16 Confessions of a Marriage Sex Blogger

There seems to be a recent trend of marriage bloggers (particularly in the Christian Marriage Bloggers Association) posting their “confessions” as marriage bloggers.  Most of them seem to be sort of “get to know me” points as well.  So I will attempt to continue the trend.  I realize I’m a little late to jump on the wagon, but I guess never late than never.  So here we go:

1. I write more for me than for you. By all testing I have had, I am a split introvert/extrovert.  In order to finish my thought processes completely, I first need to think about it, then get it out in some external form.  In the last few years, I have found that writing is a good medium for me.  So, when I’m thinking about something, when I’m going through something, when I’ve had a revelation about something, I write, usually after my brain has looped around the topic for a few days first.  This is why my posting is erratic.  Sometimes I just have a ton of stuff in my head and need to get it out.  Sometimes I’m focused on other things and I find it very hard to “force” a post.  That said, I do feel this is a ministry.  People are being helped.  I believe there is still a need in the community for these topics.
2. I post anonymously so I won’t feel censored.  It is not because I am ashamed.  And I am not embarrassed.  A couple of my closest friends know that I have a blog about sexuality in marriage from a Christian perspective, but no one, other than my wife, knows the domain name.  But, it is hard to be 100% transparent when you know your mother, sister, friend, might read every word you type.  And I have another non-anonymous blog where they do read and comment on everything I type, so it’s not just paranoia.  Now, I might be able to do it anyway, but my wife is definitely not ready.  I hope one day we will be.  For now, this is what I can do.  I have amazing respect for those bloggers who post explicitly, without reserve using their own names.  And, I’m a little jealous, to be honest.
3. Our marriage started as a disaster.  Neither of us was happy.  We’ve come to realize now that my wife has ADHD and with that often comes depression.  The first 5 years of our marriage were brutal.  She was constantly depressed, and I was always felt like I was walking on eggshells.  Our finances were a mess, we had almost no sex life to speak of, we weren’t going to church, and we were the only married couple out of our friends.  And we never thought to talk to anyone about it.  We just assumed this was married life.  Thank God we stuck through it.  These days, our finances are under control (we have a big pit to dig out of, but we’re getting there), we are very involved in our church, we have many married friends (though almost all of them are decades older), and well, we have plenty of sex.  And we’re both much happier as a result of all these things.  How we did this is enough content for a book.
4. I am a recover(ing/ed) porn addict.  That was hard to write.  At age 15 or 16, when the internet was not quite yet realized, but there were networks of computers out there, I realized that I had nearly unlimited access to porn through my computer and its modem.  It was slow and of terrible quality, but I didn’t care at the time.  Actually, I was much more interested in erotic stories than in videos (believe it or not).  It’s been almost two years since I confessed to my wife.  It was easy at first, and I am still just as convicted about not going back, but I’ll be honest, some days are harder than others still.  They say the brain takes 7 years to get over an addiction.  5 more to go I guess…
5. I have an obsessive personality.  My brain will focus on a topic and I think about it nearly every waking moment for the next 3-12 months, and it’s basically uncontrollable what the next topic will be.  Sometimes they are useful.  A few years ago, my obsession for about 6 months was finances.  I read everything I could find on money, personal finances, stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, commodities, CFDs, and I would talk to anyone who would listen about them.  This was when our financial life really started to turn around.  I started tracking every dollar that went into and out of our home. We went from giving almost nothing to the church to Tithing (10%) + another 5% in offerings and still had enough money left over.  That was a great obsession.  Another one was theoretical physics.  I learned all about particles, sub-atomic particles, quantum theory, quantum chromodynamics (don’t ask), gluons, neutrinos, string theory (or m-theory).  I learned that the 5 main theories about a 10-dimensional universe all coalesce into a single theory when you add the 11th dimension.  I read everything by Steven Hawking, watched as much Star Trek and Star Gate as I could (they deal with some of these theories in their shows).  This obsession was less practical in my daily life, except to show me just how incredible our God is, and I have some theories on just how He managed to pull of Creation that I’d love to run by Him someday.  I believe our God is a logical God, and that He “cheats” as little as possible.  Why make a universe governed by physics if you aren’t going to utilize said rules.  But, to be clear, I still believe in a young universe theology (though time-dilation due to gravity may play a role in explaining some of the data that makes it appear old).
6. I own more books than anyone should.  Really.  There are hundreds.  One of my first thoughts, when we moved into our current house (before we had kids), was which room to turn into a library.  Most of my books are Sci-Fi/Fantasy (I spent a lot of time in my teens and early 20s trying to escape from the world).  But lately, they are branching into other topics, particularly the classics, theology and sexuality.  But then, now most of my new acquisitions are on the Kindle platform these days, which takes up far less space.
7. I don’t understand social conventions.  I get very confused by people who shake my hand every time we see each other.  I thought that was just a formality for first meetings.  I don’t understand people who ask how you are and then either keep walking or look confused when you actually tell them.
