Agony Aunt Maggie Ellis answers readers' questions on sex and relationships
I am many years retired and have always been single. I have a close male friend who is now widowed and I am wondering what would be your opinion of us as an older couple living together [not getting married] for companionship? We do not have any sexual relationship on any level. Is this wrong for us as Christians to live together?
I am now in my 30s and a virgin. Even though I believe that being a virgin has been the right thing, I dread the day one of my secular friends or acquaintances brings up the sex topic in relation to me. How can I deal with this?
My husband and I have an amazing sex life. He works away for months at a time, and so of course we cannot see each other during this time. We’ve talked and feel that it is ok for us to masturbate so long as it has no adverse affects on our relationship when we are back together, and so long as we try to keep to doing it when our bodies ‘need’ it...
My wife never, or rarely, initiates sexual contact, or any physical intimacy. We never have sex spontaneously – it is always discussed and planned first, teeth cleaned, undressed, into bed and then I know I need to initiate all the ‘proceedings’. Every six months or so, we discuss our sex life and my wife promises that she will try to initiate sex more often. But after such discussions we may have 3 or 4 days before my wife remembers that she is ‘supposed to be initiating’...
My husband and I have been married for 40 years. We have great sex but nothing else that we enjoy together outside our family life. I feel very sad. Am I being greedy?
My sister, who is married and a professing Christian, is having an affair with a married man. She hasn’t had any intimacy with her own husband for the past decade due to his longstanding illness. I might have the courage to tell my sister’s husband about the affair if it wasn’t for our parents. They are likely to react very angrily and cut my sister out of the will. My sister keeps excusing what she is doing due to grace! She says I can’t tell her anything that she doesn’t already know or hasn’t thought of. I feel very bad knowing what I know but don’t feel I should spill the beans...
I am a 59-year-old man who was dIvorced last year, and sInce then have struggled to contaIn my sex drIve. I am not into porn, my only sexual feelings are to my ex as we enjoyed a very good sex life. There is a school of Christian thought that says that, in the Lord’s eyes, there is no divorce spiritually and that my ex and I can sleep together. Is this biblical or is it just my imagination?
At the age of 16 I was suffering with depression. Things got so bad I tried to OD on my anti depressants but I was suddenly filled with fear so I went to my church youth worker, I passed out just after I arrived. The next thing I remember is waking up with him touching me. He told me that if I ever told anyone what he had done then he would tell my family about my OD. He then raped me. I tried to avoid him from then on but he managed to find ways to get me on my own and he did it again a number of times...
Issue publishedJuly 2009
Author
Margaret Ellis I’ve been married for three years and very much love my wife; however I am struggling with memories of having sex with my previous girlfriend from before I became a Christian. These memories get triggered when my wife and I make love. I feel deceptive to be keeping this a secret from my wife, but she would be devastated if she knew...
Issue publishedJune 2009
Author
Margaret Ellis My husband gets very stressed and sometimes loses it with me, though he usually says sorry the next day. He doesn’t mean to hurt me, it’s just that I say the wrong things. I aggravate him and often don’t get it right, however hard I try. He has bruised me several times before and a few times I have lost my balance on the stairs when he is shoving me, but it is only because I lose my footing because I am upset. Last week he said my spending was out of control. He was furious that I had bought a new outfit for a family wedding...
Issue publishedMay 2009
Author
Margaret Ellis I’m 30 and for the past three-and-a-half years have been going out with a man who has come to be the love of my life. Although we fancy each other we have chosen not to go too far physically. The problem is that although he says he loves me, whenever we talk about the future and the possibility of getting married he gets cold feet...
I am beginning to find my behaviour during the regular periods of sexual abstinence in my otherwise happy 20 year marriage alarming and wonder if I am some kind of sex addict, or just a pratt who needs to grow up? I have a greater sex drive than my wife. She makes as much effort as she can, but we can go for long periods without sex. She has phases of not liking herself and feeling unsexy – sometimes this can last for weeks. Despite knowing that she still loves me I always feel rejected...
I have a wonderful husband whom I love very much and teenage kids. This past year has thrown considerable pressures at us which we have handled and found our way through. However, I have very slowly been getting closer in friendship to another man at church. We Facebook each other almost daily, he makes me laugh and gives me a place where I can offload...
Issue publishedFebruary 2009
Author
Maggie Ellis My wife is desperate for a second baby, but I can’t keep my erection and as a result am not ejaculating. I have tried Viagra but it has not worked. My wife phones me up at work to come home when she is ovulating and I am beginning to feel like I am just a baby making machine. Our first child is now seven years old and we have not had a sex life since he was born. His birth left me in shock because it seemed like everything that could went wrong. It was all very traumatic, worrying for my wife who wasn’t coping and worrying for the baby who we nearly lost. But she seems to have forgotten all that and cries at the thought of not having another child, whereas I would be happy either way. I don’t feel I could ever be honest with her about my true feelings about getting pregnant again. I feel trapped and wondered if you might have any advice?
How do you overcome vast differences in sexual appetite? My husband seems to want sex all the time and I just can’t keep up. I do enjoy it when I feel in the mood, but we are doing it so often that I now regularly just do the proverbial ‘lie back and think of England’!
What are your views on ‘derivatives’ of sex such as fetishes and sadomasochism? Are they ungodly or is it acceptable for Christians? I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone about this, but come across it in magazines which talk about it as ‘normal’, if you like this sort of stuff. I don’t know if I would like it, as I’m not sure if it is OK to try out as a Christian or not, but I do find myself imagining things that I have read about like this...
I’ve been married for about six months and am having problems with sex. My husband likes me to tell him sexy stories. They all seem to involve having sex in public places where other people could catch us/watch us. He also would like me to dress in a school uniform. I know these are quite popular fantasies but I really hate them. He thinks I should keep him happy. He won’t go for counselling. I was brought up in a Christian household and sex wasn’t really talked about so I’m having trouble working out what is ok and what isn’t...
Before I became a Christian, I openly (and proudly) identified as a gay/strongly bisexual woman. As my faith developed, I felt (and still do) that carrying on as such was contrary to God’s laws. My attraction to women diminished to almost zero, and I was very thankful to God for this...
My husband is a recovering alcoholic and drug user. He is also a spendaholic which he has not yet come to terms with. He has admitted having affairs and going with a prostitute. He rejects any sexual advances that I make and on the few times he wants sex, he always starts it. I have handed this over to God. What I cannot handle is the verbal abuse...