New Found Marriage

Most people have experienced some marriage battles. If you haven't, you must not be from this planet. I(Valerie) have also noticed that many have struggled as we have in our marriage. Although, the typical struggles are money and sex, we also had against us the pains of childhood. I came from a single parent home, being molested by a relative. Eventually became promiscuous and rebellious. Shane came from a pretty large loving family, but exposed to pornography as a young teen and later became entangled in a mess of legal issues and was on probation for 5 years. This setting just about gave Satan the win of the century, but God had other plans. At the beginning, just learning that Shane and I were opposite in personalities was a struggle. I liked mornings, he didn't. I needed to be around somebody all the time, he like being alone most of the time. We married in debt to the IRS, and after a couple of years, I thought I had given all the sex I could give and I was done with it. That did not make Shane very happy. And for the rest of our personal relationship, it was going down hill steadily. I was also having physical female problems and Shane was picking up bad habits that just added to the problems. We stuck with it, didn't really think any nasty thoughts of leaving each other yet...We moved, the money got better, we had actually taken crown ministries and got debt free....Until we thought we needed "stuff", you know the bigger car, electronics, fancy bed, blah...blah...we then were convinced by a "big timer" that we could make our own money being a financial planner. We left our job and moved into a house we rented for a while and we would try selling life insurance, and investments. After awhile, we can't stand each other because I was complaining about everything....everything. And Shane was withdrawing worse and worse. We weren't making any money, I applied for food stamps, and rent was not being paid. After six months, we got rid of most everything, the memoirs of my grandmother, my collections of nick knacks, the kids toys, our pets. We packed as much as we could in Shane's parents horse trailer and our car and headed for Reynosa, Mexico. I was in hate mode by this time, we were barely talking. to Jump forward, we moved again to Lubbock and the fights, snide remarks, blaming, bringing up the past. I was ready to leave but I new it would be a waste of money, I really didn't want to be with anyone else and I new how much it hurt me to have my parents not together, so I told him that it was time we finally got help. In Lubbock, I had this talent of looking through the yellow pages and God would direct me straight to who I needed to call. This time it was Family Coaching. We met with a coach to help us communicate with each other, we had to write letters to God and to each other. We then took a separation time of five weeks of fasting. Fasting from each other, fasting of food and did a deep reflection of our personal relationship with Christ. We stayed in the same house but we did not touch or sleep together. We then started dating and basically learn how to respect each other again. And at the end of six months, I could say again that we loved each other again. We had just had our 10th anniversary and felt that it was time to rededicate our marriage. That was very significant, although, it was not over yet. I was still struggling with the sex thing and could not understand what was so important. Sex was nothing to me, all innocence was taken from me at age 8 and it was not fun, romantic, exciting, or feel good. Shane sat me down after a REALLY big fight and talked to me about how God intended sex to be. And like a slap in the face, I saw that I was wrong; that I needed to be reprogrammed. So my cleansing and reprogramming started with reading Song of Songs in the Bible. Then books that taught a new way of thinking like "Sheet Music", "The Lady, Her Lover, and Her Lord". I prayed and asked God to show me and teach me. Later, before we moved to Longview, we had a good friend test each of us with Myers Briggs personality test. Amazing material to help us understand each other. I recommend that people do this before you get married. Again I definitely know that God brought us together for a reason and we are figuring this as we live. Now, God is in the center of our marriage more than ever. We have cut the cords from several ghosts from our pasts. Healing takes a lifetime for certain things, however, I believe, that we are a work in progress, until our Lord Jesus returns.