Dear Laura,

Ah…where to even start? I’ve been married for 17 years, having “duty sex” for probably most of those years. Neither my husband nor I had anyone give us any good information about sex prior to our marriage. We were both brought up in strong LDS families. My mom clearly has been having duty sex for the greater part of their 50 year marriage (based off of things she has told me despite me not wanting to hear about my parents in that regard)!

My honeymoon night was pretty close to a nightmare. We didn’t talk about expectations in advance and it did not go well. I’ve held onto that, in part, over the last 17 years of marriage, but have recently been able to get over it realizing that neither of us knew any better and if we could go back knowing what we know now, it would have been better.

Our marriage is quite good in all other aspects. My husband is very kind, helps with kids, house, etc. I thought something was wrong with me because I never had a desire to have sex. I told my husband about a year ago that I thought I needed to talk with someone about it. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea nor do we really have the money to spend on therapy. This was something I had prayed about, asking Heavenly Father to help me “be okay with having sex.”

I was doing some research about how to talk to our teens about sex (our oldest son is 12) and I knew I wanted his experience to be better than mine. I wanted to be able to tell him that sex was an awesome thing that God created for a husband and wife, but I knew that it was not my truth.

While researching, I miraculously came upon your website StrengtheningMarriage.com. My brain pretty much exploded when I started listening to your podcasts. Almost everything you talk about (aside from addiction or trust issues) was how I was feeling. I thought sex was gross, dirty, only for men, and something I just had to check off my list as rarely as I could get away with.

I became obsessed with all of your information, I listened to all of the podcasts, probably within a week, bought all three of your books, which I have read, and FINALLY opened the conversation about sex with my husband.

Prior to about three months ago, we wouldn’t really even say the word SEX when we occasionally would try to have a conversation about how things could improve. We had fallen out of the date night routine with busy schedules and three sons. We had let it slide and it showed.

I wanted to reach out and THANK you for providing so much amazing content. I feel like I have had years of sex therapy and it only cost me the price of your books!

As I have been following other leads and resources that you mention, I am seeing that the majority of “helpers” out there are charging for almost all of their decent content. I’m pretty sure that I would not have taken the dive to change our sexual relationship if I would have had to pay big bucks for access to your amazing resources without the start your books have given me.

My husband and I have a monumental date night planned.  We are going to an outdoor concert Friday night and staying overnight at an Airbnb and using the time, without kids, to do your worksheets.

We have a ways to go before we can claim “sextraordinary marriage” status, but our marriage is back on track and we have made HUGE advances in our physical relationship (inside and outside the bedroom).

For every bit that I thank you, my husband THANKS you a thousand times more!!!! Just a couple of weeks ago after we had sex, he told me that was the best experience we’ve had in 17 years…all from what I’ve learned from you!! That change was clearly because I had gotten to a place of WANTING to have sex and he could definitely tell the difference!!

Despite it being so scary to share with them, I’ve passed your website on to my parents to do with it what they will. I hope they will take advantage and improve their marriage even after their 50 years of marriage.

You’re amazing and your tireless efforts are helping so many people who are too shy to publicly comment or “like” your posts. We are here in the background, taking it all in and so grateful for your kindness and knowledge!

~Catherine