When Loving Your Husband Is Hard Due To Past Trauma
*please be advised this story was a hard one to write. But it was written with full redemption and restoration that only God could have done.*
I loved my husband. I still love my husband. My heart connected to His. His connected to mine. We said our vows and said I do after our verse we chose was said.
Until that same year, months after our freshly new married life, it came to me with a sudden hit in the stomach.
A wall that somehow suddenly appeared and wouldn’t break off. A shut down to my husband that hurt me deep within my core. I never wanted to admit what I went through in my past that brought memories back up. Memories that only havocked our marriage and love life.
“Why do you hold back from me loving you?” Is the exact words my husband told me. Inside I wanted to be angry with what he said, “why would he say this I am not holding back.” But inside I knew…. I just knew but didn’t want to hear it. Can we just sweep this over, ignore it, and move forward?
It never happens that way. Sweeping away, ignoring such a traumatic event, only leads us to more disappointment, brokenness and never to be healed.
One day during our mom life group I attended, they mentioned to sign up for a 4 week study with either of our choosing studies we felt drawn to or led to attend. There were a list of many to attend.
Family
Kids
Marriage
Identity
Growing Deeper in Christ
Prayer
and more!
I was ready to sign up for family, but really deep in my gut I knew I needed the marriage one. I was on the verge of breaking down unsure where to go and what to do in my marriage.
As I signed up, those 4 weeks were life transforming weeks for me that my soul needed deep inside. Seeing I wasn’t the only one who wanted strength in their marriage but healing too, that brought so much more peace in my mind that I wasn’t alone.
Now how many of you struggle in your marriage due to past trauma?
How many of you struggle to love wholeheartedly because you are afraid of what has been done to you in the past might happen again?
I been there. It was hard. It was challenging. Yet, God brought me through it and many others.
I want to share a few resources that has helped me in that year of my marriage falling due to my past, (now mind you this was 5 years ago from today, 2021 and my marriage did strengthen. But it had to start with me first by getting healed from the past and breaking soul ties).
RESOURCES + TIPS
- Sit with the Lord
- Say a prayer of breaking soul ties if you haven’t broken them already
- Say a prayer for Sexual Healing. You can find it here: Prayer for Sexual Healing | Wild at Heart Ministries
- The book What’s it like to be married to me? By Linda Dillow truly is impactful
- Intimate Issues by Linda Dillow is one to help when you struggle with intimacy issues
- Find a Marriage group within your church
- Seek out godly counsel
- Share with a trusted godly friend (who is married) and ask her to pray with you on this subject
- Pray with your spouse together, inviting the Holy Spirit in
Though it was a hard trialing time in that period of time, I remember that day, that special night (I call it special because it was one I felt something lift off me that felt so freeing), we lived in an apartment at the time and we had an extra “linen” closet. In that closet I used it as my prayer room. I had all my things set up to pray in there and seek Him.
That night, I prayed to God, asking and pleading for His help. I sat there silently awaiting for something to happen. Then I remembered a letter, a prayer paper that was given specially for me to pray to break off soul ties and trauma of what happened to me before. As I began saying this prayer with my eyes shut, tears flowed down my cheeks and a burden began to lift off slowly as I continued to pray it. As soon as I was finished, I walked out the prayer closet with snotty tears knowing I was free from the hurtful time and can now walk into my marriage fully equipped and ready for what the Lord has for us.
Most of the time, we never share with our spouse what occurred or happened to us in our past because:
1. we feel ashamed
2. we are embarrassed
3. we want to keep it hidden as if it never occurred
4. we’d rather share with another person afraid he may look at us differently
5. fear he may leave or what he may think
6. we don’t want to revisit what happened.
Whatever the reason, we ought to share with our spouse a glimpse of what is going on inside of us so they, too, can pray for us and understand (even if its just a little) why we are so hard to love. Though it is no excuse, God can most definitely work in that and rescue us from the hard to love hard heart.
By keeping our spouse in the loop, it can shift your marriage by strengthening the intimacy places.
Questions to reflect on:
- Ask God to reveal to you your failures as a wife. What are your struggles?
- What changes do you need to make to better yourself and your marriage?
- What areas of your life do you need to trust God with and lay at His feet today?
Protect your marriage by answering honestly, pray and ask the Father for forgiveness.
SCRIPTURE
- Ephesians 4:12 “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
- Ezekiel 36:26 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
- Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Though no marriage is perfect, no marriage is too far gone to be rescued and redeemed by our Lord and Savior. No marriage is too broken He cannot mend. No marriage is too deep in the waters He can not save.
Release and surrender yourself to the Lord today, asking Him to remove a hardened heart that you may have and give you a heart of flesh, to love and serve your spouse and to be in one accord.
So what will you do today to help your marriage?