Welcome to the to the love honor anduum Podcast. I'm Sheely Ray

Gregwar from to love honor and Vacuum.com where we like to talk about

how to make marriage a passionate adventure and not just a giant to-do list and

today this is going to be a bit of a heavier

podcast and so just a trigger warning before we start. We're going to be talking

about sexual abuse and the repercussions in marriage and how people can deal with it afterwards and so if that's your story

I hope you find this podcast really helpful but if this is also something that you would find too difficult to listen to, we just want to warn you beforehand.

So before we get started with our questions, I just want to say a few things about abuse and get those

sorted out first because sexual abuse is one of the most harmful things that somebody can go through.

You know the Bible talks about sex as being a deep knowing of someone, like a deep intimate

knowing and what abuse does is it takes something which is supposed to be a deep knowing

and it turns it into just a using and a taking.

And so in essence when you're abused the abuser is saying,

I don't want to know you. You don't matter. In essence, when you're abused, the abuser is saying,

I don't want to know you.

You don't matter.

You only exist for how I can use you.

And that's one of the reasons why it's so terrible,

because it almost erases you as a person.

And that's never been God's design for us,

but that's why it can hurt so much.

And we need to find ways, and thankfully there are ways,

...