“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church…” Ephesians 5:28-29
I recently received an e-mail from one of my contacts requesting feedback regarding intimacy with an abuser. I tend to shy away from such sensitive matters, but in light of the pertinence of her question, I am certain that others may similarly avoid discussing these things. I also know that it is in the darkness that fears and injuries fester, and there is an appropriate time to draw them into the light.
So, the question is this: How can we expect to feel and respond toward our abuser sexually? This is a multi-faceted question, and I have decided to offer my two cents based on three distinct but inseparable factors: the draw, the danger, and the dance.
The Draw
Every healthy sexual relationship begins with attraction, not only of a physical nature, but also at an emotional and spiritual level. True enough, sex can be little more than a physical act, but no one will ever convince me that it was intended to be so. No, God created us as beings with a mind, body and spirit, and healthy sexual relationships encompass each and every aspect aligned in glorious, mutual fulfillment.
A woman who decides she is willing to receive a man wants to know that the one to whom she is giving her mind, heart – and body – is not only attracted to her physically, but appreciates, adores and cares for and about her. The joy of intimacy can in some ways be measured by the closeness a woman enjoys with her partner long before their bodies ever touch. A woman is free to love and be loved when she is convinced down to the core of her being that her lover is inherently safe and committed not only to her physical satisfaction but to her emotional and practical well-being. It is that confident certainty and security that draws her to him and frees her to abandon herself to him in every way. I am convinced that this is the way it should be.
The Danger
Within the abusive relationship, there is a shift in the dynamic, because the emphasis on mutuality has been perverted. The abuser wants to enjoy the pleasures of his victim’s body, while caring not a jot whether her heart and mind are healthily involved in the act. As in every other aspect of the relationship, the abuser adopts an entitlement mentality, and he perceives his physical satisfaction as sufficient. She can pretend for all he cares. In fact, in all too many cases, an abuser will demand sex regardless of the emotional connection and may demonstrate little if any empathy in instances when his partner is uncomfortable or in pain. In fact, many abusers enjoy the sense of dominance that comes from forcing his bride to accommodate him even if their sex life includes acts she finds shameful or immoral.
In instances where the abuser’s wife enjoys intimacy with her mate on a physical level, her heart does not trust him and her mind waffles between guilt for not wanting to be intimate with him and fear because of the emotional damage he has already done – and what he may still do. She knows that her needs are not even on his radar, and his expectation that she remain vulnerable to him leaves her in a precarious situation. She longs to feel loved but instead feels used, particularly when his temper flares before his feet touch the floor the morning after.
The Dance
As the abuse victim begins to feel increasingly unsafe, she begins to do the avoidance dance. She will look for ways to evade him – staying out late, remaining up past bedtime to read or watch television, complaining of being unusually tired or excusing herself for monthly female issues. The abuser will soon express his displeasure with her unavailability. He may remind her of the pleasure he gives her, but she does not dare confess the whole truth: any physical satisfaction she derives from their intimacy cannot begin to compensate for the fear, grief and loneliness she carries. She feels violated in bed, because he violates her in a hundred different ways in their everyday lives. The dance becomes a constant emotional burden – a weight of guilt derived from her unmet longing for genuine intimacy coupled with the shame of sharing her bed with a man who despises her.
Her other option is to refuse to sleep with him unless and until he demonstrates kindness toward her. And he might figure out ways to win her over when the need arises. But he will resent her for it, and she will need to accept that his occasional niceness does not equate to legitimate, heartfelt change. For him it’s a buy-off, the small price he is willing to pay to get what he wants. Knowing that his efforts are insincere, she may still have regrets when she gives in to him. And other times, he will simply not take ‘no’ for an answer.
