Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 88

10 Reasons My Readers Think Marriage is Great

Sometimes we just need to hear why people love marriage!

This year has been a heavy one for the Church. So many things have been unearthed and there is a real reckoning happening. I’m beyond grateful that abuse that happened in the dark is being dragged out into the light and I’m doing my best to advocate for those who were hurt.

I’d be lying, though, if I said that my work doesn’t come at a cost. It’s heavy and so terribly sad and some days I’m just angry and pessimistic and disappointed that those in power are doing the wrong thing (again!) that I’m tempted to despair. Combine that with the many, many sad emails and comments I get from people in abusive marriages, and it takes a toll.

When I was having one of those moments last week I put out a call on Facebook and Twitter for some happy marriage stories.

Okay, people. For the last few days I've been inundated with comments and emails from women in very abusive marriages. It's taking its toll.Tell me some HAPPY marriage stories!

Posted by To Love, Honor and Vacuum on Friday, March 1, 2019

Okay, people. For the last few days I've been inundated with comments and emails from women in very abusive marriages. It's taking its toll.

Tell me some HAPPY marriage stories!

— SheilaGregoire (@sheilagregoire) March 2, 2019

So many of you sent in amazing stories that made me laugh and smile, and I thought: If I’m struggling with seeing the world in a bad light, maybe other people are, too! So I thought I’d share the joy and post some of your stories here (and thank you so much for everyone who wrote in!). They were all amazing, but I tried to find a few commonalities, and here are several that sum the whole thing up!

And each paragraph is its own story, by the way. 

1. We had an adorable “meet”

I met my husband white water rafting down the Cheat. Thankfully I was sitting behind him and was able to slide my left foot under the tubing he was on. When rough waters came that would have thrown me over the front heads, my lodged foot would stop me and I’d catch myself on his shoulders. It’s a good thing I knew how to ride a horse with all the bucking that river did! We married 7 months later and that was 32+ years ago. May I say that although we both loved the experience of white water rafting we have never had the desire to go again. I guess you could say that by the grace of God we simply found what we were searching for. To this day he is my hero!

My husband and I met at a church youth group trip. I had always made fun of these trips deeming them “find your spouse” trips. Well, ironically enough, that came to be true for me when I met my husband in Missouri, he was from Indiana and I was from Michigan. We were just 16&17 and dated long distance (2005) for a couple of years and I ended up taking a job in his area, getting married (2011), and having 3 adorable children.

Ask Sheila: Help! My Wife Sleeps with Our Kids!

What do you do if your wife sleeps with the kids instead of with you?

That’s a question I recently had from a frustrated husband–but it’s not the ONLY time a husband has written in like this. On the contrary, we get quite a few, and I’ve written about the drawbacks of cosleeping before.

He writes:

Reader Question

When our child was born 8 years ago, my wife started sleeping with the baby because we were having hard times. Things got better between us but my child had become used to sleeping with her. Four years later we had another beautiful child. That child began sleeping with my wife, too, and now she too has become attached to sleeping with Mom. I have been through one divorce with children due to substance abuse issues with my ex. I am staying with my current wife now only because I do not want to have another family destroyed by divorce. We have no private moments together, no intimacy. I almost forget what she looks like without clothing. What do I do?

Every time I have written about cosleeping and I’ve said that you really should sleep with your husband, I have had women really angry at me. Often they say that the men need to grow up. So I’m taking another stab at it in a video today:

For those who don’t have time to watch, here are some other posts on sleeping with kids:

When Your Wife Sleeps with the Toddler

Parents: It’s Okay to Need Some Sleep

Especially as kids grow, it isn’t healthy for them to become your emotional support.

It’s easy to feel as if your kids need you, and that can be very intoxicating. But when you sleep with them, you train them to associate you with sleep, and then it becomes very intimidating and fearful to try to sleep on their own. It’s just not a good dynamic to start. Children, too, need to feel confident that they are capable of coping without you, and that is a gift you can give them.

The biggest gift, though, that you can give your kids is a great marriage with their dad.

Do don’t choose your kids over your marriage! You need to reconnect with your husband.

If you have a hard time even knowing where to start, I have a FREE 5-part email course on emotional connection that you can take. Every Monday I give you a new suggestion–just one little thing you can do to start feeling emotionally connected again this week. Do these things for 5 weeks straight, and you’ll find that you’ll be able to talk a lot more easily. You’ll feel like you have more in common. And you’ll be able to tackle some of those harder things in your marriage!

Take me to the course!

What do you think? Is cosleeping a good idea? When should you reclaim the bed just for you and your husband? Let’s talk in the comments!

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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.


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Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:

10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?



Check out some of Sheila's Books:

The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum



Check out Sheila's Courses:

The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course



Are you ready to take your marriage to the next level?
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What if Proverbs 31 Wasn’t Actually Written for You?

What if women aren’t the main audience for Proverbs 31?

I was recently sent a really interesting article by reader Jennifer Walls. She’s not a blogger, but she had a thought, and she wanted to share it more widely, so she wondered if I’d like to publish it.

I read it, and I thought it was very, very interesting. She’s really asking the question: What if the point of Proverbs 31 is not to give women a “to-do” list to make us feel inferior, but rather to teach men to respect their wives?

Give her a minute and she may change your mind. Here’s Jennifer:

‘A wife of noble character who can find?’ Proverbs 31:10.

If you, like me, are a woman in today’s Christian circles, chances are you have come across Proverbs 31:10-31 more than once. Personally, it was often the centerpiece of teen girls Bibles and women’s conference. It’s easy to find the verse decorating Mother’s Day cards and flowery Bible bookmarks. Twice I’ve completed a devotional book that walked me through how to live out each of the wife-of-noble-character’s many industrious traits.

And I get it, we are hungry for Bible passages about women. Female Bible characters are in short supply and here is a whole 22 verses saying ‘she’ and ‘her’ over and over again. So we jump at it, ready to use this for our women’s ministry or moms’ Bible study.

But what if Proverbs 31 wasn’t written for women, but rather for men?

What if, instead of a list of characteristics we need to strive for, it’s actually intended as the antidote for locker room talk? What if it’s not a checklist of who we need to be, but rather a how-to of ways to encourage one another? Let me explain.

Proverbs was a passing down of wisdom from kings and nobles to the next generation. Solomon was directing it at other noble men, though, as with all Scripture, all of us can glean wisdom from it. But even without a historical understanding of this, the passage is clear in who it is talking to. I can’t believe I missed it for so many years.

Take a minute to read Proverbs 31:10 to 31 right now and then let’s work through it together.

The poem begins with verse 10, stating that a great woman is almost impossible to find and therefore is very valuable.
Next verses 11-22 and 24-27 go about describing her many laudable characteristics.
Verses 23, 28, and 29 state that a noble wife will have a husband who is respected at the city gate and that her husband and children will shower her with praises.
Verse 30 is the quotable piece of wisdom that this whole passage hangs on; it’s not about beauty or charm, but rather about being godly.

Here’s the thing, up until this point we have not received any instructions or commands. Verses 10-30 are simply statements of facts, the sharing of wisdom.

But in verse 31 we are finally told an action to do:

‘Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.’

The city gate was where the men gathered to talk. It was not only the centre for high minded and important talk. If you’ll allow me, it was also the locker room of its day. This passage is instruction for the husbands. If you’ve got a great wife, you should do two things:

give her rewards for all her hard work; and
when you sit around yakking with the guys, praise your wife not for her beauty and charm, but for all the wonderful industrious things she has done and for her fear of the Lord.

What if we used this passage to teach our boys how to be respected men? What if we taught them Proverbs 31 so that they knew what to honour in the females around them?

What if young, Christian men were trained to change the locker room talk from a discussion of outer beauty to a praising of godly characteristics in the women they know? Because if the way men talk about women is praising their godly character, it will also be how they think about women and eventually treat women.

What if Proverbs 31 is not meant to be a 'to-do' list for women, but is rather to teach men to respect their wives?Click To Tweet
And when women are treated with respect and honoured when they strive for Godly character, becoming the Proverbs 31 woman becomes a little easier and a lot more appealing.

