Mulberry Trees’ Ministries UK

Having had a heavy taste of the single teen’s sex life before falling in love, meant my own views of sex were not only very unhibited but damaged by its use in wrong circles. The promiscuous sixties came upon us and I played the field well.  But then I met someone who didn’t play around and I fell in love, swiftly and deeply! Actually proposing on our third date, I was not accepted at that point.

It didn’t matter, I was a truly dedicated hanger on. Like any knight in armour I fought on to win her, even when I was aware that she loved someone else. This relationship for me was different to what I had ever had. Though later sex would come into it, we were well on the way to tying the knot and had no further doubts that we had what a successful marriage takes. Time after marriage would prove we lacked some very vital ingredients. God for instance was nowhere in it, except for a church wedding to please all and sundry in both families.  Men and women who convince themselves that a promiscuous life does not follow one into a love marriage reckon it all wrong, for a passion and fire is lost that can become irreplaceable without help from God Himself. We didn’t have that help. And our relationship began to show the cracks caused by our lack. Lack of respect. Feeling fear, guilt even shame all these assailed in turn.  Sometimes in June and sometimes in me, yet we never did find the way to understand and deal with it outside of God’s help. A quick and thankfully short nervous breakdown robbed me of sleep and of the privilege of a loving wife sleeping at my side. Accompanied by this. An illness called incontinence had complicated our nights to a very uncomfortable place.

It was nothing to do with drunkenness it was a sickness and because Drs said ‘Live with it’, there seemed no hope and no cure!  As my fiancee June had said ‘not important’ and ‘we’ll survive’, but the illness took a constant toll of our relationship.  Any man who had even had an accident or two should be able to enter into my personal feelings, they were not pleasant!  

This was my cross and I found it hard to carry, since I saw it affecting my manhood in so many ways. Once we discovered that the medical profession said children were very doubtful for us, my own misery accelerated. In our joint frustrations I became outwardly indifferent and in retaliation, June became a classic nagger. Many of you out there will know just what all this meant and will have had similar burdens in life.  Over the years this burden increased, not only as a circumcised man, I was also a heavy smoker and that too made our child victory decrease as the time went on.

My accidents developed into an inability to perform in bed and keep my wife at least partly happy.

The relationship worsened because she thought I had stopped loving her! From being a woman against divorce in her own life she started contemplating separation. By then we had found Jesus Christ, by then we had been making a real effort to put old problems behind us and start a new life with a better relationship. My new development threatened to destroy all we had gained.

Friends were praying and that kept us together and kept us trying to reach out to one another. Our pastor at that time was one of our greatest mainstays and was a fervent pray-er for the Ritchies. We love him for it. But our tragedy was too big to just disappear and though we countlessly went to God in healing meetings it seemed I was a ‘misser,’ I would be blessed and touched, but not healed!

Time kept marching and finally God called us out to Ayrshire on service.

We spent only a short year in that place but the whole issue of the year culminated almost at the end when the lovely pastor there was moved in my home to pray for me tearfully to eliminate my incontinence problem, (which was a Goliath that could not be beaten)  There were no bells or trumpets to sound but from that time on I was healed! and years of constant incontinence became just a bad dream!   God had His moment to meet my need, and did so at a time when I did not expect it.  

He did so, quietly and in a corner. It did not make Pastor Bill famous or me, but it set me free from a lifestyle no man wants to suffer.  Our time in Ayrshire was and is very special in some ways but this is among the greater highlights we had.

The physical side of sex did continue to be a problem and an issue in life that caused much stress even though it became evident that we would remain always together as man and wife.

I had sown so many wild oats beforehand it seemed less important to me, but to June who had kept herself for the one man she would marry it was of utmost importance. Part of her womanhood and her emotional security.  I was reluctant to go to the medics over the difficulty for some reason but due to June’s insistence I eventually did so in the 1990s. 

Attending the Erectile Dysfunction clinic was an experience, far from the frightener I had thought and received both help and advice on ways to ensure that my duties as a husband would be able to carry on in a better way.

Going to these people showed me how many men out there suffer from such trials and keep silent as well as embarrassed to even discuss it. I thank God June and I did find the problem able to discuss and to in the end handle all the experiments that go with the problem.

In a very short time we were ennabled to make love again and a new fire and passion came in because of it. We had learned through our difficulties, just how important the act of meeting one another’s need was and it was in some ways a revelation. Especially since we discovered the fear and embarrassment in other Christians, who refused to look at the problem and preferred to live with it than learn how to receive help and accept it.

Going to Erectile Dysfunction clinic had opened doors in ways to help myself function and I have not needed to look back. My confidence as a lover returned and that meant a great deal to us both.

This page is here as an invitation to men who are suffering in the same ways and have gone through all these bad feelings. Please contact me lets talk it over man to man. It’s time to get together and see that not being able to love one’s wife physically is a sad thing but not something that cannot be helped.

By sharing our emotional wounds we help heal one another. Will you join me? Waiting to hear from u!

For further info and enquiries Please leave a comment and your email details.