Sleeping with an abuser is a multiplied tragedy. I don’t care what any church tells us; sex is not a right, it is a privilege, and it should be a God-honoring reflection of mutual care, respect and love. There are those who will even ridicule a victim’s quandary. “It’s only sex,” some will muse. Others will quote Scripture telling a woman that her body is not her own. (I Corinthians 7:4) However, I will gladly protest that flippant interpretation, citing the Apostle Paul’s words only four verses earlier where he states, “For you were bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body.” (I Corinthians 6:20) God is to be glorified in our bodies, created in the image of God, the temporary housing of our souls. Our bodies should be honored as the temple they are, particularly by those to whom we should be able to entrust them.
We should never be expected to compartmentalize sex as an act that has no effect on our hearts and minds. I stand in the certainty that all aspects of our being are inextricably interwoven and cannot be separated – at least not without harm. We should be able to expect that each and every aspect of our person will be cherished and protected by the one who stood beside us at a sacred altar and vowed to do exactly that.
So, how does one safely sleep with an abuser?
It is a hypothetical question, an oxymoron. You cannot. There is no way to keep yourself safe when you are making yourself completely vulnerable to someone who is unequivocally dangerous. When you agreed to marry or live with that man, it was presumably based on an understanding that he would take care of your mind, heart and body. If he’s abusing your mind and your heart, why in the world would you give him your body?
The only way to ensure that you won’t be expected to give yourself to him is to get away from him.
And you should.
Cindy Burrell
Copyright 2014
All Rights Reserved
Cindy, thank you again for writing and bringing to light the hard stuff. Your words are so validating. 9 months out of an long term abusive relationship the desires for intimacy are growing, and I look back to the twisted ways he used to manipulate me to get what he wanted, and how religion whispered in my ear that wanting to connect emotionally before physically was wrong. God given desires are not wrong!
Thank you Cindy!!
~ Vicki
I’m very glad that I can at least verify the validity of your thoughts and feelings in this. I agree that it is hard stuff – stuff I struggled with for many years as you have. I’m glad that you are recovering and finding strength and freedom in the truth!
Thank you for taking the time to write.
Cindy
Bravo Cindy! Sex as a tool of abuse is way too common in marriage. Victims often feel trapped, unable to tell anyone for fear of exposure or being told “they have to”. Thanks for your truthful words to help those caught in this highly damaging cycle!
Hello, “Free.”
You are so right. Sex is one more way that abusers hold us captive, even as we want to believe that if we accommodate them they will turn and love us. Instead, we end up feeling used and empty – and nothing changes.
Thank you for sharing.
Cindy
I want to share a resource, “Sexual Abuse in Marriage” by D. Anne Pierce, on Amazon. I hope it will be helpful to many women.
This was amazingly insightful and just what I needed to read last night! thank you again Cindy!!
Thank you. over and over again, thank you. For every word, thank you.
I have/am living this entire post.
God has used you to relinquish all the guilt he has heaped upon me. It will still be a struggle, but at least I know someone gets it.
Hello, Robin, and thank you for taking the time to write.
Yes, dear friend, I get it. I know that sometimes you think no one else can possibly understand. The dynamic is hard to explain to others, but many of us have been where you are.
I hope you will feel free to contact me on my website. I will be happy to help you work through these issues if I can.
Cindy
The emptiness is the hard part. And the guilt.
Even if there is no sexual abuse and this may be “neutral ground,” as it were, where there is a pervasive sense of bad feeling in the relationship over the often and unexpected put downs and anger and criticisms, etc., over time, it is very difficult to have enthusiasm over intimacy other than the purely physical reality of sex. Why? Because one is always “on guard.”
Most churches do not help, either. There is the elephant-in-the-room “cold threat” that if a woman doesn’t put out, this gives her man a reason to stray because (another elephant in the room) he somehow cannot restrain his sexual urges.
Really?
Let’s turn that around a minute. “Husbands, if you don’t respond to your wife’s intimacy needs (which may include but are not limited to sex) often enough she may be forced to turn elsewhere for her needs and it will be your fault because she simply cannot restrain her urges and desires in this regard.”