After all, isn’t this the gospel anyway? It’s not a list of characteristics you need to be or things you need to do. We are called to love God and love each other. Instead of focusing on making ourselves into the ideal woman or man, we should be focusing on loving one another. That includes praising each other for the Godly characteristics we see in them.

So instead of seeing this passage solely, or even mainly, as a checklist of how to strive to be a ‘wife of noble character’, let’s see it as reminding us to ‘bring each other praise.’ Let us use Proverbs 31 to teach both our sons and our daughters to ‘arise and call each other blessed.’

Because this passage is actually for us all.

Thank you to reader Jennifer Walls for this post! 

Jennifer Walls is a proud stay-at-home mom of an 18 month old and one on the way, and a loving wife to her teacher husband. Her job B.C. (before children) was working in music and youth ministry on Vancouver Island. She is passionate about her faith, her family, and the importance of good Dutch cheese.

What do you think? Does she have a point? Let’s talk in the comments!

PODCAST EXTRAS! Who’s Being Deprived, Are Youth Pastors Too Young, and More!

Are youth pastors too young? Is your counsellor safe? Are the “do not deprive” verses used in the wrong way?

It’s time for a new episode of the To Love, Honor and Vacuum podcast!

I hope you all will listen, but if you don’t have time, I’ll have some links and rabbit trails below so you can read all you want as well!

And consider this podcast “extras”. If you want to go deeper into what I talked about in the podcast, here are some more things to help you.

But first, here’s the podcast:

Main Segment: Can We Please Get a More Biblical View of Sex?

Last week on the podcast I was talking about how women’s sexual pleasure matters, and how orgasm actually matters. This week I decided to take a step back and ask, “what is it that God designed sex for?”

Because quite frankly, often the only message that we hear about sex is that men need physical release (that’s what Love & Respect said), and that women should not deprive them.

But what if sex is so much more?

In this segment I give a little bit of background that’s also in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex about how God designed sex to be physically intimate, yes, but also to be emotionally and spiritually intimate. It’s supposed to be a deep “knowing” of each other. And that means that it has to be mutual at its core! If we’re going to talk about what the Bible says about sex, we can’t ignore intimacy, and we can’t ignore women. So let’s start a new conversation! I started that yesterday, in my post on how the do not deprive verses are used wrong. Here are two posts about that:

Do Not Deprive: Are Women the Ones More Likely to Be Deprived?

Do Not Deprive: A 3-part series on what these verses really mean

I’m going to be spending a lot of time this month talking about how we can start viewing sex in a healthier way. If you’re struggling with this, the best place to start is The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex!

God made sex to be AWESOME!

It’s supposed to be great physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Feel like something’s missing?

Check out The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex!


















Millennial Marriage: Are Youth Pastors Just Too Young?

Rebecca and I were talking about this article by Tony Jones asking if we’re missing one of the bigger issues behind the sexual abuse crisis in the church: are we hiring youth pastors based on the wrong criteria?

Think about it: we generally hire young men in their very early twenties, who don’t have life experience or maturity, and we choose guys that have great “charisma” and are “cool”. And then we turn our teens over to these guys, largely unsupervised, in a very segregated area of church life. Considering that teens are leaving the church in droves when they hit college age (Rebecca and I talked about this in previous podcasts), shouldn’t the teens be getting our most experienced and best?

We’re not saying no youth pastors are good, or that young youth pastors CAN’T be good. Just that we need to take a better look at this.

And if you’ve missed some of the discussion about sexual abuse in the church, you can read these two posts I wrote this week about how to handle it when it hits close to home:

How Should Churches Handle Sexual Abuse Allegations?

3 Things to Know About Reporting Sexual Abuse

I also have another post where I talked about whether youth group was really safe or not. That’s worth a perusal, too!

Reader Question: How Do We Get Good Counselling?

Well, actually that wasn’t really the reader question. The ACTUAL question was this:

My husband was involved in an emotional affair. At the time I was pregnant. My husband has recommitted to our marriage, but it’s still been very difficult. We began counselling together, but now my husband is going to individual counselling, as I am with a biblical counsellor. Still, I have felt hopeless for how to trust him again and become comfortable feeling physically intimate. My husband struggled with porn, and he got accountability and community. But incidents still occurred. Just when I thought we were getting better the emotional affair hit. It seems like we’re back to ground zero, and I’ve always struggled with low libido too. It feels like we have so much against us. What do I do?

What concerned me a little in this question was the comment about the biblical counsellor, so I invited Rebecca back on for this segment to explain the issue. Rebecca has her undergrad in psychology, and she was intending to go on for her clinical doctorate until she realized she didn’t want that kind of stress and she and Connor wanted a different kind of family life. But Connor will likely go on to become a licensed counsellor. And I don’t think people realize that not all counsellors are the same.

As Rebecca explained, there are different levels of education and certification:

Psychiatrist: a trained specialist physician who can diagnose, prescribe drugs, and do therapy
Clinical Psychologist: a trained psychologist, often with a Ph.D. (so that’s 5 years of schooling after the 4 year undergrad) who can diagnose and treat, but not prescribe
Licensed Counsellor: A counsellor who has had two years of specialty training after an undergraduate degree, who has done about 1000 hours of internship under another licensed counsellor, and who is licensed by the state (and thus has credentials which can be rescinded if they do something wrong)
Biblical Counsellor: Someone who has undergone some sort of training, which sometimes is just a weekend course, and who has no certification or accountability

I am not saying that biblical counsellors are all bad; I am simply saying that there is a world of difference between someone who is licensed and has potential accountability and someone who is not. And many licensed counsellors are also Christians.

I also have three concerns with biblical counsellors (who often work out of a church setting):

There is no guarantee of confidentiality

Indeed, I was looking at the consent forms you have to sign at one Harvest Bible Chapel affiliate that uses biblical counsellors, and it specifically said that if the counsellor had concerns, they could talk to an elder. Now, all licensed therapists must report if someone is a danger to herself/himself or others, but that is not what is necessarily meant here. In addition, it said that if you have a disagreement with the counsellor, you agree that mediation will be with the elders and the pastor. So if the counsellor does something unethical, you don’t have a neutral third party. You have the church. And that can be a problem, because of the next two items:

Many “biblical counsellors” aim to preserve the marriage at all costs

Many of those trained in biblical counselling believe that there is no acceptable reason to divorce. They also treat abuse like it’s a communication issue, and don’t always recognize narcissism. True Christian counselling is focused at promoting healing and pointing people to Christ, not just keeping an abusive marriage together.

Many “biblical counsellors” do not believe mental illness, as a physical condition, exists

Instead, depression should not be treated by drugs, but should be seen as a spiritual weakness. Not all biblical counsellors believe this, of course, but if you Google biblical counselling or nouthetic counselling, this is what you will often see.

Just last night, Grant Higbee, who was on staff at Harvest Bible Chapel as a counsellor and who was involved in the whole mess that led to James MacDonald being fired issued a statement for ignoring spiritual abuse for too long. Part of his statement is as follows:

You can read the whole thing here. But at a time of rising awareness of sexual and spiritual abuse in the church, the fact that biblical counsellors often are not trained in this is concerning.

Again, I’m not saying that biblical counsellors can’t be helpful. I know many are very gifted. I’m just saying that it could be dangerous if you’re not careful, because the training and accountability are not there in the way that they are for other counsellors. If people are interested, I may write a post on 10 questions to ask your biblical counsellor to make sure he or she is safe. If you want me to, just tell me in the comments!

Comment: I guess my husband will never be interested in making sex feel good for me

This comment came out of a discussion we were having on last week’s podcast post about sexual health. She had said that her husband wasn’t interested in making sex feel good for her, and I suggested that she say something like this to him:

“I would love to have an exciting sex life with you. I want to make love frequently. But I am no longer willing to do that if you do not consider my experience to be important. Sex is supposed to be about both of us, not just you. If you don’t want to make me feel good, then I’m going to have to step back sexually for a while. Again, I am more than willing and eager to make love. But it can no longer be just about you if our marriage is going to be strong.”

She replied that she didn’t think she could do that, since that would cause him to withdraw, and so she was going to focus on what was good in the relationship and give up her hopes of sex feeling good for her.

