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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2008 3:02:41 GMT -7
thank you so much paulos. i am actually not wanting to have the surgery. i will know in about a month or so if anything will need to be done for the problem i have or not. i had thought about just going ahead and removing it all, but now i don't think i could do it unless i had to.
i really appreciate what you said about my drive not being a curse. i have never viewed it as a gift, it seems to be mostly an inconvenience that makes me feel horrible. i really needed to hear that.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2008 11:09:19 GMT -7
i have had a pretty difficult week. several temptations. i am beginning to see a recurrent pattern in my behavior though. i am the weakest when i am under pressure. it's like i have to get a sexual climax to help me cope with hard times. i'm not sure why i have this attitude. if i'm mad, hurt, or having other negative feelings, that is the first place i run to. i know i should run to god, but frankly i just don't want to when i feel like that. i know it's wrong.
i have m many times over the last week. one of those nights, i actually had a very wonderful fulfilling intimate encounter with my h, but for whatever reason, as soon as he went to sleep i did it again. there was no logical reason for my actions. but if i'm honest no time i do it is there a good reason, even if i had not been intimate.
the good news is that i am going through a book called "the wounded heart". it is very good. i am also beginning to realize that i have always had a problem with addiction. right now i am addicted to sex, but years past i can see where i have had issues with smoking (occasional at age 13, hooked at 14 & managed to stop at 17), food, constant need of approval and etc. i just keep replacing one habit for another. i don't know if that even makes sense, but at the moment, it's the way i feel.
i am still trying to allow god to reveal all of the things he wants me to surrender to him that i haven't. i know that he wants priority in my life and i have not been giving it to him. if i was where i should be in my relationship with him, i wouldn't have such a hard time with my struggles.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2008 2:22:29 GMT -7
sam,
Your analysis shows excellent self-awareness. You are discovering things for which you use m. that have nothing in fact to do with sex. M., as a flight from reality that induces relaxation afterwards, can be used to assuage all kinds of pain, therefore when it presents itself to the mind, that can be due to the impinging of the cause(s) of pain, not just because the internal drive is requiring satisfaction. This may go some way toward helping you understand the mystery of what you have tended to call a too-strong sex drive. Maybe it's actually, at least in part, a lifestyle that presents you with daily challenges, combined with a tendency to want a quick fix for those challenges?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2008 23:10:45 GMT -7
hi paulos. yes, i do have a very hectic and stressed lifestyle. i'm seeing that m has been an effective way for me to release some anxiety and it does provide me with temporary satisfaction and relief. it also makes me feel like i am in control, which i desire. it very well could be a combination of both a strong drive plus a tendency to numb pain with pleasure.
now i seem to be facing a new temptation. i won't go into details on here, but i was offered something that tempted me greatly. i did the right thing, but now i have been fantasizing about having followed through with it. i think that fantasy and m has provided me with a sexual "high" so to speak for so long and now they are not quite as exciting as they once were. it's like i want to go deeper. i know i shouldn't and that i should fight the urges and i would never do anything that would put myself in danger but i feel like i need something that is more exciting. the only way to describe this feeling is like a drug addict having taken a drug for so long that it loses the potency it had when the person first started using so he needs to take more and more. i see this for what it is though, i wouldn't act on it, but the fact that i am fantasizing about it really does concern me.
i want complete healing of my mind and spirit... i want to reach a point where i am no longer tempted with anything that takes my focus off god. at the end of the day, i am left asking myself if i can ever reach that point.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2008 11:33:09 GMT -7
i had a HUGE slip today. my h and i have been home alone for most of the day and i got it in my head that i wanted to look at a little porn with him. i don't know why i got the urge but i did. i actually thought that desire was gone. anyway, i asked him and he said that we should not do it and that he didn't want to. he said that i was all he wanted and needed. well, with him saying that, of course i couldn't get mad at him for not letting me. he held me for the longest time until the desire left. he kept telling me that he loved me and that if i gave in, i would feel horribly guilty afterward. which was right. i am very thankful that he helped me get past my weak moment.
then he pointed out something to me that was revolutionary... he said that i wanted to quit struggling with sexual sin but that i didn't want to. there is some part of me that likes it so much that i don't REALLY want to let it go. well, i didn't want to hear that... but deep down, i know he is right. he said that maybe instead of asking god to help me quit struggling with it that i need to ask him to help me not want to do it in the first place. that if i no longer desire stuff that is inappropriate, that i would have no trouble avoiding it. it is such a basic concept, but i seem to have missed it before. my prayers have always been, "lord please help me to be strong and resist the temptations, help me do what is right", not "lord please help me to not like the sin i am struggling with, please take away all desire i have to do it." i need to go to the root of the problem and stop dealing with the symptoms. maybe to everyone else here, that is old news but i just haven't looked at it that way before.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2008 14:19:34 GMT -7
Hi Sam, Praise God for godly, loving husbands, who will speak the truth even when it is hard to receive, and for the Holy Spirit who has the wonderful capacity to reach to the center of our spirit with truth and conviction. May God, indeed, bring you to the point of loathing sin, especially this one, as He does. TruthSeeker
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2008 2:09:33 GMT -7
Sam,
You mention a hankering for sexual excitement.
