to the gate to start the boarding process again–a gate with no restaurants. And we didn’t have much time to get something to eat, anyway.

Keith stood in line with our baggage, and I decided that I was going to try to do something nice for my husband.

I was going to make sure that as soon as we got on the plane, he’d get some food.

At the gate counter there were four Air Canada agents, I believe, and one woman wearing that yellow jacket that crossing guards wear. They all looked quite busy; there weren’t customers at the counter, and boarding hadn’t started quite yet, but I think they were trying to arrange for seat upgrades, etc. It was a very big plane heading to Toronto, so tons of passengers.

I walked up to the first Air Canada agent, who seemed to have a lull in her activities, and explained that my husband was one of the medical personnel who had assisted on the flight from Sydney, and so he was hungry and he needed a meal on the flight to Toronto.

Oh, that’s no problem. There’s lots of food available on board for purchase!

Ummmmm, no. I told her that he was not going to buy any food, because we had paid for a meal from Sydney, and he had not had a chance to eat it because he was responding to their call for help. So we needed a meal to replace it.

She told  us that was impossible. They couldn’t do that.

So I went to the second Air Canada agent. She was obviously annoyed (she was trying to change people’s seating) and told me that she couldn’t help me.

So I went to the woman who looked like she was in charge, and I started telling our story a little more loudly. The people around me started looking at the Air Canada agents as if they had two heads. Seriously, you can’t give the doctor a free meal after he helped one of your passengers and missed his meal?

Finally she just said, “Okay, fine,” and printed off a voucher for $15. She didn’t say thank you for helping the passenger, though.

Nevertheless, I felt like this was a minor victory and I headed back in line, and within a few minutes we had boarded.

Once the seat belt sign was off, Keith pressed the call button so that we could get some help and ask for the meal. No one came. About half an hour later the flight attendants came by to hand out drinks, and we asked about food, and told them our problem, and they said that the flight attendants would be taking orders soon.

Sure enough, about an hour later the flight attendants did come to take orders. We tried to order, but they said they couldn’t take orders for vouchers. We would have to wait. They could only take orders if you had pre-ordered your meals. So we were out of luck.

By now it’s a good an hour and a half into the flight. I’m getting increasingly perturbed. But then the stewardess comes back and says that it turns out we were on the pre-order list (I guess my assistant Tammy had pre-ordered some meals for us when she booked the flights, but I hadn’t known that) and so therefore she could indeed take our order, rather than making us wait.

So, to be clear, if Tammy had NOT pre-ordered the meals, we would have to wait until AFTER the pre-orders had been served to get a meal. And by now we had made it known to all of the gate agents and two flight attendants why Keith was hungry. 

Now, this is a minor thing. It’s just a meal, and we did eventually get one, and Keith did not die of starvation or anything.

But here’s what bothers me so much about customer service:

Would it have been that difficult for one of the gate agents to pick up a phone and call the flight attendants on the plane, and said, “Hey, there’s a guy in 37B who helped us out on the last flight, and could you guys just get him a meal first thing on the flight?” 

I know it wasn’t a usual problem. It was outside of the realm of the normal. But it wasn’t a difficult request. It wouldn’t have taken long to have helped us. And if the flight crew had honestly been made aware of what was going on, instead of having to deal with us trying to explain hurriedly as they were trying to take those carts up the aisles, I’m sure the flight crew wouldn’t have minded helping us.

It takes so little for someone to say, “Sure, let me just make this my problem.”

Because that’s what customer service really is, isn’t it? It’s someone saying: Let me make this my problem.

And that’s what we’re missing today. You can’t put that in a rule book or a procedure book; there are too many possible contingencies and you could never cover them all

Ummm… we need to a procedure on what to do if a doctor misses a meal right before the flight lands because he’s helping us out, and then he’s in a gate with no restaurant and no chance to eat, and then he’s immediately back on one of our flights….

Yeah, you can’t make a procedure for that. All you can do is hire people who will say, “Sure, let me make that my problem.”

And then empower them to do something about it.

Seriously, Air Canada, he was just hungry. And he just wanted a meal. And it would have taken so little effort to get him one. Thank you for the voucher. We appreciate it. And Keith would have helped the guy even without it.

But let’s all just ask, “in our jobs, am I doing everything only strictly by the book? Or am I owning issues and solving them when I can?” 

Because THAT is what makes an excellent employee.

What do you think? Ever had a GREAT experience with customer service? Or a terrible one? Let me know in the comments!

By the way–best experience with someone “making it my problem” that I’ve ever had was with FedEx shipping. One of my shipments got caught in customs and they hadn’t notified me properly, and it was only one day before my engagement in California. I called FedEx crying–and the woman personally made sure the shipment flew out that night. She was amazing, and really nice. And I sent her a nice package afterwards. I hope she moved up in the company–she showed that you simply had to be human and had to have empathy for people!

18 Questions about Sex from My Girl Talks

At my Girl Talk events, where I talk sex & marriage to groups of women in churches, we have an anonymous Q&A time where I try to get through as many questions as I can.

