Lifestyle Choices

Sexual healing brings changes in how you experience sex that may take some getting used to. Sex isn’t the same for you now as it was before you began healing. While many survivors feel happy about the differences, as with any major change in life, they often experience some disappointments and sadness as well.

Sexual healing can bring with it the loss of some things we enjoyed, even if they were bad for us. If we used to passively withdraw from sex, we may miss how easy it was to avoid sexual situations. It may seem a burden to have to tell a partner directly that we don’t want sex. Similarly, if we used to become overexcited by sex and engaged in it compulsively, we may miss the “high” we used to get.

Sex doesn’t fill the same addictive needs it did before. I don’t lose myself completely anymore. I still enjoy it a lot, but I am more detached somehow. I know overall I’m better off now. It was self-destructive, but I sometimes do miss the intensity.

We may need to adjust our expectations to match the changes that have come with our sexual recovery. Sexual healing involves making lifelong changes, for good. If the progress we have made in healing is to last, we can’t revert to old attitudes or behaviors.

During lovemaking with her husband, Terry still had images of her brother attempting sex with her. It took months for her to accept that this might continue indefinitely. She realized that it was unrealistic to think she‘d never be troubled by these thoughts again.

Sometimes the old feelings come back to me, and I get really frustrated by them. I guess that’s pretty normal. I used to wish that I could just flip a switch and make those bad feelings from the abuse go away. But those feelings are just not going to disappear. I have to face them each time they do come back.

The good news for Terry is that because of sexual healing she has developed effective ways to handle these feelings. She knows how to calm herself, affirm her present reality, and talk with her husband. When the old feelings come back, they no longer ruin a sexual experience or interfere with Terry’s long-term happiness. As Terry came to accept this reality about her recovery, her negative reactions became less frequent and intense.

Survivors may have some difficulty adjusting to being more aware, to having real, live feelings. No longer numb or split off from emotions, we fully experience our anger, sadness, fear, and joy. It’s as if we had been blindfolded and now see the light. We sense so much more. Our feelings take on greater importance than they had before. As a result we may become more discriminating about when we want to have sex. A survivor explained the difference sexual healing had made in her approach to sex:

I experience sex as much more influenced by my emotions. Before, I was always ready to make love unless I was sick. Now my desire to make love is much more closely tied to my other emotions, and affected by them, and therefore is more fragile. But this also means I have more emotion to express, and feel, during lovemaking.

Sexual activity is more satisfying when it’s congruent with how you feel. While you may be delighted that the quality of your sexual experience has improved, you may feel bad that the frequency is less than you had hoped. This new reality represents a milestone in sexual healing: Your sexual behavior has become dependent on how you really feel.

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