I recently read a sociological experiment[2] that was done on a popular marital affair membership website. I was intrigued to learn that the website boasted over 100 million members.
The researcher showed that the married men were mostly looking for sex while the women, on the other hand, were looking for emotional validation, romance and emotional intimacy.
While there were some women who would meet in person, he found that most of the women only wanted to talk. They wanted to be intimate online or over the phone and would avoid direct contact.
He learned from these women (both in person and otherwise) that the reason they were looking for affairs was that their husband was gone a lot, or had stopped romancing them, or just plain wouldn’t talk to them.
To me this demonstrated that intimacy is so essential to our marital well-being that 100 million married people (an amount equal to 1/3 of the entire United States population[3]) were willing to risk their marriages to get it.
But rather than talk to their spouse about what they needed in their relationship, they signed up for an online site to have a marital affair – and tried to keep it a secret.
Secrets: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Evil
Aren’t secrets a good thing sometimes?
In the American English vocabulary, there are lots of terms for information that is not freely shared. To help give clarity, here are the most comprehensive types that relate to this topic:
Confidential: A bank withholding your personal information from unauthorized users is protecting you from potential theft or fraud. A bishop or stake president would receive information in interviews with individuals in his congregation, and this information is not to be shared with others, including the bishop’s spouse. FERPA are Federal laws requiring educational institutions to keep information about their students confidential - sometimes even from parents - to protect that student's privacy and safety.
If confidential information is revealed too soon, security is compromised. Good people could get hurt or perhaps killed. People could be humiliated needlessly. Trust in the one holding the confidence (and perhaps trust in others like him or her) is broken. The person entrusted with the confidence is reduced to nothing more than a hypocrite and a gossip.
Sacred: This includes traditions or ordinances, persons, places or things that are only meant for worthy persons in good standing to learn and know about and share amongst each other. Often this knowledge is shared in dedicated places. The LDS Temple is a good example of this, although there are other examples from other religions and traditions as well.
Sacred is not the same as secret, because it is intended to be shared with those who can be trusted not to mock it or make it ordinary. Married people are usually not inclined to openly share all the details of their intimate life for fear of their beloved spouse or children being mocked. That information would then be sacred. It's a kind of "confidence" in that trust is involved. By keeping things God has declared "sacred", we are demonstrating to him that we can be trusted with His sacred things.
If the sacred gets out, it tends to be mocked, profaned and ridiculed. Something special becomes cheap and degraded instead of holy and ennobling.
Secret: A “secret” in the context of this article is information held by one person and is usually hidden away from others, most notably that person’s spouse. This information is generally toxic to the relationship because the person is ashamed of sharing this secret or fears the outcome of sharing it.
A secret then is something where a person’s trustworthiness is already in jeopardy and the information is withheld to protect the guilty and harms the innocent by not being shared. If not checked, such secrets can become a gateway to more serious sins.
Therapists, for example, are required to keep confidences with their patients, but the law requires they not keep secrets about things that could be detrimental to the safety of another person. A client telling his therapist of his plans to murder someone, for example, would not fall under the definition of a confidence and would have to be shared.
Therapists, for example, are required to keep confidences with their patients, but the law requires they not keep secrets about things that could be detrimental to the safety of another person. A client telling his therapist of his plans to murder someone, for example, would not fall under the definition of a confidence and would have to be shared.
Informal Secret Combination: Secrets can lead to other sins in order to protect the secret, such as lies, neglect and even murder. Another, more toxic kind of secret is what we in the LDS Church call a “secret combination”.
An informal secret combination happens when others are involved in order to keep a secret from the innocent so the offender can keep sinning. Even so, it could be accidentally or purposefully exposed by any involved. This could hide such activities as adultery, fornication, theft or an addiction.
Formal Secret Combination: This kind of secret is shown in the stories of Cain and Lamech in Genesis[4], but is more clearly mentioned in the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price.[5] This is when oaths, covenants and tokens are exchanged by those entrusted with the secret, for the purpose of gaining power over others or hiding serious sins.
In our context, it could be a spouse plotting their divorce with a trusted few to cover up an affair from the spouse, law or even the church, or the husband’s mistress plotting to murder the wife. This level of secret combination is the lowest level of evil a person could go into in order to keep a secret.
If a secret combination is pulled into the glaring light of day, those persons involved are exposed for their wrongdoing and hypocrisy, and innocent people tend to be protected from further wrongdoing in the future.
Secrets that Sabotage a Marriage
- Do you hide resentments and hurts, and pretend everything’s fine?
- Do you have a spouse who dislikes sex or some aspect of sex, for whatever reason?
- Do you indulge in fantasies, or profane erotica, to keep from bothering your spouse with your intimacy needs; to “keep the peace”?
- Do you have transgressions in your past that you have not shared with your spouse, that could affect your spouse or children - whether you have repented or not?
- Are you making significant decisions about financial matters or employment decisions without consulting your spouse?
- Are you addicted to any substance or activity that makes demands on your resources or time?
- Are you experiencing a personal struggle, such as problems with flirting or strong attraction to others which you won’t share because "it’s ‘my problem, not my spouse’s"? Perhaps you feel your spouse won’t understand and will feel betrayed and reject you?
If you’re married, you and your spouse are an eternal team. If one spouse is not allowed to help meet or carry the needs of the other, trying to meet your needs alone may sabotage the relationship. In each of these scenarios, we find one spouse trying to carry a secret burden alone; a burden no one can successfully carry without harming the marriage and the best possible sex in the marriage.
The key (that many couples overlook as an option) to overcome the burdens mentioned above is for the couple to work together as a team in addressing the problem.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”[6]
Confiding (The tool to counteract secrets)
If you want to maintain an optimum sex life with your spouse, and achieve a relationship you would want for eternity – a couple must feel safe to be vulnerable with each other and confide personal secrets with each other.