Usually I get through them all–but sometimes there are just too many for me to answer.

Me answering questions at a Girl Talk in Ontario!

I have a whole stack left over from my trip to Australia, and I thought that I’d take today and try to answer them! So here goes:

1. What happens if my husband is just not interested in sex at all? He never asked to have sex since we got married and is not turned on even if I’m naked?

I’m really sorry you’re going through that, and that’s a huge red flag to me. It may be low testosterone, but given that he’s not interested in you naked, I think it’s something deeper than that. It could be that he’s homosexual; it could be that he’s really into pornography, and thus can’t respond to an actual woman; it could be that he has deep seated emotional issues that aren’t resolved. A few posts that may help:

10 Red Flags about Sex and Marriage
What to do when your husband doesn’t want to make love (a 4-part series)

2. How do I deal with porn being part of my partner’s life?

Quite simply, you can’t. Porn and marriage and relationships don’t go together. Porn will wreck his desire for you, make sex become selfish rather than intimate, and make him angry and distant. It simply cannot be tolerated. Two posts that can help:

What porn does to your brain, marriage, and sex life
4 things you must do if your husband uses porn

3. Is masturbation bad?

I think masturbation before marriage is a part of most people’s lives, but if it becomes chronic and a real habit, it can make sex much more difficult. The problem is that the stimulation from masturbation is exact–you know exactly what feels good. A husband can’t do that for you. The stimulation you’ll get in marriage isn’t actually as intense. Also, masturbation usually relies on fantasy to reach climax, and fantasy can hinder intimacy during sex. I think it’s better to take that energy and throw it into a hobby or art or something else!

And I’ve also written about masturbation in marriage, too.

4. How do you manage chronic health conditions when it’s difficult to have sex & help your husband understand?

You married in sickness and in health, and sometimes stuff just happens. And that’s terrible, and you need to grieve it, but for many people it is the reality. I would say this: Do what you can. Sexual release is incredibly relaxing and can actually help with many chronic conditions, like pain and anxiety. And even if intercourse isn’t possible, sexual release may be in other ways. And you can still be naked together and massage each other. So don’t give up on intimacy or sexuality altogether, and keep talking to your husband about how you can make this part of your life as good as possible. Some posts on it;

Sexuality and disability
Sexual options when intercourse isn’t possible

5. I haven’t been able to reach orgasm with my husband in 30 years of marriage. Is it just impossible for some?

No, biologically it isn’t. But it can be more difficult. Sometimes it’s psychological issues of shame. Sometimes it’s relational issues where we aren’t able to be vulnerable and let go. Sometimes it’s biological issues where blood flow isn’t as great to the genital area. And sometimes we just honestly need to learn what makes us feel good!

A few posts that can help:

How to Reach the Big O
How to Become More Orgasmic
HoneyMoon Blues to Over the Rainbow (you may want to take her advice in this post!)

6. What about sex after menopause?

I’ll be writing more about this tomorrow, but it’s still totally possible for sex to be great! Here’s some help:

5 Keys to Sex After Menopause
How to Reach Orgasm after Menopause

7. Do you get UTIs after sex?

Some people certainly do, which is why it’s important to urinate after sex and before you go to sleep! I’ve got a post on yeast infections and sex, and a lot of the advice is the same.

8. How do you make sex good if it physically hurts?

You deal with what’s causing the pain! (and I’m so sorry, by the way. I’ve been there).

I’ve got a resource page for those suffering from vaginismus right here, with links to the best posts.

There can be other kinds of pain, though. Lichen sclerosus can make sex painful and itchy, and other conditions can also greatly affect it. My advice? See a physiotherapist to see what they can do. Change your diet and your cleaning/beauty products. Go as natural as possible. See if those things help.

And in the meantime, do a LOT of foreplay and touching that does feel good, and keep working on the root cause of the pain.

9. What if you’ve already regrettedly had sex with your fiance, will that greatly affect the marriage? We’ve both asked for forgiveness from God.

When I wrote The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, what I found was that those who reported the absolute best sex in marriage were those who had waited until they were married. However, those who had only had sex with their fiances really weren’t very far behind, and a lot of the lag was likely caused by some unresolved issues over the disappointment, etc.

Here’s the problem: when we have sex too early in the relationship, sex can replace the emotional intimacy we were experiencing, and so sometimes rather than progressing to being emotional vulnerable you just become sexually active, and then when you marry you don’t know each other as well.

So my advice? Just make sure you’re really being emotionally vulnerable now. Learn everything you can about each other. And remember that once you’re married, God WANTS to bless your sex life. He doesn’t want you stuck or to punish yourself. So yes, wait for sex now. But then move on. Live in the grace of God. And do what you can to truly get to know each other now!

10. What’s the best way to approach intimacy before marriage?

A similar question, but the big thing I’d say is learn how to do life together! You can’t tell if someone is a good marriage partner unless you’ve done the day-to-day and you’ve seen how they react in normal situations. And then talk, talk, talk. Get some hobbies to do together so that you can spend a lot of time just talking.