Now, I think she’s being incredibly selfless, and more of us do need to do that.

But there is one thing I also need to say. Being nicer rarely inspires change in cases like this. Yes, God may do a major work on their heart. But this is the truth about human behaviour:

People don’t change until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change.

I talked about this at length in my posts about what to do if your husband won’t change:

When Your Husband Won’t Change

Is this the Last Straw?

When you are nice, you actually make it easier for your husband to stay as he is. You make the status quo nicer.

So the bigger question is: What does God want in this situation? Does God want me to just live with it and accept it? Or is God calling my husband to something more–to learn how to be more intimate?

I can’t answer that for you, but I will say that often the way that God wants to change a situation is by changing how we act, not just changing our husband’s heart. God wants us to learn to be good, not just nice. That’s really the theme of 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, and if you’re struggling with this, I hope this can help you!

Are you GOOD or are you NICE?

Because the difference matters!

God calls us to be GOOD, yet too often we’re busy being nice. And sometimes, in marriage, that can actually cause problems to be even more entrenched.

What if there’s a better way?

Take me to it!

That’s it for today! Thanks for listening, and please remember to give the podcast a 5 star rating wherever you’re listening, and leave a review! I appreciate it.

Did anything stand out for you this week? Let’s talk about it in the comments!

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Can the “Do Not Deprive” Verses Apply to Women’s Needs, Too?

How often have you heard the “Do Not Deprive” verses, from 1 Corinthians 7, used to tell women they’re not doing enough as a wife to keep their husbands sexually satisfied?

Last month I conducted a poll on Twitter, where I asked: Which message have you heard more often in church, studies, or Christian books?

Do not deprive your husband
Women’s sexual pleasure matters

The results? 95%-5%.

Here’s the Facebook version of the same poll, with remarkably similar results:

I’m starting to get really worried. Like, crisis-sized worried. 

I’ve always been worried that people don’t talk about sex well in the church. I wrote a while ago on my series about Every Man’s Battle and how that messes up the message about sex that we need to find a healthy way to talk about men’s sexual needs.

Why Every Man’s Battle Backfires

Can We Talk About Men’s Sexual Needs in a Healthy Way?

I wrote last month about how messed up and biblically wrong the message of sex was from the book Love & Respect, which taught that sex was all about men needing physical release.

And so I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to spend the month of February talking about how to make sex better for women! Let’s figure out where your G-spot is, or how to have multiple orgasms! Let’s start kissing again. I created 24 sexy dares with heavy emphasis on awakening her sex drive, drawing out foreplay, and making sure that she feels good.

Does your marriage need some spicing up–and some fun?

Try these 24 dares–plus one bonus–to take your marriage to the next level!

Let's add some heat!

But frankly, I think we need a bigger conversation about this, because something is seriously off. And so, for the next few Wednesdays, I’m going to look at how we can have a healthier way of looking at sex that takes both the husband and wife into account, and that does look at what the Bible says about mutuality in sex.

As we start that discussion, though, I want to say something that may be radical. Let me start with some background.

I have heard the “Do Not Deprive” passage used a lot about how husbands need sex, and how women need to not deprive them.

Those verses are here:

1 Corinthians 7:3-5

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Do you notice anything about that passage, though? It’s not directed at wives, telling them not to deprive their husbands. It’s directed at BOTH spouses. In fact, if anything, the wife’s sexual needs are mentioned first. The Bible does not assume that the norm will be wives depriving husbands, and so we need to drill down on wives to give husbands sex. No, the Bible tells us that both genders need to look out for the other.

I want to submit that the sex that is the most likely to be deprived is not actually husbands. I believe that it is wives.
So often 'do not deprive' is used against wives, telling them that men need sex. But what if the gender that is most likely to be deprived sexually in marriage is actually WOMEN?Click To Tweet

Let me put a HUGE caveat on this to begin with. I understand that many, many wives downplay sex in their marriage and leave their husbands in sex-starved marriages. I have written at length on how wrong this is. I have created a course on how to boost your libido. I have written a 31 day sex challenge to help couples rediscover great sex. I have created dares to spice up your love life. I have written a book to help women understand what sex is supposed to be like, and one of the chapters in that book is dedicated to helping women understand how important sex is to their husbands.

I totally get that so many men who read this blog have wives who hate sex. And my heart does go out to you, and I do know that this is wrong.

However, I’m asking you to bear with me for a moment, because I’m going to share something with you.

In my surveys for The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, I discovered that, among professing Christians, 20% of women report that they rarely or never reach orgasm. Another 18% report that they only sometimes reach orgasm. Around 44% usually reach orgasm, and only 18% always do.

That’s a lot of women who aren’t really feeling much pleasure when they have sex.

And that’s normal.

Now, I’m also very aware that many men would love to bring pleasure to their wives, but their wives don’t seem to care, they push their husbands away, they rush them through sex, or they just can’t seem to reach orgasm, no matter how much the husband tries. I know that this is not necessarily a husband’s fault. And I encourage you to check out this story of a woman finally reaching orgasm after 26 years of marriage. She had her own issues that she had never properly communicated to her husband, and she had to get over those first.

Nevertheless, let’s put that aside for a moment and ask this question: How would men feel if, when they had sex, only 18% of them always had an orgasm?

I understand that it takes longer to figure out what women need in bed, and that women just aren’t automatically orgasmic the way that men are. I actually think that God did that with a purpose, because we women would have to learn to communicate and be vulnerable to tell our husbands what we want, and husbands would have to learn to be giving to for her to receive pleasure.

Need more help? Try these!

Becoming More Orgasmic

9 Great Sex Tips for Her

But all that aside, the simple fact is that with the way we talk about sex, men’s pleasure is the aim, and women’s pleasure is an afterthought.

May I please suggest that this has to change.

With the way we talk about sex, men's pleasure is the aim, and women's pleasure is an afterthought. May I please suggest that this has to change.Click To Tweet

No, women do not have to have an orgasm each time they have sex. I know it’s hard to learn to orgasm. I know that sometimes, no matter how much you want to, there’s too much going on in your head and you can’t shut it off.

But if, in your marriage, one person is doing all of the giving sexually, and one person is doing all of the receiving sexually, then that is wrong.
In your marriage, if one person is doing all the giving sexually, and one person is doing all the receiving, that is wrong. Women's pleasure matters!Click To Tweet

Now, sometimes the giving could simply be him giving her a huge backrub so that he makes sure she feels relaxed and pampered, even if she doesn’t orgasm. It may mean him giving her tons of affection and going out of his way to help her feel loved, even if she doesn’t have a lot of physical pleasure. Giving does not need to mean orgasm; but it does need to mean that BOTH partners, in their sex lives, are routinely giving of themselves for the other person, and are routinely ensuring that the other person receives something wonderful out of sex.

In what I have read about couple’s sex lives, I think women are just as deprived, if not more so, then men are, simply because their pleasure and experience is not often prioritized.

That is not the way that God intended.

As I said in my podcast last week, the fact that God created women’s bodies so that we are most likely to experience orgasm through clitoral stimulation rather than through intercourse means that God intended for men to pleasure their wives in a way that did not result in men’s direct stimulation.

God created us sexually so that, for a woman to receive pleasure, the husband would have to be giving.

Yet this is not what we are taught. Instead, we are taught that women are depriving men if they don’t give them sex. I think it’s time for a bigger message about what sex is supposed to be, and consider this post the first part of that.

I’ve been having a broader conversation on social media about this, and I shared recently on my Facebook page part of my reply to a guy where I was debating this. I wrote:

As you all know I’m hugely in favour of more frequent and better sex in marriage, and I think not having sex is so sad in a marriage. But we simply have to talk about this differently. Here’s part of what I said in a recent comment thread to a guy I was debating with:

“As for whether you should have sex when she doesn’t feel pleasure, why do you jump to the “do not deprive” verse? Why not instead try to figure out how to make sure she has pleasure? Why is her pleasure her responsibility? Why not try to figure it out together?