This can seem frightening in the extreme, especially when we carry particularly dark secrets, or when we feel like our spouse is hiding things from us. It can get ugly, and no one would blame us for not wanting to share such dark aspects of ourselves with the person we love.
The good news is, once you confide your secrets to your spouse, your relationship has the potential of coming to life in a beautiful way as you and your spouse shares the burden together. It ends the cycle of dysfunction, and opens the road to healing in every way, including the sexual aspect. It does this by magnifying the “trust” factor in your relationship. The best possible sex in marriage cannot exist without trust.
Can’t we just forget the past?
“Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”[7]
Secrets, especially sinful secrets, have a tendency to grow and develop a power of their own when not shared.
Such sins, even if they happened before we met our spouse, most likely have manifest (known/can be predicted) and latent (unseen/difficult to predict) consequences that will affect our future spouse and marital relationship. What affects us automatically affects them through the requirement of becoming “one”. These sins cannot be swept under the rug – we will have to share them and hope for forgiveness. If we do not volunteer the information, chances are it will come out eventually anyway and if it’s not from you, it could affect their future trust in you.
Ever tried to keep a toxic secret silent? We see too many examples of such things in the media today to think we can die with our secrets in us. Especially with today’s technology, sooner or later….
“… the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed.”[8]
The Lord knows all our secrets…and loves us anyway. He encourages us to repent, always to repent[9]…and part of that repentance includes going to those who we have wronged. If we have wronged our spouse, forgiveness will come with confession – to the Lord, and to our spouse. Perhaps ecclesiastical leaders will need to be involved as well, but not before the spouse.
But what if they won’t forgive me?
They may not. There is always that chance. You can’t force others to forgive you.
However, you may not be giving your spouse credit. Remember – your spouse needs to share all with you as well. Would you forgive them such an admission? Would you not be willing to help them with their challenge?
You may hurt your spouse’s feelings with your admission. You may force them to face hard realities that your relationship was not really what they thought it was. Out of that painful soul-searching, a new reality can be found where love may bloom again and a stronger bond of trust can be created.
We work so hard to impress each other before we marry – to put our best selves forward. After the wedding has ended, we can’t keep up any pretense for long. Our spouse will eventually see all of our warts and wrinkles, love handles and temper tantrums…and hopefully continue to love us and accept us for who we truly are.
Everyone comes with baggage. Marriage is about finding that person we can love enough and who will love us enough to help unpack. Marital intimacy and the atonement are the balms that smooth and soothe our way through the bumpy jagged road of eternal marriage.
Everyone comes with baggage. Marriage is about finding that person we can love enough and who will love us enough to help unpack. Marital intimacy and the atonement are the balms that smooth and soothe our way through the bumpy jagged road of eternal marriage.
Confiding Robs Secrets of Their Power
I suggest confiding in your spouse your anger, your pride, and your secrets. It gets easier the more often you do it. Tell your spouse when you find other people attractive, or when you want something you shouldn’t have; especially if those feelings are strong. When shared with your helpmeet, those feelings lose their power and tenacity. When kept a secret, they fester and grow intense.
Let them tell you when they’re tempted. Laugh about it together. Wonder about and kick it around together. Let them help you overcome an addiction, or share with them when you’re feeling scared, weak or vulnerable.
If you are the spouse being confided to, remember that you are receiving sacred and confidential information; a vulnerable part of your spouse. This is not the time for jokes ,mockery or castigation. Remember the consequences for disregarding confidences or sacred information is loss of trust, or the cheapening of sacred things. Don’t kick your spouse when they’re down, even if you warned them….even if you saw this coming.
Keep confidences between you and your spouse. I don’t recommend sharing personal details with others unless both spouses give their consent. I do believe that confiding in a parent or grandparent, a bishop, or a qualified mental health professional can bring wisdom that can benefit your marriage, so long as the spouse is involved in the decision of who to share it with.
Share with the Lord your challenges and your secrets, and he will grant you the strength to share them with your spouse. If your spouse is weak and refuses to share, confide your fears and vulnerabilities to the Lord and pray for your spouse. Also, try to do all you can to be worthy of their trust so they can feel safe confiding in you.
Remember that the Lord is a third party to your marriage, and has enough strength for both of you. Whatever secrets your spouse may be hiding will come out eventually. Build up your own strength for that moment by grasping onto the Lord and His atonement. His sacrifice is also for just such circumstances in our lives.
You can resurrect and give unseen power to your marital sex life through your commitment to air out your secrets with each other, and by always confiding in the person you loved enough to marry for eternity.
[1] Pearl of Great Price, The Thirteenth Article of Faith
[2] Orlando, Charles. “Why Women Cheat: A Married Man Goes Undercover On Ashley Madison”. YourTango. <http://www.yourtango.com/experts/charles-j-orlando/why-women-cheat-married-man-goes-undercover-ashley-madisonhttp://www.yourtango.com/experts/charles-j-orlando/why-women-cheat-married-man-goes-undercover-ashley-madison>
[3] Rosenberg, Matt. ”Current USA Population”. About.Com. New York Times Company. 2 Mar 2011. <http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/uspopulation.htmhttp://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/uspopulation.htm>
[4] Genesis 4:1-24 (greater detail is found in Moses 5:18-55)
[5] Many examples can be found, particularly of the Gadianton Robbers, in the Book of Mormon, and the Nicolaitane Band in the Doctrine and Covenants (see Topical Guide, Secret Combinations)
[6] 2 Corinthians 6:14
[7] Matthew 5:23-24
[8] Doctrine and Covenants 1:3 (emphasis added)
[9] Doctrine and Covenants 19
