The Four Marriage Killers – Separation

“And I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten, that it was not good that the man should be alone; wherefore, I will make an help meet for him.”[1]

In the beginning God declared that it is not good for man to be alone. This God-given desire dwells in all of us. The lack of companionship and emotional comfort from others leads to great feelings of loneliness and heartache. It can even lead to depression and infidelity.

In the beginning of our lives, our need for connection, intimacy and physical touch caused us to reach out to our parents or other family members for attention and comfort. In our growing years, we reach beyond our immediate family for companions our own age. 

In our adolescent and adult years, feelings blossom beyond just needing a friend and into a mate we can confide in, someone who will validate our most intimate thoughts, feelings and desires and someone we feel we can raise a family with.

A misconception many carry is the belief that after marriage the intense need for an intimate confidant has been completely satiated through our spouse, and if they truly loved us then they would never even desire to seek intimate validation from another.

This desire for intimacy never goes away, married or not.There is no magic switch that flips off when we make our marital covenants.

When we are separated from our spouse for any length of time, like dehydration from lack of water, the need for physical as well as emotional intimacy wells up within us and we instinctively seek it out. This can happen unconsciously, and sometimes from inappropriate sources. Our body and lymbic system (sexual subconscious) doesn’t discriminate when it has this desire.

The need for intimacy can manifest itself through developing an addiction to profane erotica and masturbation. It also appears through “harmless” flirting with the opposite gender and/or making a friend with the opposite gender who we begin spending time confiding our feelings and dreams and (if allowed to develop) our desires. 

Validation from this new friend causes a chemical reaction in our brain that creates an emotional bond to this person. When this happens, powerful infatuation chemicals are released, making our desires for this new person hard to break.This is known as limerance, and it's extremely difficult to break. [1.5]

According to Dr. Willard F. Harley, Jr. of www.marriagebuilders.com , this is the point where an affair has taken a foothold in your life and drastic measures must be taken to break its grasp on you.

Infidelity doesn’t happen all at once as a single conscious waking decision. Like flaxen cords, it begins with the subtle basic feeling of loneliness. If those feelings are satiated with someone other than our spouse, momentum builds.

Eventually it may take outside help from a professional to help you control those feelings and heal the damage they can cause…damage such as immorality or adultery, the loss of material possessions or employment, or psychological damage to marriage and family. No one is immune.

The Counter To Separation is Closeness

How do we prevent damaging types of separation? By cultivating closeness with our spouse.

When I talk of separation, I’m not talking about needing the occasional quiet time away from everyone to meditate or read a book or rest our minds with other activities.

I’m referring to situations spouses face such as overnight business trips, long military deployments, sleeping in separate bedrooms, living as if you and your spouse are roommates, working late frequently, neglecting date nights with your spouse, or sacrificing time with our spouse for nights
out with “the guys/girls” that are intended to exclude your spouse.

Consider this statement by Dr. Harley:

“One of the most controversial positions I take regarding marriage is that a husband and wife should be together for their favorite recreational activities. Whatever it is they enjoy doing the most, they either do with each other, or they don't do it at all.

Some feel that I am out to destroy marriage with that suggestion, not save it. After all, how can a husband and wife survive each other in life unless they are able to get away once in a while to have some fun?

‘You are meddling, Dr. Harley! I need something to look forward to, and _______ is absolutely essential to my survival,’ is the response I often hear from spouses when first introduced to the idea. ‘There are some things a man and woman simply cannot enjoy together, and yet are essential to their happiness.’

But my advice is not based on ivory tower speculation. It's based on years of observation. Couples who spend their most enjoyable time together tend to have great marriages, and those who do not, tend to divorce. Furthermore, I have witnessed hundreds of couples who have given up activities that only one enjoyed for activities that they both enjoyed. None went crazy, and almost all of them were very happy that they made the change.”[2]

Also think on this counsel from Elder Joe J. Christensen, formerly of the Presidency of the Seventy:

“Keep your courtship alive. Make time to do things together – just the two of you. As important as it is to be with the children as a family, you need regular weekly time alone together. Scheduling it will let your children know that you feel that your marriage is so important that you need to nurture it. That takes commitment, planning, and scheduling.