8. I am far more interested in the truth than in making you comfortable.  This one gets me into trouble.  I am obsessed with the truth.  Be that why things are the way they are or the “Truth” as in Theology.  Many people have said to me “You always think you are right.”  Of course I do!  If I thought I was wrong, I wouldn’t be contributing to the conversation, because I’d have nothing of value to add.  That said, if I find out I was wrong, I will immediately do an about-face in my thinking and adjust accordingly, which stuns some people by how quickly I can change an opinion when presented with fact.
9. I do not get emotionally invested in discussions or arguments.  I once had an argument with someone discussing some aspect of theology, I’m not sure which.  What I do remember is that halfway through the conversation I realized:  She wants to kill me.  Not literally, but she was extremely upset, and I didn’t realize until then (I’m bad at reading these things sometimes).  She was emotionally invested in her side of the argument, and while I thought we were having a fun debate, she was fighting with everything she was.  I have since realized that most people are like this.  They get attached to their argument, and should you attempt to tear it down, they believe you are making a personal attack against them.  I took a good 6 months off of any discussion/debate about theology while trying to wrap my head around this because it was so alien a concept to me.  So, please, if you disagree with me, comment, tell me.  I will not be offended in the least.  Just try not to be offended when I defend my position in return.
10. I do not look like the picture in the header of the site.  Neither does my wife.  When I created the look for the site, I didn’t even think that people would think it was me and my wife.  I was just looking for a cutout picture of a couple that looked married and happy.  Since then, some people have taken it and used it as a bio pic of me, but that was not my original intent.  Then I needed a pic for Facebook and Twitter and had nothing else to use.  I am planning to replace them with a logo…I just don’t have any graphic design skills to make a logo.  If anyone wants to, please send it over!  I need to solve this at some point, because it feels a little deceptive now that I know how people take it. I’ve since changed the design of the website, so this isn’t applicable anymore.
11. I suffer from ED from time to time.  And while I intellectually know that’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s still hard to admit.  I believe it is related to my weight (I have a great many pounds to lose).  I lost about 50 pounds and it improved.  Then I gained 30 back, but now I’m actively working on losing another 60.  It was frustrating in the extreme at first.  But, we’ve learned to deal with it, learned some tricks to “get it back” (my wife is pretty persuasive when she wants to be), and when all else fails, learned to let it go, make sure my wife has an orgasm (which is still fun), and try another time.
12. I used to suffer from DE (Delayed Ejaculation).  This is a topic not discussed much.  Most of the time, people are talking about PE (Premature Ejaculation).  And to them, I’m sure DE sounds like a dream.  But, when you can’t orgasm no matter what you do, I’ll be honest, sometimes PE sounded like a dream.  This has now gone away, and, if anything, I am now working on trying to hold out longer during sex (something I never thought I’d have to do).  I believe it was a side effect of my porn use.
13. Our sex life has ups and downs.  This should be very apparent from my posts, but in case it isn’t, I thought I’d explicitly state it here.  In our marriage, we have gone from sexless (once a month or less) to daily to once a week, to twice a month, to three times a week, and now we’re probably sitting at about twice a week again.  Right now it’s mostly due to our youngest who still won’t sleep through the night.
14. I’m still gun shy from my wife’s refusing days.  It’s been almost 5 years since we were in a sexless marriage, but I still anticipate rejection.  I still don’t feel strong enough to handle it most of the time.  And so I don’t ask for sex a lot of the time I’m feeling a need to reconnect.  I know we’d have more sex if I was more intentional about it, but I think I subconsciously sabotage myself a lot of the time because a passive rejection hurts less than the possible active rejection.  And I’m afraid to discuss it with her because she’s made so much progress in this area, I don’t want to feel like it’s “not good enough”.  So, I feel like my options are to suffer in silence or hurt my wife.
15. I don’t pray as often as I should.  I wish I did.  I can never seem to get into the habit.  I’ve read the Bible cover to cover 3 times, plus a billion selected verses.  I am very focused on theology, I love to learn about God, discuss Him, teach about Him.  But I have never been a “prayer warrior”.  It is probably the single biggest struggle in my spiritual life.
16. Stats are a double-edged sword.  When I look at the stats of this site, generally three thoughts enter my mind.  Usually first to the forefront is my “self” rising.  It says “Wow, you must be good, look at all the people who want to read what you wrote!”  I try to push that down (some days more successfully than others, I’ll admit).  The second thought is “I’m glad this can help someone.  Let my mistakes help them not to make them.”  And lastly, I usually think “There are so many broken marriages God!  How can we help them all?”  I am not a very emotional person and I’m bad at expressing it, but it’s heart-wrenching sometimes to read the comments, read the emails, read the search queries that lead people to this blog.  We are broken in so many ways, and so many of them have simple solutions early on, but we wait so long to get the help that they become almost impossible missions.  God, help me to prepare my children better than I was prepared.

So, that’s a small insight into me.  I hope this helps frame my future posts.