Maybe if men stopped telling women “you need to have sex with me” and started saying, “You know, women are capable of deeper and more intense orgasms than men, and are made for multiple orgasms. Maybe we should figure out how to satisfy our wives more.” That would be far more helpful.

You may think what I’m saying is off base, but think about it this way: For YEARS women have been told from church pulpits “Men need sex and you need to give it to them or you’re depriving them.” What’s happened? A crisis in low libido among women.

What I’m saying is that this approach doesn’t work.

You can double down on it if you’d like; you can say that women need to understand men, and how much they need sex, and how they struggle with lust, and how women need to help them.

What I’m telling you is that women DO understand men. We know men need sex. That’s not the point. Yelling about that louder won’t help.

What we need now is for men to understand women.

If that happened–if men did understand women’s need for intimacy, and women’s need to experience pleasure, and if churches started talking about mutuality, you would awaken women’s libido. So it’s your choice. You can keep talking about how women need to have more sex or else their husbands will lust. Or we can start a different conversation, more focused on how the Bible portrays sex as a mutual thing, and as pleasure for both of them, and as about intimacy, and then I think you’d see things change.”

THAT’S what I’m trying to do. I desperately want more couples to be enjoying the sexual side of their marriage. I want more women to know what great sex is like, and not to miss out on it. I want to help this generation of women awaken their libidos! But I truly think that can only happen when we start hearing about sex in a different way, rather than just “do not deprive or else he’ll lust.” THAT’S one of the big reasons for low female libido. It’s a terrible message, and it kills her heart.

Sheila

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So get ready for this conversation–because I truly believe God designed sex to be a beautiful, mutual, passionate, stupendous thing–and it can only be that if we learn to talk about it in the right way.

God made sex to be AWESOME!

It’s supposed to be great physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Feel like something’s missing? Learn what sex is REALLY meant to be!

Check out The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex!

What do you think? Has the message about sex been warped? If so, how can we right it? Let’s talk in the comments!

Need more help? Try these!

When You’ve Never Had an Orgasm: How to Experience the Breakthrough

Finally Reaching Orgasm–-a Breakthrough

Becoming More Orgasmic

9 Great Sex Tips for Her

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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.


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Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:

10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?



Check out some of Sheila's Books:

The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum



Check out Sheila's Courses:

The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course



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10 Reasons Marriage Was Never Meant to Be a Power Struggle

Sometimes the way we talk about marriage makes it sound like marriage is a big power struggle.

I don’t believe that this was ever what God intended, and I think there’s a much better way of looking at it.

I’ve been following Natalie Hoffman now for quite a few years, in her journey out of an abusive marriage and towards freedom. She’s become so wise (sometimes horrible life circumstances are the best teachers!) and she runs an awesome blog called Flying Free. She’s posted before for me about how to recognize emotional abuse. And I’ve asked her to join us today, just after her first book, Is It Me?, was released, to talk about how we shouldn’t see marriage as a power-over relationship, but instead as a mutual one.

Here’s Natalie:

You read Sheila’s blog because you are invested in your life, your marriage, and your family.

You give your relationships 150%, and you would eat candied scorpions (it’s a thing) if it meant the difference between a healthy relationship and an unhealthy one.

But there is a profoundly important truth we all need to understand: the bedrock of a truly Christ-centered marriage is mutuality. This means we acknowledge the fact that it takes TWO humble, Christ-oriented individuals who are BOTH actively pursuing to honor and love the other one with all their heart, soul, body, and strength.

Not just one.

You know how important this is? The very spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ is dependent on how well we live in mutuality.

“I gave them the glory You gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With Me in them and You in Me, may they be so perfected in unity [mutuality!] that the world will recognize that it was You who sent Me and that You have loved them as You have loved Me.”

John 17:22-23

The opposite of mutuality is power-over. This is where one person in the relationship believes (for various reasons which may include religious reasons) they are entitled to be in a position of power over the other person. Power-over was one of the judgments God passed down to the human race as a result of sin (Genesis 3:16), and the Bible as well as all of history is full of stories that bear witness to the destructive force of people’s lust for power-over. Even, and especially, in the marriage relationship—a relationship that God designed to reflect the unity of Christ and the Church.

But let’s get practical. Here are ten reasons a mutuality model trumps a power-over model of human relationships.

1. Mutuality is an expression of the humility of Christ in laying down His life for the well-being of others.

Satan was the first one who attempted to take power-over, and he tempted Adam and Eve with this same ambition: to be like God, having the power of knowing good and evil. Every expression of human desire to power-over another is an expression of the enemy’s lust for power. Christ modeled something radically different for His followers.

“…of his own free will, he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant.”

Philippians 2:7

Is Christ’s example only for certain categories of human beings? Is it only for one partner? Or is it for any and all who follow in His footsteps? Where you see both partners mutually looking for ways to lay down their rights in order to serve the other partner, you’ll see a healthy marriage. When only one person is doing this on a regular basis, you have a parasitical relationship in which one person is giving and the other is taking.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves”

Philippians 2:3

2. Mutuality is an expression of authentic love for one another.

All healthy relationships are governed by the law of love. The Bible says it best.

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

Romans 12:9-10

(Does that sound like power-over to you? Also note that all Christians are called to both love and respect. Love and respect are not gender-distinctive requirements.)

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:29-31

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”

Romans 13:8

Did you see anything in those verses (and there are many more) that indicates love is something only required on the part of one partner? I’ve actually heard that twisted reality taught from the pulpit. “Only one partner needs to be loving for the relationship to work.” This is half-truth/half-lie.

The true part: only one partner needs to be loving. It is true that there are gazillions of “Christian” marriages in which only one partner is loving.

The false part: for the relationship to work. That depends on how you define a “working relationship.” If it means “surviving with broken vows,” then okay. But if “working relationship” means “healthy, Christ-centered relationship,” then—no. THAT kind of relationship takes TWO partners living out those verses mutually.

Power-over is an expression of self-love and a grasping for power over another human soul. It is self-seeking, dishonoring, and evil, regardless of any flowery, spiritual words used to say otherwise. (Remember, the enemy’s most prolific tactic of deception is to present his lies in a lovely and spiritual light. Lies don’t look bad. They look amazeballs.)

3. Mutuality is an expression of noble honor toward another human being regardless of race, gender, or social status.

All throughout history mankind has marginalized and taken power over other people based on their race, gender, or social status. But Christ came to usher in the Kingdom of God in which “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.“ Galatians 3:28

The power-over model of hierarchy grasps to exclusively have the honor that belongs to all human beings made in God’s image. We’ve all heard the verses that tell women to honor their husbands, and there are folks who like to just stop there. God doesn’t.

“Honor one another above yourselves.”

Romans 12:10

“In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives.”

I Peter 3:7

“Love does not dishonor others.”

I Corinthians 13:4

“Treat everyone with high regard.”

I Peter 2:17

The Bible is crystal clear (for those who have ears to hear) about the fact that Christ-followers will both love and honor one another. Whether we are married or not. Mutual love and honor should be part of all relationships, and certainly a marriage relationship.

4. Mutuality expresses mature shouldering of personal responsibility on the part of both partners.

This is really about boundaries. Both partners own their own behavior and take wise stewardship of what belongs to them. You each take responsibility for your own words, actions, schedules, jobs, volunteer work, parenting, choices, and behaviors. You each wisely steward what belongs to you. This includes your mind, body, time, emotional health, spiritual health, opportunities, and finances.

“For each will have to bear his own load. One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Galatians 6:5-10

In a dysfunctional relationship, one or both partners are not taking personal responsibility. They are either putting the responsibility on the other person which looks like blame shifting, denying, minimizing, excusing, justifying, controlling, and accusing, or they are taking all the responsibility on themselves which looks like placating, appeasing, covering up, pretending, and overlooking.

In a healthy relationship both partners can safely and freely offer feedback to the other one, and that feedback is heard, respected, and responded to (Proverbs 15:31).

Personal responsibility is really just being an adult, and a healthy marriage requires two of those to work.