It doesn’t need to be costly. The time together is the most important element.”[3]  

Essential business trips or military deployment don’t have to be a death knell for our emotional connection to our spouse and our marriage. Away from our spouse, the basic principles of “For the Strength of Youth” still apply. 

Modern technology has made it easier than ever for us to stay connected to our spouse, and (where possible) we should. Planning when and what you will do together to renew your intimate connection when you return is imperative. 

If you find your day at work or couple of hours away at a committee meeting leaves you or your spouse feeling emotionally in need of validation or connection, this renewal time may need to be planned more often.


Our spouse has the responsibility to be there for our emotional intimacy needs. Likewise, we need to support them as well.  Every individual is at their own level of spiritual or emotional development. Our spouse may have a greater or lesser emotional intimacy need than our own. Creating eternal bonds means listening to our spouse to learn what their intimacy needs are and doing what we can to meet those needs.

If you find you or your spouse's communication skills are lacking and affecting your ability to be close, then it's time to practice what is called "meta-communication". This is talking about talking. When you and your spouse talk, make note and discuss what worked and what didn't. Be mindful of understanding how your spouse defines certain terms. For example, love, affection, time together, alone, being mean, sex, intimate, porn, time with children, etc... Assuming what the other means affects clear communication. 

"One of the more important types of clear-sending communication a couple should use in their sexual relationship is called meta-communication, or talking about communication. For example, if [spouses] sit down to tak about what happened in the argument they just had, they are meta-communicating. With respect to sexual intimacy, when spouses talk about sex and their sexual encounters with each other, they are using meta-communication. This type of "relationship talk" is a key part of any mature relationship."[3.5]

“A husband [or wife] is to love [their spouse] with all [their] heart and cleave unto [their spouse] and none else….The words ‘none else’ eliminate everyone and everything. The spouse then becomes pre-eminent in the life of the husband or wife and neither social life nor occupational life nor political life nor any other interest nor person nor thing shall ever take precedence over the companion spouse.”[4]

Is it worth our efforts to always be close to our spouse? Indeed it is! Emotionally investing in our marriage is a habit we need to develop if the marriage is to become an eternal one. 

 

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[1] Moses 3:18
[1.5] Beam, Joe PhD, The Truth About Limerance Affairs (2015,1)  http://joebeam.com/blog/limerence

[2] http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5069_qa.html

[3] Christensen, Joe J. “Marriage and the Great Plan of Happiness”. Ensign, May 1995
[3.5] Busby, Dean M. PhD, Carroll, Jason S. PhD, Leavitt, Chelom, JD, MS, Sexual Wholeness In Marriage, ISBN978-0-9819576-4-7 (2013,126)

[4] Hunter, Howard W. “Being a Righteous Husband and Father”, Ensign, Nov. 1994 (quoting President Spencer W. Kimball from The Miracle of Forgiveness)

The LDS Marriage Bed has a Facebook page

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May God  bless your marriage - eternally,

- Coach Sam

Response to Reader Comment on "Secrets"

My response to this reader was too long to post in the comments section, so I'm posting the comment and the response as a blog.

An anonymous reader recently wrote:

I know that there are two schools of thought, regarding the issue of "full disclosure of past sins" to our fiance or spouse.

I happen to agree with Brent Barlow's opinion, that past sins should be left in the past. Unless the past sin is something that might affect your future spouse (i.e. STD's), or if they insist upon knowing your full past, then it is better to not divulge past sins.

One of the main reasons that Bro. Barlow pointed out, was that it is better that your spouse not have to deal with the thoughts of your past sexual history, wondering how they might compare, wondering if your mind wanders to past sexual encounters when you are having sex with them, etc...

As a former Bishop, when asked this question, I usually told them that the past is wiped clean. If their fiance asks about their past, they can say something like, "I was not perfect, but I am clean and worthy to take you to the temple." If they insist upon knowing the particulars, then that is a possible sign that they are too immature to handle the truth anyway, and when the truth is shared with them it will likely result in a break up.

