When Love Hurts

Why does love hurt so badly?  No, no…I’m not referring to that fight you just had with your husband because he hurt your feelings…that’s a totally different article.  I’m speaking of a physical pain that over 7 million women suffer with every time they are intimate with their husbands.  And that’s only the number of women with endometriosis, that is, an illness that causes horrible cramping, severe bleeding, and painful intercourse.

Other illnesses include; pelvic inflammatory disease, uterine prolapse, retroverted uterus, uterine fibroids, cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids or ovarian cysts, which may cause great soreness for women during sex.  Having a hysterectomy, cancer treatments, stress, joint inflammations and many other substantial reasons may also cause tenderness. 

Although for you, an illness or surgical procedure, may not be your reason why love hurts.  Your intimate discomfort may be from a lack of self esteem towards your body image or depression.  Believe it or not, but psychological ailments, can cause significant pain too. 

But regardless of why, women who experience pain in doing an activity, most often, will just avoid that particular activity.  This reasoning makes perfect sense unless that activity is having sex with your husband.  Why… because the painful illness is still there AND you’ve increased your marital problems.  Such as becoming depressed, a potentially severe problem that is increased not only for you but for your husband as well. 

Through these acts of intimacy we connect and feel each others love.  If you’re always saying no, for any reason, your desire for your husband is decreased with each denial.  Not to mention, Satan’s temptations are extremely increased for you and your husband every time either of you seeks to fill the void.

Genesis 3:16
¹⁶ To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."

So how can we overcome the pain and enjoy sex?  By using what comes natural, endorphins.  Endorphins are natural chemicals released from the pituitary gland in the brain that acts as a natural pain reliever.  This release can be obtained through several ways; chocolate (as if we needed another excuse), peppers, massage therapy, acupuncture, meditation and of course…sex. 

Although reaching that last particular endorphin releasing level can prove to be very difficult when your body is riveting in severe pain.  Being one of the 7 million women with more than one health issue, I know how difficult overcoming the pain can be.  Satan would have you believe there is no hope of it getting better. 

Look for ways to enhance yourself to such levels of “endorphin releasing” before you and your husband are intimate.  Of course this may not take all the pain away but will certainly, or at the very least, make sex more tolerable.  With time, it may even become quite pleasurable for you.  

Whatever you do, try to take the pain away…. not the sex!

1 Corinthians 7:5 
⁵ Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.