5. Mutuality is an expression of faith in God and trust that His ways are higher than man’s ways.

It is human nature to grasp for power. We want to control people and situations because it makes us feel secure. This is where both patriarchy and matriarchy come from. But this is putting our trust in ourselves and our own ideas of what works rather than God’s. Satan grabs for power and deceives people into believing this is God’s ideal way of reaching the world. Why does he do this? Because he hates God, and he hates people, and power-grabbing is the OPPOSITE WAY of reaching the world.

Jesus modeled God’s way by using His power to empower others, not to power-over them.

“And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:42-45

Letting go of our desire to control others requires maturity and trust in God and in the other person. When both partners are mutually pursuing God’s ways, you’ll have a healthy relationship.

6. Mutuality engenders confident trust in both partners toward one another.

The pathway to confident trust in any relationship is a history of mutual honesty and integrity. If one partner is committed to honesty while the other one withholds information, twists the truth, or causes confusion and anxiety in the relationship, it will be a broken and dysfunctional relationship no matter how hard the honest partner tries. It takes two to create healthy trust.

7. Mutuality reflects God’s heart for humanity throughout Scripture.

God created all humans in His image, and Jesus Christ died to give all humans an opportunity to be made right with God. The heart of God for all of us, regardless of our gender, is that we would be free to reflect His image in our own uniquely created way. His “foolish” plan (I Cor. 1:25) is that humans, in all our frailty and weakness, would spread the gospel and show the world Who God is by our selfless love for one another.

When it comes to mutuality vs. power-over, the gospel is literally at stake!

We see over and over in Scripture that God cares more about human lives (relationship!) than He does about keeping the letter of the law and making sacrifices. He looks at the heart of a matter. Jesus broke religious laws that oppressed people in order to set men and women free (Mark 3:1-6), and this is the wisdom of God that the Holy Spirit gives freely to all who belong to Him.

This means we can either fight to make a case for power-over in the Bible because it suits our human, power-hungry agenda, or we can embrace the heart of God and stand ready to lay down our power in order to spread the gospel and empower others. If we are unable to do this in our most intimate of human relationships—marriage—how can we expect to spread this kind of message anywhere else?

8. Mutuality is an expression of selflessness and does not value one person’s needs, skills, gifts, or talents over another.

When both partners humbly recognize this and encourage and build one another up, they exponentially create forward momentum for the gospel.

On the other hand, when one partner is criticizing or hindering or discouraging the other one from being who God created them to be, they hinder the gospel on many levels. We were all created to fulfill a purpose in life. To experience meaning in who God made us to be. A healthy relationship will foster an environment that causes both partners to flourish.

9. Mutuality is an expression of vulnerability and intimacy

When only one partner is willing to show up and be seen while the other one is exploiting that vulnerability, you’ve got a war zone, not a marriage. A healthy relationship is a SAFE relationship. Both partners trust that as they open up and share their intimate selves, the other one will safely care for them and not expose them to shame. This mutual vulnerability opens the door to deep intimacy in a relationship.

10. Mutuality can only be a reality when both partners submit to one another in love.

Christ’s sacrifice has provided the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives to overcome the judgment of power-over in relationships and usher in unity and oneness in Christ. No more hierarchy. No more patriarchy. No more matriarchy. We now rule as heir together.

“Husbands, likewise, submit by living with your wife in ways that honor her, knowing that she is the weaker partner. Honor her all the more, as she is also a coheir of the gracious care of life. Do this so that your prayers won’t be hindered.”

I Peter 3:7

“…and submit to each other out of respect for Christ.”

Ephesians 5:21

Submission can never be coerced. It must be voluntary on the part of both parties. And it is the grace-filled mutuality of that submission that lays the foundation on which a couple can build their Christ-focused marriage.

If you think your marriage may be unhealthy or even destructive, I encourage you to check out my new book, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: The Christian Woman’s Guide to Emotional and Spiritual Abuse. Want the first three chapters free? I will send them to you when you sign up to be on my mailing list HERE.

You can also find me on my website: www.flyingfreenow.com, Flying Free Podcast, YouTube, and Facebook.

What do you think? Does Natalie make a good case for marriage being about mutual love, mutual responsibility, mutual serving? Is this what you generally are taught? Why or why not? Let’s talk in the comments!

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Natalie Hoffman, Author, Educator, and Life Coach.
Natalie Hoffman works with women of faith in emotionally and spiritually abusive relationships. She is the author of Is it Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, and she offers monthly articles and weekly podcast episodes on her website as well as educational courses and mentoring through her private support membership community, Flying Free.


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3 Things to Remember When Reporting Sexual Abuse

On Friday I was talking about how churches should handle sexual abuse allegations. But what if you have to report sexual abuse yourself?

A number of issues came out in the comments on that post that I thought really should be highlighted. So instead of answering a different reader question today, I want to state very clearly those three things.

I was very moved by all the comments on the post from people who had been abused in a church setting, or who had been abused by people who go to church, and the church ignored it. I am so, so sorry if your abuse was not taken seriously. That is so wrong. And to all who wrote to me in personal messages–I am so sorry, too. I’m glad we can at least talk about it, because you don’t need to keep quiet. This isn’t your shame to bear.

So let’s go over those three things:

1. This is not JUST a personal sin you need to forgive

In Matthew 18, Jesus talks about how to handle sin in the church.

Matthew 18:15-17

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

That’s good advice for dealing with personal differences between believers. The problem is that many churches have told people that this passage applies when dealing with sexual abuse. This is completely off base for two big reasons.

First, sexual abuse is not just a sin issue. This is a crime.

As Jesus said, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” When it is a crime, it falls under governmental jurisdiction. You go to the police, and you report it, and let the chips fall where they may. And remember that in most jurisdictions, even sexual contact between an adult and a clergy is against the law, not just an “affair”. This is especially true in the case of a youth leader and a girl (or boy) over the age of consent.

Second, sexual abuse is a sin that affects the whole body of believers.

Let’s take it to the extreme and say that you confronted the abuser, and the abuser repented. According to that passage, you’re not really supposed to involve others now.

But abusers tend to abuse again. Going to the abuser one-on-one endangers the body as a whole (besides being psychologically damaging and difficult to you).

When the body as a whole is endangered, it must be dealt with in a public way.

2. You have a right to tell your story.

The vast majority of sexual abuse survivors keep silent. A myriad of reasons make this more likely–they feel a deep sense of shame; they don’t other people to know about what they went through, because it’s embarrassing; they’re scared of what the abuser may do. But even more so, there’s often subtle (or even more overt) pressure from family and the church to keep silent.

You wouldn’t want to ruin the guy’s reputation. You wouldn’t want to ruin the church’s reputation. You wouldn’t want to ruin the family’s reputation.

And remember–if you start telling people what was done to you, they could sue you for slander.

So I want to dispel this last notion right now. It is not slander to say bad things about someone if those bad things truly happened.

Here is the legal definition of slander (or defamation) in the United States:

defamation is the all-encompassing legal term for an act, communication, or publication of a false statement to a third-party, which causes harm or damage to another person’s reputation.

The key word there is “false”. If you say things about someone which causes harm or damage to a person’s reputation, and those things are true, then it is not slander. And in the United States, you do not have to prove they are true, either. If sued, you simply have to show that you did not KNOW these things were false. In fact, the burden of proof is on your accuser to show that you were speaking things you believed to be false. I’m not a lawyer, of course, so what I’m saying should be taken with the grain of salt, but I still believe this is fairly self-evident.

Do you get the distinction? Now, if you spread the word that an individual is abusive, or that a church is harboring someone who is abusive, you may be sued. That is true. It is equally true that you would likely win that suit. However, it’s certainly painful to go through a lawsuit. Julie Anne from Spiritual Sounding Board started blogging after she reported that a church was harboring an abuser. She not only won that case; it was declared a nuisance lawsuit and the church had to pay all of her legal costs.

Recently Harvest Bible Chapel sued reporter Julie Roys and two bloggers and their wives behind The Elephant’s Debt because they were reporting on terrible things going on at Harvest. HBC withdrew that lawsuit when it became clear that suing them allowed the defendants to get subpoena access to all kinds of their internal documents they wanted to keep hidden. It was a great warning to other churches to not do the same thing.