I have a close friend whose Bishop made his wife (at the time, his fiance) disclose to him her past sins, prior to them marrying. My friend wishes that the Bishop would have left it up to them to decide what should be disclosed, rather than that information being forced on him. It has been something that he has struggled with, on and off, over their 20+ years of marriage (the thought of his wife being intimate with another guy, even though it was years before they met).

My advice... the past is in the past.

Your statement: "Such sins, even if they happened before we met our spouse, are sins against our spouse". I need to respectfully disagree with this statement. Before we met, there were no covenants made to each other, our covenants were with God. Once we married, our covenant was with God and our spouse. Such a statement could cause a spouse to hold past sins over their spouses head, reminding them about their past mistakes, and not letting them put them behind them.

God has told us that when we repent of our sins, He will remember them no more. We need to strive for this type of love and mercy in our lives and leave past sins in the past.

Unfortunately, there are probably way too many people who are not emotionally mature enough to handle some secrets (from past mistakes). I say leave it in the past.

Dear Anonymous June 23:

Thank you for your comment and thank you for reading my blog. You brought up some very interesting points that do need addressing.

I came away from your comments with the feeling that you endorsed keeping secrets from our spouse or future spouse. I hope I was mistaken in that.

The attitude of "Heaven forbid I should tell my fiance about my past, because they’re too immature to handle it" is not the best attitude to begin an eternal relationship with. Would you know where Brent Barlow said this? Would you be willing to share with us this source? I was not able to find anything on the Church website or in his writings that I have that suggest this idea.

With all due respect to you and (possibly) Brent Barlow, full disclosure makes more sense from an eternal relationship and gospel perspective.

Perhaps my meaning would have been clearer if I had said “affects our future spouse” instead of “sin against our future spouse”, but I do believe breaking the law of chastity is a sin against our future spouse. That is a doctrinally correct idea.

Busby, Carroll, and Leavitt, administrators and family and parenting teachers at BYU and the authors of the book Sexual Wholeness, also put it this way:

“Is it necessary, though, to seek forgiveness from a potential marriage partner for previous serious sins? We believe that our covenants with God – and a future spouse – are violated when individuals are sexual with someone else before marriage. Consider that the future spouse is inadvertently injured – even if the person sinning hasn’t met their future spouse yet, and even if they fully repent before they do meet them.
 
Nevertheless, this does not always mean that the future spouse needs to be fully informed about such previous indiscretions or asked for forgiveness, even though in some circumstances this would be appropriate.

If couples keep in mind these facets of the principles of repentance and forgiveness, and at the same time balance them with the important principles of openness and honesty, they should be able to find a solution for their unique relationship and personalities, one that will help each of them make the best possible decisions about a future marriage together.” (p. 197)

The loss of our virginity to whatever degree before marriage carries a psychological effect on our relationship with our spouse. It must be dealt with and healed or adjusted for within the marriage relationship. If we think it doesn’t have an effect, we’re fooling ourselves. If we think that we can cavalierly “sow our wild oats”, then repent and take someone to the temple, and act as if the whole matter never existed, we’re likely in for a huge shock.

Life is full of latent consequences for our past choices. There is no way of telling whether past sins will come back to bite us, but they very often do, and in ways we don’t expect.

If a sexual sin has been committed, just because we’ve forgiven ourselves and tried to move on…and the bishop has cleared us of it…and the Lord has forgiven and forgotten it…doesn’t mean that the consequences no longer exist.

The unknown love child that shows up on our doorstep twenty years later…the photographs that show up on the Internet…the lie detector test during a job interview for a security pass that forces us to reveal our past sins…the surprise STD discovered during a blood donation…accusations of sexual assault decades later…the past has its ways of affecting the future.

Yes, the Lord forgives and forgets our repented transgressions, but he will not necessarily take away the consequences of our choices (Kimball, Miracle of Forgiveness, pg. 143-145). There is no statutory law on sins in heaven.

It has also been my experience that despite LDS cultural beliefs, or Victorian Christian beliefs in general, ignorance does not keep our children safer. In fact, it has the opposite effect. Because of this, I believe we should also prepare our youth to be mature when it comes to giving and receiving full disclosure with a future spouse, as everyone comes with some sort of baggage.