Um… How many ways are both of these ideas wrong?
Thank you, Cindy, for elevating this whole conversation to the high calling of God’s intent for this aspect of a husband/wife relationship.
Your comments are right on target. It is sheer hypocrisy on so many levels.
Wow Cindy! Your articles never cease to amaze me on how they seem to describe my marriage perfectly! I have been doing the “avoidance” dance for so long and I have felt so guilty about it (and made to feel guilty) but now it makes me feel better to know that I am not the only one that feels that way. I have also struggled with the feelings of being violated-I mean why should I feel violated when I am married? But it all makes perfect sense. He degrades me, nit picks, breaks me down one minute then wants sex the next minute. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to be intimate. He can’t understand why I can’t just “forget” what happened and move on. He is REALLY good at making me feel like this is all my fault and it is always over stupid things. I made a “stupid mistake” this last weekend and he acted like it was the end of the world and that I had committed a crime. I am 100% at fault, all of our problems are 100% my fault and if I would just change to be a completely different person, this marriage would work. Oh, and if I actually communicated that would solve all of our problems. I am at the point of walking away but then I feel SO guilty (and he makes me feel guilty as well, telling me that it is in my DNA to give up). But I know in this instance, the grass IS greener on the other side!=)
Dear Marie. I am thankful that the piece spoke to you.
The man knows your sensibilities and exploits them. He knows you don’t want to be perceived as a woman who gives up. He exploits that knowledge, using your values and devotion to control you.
The responsibility to fix your marriage or your husband is not yours. If he wants to fix it, he can and should. But he doesn’t want to, so he won’t.
it can be very difficult to get past our fears of what other people will think, and even about how we might feel about ourselves should we walk away. A failure? No, I believe that in calling a spade a spade, we stand up for the truth, for what is right and honest and real. But this is your life and decision to make, and only you know if and when it will need to be made.
I can tell you that you do not deserve to be abused, and God does not condone abuse.
You are welcome to contact me at my website, and I will do what I can to support and encourage you.
I’m glad you took the time to write.
Cindy
Cindy, I am very grateful that ‘you didn’t shy away from this sensitive issue.’ This post states it succinctly. Much confusion was brought into my life when ‘the church’ seemed to have a double standard as to whom should be meeting the desires of each other. I am among the victims who was told to wean my baby from the breast “early” so my husband could enjoy me and thus not look for satisfaction elsewhere. I was also responsible for ‘not getting pregnant’ but could not take any form of birth control due to health concerns … oh my, the list of burdens in the sexual sphere… I was told there is no such thing as sexual abuse within marriage – I was there to please my spouse.
I’m still here but living as a room mate. He says I should be happy that we haven’t been intimate in years – that way I don’t have to fear what he might do to me. Life just goes on for him; very routine and our best conversations for him is talking about the weather, birds, cutting the grass, etc. I feel used and abused especially since my adult children favour him over me and they all know I have very little local Biblical support.
This post was right on the mark. This is not often talked about, but is so important to bring to light as it is real for abuse victims.
In my 20 year abusive marriage which I’ve been out of now for over five years, it was just as you described. The guilt I carried for so many years of not wanting to have sex with him, with this monster of a man who never felt any empathy, but expected sympathy from me. This person who saw nothing wrong with telling me he didn’t like how I looked, told me how stupid I was for some little thing that went wrong and let me know when he didn’t like my cooking…and the list goes on and on and on. Then he suddenly wanted sex. And when I made every excuse in the book not to suddenly he would tell me it was like living with his cousin or that I just didn’t like sex or I was cold and frigid. And he would tell others on occasion how I didn’t like to hug or be hugged.
I actually love sex, all the aspects of it, but not with someone who so blatantly and with such disregard treats me like the enemy and withholds affection.
