“I’m making important changes.  Why can’t  he(she)?”

Exasperated and desperate, many of us are looking for change.  We are willing to make meaningful change within ourselves.  Yet, we feel shorted when our spouse does not reciprocate by responding to OUR need for them to make similar changes.

My mother-in-law told me outright during my wife’s and my engagement, “I’ve raised her already.  Don’t you go try doing it again!“

Wiser words have seldom been spoken.  Growing together as a couple is not getting the other to adapt to your worldview, share your sensibilities or to adopt your passions.  These are areas we must consider prior to ‘I do.”  Once I do becomes I did, the balance of time is spent finding connection, attachment and production to bridge who we already are to what we will become.

What does that look like?  Well, there are a few ways of observing how healthy marital growth occurs.

1. We see healthy growth in communication.   Couples who enjoy healthy marital relationships know how to argue.  Even with voices raised and ire up, they stick to the issues at hand and are both striving to find resolution.  One or both spouses moderate their views toward the middle to find a workable compromise.  When compromise is not a viable alternative, one or both finds a way to concede or defer.  It is not about power (“I’m the head of the house“).  It is about collaborating to make choices and take action that are always in the best interest of the household.  In short time, such couples learn the true nature of trust in marriage.  Even when they disagree, they never doubt that the other only wants what is best for both!

2. We see healthy growth in interaction.  The trust equity that accumulates over the course of a marriage is manifested in how attentive and responsive we are to our mates.  Healthy married couples want to be together.  They want to occupy the same physical space, touch one another and enjoy each other’s company.  Couples who disregard the importance of ‘face time’ do so to the detriment of intimacy.  Marriage is more than an institution consisting of role-players.  It is a relationship, first and foremost.  Relationships require regular interaction.  The interaction doesn’t always have to be structured.  Short playful banter in a sweet embrace, an impromptu choice to play a board or card game, a walk in the park, calling home for lunch and listening to the homemaker recount their day thus far and hanging out and talking while the other is completing a chore or task are ways in which couples keep close to one another, physically as well as metaphysically.

3. We see healthy growth in physical intimacy.  Sex often has little or no priority for couples.  As responsibilities exponentially increase during the course of our marriages, we defer some things to attend to others.  The choice of what to defer may not be the product of deliberate consideration.  Sex is a default casualty of hectic schedules and weary bodies.   Sex requires some energy, physical, mental and emotional.  Because we may not have considered the importance of sexual intimacy to our marriage, we may assume that tiredness naturally justifies diminished frequency of sexual relations.  In truth, that which has priority is made possible by planning and accommodation.  Healthy growth in physical intimacy requires couples to talk about how to adapt to life changes so that making love happens in a way that satisfies and fulfills both spouses.  Will there be times when sex is infrequent by necessity?  Yes.  Illness, having infants and separation by business or military deployment are a few of the common occurrences that diminish frequency.  As we grow in our marriages, we learn to focus on quality even as quantity is not possible.  In other words, we focus on doing it better when we can’t do it more!

In the areas above, each of us can make necessary changes toward a healthier marriage despite what our spouses choose to do.  If we think that success is getting someone else to change, we potentially set ourselves up for profound disappointment.  Being the change we seek is a more direct and efficient way of improving the quality of our marriages…and our lives.

Resist the urge to expend your energy maintain a public face for your marriage while seeing it die a silent death inside.  It matters less what other people think your marriage is than what it really is.  Go glow…and grow!

Married?  Visit us at www.ThePureBed.com.

Riding the high!

That’s what we are doing when the energy of our marital relationship rests on the great firsts.  At best, the high of the wedding and honeymoon bleeds into the high of living together for the first time.   Often, couples quickly conceive, in part, to start building their family.  But, also, some see it as a natural evolution of the relationship to produce kids and experience the pregnancy-high!

The problem with this kind of thinking is that the marriage becomes an institution for managing life events rather than a real relationship bonding the hearts of couples and producing emotional, spiritual and physical (sexual) oneness.

Each ‘high’ wanes and leaves the spouses craving for another like so many drug addicts compulsive and obsessive for another fix.  Unfortunately, as with most drug addicts, subsequent events lack the intensity of previous ones.  And when the marriage is no longer yielding what is needed and desired, spouses begin to look outside (rather than inside) for a fix.

What needs to happen?

Couples must be intentioned-minded and visionary about their relationship.   Marriage requires a level of commitment as well as love.  Love, more than an emotion, is a capacity to devote one’s self to another even to a degree of personal sacrifice.

When our marriages see love in this light, we are better positioned to cast a vision for our lives together that serves both our interests, promotes both our dreams and connects on all levels of growth such that we begin to grow together rather than apart.

The converse of this is often that emotional love promotes affectionate behavior for sensual intimacy but not mental or emotional development that makes couples mentally intimate.  These couples are the hugging, kissing newlyweds who seem inseparable.  Yet, in unseen quarters they have little to talk about when alone, cannot understand what motivates the other and is clueless as to what each truly needs and expects from the other.  Their’s is a marriage with a short shelf life.