Sometimes the person we are engaged to may not care to know our past. I do agree with you that the bishop had no business forcing disclosure from the couple you mentioned, but since I don’t know the full particulars of that circumstance, I can’t make a truly informed judgment in that case. In general, I believe these issues should be kept between the couple and the Lord. However, to be unified, all three in the covenant require full disclosure.

And, would we really want to marry someone who is not willing to support us in dealing with the consequences of our past transgressions? Would we want to find that out after we’re married, or before? Which would be less detrimental to our life in general, as well as to the trust in the relationship?

I say, give the betrothed an opportunity to acknowledge that past before the wedding. At least that way, you’ll know that your spouse will be willing to work with you, and not feel that you trapped them into marriage by deception.

Our future spouse is preparing to spend eternity with us. There is nothing immature about them wanting to know about our past. To me, it’s the definition of maturity to want to know the whole story, warts and all.

Part of those consequences (and part of the repentance process) is making reconciliation with all those whom we have wronged, no matter whom it is or how long it takes. That can include our future spouses, who could potentially be affected by our past transgressions.

All that we may have to disclose is that “I have committed transgressions. I have fully repented of them and I would prefer to forget them. However, if you feel I should disclose them to you, I will at any time.” Some people may prefer not to know, but some would like to know. Our spouse or future spouse absolutely has the right to know.

Marriage is, by its very nature, a vehicle for developing growth and maturity. If our spouse knows our past sins and we know theirs, we can help each other to move forward, and we know that we are loved regardless of what we’ve done. This is the kind of love God shows us. God forgets our sins on purpose, and so should our spouses, but our spouses also inherit the challenge to help us deal with the fallout from our past transgressions, and we with theirs.

As for your friend, or others who may wonder how their spouse feels about those people they were once intimate with, we can always ask them. We can always ask for assurances if we need them, and there’s nothing wrong or weak about that.

Better yet, we can look at where our spouse is now. Are they choosing to spend their lives with us, instead of former lovers? Are they with us, and giving us the loving actions they might choose to give someone else? Actions speak much louder than words.

Sin, even repented sin, creates baggage. Our choices have consequences. Marriage is about finding someone who we can love enough and who loves us enough to help us unpack. Unpacking doesn't mean "throwing away". It can also mean revealing, sorting, organizing and managing, as the past always brings future effects. Ultimately, it’s up to each couple to decide best how to assimilate past baggage.

The Four Marriage Killers: Secrets

“We believe in being honest….”[1]

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. 

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.

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.

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[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

Do You Have Challenges With Low Sex Drive?

 Low sex drive, low or no libido, erectile dysfunction, or vaginal dryness is something that affects thousands of people - including LDS couples. This clip I found has some helpful information. Please check it out and see if this applies to you. The marriage you save may be your own. 

If you or a loved one is suffering from depression, bi-polar or other psychological debilitations, I believe this is important to know when considering presented with psychotropic treatments.

Ask your physician what your options are. There are newer treatments (including natural supplements) that can be effective without affecting your ability to enjoy full marital intimacy.  

From A Distance - Masturbation in the LDS Marriage

WARNING: This post contains a topic of a sacred sexual nature and is intended for married couples only. Reader discretion is advised.

Hello everyone.

I’m still hammering out all the details for the next blog on the four marriage killers, but in the meantime, I wanted to share with you this interesting reader question I recently received: 

 

My wife and I are currently apart because I am out of town for school and business.  Is phone/Internet sex okay?  Why or why not? 

We discussed the issue on a chat site, and the reason she didn't want to try it was because she feels masturbation is wrong at any time.

I believe that masturbation is wrong before marriage as it is best for one to "bridle" their passions.  Now that we are married, and as you express on the blog many times, it is very confusing trying to do right by the LDS Church standards when there are no specifics when it comes to marriage. 

We have a fulfilling sex life together and we are very open and communicate with each other about everything.  So... if you have any suggestions or help as to how we can be intimate with each other over such a long distance, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your help and I look forward to your reply! 

-        Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for reading my blog and I’m grateful you have found it helpful. I can appreciate your concern as to how to keep the sexual spark strong between you and your wife when you are apart. I am sure there are many members of the Church faced with your same dilemma – especially those serving in the armed forces.