Today I’ve been remarried for 2 1/2 years to a man who loves me unconditionally, respects me and cares for me in a way that still amazes me. And I have come to discover that I DO love to be hugged, give hugs and be touched! I’m really not frigid and cold after all, but very warm and loving when cared for as every wife should be cared for! Just one more of my ex’s lies that I have laid to rest after all these years.
“We should be able to expect that each and every aspect of our person will be cherished and protected by the one who stood beside us at a sacred altar and vowed to do exactly that.”
I love this! So very true!
And I agree with the end of your post…the only way to ensure you don’t have to give of yourself to an abuser is to get away from him! Amen!
I’m here to say dear ladies that you CAN leave and you CAN have a peaceful life after abuse. I did it and so can you!
What a great testimony you shared. I so well recall the guilt of not wanting to be with him, but wanting to be loved. What a terrible position to be in. I am happy for you, too! There are happy endings, and when the relationship is loving and healthy… what a difference!
When I was with my ex I craved affection, I craved touch…I craved to be LOVED!
When I remarried, my husband and I talked about what our love languages are and I came to realize my top two are physical touch and then words of affirmation. Kind of ironic coming from a relationship where none of that happened and I was even told I didn’t like to be held or complimented.
Perhaps that goes to show that an abuser will twist things around so much that you truly lose sight of the real you. It’s hard to believe now how much of what he said to me and about me I actually believed for years.
My prayer is that women reading your blog and mine and many others out there will come to see their worth in the Lord and know that it is okay to leave so they can live again.
Blessings!
Reading these blogs and your stories DO help those of us that haven’t walked away yet=) It’s comforting to know that there are other women who have gone through the EXACT same things I am currently going through (and validates that I am not crazy) and that they have made it through. I don’t even fear the unknown anymore (where will I live, how will I make ends meet, etc.) as I know God will provide those in my time of need. My only fear is the unknown of what will happen with my children. I know they will survive and I know that they will be just fine, I just worry about not having my kids all of the time, not being there to help and protect them from their dad. That is the ONLY “obstacle” that keeps me from ending it now. Thank you for telling your story=) It gives me hope!
Dear Marie,
I stayed for 20 years because of my two boys. How often my ex threatened to take them from me if I ever left and there is nothing more that keeps a woman staying in an abusive relationship like the threat of losing her children.
My husband actually walked out on me over 5 years ago, but then wanted to come back. I said NO and since my boys were older, 14 and 17, I felt stronger to say no.
But I will be honest, even that age they struggled with the whole divorce thing. My youngest had the hardest time, especially when I remarried and he had to live with us since he was under 18. But now over 2 1/2 years later he considers his stepfather more of a father than he has ever had. And my son has since broken all ties with his father because he got tired of how manipulative and controlling he was being, and he finally came to realize that the father he wished he had will never be.
It’s very sad to me that my children hurt, but I’ve come to realize that it is not my fault and I can only be there to provide comfort and security, both of which they never get from their father.
I pray God gives you clear direction and the courage to step out and find freedom…for both you and your children.
Blessings!
Wow, that was good.
Last week I finally went to the dentist that I had been avoiding for years with one excuse after another. When I was there I finally realized why I had been avoiding it; almost ran out of the office the memories were so bad. I have a strong gag reflex, always have. The ex-idot knew this about me from day one. But what did he regularly demand and not accept any excuse? Well, I am sure you all know. I have to go back to the dentist for a crown. Am shaking in my boots. Hopefully because I know why I have this aversion to things in my mouth I can sit through the procedure. So tired of this healing process, want to be done and past all this!
Dear friend. I am so sorry about he put you through. I understand completely. I also want you to know that you can heal and get beyond it.
You probably need to process your experiences, preferably with a trained counselor who understands abuse. Another option is to journal. Journaling can be difficult – to pour out your pain on paper (or a computer). But, there is something in it that enables us to process the pain, to be able to see our experiences more objectively, and they begin to lose their power over us.
I’ll be praying for you, as well. You deserve a fresh start, the freedom you long for.
Feel free to write me.
Cindy