So, yes, conceivably someone might sue you. But they would be really, really stupid to do so, because it’s almost guaranteed that you would win the suit, and if they did sue you, you now get “discovery” powers and they open themselves up to a nuisance lawsuit charge as well.

All that is to say that the threat of a lawsuit is often overhyped.

The real point here is that it is your story. You are allowed to tell your story.

Doing so is not ruining your family’s reputation, or the church’s reputation. Doing so is being true to what God has done in your life, and is protecting others.

There’s a principle in Scripture that is very important to remember in these cases:

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

We are supposed to reap what we sow, or, in other words, we’re supposed to have to deal with the consequences of our actions. The problem in the case of sexual abuse is that those who bear the consequences are rarely the abuser. It’s more likely the abused, who has to deal with the shame and the victimization. And they have to deal with pressure to keep silent, while the abuser goes on with his life.

Speaking your story allows the abuser to start to reap what he sows. If it causes problems in the church community, that is not YOU causing those problems. That is the abuser causing those problems by his actions.

But if  you speak up, other innocent people will also bear those consequences, like the abuser’s poor family! Think of them!

Those people will be feeling the repercussions anyway. There are repercussions to be married to someone who is abusive. And it is always better to live in truth than to live in darkness and know that there is something wrong, but never be able to put your finger on it. It will be temporarily very disruptive to have this come out. But truth is never wrong. And you are not to blame for any negative repercussions to other people that also come. The abuser is.

You also do not have to “prove” that your story is true with a police conviction. Many will say, “well, he wasn’t charged, and so we can’t just take your word for it.” Just because someone has not been charged does not mean that the police don’t believe that it happened. A myriad of things go into making the decision to charge someone. But beyond that, your testimony is enough, and do not let others tell you that it is not.

I saw this tweet last night in my Twitter feed, and I thought it was timely:

Feb. 22, 2019

Today marks one of the most significant steps forward in my healing to date.

Today I named my abuser & the church publicly in an interview. For 15 years I’ve worried abt how both of those parties could be affected if I disclosed them.#churchtoo #metoo

— Katie Trout (@KatieSTrout) February 23, 2019

It was her story. She had the right to tell it without worrying about the abuser. If she tells, the abuser is only reaping what he sowed, which is appropriate. And any chaos that falls after that is due to the abuser’s actions, not yours.

Like this post so far? You may also appreciate:

How Churches Should Handle Sexual Abuse Allegations

3. You are not responsible for preventing future abuse

One more thing. We’ve been talking about speaking up about your abuse to warn others that abusers may be lurking in their churches. The original reader question that was sent in to me addressed a situation where the man who abused her daughter was still volunteering at a church, and she was worried for other children’s safety.

She is right to be. And she is right to tell that church, and take other actions that I suggested in that post to get people to take it seriously.

But I do want to point one thing out: You are not responsible for any future abuse that this person commits. Only that person is.

And there is a point where it’s okay to say, “I’ve done enough. No one is listening to me. I have to let this go now.”

One of the big church abuse blogs is the Wartburg Watch. Part of its title, I believe, is from the Watchman passage from Ezekiel 33, which says this:

Ezekiel 33:1-6

The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, 3 and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, 4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head. 5 Since they heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves. 6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.’

A few things about this passage. First, it doesn’t directly apply to abuse victims. The abuse victim has NOT been appointed as a watchperson. In this passage, the person that God is holding accountable for warning the people was already chosen for that job. Just because you’re abused does not mean that you are now to blame if you don’t warn others.

That being said, it is also clear from this passage that if you do warn others, and they don’t listen, none of that is your fault. 

If you decide to speak up about your story, you are not required to make them listen and change. You can’t do that. You don’t have that power. All you are asked to do is to warn them. And then anything that happens after that is not on you.

At some point you may need to let things go, for your own sanity. The abuser ruined a part of your life; it’s okay to choose to put that behind you. Some of you will put it behind you by not speaking about it (that, too, is your prerogative). Some of you will choose to speak up and warn others (that, too, is your prerogative). But you must never feel that because you know this person is an abuser that you are therefore responsible for them. No. If you warned, that is enough.

I will say that, for your own peace of mind, if you do warn churches or individuals, it’s a good idea to have a paper trail, so that later, if something bad happens, you can prove that they had been warned. If you talk to someone in person, send them an email afterwards confirming the conversation. Send a letter to the elder’s board, and keep a copy. But even in all that, you are not responsible for what a church, or what an individual, chooses to do.

Okay, those are the three things I wanted to reiterate today: This isn’t a personal sin that requires personal confrontation; it requires public confrontation. Your story is your story, and you’re allowed to tell it. And you’re not responsible for future abuse.

Any comments on those things? Or anything that I left out? This is an important topic, so let’s talk in the comments!

More posts about abuse in the church:

How Churches Should Handle Sexual Abuse Allegations

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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.


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Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:

10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?



Check out some of Sheila's Books:

The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum



Check out Sheila's Courses:

The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course



Are you ready to take your marriage to the next level?
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How Should Churches Handle Sexual Abuse Allegations?

Churches and sexual abuse are in the news all too frequently today.

First it was the Catholic Church. Then other denominations started to be looked at–most recently in a huge expose of the Southern Baptist Convention (700 victims in 200 churches; read the Houston Chronicle’s report).

I do believe that churches are rife for sexual abuse simply because pedophiles will naturally gravitate to places where they can get access to children, and churches are one of those places. It’s the price we pay for being in community. But that’s all the more reason that churches must be vigilant about enforcing child protection policies, and in reporting any suspected abuse to the proper authorities. Unfortunately, as these exposes have shown, (and as I’ve written before, especially about the Southern Baptist Convention), that hasn’t been done. That needs to change.

So I thought I’d share a reader’s story today, and then make this post a bit of a collaborative effort, asking you all to share your input or to share resources where people can get help.

A reader writes:

Reader Question

Within the last 2 years we discovered our young daughter was being sexually abused by a family member. Walking through this process has been isolating and painful, at best, and has left me with a lot of questions. In our journey we have dealt with the abuser not being confronted (by family or church) the family AND the church isolating us and supporting the abuser, the abuser still being allowed to serve in the church etc.  We were going to a separate church at the time and our pastor was supposed to sit down with the abuser’s pastor and discuss how some of this was mishandled but, as far as we know, that conversation never took place. We are currently attending yet a different church and haven’t been around long enough to see if it’s any different.  It seems there is very little accountability for pastors to address abusers and very little support for the victims.

I corresponded with her a bit more, and it turns out that they did report the abuse to the police. The case was mishandled, and charges weren’t filed. The pastor is thus saying that the abuser has been cleared, which is not the case. It’s only that charges couldn’t be filed.

So what should the church do in this situation, and what should the parents do? Let’s look at some general principles about how churches should handle sexual abuse first, and then we’ll look at her specific situation.

Every church should have a child protection policy in place

Every church should have a child protection policy that is enforced, which should include never allowing a child to be alone with one adult or with two adults of the same family (so if you’re driving kids, you can’t drive with your spouse, you have to split up into different cars); every person looking after children must pass a thorough police check which must be repeated at regular intervals (say, every year); every person working with kids must attend child protection training once a year.

Remember, too, that background checks, while important, are relatively useless at discovering abusers, in my opinion, since most abusers are never reported or caught. Just because a church does a background check does not mean that your children are safe. The church must have policies that are followed about adults not being alone with children.

I ran a youth group for years, and this really was rather cumbersome. We used to take the kids out of town on several retreats, and the parents always had to split up into different cars, so that we never had two related adults with the kids. We often needed extra volunteers, and that was sometimes hard to find. But you just have to do this stuff. Kids’ safety matters first.

In Canada, I believe that insurance companies are now requiring churches to have a Plan to Protect policy in place (that’s one such program; there are others). All our local churches, in all the different denominations, have this type of policy and this type of training. And you can’t get insurance coverage without it.

If sexual abuse is ever disclosed, it must be reported immediately to the police

I have seen churches send out letters to parents saying, “we found out that a basketball coach had been abusing kids. If your child has been hurt by him, please contact us.” WRONG.

If your child has been hurt, contact the police. You may also tell the church, of course, but the first course of action should be to go to the police.