The best decision for your circumstance will ultimately come from you, your wife and the Lord. As you discuss with your wife what is acceptable for the both of you and make it a matter of prayer, the Spirit will guide you as to what you should do. What I can offer you are some suggestions to consider, with pros and cons for each.

The first aspect of your question I’d like to address is the concern about masturbation in marriage you mentioned. You said that your wife doesn’t want to engage in phone sex because masturbation is “wrong at any time.”

Masturbation outside of marriage is certainly out of the bounds the Lord has set; there are numerous references to this in Church doctrine. When it comes to masturbating in marriage, solo masturbation is not the best tool for keeping a healthy marriage and here is why.

Solo masturbation in marriage away from your spouse would be discouraged because it is a separating activity – not a bonding one. Biologically, neurons that fire together, wire together. This means that if solo masturbation is done over a long period of time the brain will re-program itself to associate sex with masturbation. It then becomes more difficult for a husband or wife to mentally or physically respond sexually with their spouse without it.  In addition, masturbating to profane erotica to “keep the peace” will also create the same result and is definitely not a bonding activity with your spouse, the Lord or the Holy Ghost.

When dealing with masturbation between married people, however, the rules shift slightly sometimes. It is sometimes appropriate for a married couple to use masturbation on a temporary basis as a learning tool, if the wife is unfamiliar with how her body will respond sexually. She can use it to show her husband how she likes to be touched, or he can demonstrate to his wife how he would like her to handle his genitals during sex. This use of masturbation is not sinful or separating in any way.

Mutual masturbation, which means to allow your spouse to manually stimulate you to orgasm with their hands or mouth or by using sex toys, is not forbidden in marriage, and often utilized as an acceptable form of foreplay between a married couple. There is nothing unrighteous or unholy or impure about a husband stimulating his wife, or the wife masturbating her husband, or both, if they both enjoy it. 

From the teachings of the prophets and other Church leaders and the scriptures, I have found no reference to any sexual practice in marriage being forbidden unless it’s done to prevent having any children, involves coercion or involves people we’re not married to.

What you’re talking about – which is essentially mutual masturbation using long-distance forms of communication – can be done, but carries some inherent risk, which you must decide for yourselves according to your situation how serious that risk is.  It is also more difficult to do if you are not already comfortable with masturbating together.

Since your wife seems to object to masturbation under any circumstances, this could be a source of friction. However, since you also say that your sex life is healthy and your communication is good, she may be able to let go of her reservations if it’s approached with some sensitivity to her feelings on the matter and with some further education. 

Reading my blog posts could help with that. Purchasing the “Eternal Marriage” textbook from the Church Distribution Center at www.churchofjesuschrist.org  (very cheap) could also be very helpful. It has a lot of material on intimacy from a gospel perspective. 

Other books I could recommend would be anything by Laura M. Brotherson, and Sexual Wholeness In Marriage by Carroll, Busby and Leavitt (ISBN-10: 0981957641), particularly pages 209 - 213 address concerns about masturbation in marriage.

It would also be good to keep in mind the inherent limits of what you’re attempting to do. Phone sex could be overheard or recorded by others on the same line, especially over cell phones or wireless connections; there is a slight risk of this. 

Using Skype or a video camera would add a visual element, but can leave the woman feeling particularly vulnerable, especially since such video could be (and has been) recorded and put on the Internet without the woman's knowledge or consent. 

Your trust level with your spouse would have to be relatively high for her to feel comfortable with expressing her sexuality with you this way, and you wouldn’t want to do anything that could potentially violate that trust. If you’re communicating over a Wi-Fi connection that’s not heavily encrypted, my understanding is that anyone with a computer in close vicinity could possibly tap into your conversation.

There are physical limits to what you can do over the phone or online as well. When we are physically together with our spouse and having sex, there are physiological, spiritual, and emotional functions other than just penis-in-vagina happening.

When you make physical contact with your spouse, there is an ionic current that flows and circulates between you. Positive and negative ions are being exchanged through skin contact. Visual, aural, olfactory, taste and mental connections are made. Our spirits are connecting. We are literally having sex with our whole being. It is a complete experience. A husband and wife become one.

