On Religious Trauma, Vaginismus, & Opening Our Relationship

“…there have been lots of of feelings that have felt like breaths in with no breaths out. So, yes, it has been a hard time and nobody could say differently. But it occurs to me as this long days ends…It occurs to me as I fight so hard with myself that these cruel and persistent voices are the echoes of trauma from the times when people treated me like I am now treating myself. And that, perhaps, it is possible to close an inner door and shut out voices that are not mine. In the last light of a long day, I sit on a chair on my porch and watch the sky drain colors down and out and I realize I want to hear my voice and only mine. Not the voice of my voice within a cacophony of old pains. Just mine, now.”

— Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

This spring, The New Republic published an article exploring the movement to acknowledge “religious trauma syndrome” as a type of complex post-traumatic or stress disorder. Although I’ve privately identified as a survivor of religious trauma for several years, I’ve been hesitant to share about my experiences publicly. And yet, I’ve come to the point in my life where in order to move forward, I need to begin sharing about what happened to me.

I have vaginismus.

While this diagnosis can mean different things for different women, for me it means I am unable to have penetrative sex without pain. I have been sexually active in this way for eight years and have experienced pain-free sex exactly once. It has been devastating.

There is no known cause of vaginismus, but studies have correlatively linked it to being raised in religious cultures that promote abstinence among other forms of sexual purity.

I cannot overstate how important my purity was to me. I grew up in Evangelical Christianity at the height of the “True Love Waits” movement, received abstinence-only education from elementary school through college, and read with devotion titles like Lady in Waiting: Becoming God’s Best While Waiting for Mr. Right. While I did not live out this ideal perfectly, I was a virgin on my wedding night. I was ready for my promised reward — not a lifetime of unrelenting pain.

Because of the culture of shame and silencing I come from, I waited three years to tell Patrick, my partner, about my pain. It then took me another two years to find a gynecologist who believed me, and I’ve spent the years since trying to heal through pelvic floor physical therapy, vaginal stretching, laser-based treatments, and other holistic healing methods such as meditation and reiki.

All this time, I’ve been working on an essay to help me process my grief. But it’s the one piece of writing I can’t finish because it’s just too heartbreaking.

As you can imagine, my pain has affected my relationship in a multitude of ways. Both Patrick and I have tried our best to maintain a sexual and romantic relationship, which is often seen as the distinguishing characteristic of a marriage or life-long partnership in our society. But through individual and joint counseling, many long, difficult conversations, and countless hours of introspection, we have come to realize we simply are not compatible in this way.

Last fall, we talked seriously about getting divorced. We researched the process and divided up the pets and all of our things. But we were too sad at the thought of not being together when, aside from not being able to have sex, we still loved each other and had created a happy life.

Last summer, I read Untamed by Glennon Doyle. In it, she describes the four keys she used to unlock the cage of other people’s expectations and set herself free:

1. Key One: Feel It All
2. Key Two: Be Still and Know
3. Key Three: Dare to Imagine
4. Key Four: Build and Burn

Feel. Know. Imagine. Burn.

I’ve had those four words written on a post-it taped to our bedroom mirror and have recited them to myself over and over and over again as I re-envisioned our life.

Early on during the pandemic, I would spend mornings alone in the dark on the floor of our closet weeping trying to imagine this life. And when I was finally able to silence all of the voices of fear and judgment and shame and to listen to my own and what I wanted, I saw a life in which Patrick and I were together yet free.

While at first this life was an abstract expression — more of a hopeful feeling than any sort of tangible reality — lately it’s begun to take shape as we’ve redefined what we each want and need.

One of those decisions is to open our relationship to sexual experiences with other people.

Until now, I’ve been afraid to share about this decision because of what all of you reading this and everyone else in our lives might think. But what I hope you see is two people doing their best to love each other and simply choosing another way.