Even if you only suspect that something is off, it’s worth calling the police. They’re trained to investigate this stuff. You can report anonymously, and you don’t have to be 100% sure. But sometimes police are watching someone, and they don’t have anything concrete to go on. The more people call in, the easier it is for the police to make a case. If you feel something is off, do something about it.

In many jurisdictions, too, clergy are mandatory reporters. If they suspect abuse, they must report. A lot of people believe that they have to be 100% sure to report, so if they only suspect, they’re off the hook. Nope. That’s not how it works. If your pastor heard that someone was abusing a child, and your pastor did not report, that, in and of itself, may be a crime, and can be reported.

How should churches handle sexual abuse allegations? A look at what churches should do--and what you can do if they don't handle it properly. #churchtooClick To Tweet
ANY sexual contact between clergy and parishioners is considered sexual abuse, regardless of age or willingness

Remember that sexual abuse encompasses any sexual contact between clergy, including youth pastors, and church members. There’s a power differential, and that means that it’s automatically abuse, similar to how psychiatrists can’t get involved with patients. In many jurisdictions, this is also specifically against the law, and should be reported. (In Canada, it appears to be encompassed in Section 273(1) of the Criminal Code, which notes power differentials that negate consent). If there is a power differential, then a person can’t technically consent, even if they seem willing. We’re often quick to blame someone for seducing the pastor, but legally, it’s always the other way around.

If sexual abuse is ever discovered, it must be reported immediately to any families who had children who may have come into contact with the abuser

Too often churches have been quick to worry about their reputation, rather than reporting the abuse to parents. Currently, two megachurches are in trouble for doing just that. (Just Google Paxton Singer and Harvest Bible Chapel coverup or The Village Church and Matt Tonne). They dismiss someone, but they don’t fully reveal to parents why they did so, and parents only find out after charges were filed.

But what if sexual abuse is only suspected?

This is where things get tricky. I know a situation where a youth pastor groomed and was sexually active with a child in his youth group, but that child was above the age of consent. It was thus considered “an affair”, even though he was her youth pastor (very similar, actually, to the Andy Savage situation at Highpoint). Charges weren’t filed for various reasons, and the pastor was fired, and did confess to the church a big sin in his life. But that sin was not revealed to parents.

This former youth pastor has no criminal record. He would pass a background check. And because parents weren’t made aware of the situation (largely to protect the victim’s reputation), no one knows what really happened. He could go on to another church and do the same thing.

What I have heard is that insurance companies are telling churches that they cannot disclose suspected abuse, when no charges were laid, or else the former pastors can sue for ruining their reputation and making them unemployable. Many churches are afraid of being sued by former pastors, and they’re just firing them and letting them go away, without warning others, to protect their insurance coverage. That’s wrong.

Also, to not tell parents means that you’re believing the abuser’s side of the story–that there was only one victim. You can never assume this. If someone grooms and abuses one young person, it’s very likely they have groomed and abused another. The church needs to tell parents so that parents can talk to their kids.

It protects a church’s reputation more to be up front than to cover it up

I know that abuse happens anywhere. What I want to see in a church, then, is not a church with no abuse accusations, but instead a church that is absolutely up front with anything that happens.

My best friend received a letter from the summer camp that her son had attended. The letter stated that they had discovered that a camp counsellor had been texting one of the boys inappropriately. He had been reported to the police, and was arrested. The camp had done a thorough background check and nothing had come up; and the camp had endeavoured to make sure that he had never been alone with any camper. But now the camp was notifying parents, to let them know of the issue so they could talk to their sons. And the camp said that they would update parents on the case.

And they did.

And my friend sent her son to that same camp the next year because she knew that the camp took abuse seriously. That didn’t ruin the camp’s reputation to her; it enhanced it, because she knew if the camp ever thought anything was off with any staff, they would deal with it appropriately.

So, with all of that said, what should this family do?

This family knows that someone sexually abused their child. That man is currently volunteering in a church. No charges could be filed, but when someone abuses one child, it’s almost guaranteed that they have abused others.

They have talked to pastors, and the man’s pastor is saying nothing can be done. Their former pastor did nothing to help. So what now?

Here are just a few of my thoughts, and I invite you to add some thoughts in the comments:

You are under no obligation to be quiet about this. You filed a police report. It is fine to tell others, “You are aware that a man who is volunteering in your church has had a police report filed about sexually abusing a 3-year-old, right?” That is not slander. That is truth.
Many churches are required to publish minutes of elder’s meetings. So I would write a letter to the elders and ask for it to be read at the elder’s meeting, so it could be entered into the record.
If a church is allowing someone who has been suspected of sexual abuse to serve, then they may be in violation of Plan to Protect (or whatever program they receive child protection accreditation from). Talk to the the Plan to Protect coordinator at the church and ask if they are aware of this situation.
If that individual does not help, then remember that not following Plan to Protect guidelines can cause a church to lose their insurance. So I would find out who their insurance company is and I would contact them.
If there is a local ministerial association (in my town, for instance, all the evangelical churches join together for certain events, and there is a steering committee for that), you can also contact that larger group and tell them
If the church belongs to a denomination, you can contact the district that encompasses that church and report it

UPDATE: Rebecca and I were just talking, and she suggested adding this point:

Write a Google review of the church and a Facebook review of the church mentioning that you reported that one of their volunteers had sexually abused a child, and the church did nothing. Don’t name the person, but it’s okay to say that. Then ask for your friends and family to vote that review as helpful so that it shows up near the top of the list.

Forgiveness is not the issue with sexual abuse of children

Our reader also said this:

I am also shocked at how common it has been for people to tell us we need to forgive, we need to pursue reconciliation, we are awful for not allowing them into our children’s lives (it was a relative), we have disrupted family unity etc. To me it’s not a matter of forgive, forget and move on hoping for the best. I have a very traumatized little girl who I am accountable to protect and I can’t get behind the idea of forgiveness that results in “reconciliation” and false unity at the expense of their safety.

I completely agree with her. Too often when someone does something wrong, we want the problem to go away. And in Christianity we seem to have a really nice way of making sure it does: we tell everyone they should forgive! Then, when someone says, “Um, that’s not the issue,” we use Scripture in an abusive way, saying, “Jesus forgave you, and you are to forgive like Jesus. You are in sin.” Suddenly the victim has become the perpetrator! And it’s wrong.

Safety of children comes first. You are never called to reconcile with someone who is a danger to you or your children. You are not in sin if you warn others about this person and if you refuse to see him or let him near your children. You are caring for your kids, and that matters to God.

Luke 17:1-2

Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Let me know: Have you ever dealt with a sexual abuse issue in church? Was it handled well? What do you think this woman should do? Let’s talk in the comments!

More posts on abuse in the church:

No More Covering up for Abuse!

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PODCAST: How Our Bodies Work, Sexual Health, and More!

This is a bit of a DIFFERENT version of the To Love, Honor and Vacuum podcast!

We’re getting a little bit more technical in terms of how to make sex feel great. I hope you all will listen, but if you don’t have time, I’ll have some links and rabbit trails below so you can read all you want as well!

And consider this podcast “extras”. If you want to go deeper into what I talked about in the podcast, here are some more things to help you.

But first, here’s the podcast:

Main Segment: Women’s Pleasure is Not “Extra”!

We’ve been talking this month about some specific ways to help her receive more pleasure from sex, including these two posts:

How to Have Multiple Orgasms

What Is the G-Spot?

I think, though, that we have several things working against us when it comes to feeling really good during sex.

We don’t think it’s actually that necessary

A lot of us truly feel like it’s more godly to not want sex or to not think that sex is that important. There’s this pervasive feeling like sex is somehow bad, and so it’s holier to not really care about orgasm.

When you do that, though, you’re rejecting a gift that God gave to you, as I explain at length in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex:

God made sex to be AWESOME!

It’s supposed to be great physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Feel like something’s missing?

Check out The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex!


















Biologically, women’s pleasure isn’t necessary

The other issue is that we start to think that sex = men’s arousal, intercourse, men’s climax. She’s kind of extra, and if she’s going to experience pleasure, she should catch up to him. So we feel guilty if we ask for him to make us feel good.