How to Prepare for Marriage, and not just the wedding

11. Does sex hurt? And if so, how much? Do you bleed?

For most women, the first time out doesn’t hurt very much. Some bleed a little bit, but some don’t, and many women break their hymens in other ways earlier in their lives (and some never had them.)

The main thing is just to take a long time getting ready to make love and to relax. I’ve got all kinds of tips about that in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex!

12. My husband actually “pulls away” the day after sex, almost like, “whoa, that was intimate and connected, now I just need to be with me again.” Why?

It could be a deep-seated problem with intimacy, and he may need to see a counsellor. He may be just deeply introverted, and need time alone, and if he reconnects quickly after that, I wouldn’t worry about it. But he could also have a hormone-regulating issue. I wrote about this for women lately, but I’ve heard men can have it, too, and it may be worth looking into.

13. What should I do if my husband wants to do things in sex that I’m not  comfortable doing? (Things that hurt or offend me).

It’s great to spice things up. It’s NOT great to do things that hurt or offend you. Don’t take something that’s supposed to be intimate and turn it into something degrading for you. And sometimes the question, too, is WHY does he want to do these things? I’ve got a post on figuring out your boundaries in bed that may help.

14. Is it possible that the bits that are meant to help you reach orgasm “break” after childbirth?

We do go through a lot of trauma in the vaginal canal and perineum area during childbirth, and sometimes things can get stretched or scarred that can make things more difficult! If you’re having real trouble getting aroused, I would see your doctor and make sure there’s not something going on, like a fissure forming or anything like that. A physiotherapist can also help you with exercises. And honestly, it just may take some time and some exercises! Kegel exercises after childbirth are wonderful, and my friend J from Hot, Holy and Humorous has great posts on how to do kegels!

15. What do you do if in a previous relationship lust and sexual behaviours were abused, and now you don’t feel like you have any sex drive and are so scared of sex?

I think it comes down to learning to think differently about sex. You have had sex before; that doesn’t mean that you’ve ever made love. The two are not necessarily the same thing. And when you can embrace intimacy, then sex can lose some of its stigma. So read The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. And then take a look at these:

How to get over sexual baggage
How to put sexual abuse behind you

16. It can often feel uncomfortable, like needing to pee. Why?

It may be that the angle is putting pressure on your bladder. You may have a low-grade UTI (some women have constant low-grade UTIs and don’t realize it. It’s good to get that checked with a doctor!). And you may have a yeast infection. See if any of the recommendations on yeast infections and sex help.

17. My friend is getting married in 2 weeks & wants me to be in the wedding party. They got engaged 2 weeks ago. They met 3 months ago. Both have previous marriages and one child each. They are active Christians. Any advice?

I think pre-marriage counselling is a must! This is a HUGE commitment, and they owe their children to talk things through first.

I’d say that you’re happy to be in the wedding party once they have fully prepared for the weight of the commitment, because you take marriage seriously.

This may be a good one:

10 Questions to Ask a Friend Who is About to Get Married

18. How do you talk to your parents about boundaries and giving you space in your new marriage without being rude or offensive?

Great question! I think you express your gratitude and your respect for your parents, but then clearly say, together, what it is that you’d like as a couple. Maybe it means that you don’t call them everyday, or that you do spend some holidays just the two fo you, or whatever it is that you want. But it’s okay to tell them what you think you’d like to build as a couple.

The big things to make the conversation go well: Know what the two of you want to say first. Have the one who is the biological child do most of the talking. Follow through. If you’ve asked them not to talk about money to you, for instance, and they bring it up, then say, “Remember, Mom? We said that we’d like to work this out on our own.” It may seem awkward, but stick to it! You’re not responsible for how they react, though. If you’ve been respectful, and if your boundaries are reasonable, then that’s all you can do. If they act badly, that’s on them.

Now, I had a few other questions, but rather than answering them here, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to answer them in a video, and then subscribers to my Friday round-up newsletter will get that video on Friday! It’s totally free to sign up, and then you’ll always be updated with the blog. So if you aren’t signed up, Sign up now!

Here’s what we’ll be tackling:

My husband sometimes tries really hard to do so everything he knows I like physically, because he wants me to orgasm, but when I’m tired and I don’t think I will, it makes it even harder. What do you do then? 
What can you do to restore trust in marriage when it has been broken?
Why do men want to complete oral sex, if you know what I mean?
Is it okay if I can only orgasm with my husband while using a vibrator?
My darling husband is gorgeous and incredibly loving, but sometimes I’m just not into sex and want to cuddle! I feel like it’ll hurt him if I say no, but it’s not fun for me like that. What can I do?

My Girl Talk event is really quite fun, and we’re booking now for next season! If you’re a church, especially on the eastern half of Canada or the United States, we’re looking at tours in the fall and the spring. (And if you’re elsewhere, we can always fly in! It’s just that expenses may be lower on the eastern part of the continent). And, hey, I’d always love an excuse to get back to Australia or visit New Zealand!

So just contact my ministry director Tammy, and we’ll see what we can do.