Mark Titus, Sunday Gleaner Writer

For many married couples, wedding-day bliss later turns into the blues.- file

WESTERN BUREAU:

While the Church continues to preach Hell's damnation on fornicators and adulterers, sex remains a forbidden issue for many pastors.

This is believed to have led to the high rate of failed marriages among churchgoers, who are sometimes coerced into holy matrimony by 'divine matchmakers', who themselves sometimes have a history of failed or unhappy unions.

Carlbecame a Christian at the age of 19; he says the elders of the church never spoke about sex.

"You would hear about fornication and adultery, that we will go to Hell if we defiled the temple of the Holy Ghost (the body), but no one came to us one on one about the problems that would face us," he tells The Sunday Gleaner.

"My desire for sex peaked and I immediately started to think about marriage. As youngsters in the church we were of the opinion that 'tying the knot' was a licence to have sex as much as we wanted to, and would solve all the problems."

"'It is better to marry than to burn', was a quotation by the Apostle Paul that was used to push us towards marriage," he recalled.

"I simply understood this to mean that if I have a problem with sex, I should find a woman and get married, and I don't think there can be any other interpretation." One year later he was married to Sheryl, the church's choir director. They were confident they were doing the right thing, as elders in the church endorsed the union 'through prophesy'.

Sheryl says her marriage was like a fairytale at first.

Nightmare

"For the first three months, he could not take his hands off me, we did every thing together," she recalls. "Things were perfect, a dream, but after that the nightmare began."

"Carl started to find fault with everything. We argued about anything you can think of, and to make matters worse, sex was just intercourse; we did not make love anymore," she relates. "Suddenly he could not speak on his cellphone in my presence, while taking calls any hours of the night and I became suspicious of his every move."

"It suddenly struck me that I knew nothing about him. What are his long-term goals? How many kids he wanted? We were not prepared.

"When I finally decided to speak with my pastor's wife about our problems, all she said to me was that we should fast and pray about it, it was the Devil."

"Carl and I have since separated, and now have to be going through the ordeal of a divorce. This is the hardest part, and there is no one in the church to stand with you because divorce is not allowed."

Associate counselling psychologist at Family Life Ministries, Jennifer James, says a decision to marry is complex.

"Just saying that both of you are Christians does not mean that you are going to have a wonderful marriage," the psychologist explains. "There are a lot of persons that share the same Christian values, but are not compatible. That is why it is important to have premarital counselling."

"When both parties in a relationship begin to question whether there is a future in the union, it can then be defined as a failed marriage," she notes.

In the United States, divorce rate is used as the index for failed marriages, but James disagrees.

"Some people equate failed marriages with divorce, but that is not necessarily so," she said. "The incidence of divorce in and out of the church is very much comparable."

"In Jamaica, the divorce taboo is still strong in the church, as much as sex is. There are a lot of persons living together saying they are married, some even cohabiting in the same household, but their marriages are not a success."

The psychologist pointed out that while the Church has a responsibility to speak on the issue of sex, the family's failure to teach the society about the subject must not be ignored.

Some parents at fault

"The same criticisms that are levelled at church leaders can be said about many parents, as they too are not comfortable with their own sexuality and as a result, refuse to talk about it."

"Most of our youngsters get their sex education from school, a clinical- type biology; what they are not getting is the relationship or the value part of sex," she stated.

Mrs. James said that the family and the school's failure to teach the values of sex, and the warped, biased and commercialised version from the media have resulted in persons not thinking highly of sex.

"The value side is neglected, and that is where the Church needs to have a very strong input, because God has a lot to say about marriage and sex."

"Christian marriages are supposed to typify what the ideal marriage should be and demonstrate Christ's relationship with the Church, but this is not happening. The Church has failed in this regard."

This sensitive and controversial issue, according to James, can only be properly addressed when ministers of religion come to grips with their own sexuality, and the place sex holds in a person's life.

Not real names.