In a sense, an orgasm is an orgasm. There are only so many ways to trigger the central nervous system. If just the experience of orgasm lies at the center of one's sexual life, then one quickly becomes jaded and has to start moving from one kinky technique to another to maintain any interest.
If, on the other hand, bonding with one's spouse lies at the center, with the orgasm as a pleasant by-product, the orgasms themselves take on varicolored hues in the kaleidoscopic context of the ongoing discovery of ever-new facets of the beloved's personality. When sex is subordinate to a committed relationship, it remains as fresh as the unforeseeable twists and turns of the growing relationship.
The one way is addictive, fruitless and stifling. The other is freeing, satisfying, and constantly refreshing.
The biblical sage's advice (to a husband--you'll have to adapt the passage to a woman's point of view) is:
"Rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely hind, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight, be inebriated always with her love." (Proverbs 5:19-20) (I have altered the translation in a couple of words to make it more literal, more reflective of the original Hebrew, than most modern English translations allow.)
If you can bend your mind think habitually in these terms, your prayer that God would destroy vagrant desires at root may begin to be answered.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2008 2:29:10 GMT -7
I agree, Paulos, but it is difficult when your husband withholds his emotional self from you, as mine has done. If I understand things right, the heart and the emotions, the soul if you will, is where the "bonding" that you are talking about takes place. But doesn't it take two willing people for this to happen?
I am feeling pretty hopeless at the moment when I realize that after 20 years my husband seems to have his own issues and fears that render him incapable of this kind of soul connection. And I have reacted to this by withdrawing myself, feeling hurt and angry.
Ok, I guess maybe this was just a vent on my part. :?
Journey
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2008 2:43:25 GMT -7
hi paulos,
you paint a very beautiful picture of what god created intimacy to be between a man and wife. i long very much to have the sexual relationship with my h as you suggest. it is my hearts desire to no longer be held in sexual bondage to the perverted desires that lurk within me. the hope though is that god loves me, he gave me my salvation, and he wants me to walk in freedom, living a life that is abundant. i must be faithful to him. when i give in to sexual sin, i am not only hurting my husband, i am hurting god. until i can reach a point where nothing else matters as much as god, i know i will have the struggles that plague me. he has to be first in my heart. i am determined to pursue that close relationship with my father. he is faithful and waiting for me to jump into his arms to heal me. but i have to be the one who jumps. finally, i think i am willing.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2008 2:49:20 GMT -7
it's ok to vent journey. sometimes we all need to just let it out. hopefully things with your h will improve. we do worship a god who is still in the miracle business.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2008 22:33:21 GMT -7
well, i've been doing good since sunday. i keep waking up early and i have to fight the urge to m because it had become such a habit for me. i have found that if i just go ahead and get out of bed, i can go to another room and either read my bible or read the study i am doing. that so far has been the most effective way i have found to deal with the desire. maybe after a while, it will be like second nature to me and i will no longer even have the temptation.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2008 4:02:19 GMT -7
i came across a great saying. "watch out for temptation, the more you see it, the better it looks". how true, how true.
i have really been having bad thoughts recently. i started rationalizing my desire to m. i slipped back into the habit again after about 5 days of not doing it and i told myself that it was ok because i wasn't thinking about anyone other than my h. i felt like since i wasn't fantasizing about others, then it was alright. i know this is wrong thinking on my part, but when the urge happens, i throw all logic out the window.
i'm still praying for god to change me. he is the only one who can.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2008 5:12:22 GMT -7
sorry to say that today has been a very bad day for me. i haven't given in to m though. i just really feel like this addiction is getting the better of me. tired and weary from fighting it. undoubtedly i am still trying to fight it by myself. i have to give it to god for him to deal with. i know i am getting nowhere.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2008 1:27:19 GMT -7
happy to say today is much better. i had to really focus on god and his word last night. he was faithful and helped me in my time of despair.
sam
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2008 4:13:17 GMT -7
hi everyone,
i just need to confess that my addiction has taken a sharp turn for the worst. i am not comfortable with sharing details because i don't want to be a stumbling block for my brothers on here, but i really need prayer about it. i am not feeling repentant about it and i really need god to change me. i need him to transform me and i have reached a point where i don't think i am willing to let him. i want him to, but i just can't give it to him yet.
thanks, sam
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