Margaret Ellis

Margaret Ellis

Christian counsellor Maggie Ellis is founder and CEO of Lifecentre Rape Crisis Service.

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    Sex abuse flashbacks

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I find this hard to write about, but my father ‘showed me how to have sex’ when I was primary school age. I hated it when he did this, but he persuaded me it was what all girls had to learn. It is only now as an adult that I realise this is what our society calls childhood sexual abuse...

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    Angry over high sex drive

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I am beginning to find my behaviour during the regular periods of sexual abstinence in my otherwise happy 20 year marriage alarming and wonder if I am some kind of sex addict, or just a pratt who needs to grow up? I have a greater sex drive than my wife. She makes as much effort as she can, but we can go for long periods without sex. She has phases of not liking herself and feeling unsexy – sometimes this can last for weeks. Despite knowing that she still loves me I always feel rejected...

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    Should I see a non-Christian therapist?

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I experience acute pain upon any type of vaginal entry. My doctor has failed repeatedly to do a cervical smear test...

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    My friend is too needy

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    "We have little in common and she is one of the most irritating people I have ever encountered..."

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    I am guilty over lost virginity

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I had lots of great friends at uni - but many were into binge drinking and sleeping around. Somehow - I managed to get through over two years without getting drunk, I had a steady Christian boyfriend and we both believed that sex was something for marriage. But then we broke up and I had sex with a guy that I had only met a fortnight earlier...

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    I was raped as a teenager

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    At the age of 16 I was suffering with depression. Things got so bad I tried to OD on my anti depressants but I was suddenly filled with fear so I went to my church youth worker, I passed out just after I arrived. The next thing I remember is waking up with him touching me. He told me that if I ever told anyone what he had done then he would tell my family about my OD. He then raped me. I tried to avoid him from then on but he managed to find ways to get me on my own and he did it again a number of times...

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    I feel distant from my wife

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I have to travel abroad a lot with my work and my wife runs everything for the family when I am away. When I return, I am tired but have lots of romantic fantasies about seeing her again, most of which go unfulfilled...

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    I can’t cope with my wife’s menopause

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    "It’s like living with a dangerous dog that bites and barks..."

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    Lusty mind games

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Well straight in the deep end - lust. Where do you draw the line between ‘attraction’ and lust, the unhelpful sort? I was involved with pornographic magazines many years ago, before becoming a Christian and getting married...

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    Married but still a virgin

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    My husband and I were virgins on our wedding night. As Christians we knew this was what God wanted and felt it would be best for us too. Not that we found it easy to keep our hands off each other before the big day. Trouble is - six months later we are still virgins! On our honeymoon we had lots of fun in bed but when it came to intercourse I felt too small...

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    She won't initiate sex

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    My wife never, or rarely, initiates sexual contact, or any physical intimacy. We never have sex spontaneously – it is always discussed and planned first, teeth cleaned, undressed, into bed and then I know I need to initiate all the ‘proceedings’. Every six months or so, we discuss our sex life and my wife promises that she will try to initiate sex more often. But after such discussions we may have 3 or 4 days before my wife remembers that she is ‘supposed to be initiating’...

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    Pain turns me on

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Agony Aunt Maggie Ellis answers readers' questions on sex and relationships...

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    The Sex Factor

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Maggie Ellis answers your questions on sex and relationships...

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    Just had a baby, struggling with sex

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Maggie Ellis answers a question on sex after childbirth.

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    Sex makes me sore

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I was sexually abused by my dad when I was a child. I am now 42. I have had three children; one was a premature delivery and he lived for seven weeks in hospital and then died. I had sexual feelings but did not have sex until I became married. On my wedding night I found having sex uncomfortable and it has been ever since...

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    Sex and singles

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    I am now in my 30s and a virgin. Even though I believe that being a virgin has been the right thing, I dread the day one of my secular friends or acquaintances brings up the sex topic in relation to me. How can I deal with this?

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    Confused by Same Sex Reaction

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Our Agony Aunt answers readers' questions on sex and relationships.

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    How do we minister to transgender people?

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Maggie Ellis answers a question on acceptance in the Church.

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    Rediscover passion for your overweight wife

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    Sometimes when making love it seems to be going OK until I am about to reach orgasm but then I just ‘lose it’ – i.e. there is no ‘feeling’ - it just comes to an end. My wife says she had felt me ‘come’ inside her but I didn’t feel it. This is happening more and more lately over the last few years. I am 54 and we have been together for almost 30 years...

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    He wants sex more than I do

    2014-02-05T00:00:00

    How do you overcome vast differences in sexual appetite? My husband seems to want sex all the time and I just can’t keep up. I do enjoy it when I feel in the mood, but we are doing it so often that I now regularly just do the proverbial ‘lie back and think of England’!

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