If we masturbate to phone sex, you may have a physical release of sexual tension, but the rest of the experience – the electrical exchange through skin, the other senses other than auditory and maybe visual – are deprived. Chances are good you will still be left with a feeling of “something is missing.” The spiritual and emotional parts of you and your spouse will still be sexually frustrated. Over long periods, this frustration can build and make you both vulnerable to sexual temptations.

If you are away from your spouse for a short time on a business trip or an internship of a short duration (say, three months or less) and you are engaging in phone sex or cyber-sex with your spouse, I don’t see this as creating an insurmountable problem. If you are doing it together and both enjoying it, it is a bonding activity and is fine.

The problem is more likely to present itself if we practice married phone or cyber-sex over an extended period (months, years). The brain will re-wire itself if this is practiced over a long period of time, making it more difficult to connect with our spouse sexually when we return.

It may not be noticed at first, but over time you may begin to find it difficult to be aroused by your spouse. You may find yourself craving phone or cyber-sex as the preferred method of arousal. At this stage, it’s gone from a fun/bonding experience to a separating sexual habit or leaves you vulnerable to succumbing to the attentions of another lonely woman who stays in proximity to you.

When it comes to being apart for long periods of time, I feel the apostle Paul gave some sound advice.  In I Corinthians 7: 2 – 5 (the Joseph Smith Translation) he said,

“Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband…

…Depart ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”

I understand this to mean that our spouse is supposed to be there for us sexually so we are not tempted to fornicate or commit adultery. If we have to be apart from our spouse for a long time:

1. The length of time has to be with their consent and,

2.  We are to "fast" from sex until we can be with our spouse and have sex with them again.

The spouses of our military service men and women don’t have the luxury of consent. Before marriage, it must be (and usually is) understood that they mentally have to prepare themselves to accept the lifestyle of extended deployments. Sexual discipline must come with the territory, if a Church member chooses to keep the law of chastity under these circumstances.

Those who travel frequently such as executives, or people who put in long hours of work, such as doctors, will be away from their spouse for long periods of time. This needs to be understood before entering into the relationship. Both spouses have the responsibility to be there sexually for their spouse as much as possible in order to keep the relationship healthy.

In my blog post, “The Four Marriage Killers”, separation is listed as a marriage killer. Any physical separations that happen in a marriage should be kept to the bare minimum. As Paul stressed in the scripture above, the temptations are just too strong, as you have also undoubtedly experienced.

Many good marriages die simply by too much separation. Many marriage partners starved for intimacy in these circumstances find themselves in the arms of someone closer and more available and wonder how they got there.

As I talk about in many of my posts, the purpose of marriage (and sex in marriage) is to build eternal family units and strengthen the relationship bonds between a husband and wife. As members of Christ’s church, we are taught to follow the Spirit of the law.

A good way to do this is to ask ourselves, “Is this sexual activity bringing us closer together or separating us?” That is the rule of thumb; that is what I mean when I say use the Spirit of the law. 

If you find it difficult to bond successfully through phone sex or cyber-sex, may I suggest “fasting” sexually until you can be together again…and get together again as quickly and as often as possible.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the "bridle your passions" rule of the law of chastity still applies when we are married in many respects. 

Consider if you or your spouse dies. You will be separated from them for a long period of time. Masturbation is not an acceptable option to the Lord when we are single, even if we've been married before. Sexual release is not required to stay healthy and no one has died from lack of it. 

So, when on long deployments (or even short ones) both spouses practicing self-control and self-discipline sexually could prove to benefit you both - should (heaven forbid) something go mortally wrong, and will help ease a transition for the living spouse to go from married, sexually active, to no sexual activity for a time. 

What we can't live without is emotional intimacy and human contact. For that, of course get back to each other as soon as possible and find other ways to meet that emotional need for each other. 

The bottom line is, this is an Adam-and-Eve decision given to you and your wife to make together, with prayer and confirmation from the Holy Ghost.  No one can make this sacred decision for you. If you have an open, loving and communicating friendship with your wife or husband, that is key to success.

Good luck to you and your spouse in whatever you decide to do. Hopefully you will be back together again soon, enjoying healthy, unifying marital intimacy. 

- Coach Sam Zaragoza