Help! My Past Sin Is Impacting My Marriage

Sexual sin traumatizes us from all angles. We commit it, others commit it against us, the world lays it at our feet, and Satan’s lies about it are enticing. Premarital sexual sin can bring painfully scarring consequences that don’t disappear with marriage. In Psalm 51, David expresses the bone-crushing weight of his past sins: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (v. 3). How can you move forward in godly intimacy with your spouse when your sexual history continues to impact your heart with guilt and shame? 

Hope for Renewed Intimacy

My heart aches in sympathy for those who, because of the trauma and guilt of past sexual sin, perceive marital intimacy—which God created to be good and pleasurable—as dangerous and dirty.[1] 

Brother, sister, your premarital sexual sin is not doomed to be the only sexual experience you bring to the marriage bed. Where the clinging of husband and wife is grounded in clinging to the wedding vows made before God, there is room to grow in hope. 

Cling to Your Vows as You Cling to Each Other

Read these marriage vows with me:

“I, ____________, take thee, ____________, to be my wedded wife/husband, and I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be thy loving and faithful husband/wife in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, as long as we both shall live.”

Unity in the Vow 

“I take thee to be my wedded wife/husband. . .”

Maybe you have a guard up that you can’t seem to put down—your memory of commitment failure, of sexual sin spoiling godly intimacy. Premarital sexual sin is a façade of relational commitment that produces guilt and insecurity. How can intimacy not seem confusing when, in the past, it expressed an illusion of unity void of true relational vitality?

Couples who cling to the marriage vows as they cling to each other are assured of and take responsibility in their covenantal unity: “The two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:5–6). In this vow—husband taking wife and wife taking husband—we find the relational unity and commitment that God designed sex to flow from.

Community in the Vow

“I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses. . . ”

Maybe your past sexual sin continues to burden you with a sense of unresolved failure: I tried, and I failed. Am I worthy as a spouse? Can sex ever be pure when I am so sinful?

One of the most common things I hear from those struggling with sexual sin is, “my family and my church never talked about sex.” This lack of understanding makes the concept of sexual relationships an unstable, risky mystery. It seems to “work” until it doesn’t—and that’s just the way everyone says it goes.   

The cornerstone of the marriage commitment to love and faithfulness isn’t conditioned upon your emotions, attractions, or circumstances.

But the husband and wife who cling to the marriage vows as they cling to each other have security. You aren’t walking alone. The support of your church—which is the covenantal union of God and his Bride (Rom. 11)—helps your understanding of the marriage covenant grow, leading to God-honoring repentance and intimacy (2 Tim. 3:16–17). In committing to your marriage vows under the care of God and his Church, you and your spouse find an example-driven, relational support system which nourishes your marital union (Eph. 5).  

Faithfulness in the Vow

“. . . to be thy loving and faithful husband/wife in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow. . .”

Your experience of past sex may include the guilt and hurt of failing to hold on to love and faithfulness. Maybe you used to think that love and faithfulness can’t last—they’re too fluid to define—and those thought patterns continue to surface. If love and faithfulness seem undefinable and are circumstantially subjective based on changing emotions and attractions, then sexual relations will always be at risk.

Spouses who cling to the marriage vows establish love and faithfulness as actions defined by the Scriptures (John 15:13; 1 Cor. 13). The cornerstone of the marriage commitment to love and faithfulness isn’t conditioned upon your emotions, attractions, or circumstances. It’s rooted in the promised vow before God which transcends emotions, attractions, or circumstances. Within unconditional, covenant love and faithfulness, those repenting of premarital sexual sin find the relational heart and permanence that God designed sex to flow from.

Devotion in the Vow

“. . . as long as we both shall live.”

In clinging to the new marriage vows, committing to trust the Lord in your present and true marital intimacy, you’re living as if your life is no longer your own. In Christ, selfishness and pride, which breed sexual sin, are put to death.

But in this, your focus must shift beyond seeing your life (past, present, and future) as committed to your spouse—as if you could be the savior or fix the consequences of your sin. Instead, see your life as Christ’s and your spouse’s life as Christ’s. Intimacy can only come from him and in his timing. He alone is sufficient to meet the needs of those wrestling with fear, guilt, and shame over their past, and he alone can meet their spouses’ needs.

Not only is one’s sexual purity restored in Christ, he also restores our entire identity.

Committing to sex within that context of devotion to Christ changes everything you may have experienced sex to be outside of submission to Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). In committing to the marriage covenant as a part of a new life in Christ, you can find a subsequent new, pure, and holy intimacy (Eph. 5).

Remember the Vow-Keeper

Not only is one’s sexual purity restored in Christ, he also restores our entire identity. How is this accomplished? Christ is the ultimate vow-keeper for those who put their faith in him. Jesus, in perfect, sacrificial love, bled and died on the cross to gain and forever secure our union with him. We cannot earn the redemptive restoration found in union with Christ by trying to fix ourselves or wash away our own brokenness and sin.

Dear brother or sister bearing the weight of shame over your broken history, you can have real hope for renewed sex in your marriage because you have a Savior who has already sufficiently championed his covenant with you. Only Christ’s faithful obedience can justify you and sustain your obedience. Above all, cling to Christ. Look to him in repentance and receive his abundant mercy every day. Let his faithfulness, as you make every effort by the Holy Spirit to fix your heart upon it (2 Tim. 2:13), empower you to cling to the marriage vows as you cling to your spouse.

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[1] Walking through past sexual sin and growing in marital intimacy takes time and care. Harvest USA offers resources to help you with this.