Latter-Day Marriage

None of your actions as you have described them strike me as something to legitimatly be concerned about. She seems to have some deep insecurities. As others have suggested, it may be related to past sexual abuse you don't know about. Very often those who are abused as children have a hard time distinguishing between normal affection and sexual exploitation, and it is very common for somebody abused as a child to feel shame as an adult even to the point of hiding that part of their history from their spouse. It could also be that she was taught some unrealisic ideas or has some unmet need. Do you know what kind of things make her feel loved and are you doing them? Are you doing anything that may make her feel insecure? If you have a history of porn usage, even if it is something you are over with, it may fuel distrust in her. I understand not wanting confrontation, but sometimes us guys can get so afraid of imposing unrighteous dominon that we go too far the other way and fail to provide the leadership we should. Sometimes there has to be hard discussions to resolve important issues. You just have to 'fight fair' even if they don't. No personal attacks, not dragging in other issues, no letting yourself get angry, no blame shifting. You are going to have to talk this out with her in some way, privatly together or with the bishop or with a counselor. It won't fix itself. From the sound of what you said you are basicly taking orders from her that you don't agree with without even objecting and that is something that will in time harm your relationship with her. You have to let her know your feelings and you have to have the courage say when you find a demand of hers to be unreasonalbe and unacceptable. If you don't show you reject her premise that it is insest or whatever then you are validating it in her eyes. Communication in marriage is not about the ability to accuratly say something as much as it is about having the courage to say something when you know they won't want to hear. I can also tell you are eager to become a father. That is great, but I really think you should get this issue resolved or at least on the path to being resolved before you start having kids.

The hard thing about making a marriage a big success is that it takes both spouses to pull it off, so it is not something that is fully in one spouse's control. But even if only one spouse is doing the right things it makes a big difference. Keeping commandments and temple covenants is at the top of course, but on top of that you need to make serving your spouse a bigger thing in your life than serving yourself. Pretty much all marital conflics stem from somebody (usually both) being unchristllike in some way, so every conflict is a chance to look at yourself, find that bit of not-christlikeness and root it out. Don't go trying to root it out of your spouse, that will be counterproductive.

As I understand it, repentance has 6 steps: Recognize what you did was wrong Regret doing it Make a full confession to God an anybody you acted against Make restitution for what you did / undo it to the exent that you can / make up for it, make it right. Resolve to never do it again. Ask for forgiveness. The purpose of those steps is to reconcile the damanged relationship. It sounds like you did that with your relationship with God, but you are keeping a terrible secret from your wife and is not that eating you up? I think you need to tell her and make it up to her, and she needs to see your regret, know that you 'get it' now, and that you have changed into somebody who will not do it again. It may be a rough road but in the end you two can come out stronger than before. This does not strike me as the kind of thing that would lead to formal church dicipline, but it may be helpful for you and your wife to involve the Bishop in working through this.

I have a blog on marriage and intimacy from a LDS perspective at http://latterday-marriage.blogspot.com. The intended audience is married LDS adults. While topics related to sexual intimacy are discussed in places, it is done so in what I hope everybody will find is a reverent and respectful way.