But this should never be the case! Think about it this way:

God made it so that most women experience orgasm primarily through clitoral stimulation. That means that God deliberately made women’s bodies so that we would receive pleasure through something that does not give men direct pleasure–so that men would have to be giving!

It’s not selfish to want to feel good, and if orgasm in general has been a problem for you, I’ll share these posts again (though remember, there are lots of tips in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex and challenges in 31 Days to Great Sex):

Need more help? Try these!

When You’ve Never Had an Orgasm: How to Experience the Breakthrough

Finally Reaching Orgasm–-a Breakthrough

Becoming More Orgasmic

9 Great Sex Tips for Her

Also, I promised to share this post which has a hilarious video in it by Amanda Gore to help husbands understand foreplay and how women need to be touched differently. You’ll love it!

Millennial Marriage: How can you really find community?

On an earlier podcast Rebecca and I were talking about what millennials really need from church–and that’s community. Then last week I ran a post on how to build a marriage support system, and so many of you commented on that and sent me messages, because that’s not what you have. Small groups don’t work for you.

So I thought Rebecca and I could continue this conversation a bit.

The big takeaway:

Community should be natural.

You can’t join a small group and “force” community or accountability (though many churches may try, and this borders on abusive, in my opinion. You should not be required to confess sins or temptations to groups of people you don’t know. Not all small groups are set up like this, of course, but I have heard of some like this at Sovereign Grace churches, for example).

You need to grow friendships organically. Some of that will come from small groups, but don’t be afraid to ask people over for lunch or dinner to get to know them better. And do volunteer! The best inter-generational friendships are often found when we volunteer together.

Reader Question: My husband waited years to take testosterone, and now he’s changed. But I’m bitter.

A reader writes in about her situation–she’s been married for about a decade and a half, and it was mostly a sexless marriage. She finally made her husband get his testosterone checked, but it was low. He did nothing about it until she gave him an ultimatum. Now he’s a changed man, but how does she get over years of neglect?

It’s a great question. And it totally drums in something that’s been the theme of the blog this week and of the podcast this week: If you’re having sexual problems, get help! So many are just medical, and there’s a quick fix. Why live like this if you don’t have to? It just causes layer upon layer of pain.

Beyond that, though, I’d say that, for her healing, he needs to hear and acknowledge the pain she’s caused.

But then there’s a point where you have to let it go. You finally have what you’ve been praying for for so long, and you’ll never build an intimate marriage if you’re still stuck in bitterness.

I’ve written a lot about the dynamics of forgiveness, and here are two posts that discuss it. In this case, I think the first is more relevant, but some of you may need the second as well:

On Forgiveness: Can You Let it Go?

Do We Try too Hard to Rush Forgiveness?

Comment: How a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist Can Help!

This week I ran two posts on how important a pelvic floor physiotherapist can be to help you with vaginismus and sexual pain, prolapse, incontinence, and more. You don’t have to suffer alone!

 

How a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist Can Help

What to Expect from a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist Appointment

I had so many positive comments on that post reiterating how much a pelvic floor physiotherapist can help, so please, if you need help, get it!

I read some comments in the podcast that reiterated this. One was from an older woman who found tremendous help with her incontinence and bladder control.

If you’re in Canada, Pelvic Floor solutions is a great resource.

Another woman wrote that pelvic floor exercises that she learned from Mommastrong had really helped her (and her husband even noticed during sex!

5 Tips to Make Multiple Orgasms More Likely

Are multiple orgasms a thing? And if so, how do you get there?

This month I’ve been focusing the blog on the physical aspects of sex–both how to make it feel physically great, and also how to address some problems that you may be having. I talked about how to find the G-spot, and we’ve had a pelvic floor physiotherapist on the blog this week to tell us what to expect and how such a physiotherapist can help.

I know these are slightly more R-rated posts than normal, but I really do want you to have a safe place to talk about these things! And multiple orgasms is a question I get a lot, so I thought I’d try to give it my best shot.

Now, one word of encouragement first. If you’re one of the ones who is thinking–“MULTIPLE orgasms? I’d settle for figuring out what a single one is like!”, I hear you. And I hope these posts can help:

Need more help? Try these!

Becoming More Orgasmic

How to Reach the Big O

Also, nobody HAS to have multiple orgasms (anymore than you HAVE to find the G-spot). But I do think it’s really interesting the way that God created the female body, and so I do want to explain a few things to you.

Certainly it takes women longer to achieve orgasm than it takes men.

The average man can reach orgasm during intercourse in 2-3 minutes while the woman takes about 15-20. I think one of the reasons that God made orgasms to work this way is that men have to pay attention to their wives if their wives are going to receive pleasure. So men become more focused on giving rather than on receiving, when things work well. And women have to learn to communicate and tell their husbands what they like, which helps us to become more vulnerable, and increases closeness.

If everything worked automatically, then relationships may stay very shallow!

But here’s what’s cool: even though women may take longer to reach orgasm, we’re also capable of more intense ones, and we’re capable of multiple ones. So in the long run, we do make out pretty well!

How do I know if I’ve had a multiple orgasm?

Sometimes it can be hard to tell. For some people, multiple orgasms are more like one big long one, where it’s kind of peak after peak, with not a lot of break in between. For other women, they’re more distinct, with a minute or two between where the arousal dips and then starts again.

Want to work on this together?

Check out my 31 Day challenge that you do with your spouse. Super easy–just read a few pages a night and do what it says.

Lots of challenges to help foreplay last longer, and to discover what makes you feel good!

Let's try it!


















Here are just a few tips to make multiple orgasms more likely:
1. Have a LOT of foreplay

Because women take longer to reach orgasm in the first place than men do, making sure that you’re almost there before you start intercourse is crucial if you want longer orgasms, simply because he’s going to have to last beyond your first orgasm. So don’t skimp on the foreplay!

2. Don’t Pull Away or Stop Paying Attention

When you do reach orgasm, the tendency is to pull back, stop concentrating, stop paying attention, or just bask in it, because now “you’re done”. Try not doing that. Keep paying attention to the stimulation, and let yourself keep feeling the wave.

3. Breathe Deeply

We also tend to stop breathing during intercourse, or at least to have very shallow breaths. Instead, try to keep your breathing relatively even and deep. That helps the body continue what was happening, rather than switch to something else.

4. Change stimulation

If your initial orgasm is through clitoral stimulation rather than during intercourse, the difficulty with having multiple ones is that sometimes  you’re too sensitive to continue touch there. So you may have to change stimulation.

In fact, even if you don’t normally reach orgasm during intercourse, see if keeping your breathing even and continuing to “ride” the orgasm can change that. Once you’ve reached orgasm, if he begins penetration, you may be able to keep it going. Make sure that your hips are tilted forward to keep the pressure on the clitoris. breathe deeply. And stay very relaxed. Let it keep washing over you, and see what happens!

5. Try start-and-stop during foreplay

To make multiple o’s more likely, try the start-and-stop technique during foreplay so that your body is accustomed to having stimulation peak and then decline. If he gets you close, and then holds off for 15 seconds or starts doing things more lightly, and then resumes again, your body gets used to this. And this can also help you achieve multiple orgasms.

It’s very hard to explain, but it mostly is an ability to “ride the wave” (that’s how J from Hot, Holy and Humorous described it once) by keeping your breathing going, getting very relaxed, while keeping focused. Just don’t pull back like normal, and see if you can extend the sensation. Sometimes it works! But if not, hey, you’ve still felt great!

Tune into my podcast tomorrow where I’ll talk more about arousal and making sex feeling great, as well as answering your questions and some other great stuff! I’ve really enjoyed doing these podcasts, and I hope you enjoy them, too!

Let me know in the comments: Any great tips that I haven’t put it here for multiple orgasms? Let’s talk!

Liked this post? You may also like:

When You’ve Never Had an Orgasm: How to Experience the Breakthrough

Finally Reaching Orgasm–-a Breakthrough

Becoming More Orgasmic

9 Great Sex Tips for Her

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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.


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Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:

10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?



Check out some of Sheila's Books:

The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum



Check out Sheila's Courses:

The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course



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