REAL TALK: “I’m a Christian widow. Is it wrong to masturbate when I miss intimacy?”

Dear Woman Alive,

I am 76 and have been a widow for six years in November. I have been a born again Christian for 49 yrs. In all the books I have read on grief especially loss of spouse not one mentions about the loss of intimacy. Those feelings don’t go away when you lose your husband/wife, in fact they intensify cos you feel so alone and just want your loved ones arms around you. Talking with other women who are feeling the same we wonder if it is wrong for a Christian widow/widower to masturbate? Your opinion would be gratefully received. 

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Dear Reader,

For many believers experiencing widowhood, questioning whether masturbation is appropriate is both valid and understandable. During such a tender time, longings for intimacy can become heightened – not only because of grief and loneliness, but because of the very real loss of the sexual intimacy and closeness that would have been regularly enjoyed within marriage.

When someone loses the intimacy they once shared with their spouse, learning to live without it can feel extremely difficult. And at times like this, masturbation can seem like a very valid solution to fulfilling our innate desire for connection and sexual satisfaction.

But I would love to encourage you that, for those of us who are in Christ, there is a far better answer than masturbation.

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As someone who had multiple sexual partners and cohabited with a man for years before becoming a Christian twenty-two years ago – and who has since thrived in singlehood for nineteen of those years – I can lovingly encourage you that masturbation is not what will ultimately meet your need for intimacy. Only Jesus will. You see, whether we are single, dating, married or widowed, intimacy with God is ultimately what we were all created for and what truly satisfies us.

Although God designed us to enjoy deep and glorious covenant intimacy within marriage, true intimacy is ultimately found first and foremost in Him.

Although God designed us to enjoy deep and glorious covenant intimacy within marriage, true intimacy is ultimately found first and foremost in Him. If the deepest intimacy you have ever known has been with your husband, then losing him can leave an enormous void. The absence of that closeness can feel all the more painful because you have known what it is to share yourself so deeply with another person.

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But there is a communion with Christ that goes even deeper than marital intimacy.

But there is a communion with Christ that goes even deeper than marital intimacy. And I believe the Lord wants to invite you into a depth of intimacy with Him that not only brings healing and restoration, but is rooted in a love, peace and satisfaction beyond measure.

This is also an intimacy that protects us. Because not only is intimacy with God far more rewarding, but something like masturbation, though it may initially seem like an appropriate way to comfort and satisfy ourselves, can open the door to lust. I also believe it can open the door to the demonic, leaving someone vulnerable to sexual soul ties with unclean spirits. God understands our needs. He understands our longings. He understands the enormous loss that comes when the person with whom we shared such deep intimacy is no longer there. But He also desires to meet us in those places Himself, rather than leave us vulnerable to the enemy capitalising on our pain and vulnerabilities.

And so, I believe the safest, healthiest and most fulfilling response to the longing for intimacy that can accompany widowhood is not simply to find another way of sexually satisfying ourselves, but to discover true intimacy with Jesus. As someone who has experienced this intimacy with Christ for almost twenty-two years and found deep satisfaction in Him, without needing to resort to masturbation, my prayer for you – and for anyone else grieving both the loss of a spouse and the intimacy that came with marriage – is that you would embark upon the most beautiful adventure of intimacy with the Lord.

That you would allow Him to meet you in your loneliness, comfort you in your grief, heal you in the places that ache and cherish you as the Lover of your soul. Because He is not simply the One who understands our need for intimacy. He is the very Author of intimacy itself.