Fifty Shades of Grey - the book, more so than the movie - continues to infect marriages, committed relationships, and our collective psyche. I doubt author E.L. James, who began writing this as Twilight fan fiction, intended to create this path of destruction. But she did. Few are immune. Maybe your marriage is already struggling as a result of the erotic book about Anastasia Steele, a young, virgin, college student, who becomes a sex slave to Christian Grey, a successful businessperson and arguable sociopath.


 

What I've noticed is that many women in my circle couldn't put down the book when it first came out. They found it to be full of passion, and it created a sense of longing in many of them. As fans of any book, they became infatuated with the characters and in love with the story. While books allow us to enter another world, they also have us unfairly relating the fiction to our own reality. 

Now, I must preface this by writing that I never had any interest in reading this book or seeing the movie (and I have not as of publication of this story). I'm not comfortable with what I view as an abusive relationship being portrayed as romantic. I'm certainly open to the possibility of changing my mind. And I don't judge those who take a different perspective. Still, that's not the point of this piece. 

After reading a few reviews and passages, you can be sure that the sex in Fifty Shades is thrilling. At some point, you're going to wonder if you and your spouse measure up. That's when it hits you.

It's the moment you realize your sex life is the Jesse Spano to its Kelly Kapowski. I get it. I do. No wants vanilla ice cream all the time, so why would they only want vanilla sex? 

The more you get into the book, the more you're thinking, "Why doesn't my husband want to spank me?" Or can't he control what I eat or drink? Maybe, you don't even want El Dominator. But you'd just like there to be something different, something more spontaneous and passionate than what you have now, which probably involves someone rolling over in bed, saying, "Honey, let's do it," all the while ESPN is running in the background.  

Read on for more on why Fifty Shades is ruining marriage.