Patsy Rae Dawson ~
In a previous newsletter I shared how three clients in one week talked about pull backs when they were starting to enjoy lovemaking. To help them better, I reread Dr. Marie N. Robinson's discussion of pull backs in The Power of Sexual Surrender.
Surprisingly, I discovered I was pulling back from healing on my journey to smell love and that’s why my progress had stalled.
I gave up my sense of smell at age 7 when I was terrorized while witnessing an attempted suicide and my mother screaming inches from my face, “I hate you. I wish you were never born.” See my article "How a Family Tragedy Changed My Life and Teaching Forever" for details.
Rereading Dr. Robinson's book, I discovered I'd left out something important in the formula for solving sexual-joy and love-smelling problems--gratitude. I designed an exercise for my clients for thanking God for the sexual relationship and for myself for thanking God for bad smells.
A few days later, I vigorously swatted a fly.
The fly splattered blood on the white sink. I flinched at the passing stench. I gasped, “That’s the smell of evil!” As the offense passed I thought, I didn’t know flies smelled when you killed them.
I had just made a major breakthrough in overcoming childhood fears after 65 years of not being able to smell either good or bad. The fly’s passing death odor had rewarded me for giving thanks for bad odors.
Immediately, I began enjoying yummy smells on a daily basis when cooking. They still come and go, but now come more frequently and stronger than before. I still don’t know what garlic smells like even though I use it liberally in nearly everything I cook. And the taste is not distinct—I just know when something tastes flat.
For more details, read my article “Why Do Wives Pull Back From Sex When They’re Starting to Enjoy It?”
I continued to make progress when … Boy! Did I smell some first time bad!
I've had cats for 53 years. I was always elected to take care of the litter box because I couldn't smell it. That all changed after a couple of months of giving thanks for bad smells.
After changing the litter, I was in another room when the fresh odor of a cat still raking clay hit me. The stink compelled me to stop what I was doing and rush to take the litter box to the garage. I put the cat outside, sprayed the whole house with Lysol, and opened the doors to air out the house.
PHEW! I had no idea how terrible it smelled!
A few days later, I bought a covered cat box with a large charcoal filter and … more expensive litter. It helps a lot, but I still smell the ammonia when I change it.
My being able to smell ammonia is a major breakthrough.
In 1975 (42 years ago) my friend, Mary, and I offered to clean the house for a young pregnant woman in our congregation.
When we got there, she said, "Whatever you do, do not go into our bedroom. I'll take care of it. Don’t even open the door and look inside. You are not to go in the bedroom!"
I started a load of laundry and began washing dishes while Mary tackled the living room. A little later, Mary found me. With wide opened eyes, she whispered, "I looked in their bedroom. It has piles of dog poop all over the floor. It's been there so long—it’s green and eating into the hardwood floors!"
We cleaned for about four hours before leaving. For three days my eyes burned and were bright red from being exposed to the ammonia for so long. But I never smelled it nor had a clue about the kind of conditions we were working in.
Yes, I'm still thanking God for bad smells.
Now every time I change the cat box, I smell the ammonia, although the better litter makes it a little less noticeable. God created our sense of smell for many reasons including smelling love and protecting us from harm.
I now notice stronger good smells when I put essential oils on my wrists every morning. I delight in lavender and bergamont when I cup my wrists and inhale deeply. Yet I still cannot identify those fragrances without the bottle telling me what they are. But I always know the sharp crispness of peppermint. Who can forget that?
What do a dead fly and cat litter have to do with sexless marriages?
They verify that God’s formula for solving all marriage problems in 1 Timothy 4:4-5 actually works:
- Learn the truth about serving him with passionate lovemaking. God has preserved more information about sex from a positive standpoint than any other area of marriage. He condemns the obsession for rigid subjection and leadership that many religions promote to the neglect of loving sex.
- Go to God in an interview-type prayer to implement those truths into your life. Nearly all sexual problems stem from dysfunctional homes and timid one-sided teaching in our congregations.
- Receive God’s sexual teaching with gratitude. Thankfulness gives our mind and body permission to reject the erroneous teaching of our past and to begin practicing it.
Here’s how gratitude works.
Our mind is constantly thinking about something. If all we know is the negative, and we try to take it away, we leave a vacuum—a large hole in our thought processes. We won’t progress until we replace the negative with something positive that we believe.
This is why virginity pledges often lead to disastrous marriages. The preacher pounds the pulpit with stern warnings while promising, “Keep yourself pure and on your wedding night you’ll be rewarded with wonderful ecstasy.”
It seldom happens. The preacher harps on avoiding premarital sex, but fails to teach about the wonderful aspects of married lovemaking. And the older men and women, our parents and grandparents, aren’t teaching us about the power of the mind for sharing vaginal orgasms. They don’t know it for themselves and aren't able to teach us.
Consequently, all the negative teaching from myopic churches and dysfunctional homes creates a vacuum with nothing positive to fill it on the wedding night. A lifetime of misery begins.
This also frequently occurs when either the husband or the wife were part of the hookup culture. They relished uncommitted sex and never learned about the wonderful emotional and health benefits awaiting them in a loving marriage. Now that they can move on to glorious lovemaking, their brain has nothing with which to replace the empty trysts of their youth.
Bottom Line: What do a dead fly and stinky cat litter teach us about sexless marriages?
If after 65 years of not being able to register odors, I can smell a squashed blood-filled fly and fresh cat poop by practicing thankfulness ... then you can begin to deal with pull backs by embracing thankfulness for God’s creation of the way of a man with a maid (Proverbs 30:18-19).
What are you waiting for? Start practicing the three steps for overcoming the pain and ignorance of your past and begin SPEAKING GOD'S BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE OF LOVE in the arms of your mate.
Patsy Rae Dawson is a Christian marriage, sex, and divorce coach. Learn the secret of the vaginal orgasm in her book The Song of Solomon Love Triangle: God’s Soulmating and Lovemaking Guide for a Lifetime of Passionate Sex. Are you in a sexless marriage? Take Patsy’s free Sexless Marriages Reflective Survey. Six checklists of intensely personal simple questions help you analyze the true state of your relationship so you can start solving your problems.