I am not a touchy feely person. As a child, I would freely embrace my mom and hold her “hostage” for a moment when she tucked me into bed. I was never as demonstrative as a lot of people and never liked to hug too much. However, I have craved being held by a man and never have been in the sense that I crave.

At times, I have felt very one with God. It was so wonderful to feel so pure and so right. I used to think that I might be very close to being translated as I felt so close and felt I was so worthy. Those were the days! I know that a lot of people experience a special closeness during their mission or prior so I am probably not so unusual. However, I felt much peace since becoming LDS and even when my condition made it difficult for me to go to Church and I stopped going. I think that I stopped feeling the closeness to God more or less by I felt unworthy and did not want to offend God when he gave me so much peace and I did not live up to such peace. Well, it is not like I would normally share these intimate feelings with any. IN fact, this may be the only time I have articulated one of these feelings other than to my self. Thank you for letting me share.

You’re writing about shedding tears really moved me. My experience is a bit different. There are times, during the act itself that I am moved to tears, sometimes even sobbing. I know this was very strange for my husband at first, but as we’ve talked about it I think he understands as well as he can why it moves me to tears to be so vulnerable to another person that it opens up the deepest parts of my soul, parts I often do not have words or names for. I cry because I am feeling things (wonderful, powerful things) I don’t know how to metabolize and because I am so thankful to both God and my husband for a relationship and an act that allows these parts of me to found. For me, that is the healing nature of the sexual relationship. That is where the oneness is found. It is the sharing of parts of my soul seemingly unknown even to myself.

Not every experience is like this. At times, sex is just sex. But these experiences of deep emotional and spiritual connection have taught me the difference between “just sex” and the power of intimacy in a marriage. And I have to say, strange as it may sound to some, that the latter involves the Spirit. At least for me. Those times have been amazing and I have felt a glimpse of the gift God has given us in this power.

Thank you for this post. I wasn’t sure, with all that I hear women around me say about sex, that others felt as I did: That the sexual relationship can be deeply spiritual, healing, and sacred. I felt a real sisterhood in this post and thread. Thanks.

I don’t know what it takes to travel the road back to sharing after marriages have been marred by betrayal and pornography. I know marriages that have been destroyed by both, and these sexual sins turn everything upside down(for lack of a better term). I guess you just have to believe that, if the other person is willing to do what it takes, ie, remain faithful, or go through the steps to give up the addiction to pornography, the Atonement is big enough for stuff like this. Somehow you have to find the faith to know that there is nothing broken that, given enough effort, repentance, time, and true commitment, Jesus Christ can’t make better. I imagine a marriage that goes through something like this would never be the same. That doesn’t mean it can’t be made stronger than it started, though.