I know it's been a while since I last wrote anything and I'm sorry if you've been missing that. School started back & new friends have come into my life. I feel that God is working on me constantly and for that I am grateful.
My work load is heavy but manageable (and will be even more so once I'm caught back up). Today I want to share with you one of the reaction papers that we're required to write for our Human Sexuality class. It's an interesting class because the textbooks aren't what I expected -- they're Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy and Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction.
This is in reaction to the fourth chapter of Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction:
Marriage…we see it laid out for us in the Bible, in Song of Solomon, in the relationship between Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is a relationship that is meant to be the most fulfilling and intimate one we will ever have with another human. Sex is to be something that brings you closer to your loved one, to develop a deeper connection and foster an increasingly more loving way of communication both in and outside the bedroom.
To think of sexual addictions played out in marriages… It is incredibly difficult for me. Sex addictions are so diverse. They can manifest in such a variety of ways. So the way a spouse deals with this can be just as varied. And that presents such a magnitude of weight in my mind. How do you know what’s best? How can you offer help to someone when the manifestation of their sex addiction is so unique to them. How do you offer help to their spouse?
Laaser says on page 64 “[…] if you live around a sex addict, you may sense a “feeling” of sexual energy. Even though you may not be aware of the sexual practices taking place, you have an intuitive sense that something is wrong.” I knew something was wrong. I could feel the tension in the air, hanging heavy around me, coating everything it touched like the drug residue that coats the inside of a meth house. My mother knew something was wrong. She blames herself for not pushing harder than she did for my father to come clean. But would it have made any difference? Even to this day, I don’t think he admits that he’s a sex addict. You cannot begin to hope to change without first realizing and admitting truth.
Even by knowing what to look for…even if you get good at recognizing the signs of a sex addict, what does that change in the grand scheme of things? We can hope for something better for that person, but without their willingness to be vulnerable and honest, their life will continue to be nothing more than a repeating downward spiral of darkness.
