How Passionate is Your Marriage?

For many people the two words passion and marriage only exist in that sultry honeymoon period right at the beginning or even worse, it’s nothing more than a fantasy on our screens, played by hollywood beauties with real love lives so pitifully awful we’ll forgive their outstanding figures and the fact they can at least afford world class therapy for years on end to get over it.

I recently read the book Passionate Marriagewhich I felt was an amazing book for anyone in a committed relationship (or indeed anyone who was once in one, and is still trying to work out why it didn’t work)

It talks in there about how none of us are really ready for marriage, and how we all have issues and ways of relating with each other that isn’t 100% healthy. And that is ok. I found the book was both reassuring and confronting.

I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with intimacy in their marriage. David talks about whether you are going through the motions or really connecting. All through it are case studies (which get a little nitty gritty- you have been warned), which help you reflect back on your own relationship.

Some of the things I was interested in were in how we often stop hugging for any time (except perhaps brief hugs), how we start to remove ourselves during sex through fantasy, closing our eyes, and not making eye contact, and how we can both barter our way out of sex, turning it into a power play.

I know of many couples where the sex life is dying or dead.  Many of these couples start to seek what is missing outside of their partnership with infidelity and affairs. The most common search terms people use to find my site is “how to have an affair”, or “I think my husband is having an affair” The truth is, many of us get to a point where it’s preferable for your partner to be cheating on you, than having sex with you- because sex is an act too revealing of how you feel towards them- they may notice your disappointment, your hostility, your fears.

This book really delivers on why this happens and what you can do to resolve it within your relationship instead.

Some takeaway thoughts from this book for me were:

*We always choose someone who is at the same point of differentiation (or what I call identify with self) as we are. We may change and develop during our relationship, and when we do, they will either change alongside us, or they will choose to stay as they are. Neither is better than the other, but too big a change will cause a relationship breakdown.  We need to expect that we will both change and grow, for the marriage to be sustainable.

*We can’t expect to feel in sync or completely connected all the time. A really high functioning marriage feels in sync about fifty percent of the time.

*Intimacy involves risk. You need to show parts of you that are private for it to work best.

*It’s hard to get over feeling rejected sexually, which leads to a cycle of a lack of sex in your relationship.  If you are looking for validation from your partner all the time you will be disappointed. It’s really important to learn how to validate your own needs and feelings instead.

*There will be times you feel at an impasse and it’s to be expected. It’s not the situation that will break your marriage- it’s how you handle it instead. You can’ negotiate or compromise yourself out of it- it’s a listening and be heard approach that works best here.

*Sometimes you do need to choose between your own personal integrity and your marriage.

*If you are not having sex, is it sex you don’t want or is it your partner? It’s important to learn to see the difference before you can resolve it.

*If there are big issues, are you able to calm yourself down enough to see what is really going on?

*If all feels lost, try hugging each other until you both relax. This can help you reconnect. It might feel too difficult to do straight off- so try to build up to it.

*Sometimes it all comes down to choosing between what we want to have, and what we don’t want to lose. We tend to dodge these issues, but this prevents us from working through them.

This is really only tapping the surface- if you can see some of this resonates with you, I do suggest you get the book.

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