@seoulsearch
You make some very good points. You referenced some of the harsh realities that countless wives face, but the church largely managed by men has been unwilling to acknowledge or address.
Your post reminds me of an article written by Wendy Aslup titled the Harmful Teaching Of Wives As Their Husband's Pornstars. It is definitely worth the read.
https://theologyforwomen.org/2014/07/the-harmful-teaching-of-wives-as-their-husbands-porn-stars.html
Your post also reminds me of the Mary Winkler story. Her husband was a PREACHER who frequently abused her physically and sexually. She snapped under the pressure and killed him.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/preac...husband-forced-me-to-have-sex-refused-divorce
Then, there is Josh and Anna Duggar. They are fundamental Christians who believe a man's quiver should be full of children. Anna Duggar is pregnant with the couple's seventh child. Josh's longtime struggle with sex addiction has played out in the media over the years. Currently, Josh can only see his six children with supervision from his wife Anna as he awaits trial.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/josh-duggar-allowed-see-kids-160757448.html
Again, countless Christian wives (only God knows the exact number) who want to be submissive encounter harsh realities related to sex in marriage. If the incidents that I listed have played out in the public eye, just imagine what goes on behind closed doors. Smh
Musician Don Henley (from The Eagles) has a song called "The End of the Innocence," and it has a line that I think sums it up perfectly: "When happily ever after fails, and we've been poisoned by these fairy tales."
And that very much includes the Christian fairy tale. Now I hope I never come across as someone who thinks she knows very much (because I don't,) but what God HAS enabled me to do is to talk with and read about a lot of people's lives. From the time I was in my teens, and at nearly ever job or situation I was in, people were often telling me some of the most personal details of their lives, often regarding the sexual abuse they had gone through, and how it affected their marriages or current relationships.
My own personal observation is that more and more people are being affected in ways they can't talk very effectively to others about, especially in the church.
I've often wanted to write threads about these topics because I know more people are affected by them than most might think, and these days, boys are just as likely to be abused as girls (if not more, because boys are less likely to tell and might be viewed as "less risky" prey.)
So here we have this deadly combination of shockingly sexually graphic/stirring materials that are more readily available than ever before, right along with an estimated 50-60 million adults in the US alone who were sexually abused as children, and 90% are estimated to never tell anyone (these are stats I just pulled from Google.) Even when exposure is due to curious choice and not abuse, it still gives the recipient "ideas", and often ones that the person will then want to try on/with another human being.
To think this isn't happening to children/people in the church is naive at best, and we can all see the results (yet so many ask why marriages fail.) I once visited a church with family and was introduced to one of their youth leaders, a girl who was maybe 10 years younger than me and had been married for several years. I have no idea how we got onto these topics but I wound up sitting and listening to her outside the entire time instead of going to the regular church service, because she was telling me about how all her past abuse was affecting her marriage. And my greatest sorrow is that I don't feel there is much I can say (even when reciting Bible passages) that will be of some kind of tangible help.
This is something that greatly troubles my heart. We are told, as Christian singles, to keep ourselves "pure", when for so many, their innocence was robbed before they were even old enough to choose, and now they are left dealing with the aftermath, yet somehow are expected to be able to develop perfect Christian marriages to the letter, all on the first and only try.
Something I seem to keep encountering are people who are trying to get over past abuses, trying to follow all the good Christian recommendations, trying to do the good thing by waiting until they get married, then finding an avalanche of problems no one ever told them about. (From my observation, sexual abuse victims often seem to have two opposite knee-jerk reactions to sex when trying to cope with their guilt or shame -- many seem to either shun sex altogether, or become sex-obsessed and try to cover their pain with an endless quest for more and more extreme sex.)
All we singles are told is to "talk about it with your future spouse; be sure you have open, honest communications; get Christian counseling," etc., but how much "success" are people really seeing?
Even when singles are "good" and wait until marriage (and I am not in any way, shape, or form saying that singles should somehow experiment before getting married,) some might be looking forward to what they dream of as an exciting, fulfilling sexual relationship with their spouse, only to find (AFTER marriage, when they're locked in and have no other option but to stay,) that their spouse is terrified of sex (because it brings up painful memories of past abuse,) or maybe their spouse is unsatisfied and wants other options besides what their marriage offers.
NO ONE prepares us for this.
No one tells us, "This is how you can lovingly help your spouse who was sexually abused while not losing yourself in the process." Instead, all they tell us is, "God hates divorce, and if you do divorce, you can never remarry again or you are committing adultery."
I have been wanting to write a thread about subjects like this for a very long time, but as always, it's a challenge to think of how to present these topics in a way that's still family-friendly on a public Christian forum.
But yet these are the very thing things I think people need to be talking about and learning how to handle, because no one out there is teaching us, and it is absolutely killing the people who are living through this (or about to be) everyday.