Leverage the capacity of your love to bond your marital relationship in a way that leaves you less reliant on events to excite your marriage and more reliant on your mutual devotion to drawing closer to one another in heart and mind…as well as in body.

• Share with one another what you think the future holds for you as an individual (career, education, ministry, etc.)
• Share with one another what you think the future hold for you as a family (nurturing and disciplining children at each phase of life, education, vacations, community involvement, encouraging faith and religion, etc.)
• Make time to devote your attentions to one another exclusive of your children (Date nights, mini-vacation, full vacations, time out with other adult married friends, etc.)
• Share a hobby, interest, pray together regularly, read the same book and talk about it, volunteer to join a ministry together,  or even consider volunteering for a local candidate’s campaign together (school board, mayor, state level legislator, etc.)

Spending time with one another, investing in one another’s lives and growing together as a couple will provide a level of cohesion in your marriage that will help you endure harsher seasons of life when resilience will be needed. 

In Part III, we discuss what healthy marital growth looks like and how to make sure the outward glowing of your marriage reflects the inward growing in your marriage.

Newlyweds!  Remember hearing your names said together for the first time, ” I present to you, Mr. and Mrs…”   Remember everyone commenting on how great you two looked together, how in love you appeared.

Marriage brings on multiplied responsibilities.  Marriage with kids sees our responsibilities exponentially multiplied.  And the fresh smell of new marriage can grow musty and stale…even rank!

So, what happens?

Well, in too many cases, love is put on autopilot.   Couples feel compelled to maintain a facade of marital health while lacking a real commitment to nurturing the relationship upon which the marriage is founded. 

Many failing couples live largely the way they did before marriage.   Adaptation to a life together is relegated to some changes in financial management and living arrangements.  The presumption seems to be that the important choices relate to child-rearing, career goals, whose furniture stays or goes, where the couple will reside and the like.  Having made these choices, each spouse is left believing there’s nothing left to do but live happily ever after. 

Couples, then,  live from event to event.  The wedding, conception of first child, first big move together, buying first home together…  These are big moments in our marriages.  But what’s missing?

What’s missing is the stuff that long-lasting marriages are made of…a shared vision for a shared future, purposeful and constructive communication, emotional and spiritually maturing together and recognizing how to adapt to the impact of change…together.

An outward appearance of marital accord is NOT always an accurate barometer of the true state of a marriage.  Often, friends and acquaintance of a couple have stated in earnest how great a couple seemed together.  This, as they lamented how surprised they were at said couples announcement of separation or divorce.

Don’t be fooled by the hype.  We must work to have our marriages be as resilient, organic in growth and attractive as they seem.  In Part II, we examine the pitfalls that erode a marriage from the inside while leaving it looking in good standing from the outside…even to a particular spouse within that same marriage.

On behalf of my wife and myself, we hope for you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday for those observe it.  As this year approaches its end, we pray that the remaining days will be filled with love and reward for you and yours.

Thank you for visiting this blog, ThePureBed.com, subscribing to our newsletter, contacting us through email and by phone, registering for our marriage retreat and signing up fo our distributorship.

Your support of us and interactions with us leave us feeling very thankful to God for the rich experience that life has been this year. 

May God’s peace keep you.  May His grace cover you.  Thank you!

Carnell and Angela

As appreciation for being a blog visitor and/or TPB customer, we are going to give you a special gift…ABSOLUTELY FREE!

It is the latest book by our friends, Robert & Susan Irwin.

Appearing on television, radio and in printed media, Robert & Susan have spent over a decade helping married Christian couples to improve their married sex lives.

Their books are some of the most popular Christian sex guides available anywhere.

They have just finished up a new, big book (over 200 pages) and it is filled with answers to, just about, every question you might have about how to improve YOUR married sex life.

Even better, because Robert owes me a favor, I talked him into offering our supporters a copy for the very low price of…FREE!

It is titled…

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex

But Were Afraid To Ask

It is 229 pages of his most popular blog posts and articles all gathered together and presented in a way that will make
it easy for you to get any of your remaining questions about Christian sex issues answered…quickly and easily!

He’ll soon be selling this book for $37.00 But, right now, for our supporters, you can get YOUR COPY for FREE!

To get your FREE copy, all you have to do is go to the following page and download your copy IMMEDIATELY!:

www.BecomeOneFlesh.com

And, feel free, to send your family and friends to this “secret” page, as well. Just try to do it sooner than later because he won’t be keeping this section open forever.

Thanks again for including us this year as a resource for strengthening intimacy in your marriage. Don’t forget to visit us for your intimacy product needs at www.ThePureBed.com, your married couples intimacy store!

Thank you for contributing to another very successful year of celebrating and supporting healthy marriage and intimacy.  Continue to visit us at ThePureBed.com, your married couples intimacy store!

Carnell and Angela

P.S. Even if you have other similar books, I think you will find this book truly valuable.

P.S.S. You’ll probably find a few laughs in there too!

P.S.S. Grab your copy right away…Robert is only going to be
doing this “giveaway” for a very short time.