happily marred

For the next few weeks we will be talking about intimacy. Now, the first thing we men are thinking is sex, and the first thing women are thinking of is “sharing”. The fact is, intimacy takes place in several areas of our human interaction - intellectual, emotional, sexual and spiritual. It is what makes us feel connected to one another. Even outside marriage we experience this intimacy. 

Emotional intimacy is developed between people whom we trust, respect or admire; at work, perhaps a mentor or teacher, a close friend. Emotional intimacy comes from feeling secure in the bond we have. The knowledge that we share a common goal and share a common regard for one another.

I don’t know that I have ever before considered that as “intimacy”, but as I think about it, that is exactly what it is. In some cases, it occurs in a very narrow range of shared experience.

My son just bought a Jeep Wrangler. We traded vehicles one night so he could use our SUV and Vickie and I drove the Jeep. We noticed right away that every other Jeep that drove by us waved to us – intimacy. That Jeep owner said “I acknowledge your wise, cool and awesome choice of vehicles and I too, am awesome!”

Now that is as shallow a relationship as you will likely find, but it’s still a form of intimacy. Have you seen “Flight 93”? The intimacy shared by people in fear for their very lives was no less shallow – it was just a moment in time, but how much more profound.

Intellectual intimacy occurs between people when we know we are being heard and our thoughts and ideas are accepted and valued as legitimate and valid.

The story of a woman working to put her husband through college only to find out at the end that he has “intellectually outgrown” her is cliché in our society, but a perfect example of a couple who has failed to connect their thoughts, experiences and desires with a willing and interested listener.

There is a rather famous couple; James Carville and Mary Matlin, who are respectively Democratic and Republican political consultants and they are married. Now on the surface one might think they have no intellectual intimacy between them because they disagree on so many levels. However, the fact is they do agree that it’s just a job and to them it is no different than deciding what car to drive.

They have no spiritual or moral parameters for their positions, so they can change them at will. In this way, they have unity and intellectual intimacy. I wholeheartedly do not recommend it, but this is how they achieve the intimacy that a marriage requires to be successful whether Christian or secular.

A lot of men find much more intellectual intimacy at work than they do at home. At work people ask your opinion. Sometimes they pay for your opinion, they respect you, they listen. You get home and your wife hasn’t written down the last 3 checks she wrote after you’ve asked her to do it 6 times. OK, that’s it – a written warning for you.

Sexual intimacy is self explanatory and although you can, we assume you are not involved in sexual intimacy with others while you are married. However, you may have had previous sexual encounters that can affect your marriage even now.

The fact is, there is no such thing as casual sex, and what happens in Vegas never stays in Vegas. There is an emotional, social and spiritual component to sexual intercourse that just is not there if I wave to someone else in a Jeep or you cry at a movie with your girlfriends. You won’t get a disease from working on a political campaign with your friends and you probably won’t get a divorce if your spouse joins Oprah’s book club…well, maybe that’s a bad example.

I’m not saying you can’t have sex without intimacy – you certainly can, but it’s still not casual. How many people are living with guilt, shame, fear and regret as a result of sexual encounters? Sexually transmitted diseases, broken relationships, lawsuits, jealosy – there is nothing casual about it.  Paul reminds us in Cor. 6:15 that ”the two shall become one flesh”; the spiritual aspect of sexual union is present within marriage and without.

All other types of intimacy are the foundation of sexual intimacy. Sex does not create intimacy, it celebrates and deepens it.

However much we may agree on the purpose for sex in God’s plan for us, it is undeniable that as men and women we may experience and view sex differently just like so many other things. And just like those other things, there is a purpose in our differences.

Spiritual intimacy is born in relationships which are centered about our faith – a pastor, a share group member, an accountability partner, etc. How much more, then should it be elemental in our marriages and yet it is often the toughest area to develop intimacy in between a man and wife.

Spiritual intimacy is the distinctive of a Christian marriage. It is where our marriages are made indelible. All other aspects of the marriage are deepened or diminished by our relationship with God.

We don’t have to be at the same level of personal spiritual maturity, but we do need to share our spiritual growth – to be “equally yoked” to use a concept out of context.

Even though we share intimacies with others to varying degrees, with no one but our spouse do we share intimately in every one of these areas. So, even though we may be intimate with someone on a spiritual level, we don’t necessarily need to work at connecting with them intellectually – it’s just not important. Intimacy is not the GOAL it’s a by-product. However, with your spouse, it is the goal.

The thing you will notice above all about intimacy is that it is deeply and supremely satisfying. There is nothing like knowing and being known by your spouse. It seems to validate your very existence; make it all worthwhile. God built this kind of intimacy into our marriages to reflect his own love, acceptance and forgiveness – another way marriage is a reflection of Christ’s relationship to his church.

Developing intimacy takes time. It doesn’t just happen when we see each other naked. We need more than consensus, more than even acquiescence, we need oneness; a singleness of purpose and that takes time. But the payoff is this: Once that intimacy is established in all these areas, it is an impenetrable hedge against outside influences in our marriages.

Here’s a brief synopsis of what Rex and Kathy Brace talked about last night in case you want to share it with someone, remind yourself (or your spouse), or buy the book; check the Recommended Reading page.

Here is a link to Dr. Chapman’s website: The 5 Love languages. And here’s a link to Rex and Kathy’s Website. If you get a chance, stop by and thank them for coming.

I’m really enjoying the group and I’m learning a lot from everyone. Thank you all for being willing to share your lives with us. Add a comment if you like and let us all know what you think about anything we’ve been talking about.

Dr. Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages

     Quality Time
Some spouses believe that being together, doing things together and focusing in on one another is the best way to show love. If this is your partner’s love language, turn off the TV now and then and give one another some undivided attention.

     Gifts
It is universal in human cultures to give gifts. They don’t have to be expensive to send a powerful message of love. Spouses who forget a birthday or anniversary or who never give gifts to someone who truly enjoys gift giving will find themselves with a spouse who feels neglected and unloved.

     Acts of Service
Discovering how you can best do something for your spouse will require time and creativity. These acts of service like vacuuming, hanging a bird feeder, planting a garden, etc., need to be done with joy in order to be perceived as a gift of love.

     Physical Touch
Sometimes just stroking your spouse’s back, holding hands, or a peck on the cheek will fulfill this need.  

Determining Your Own Love Language                  

Since you may be speaking what you need, you can discover your own love language by asking yourself these questions:

• How do I express love to others?
• What do I complain about the most?
• What do I request most often?

Speaking in your spouse’s love language probably won’t be natural for you. Dr. Chapman says, "We’re not talking comfort. We’re talking love. Love is something we do for someone else. So often couples love one another but they aren’t connecting. They are sincere, but sincerity isn’t enough."

The number one emotional experience reported by folks is feeling the presence of God in their lives. The emotional high of being in love (which generally lasts around 2 years) is the second highest emotional experience that people reportedly have.

That is why it can be so difficult to try and talk some sense into someone who is in the midst of falling in love. Chapman stated that obsessive love can render people mentally incompetent. "There’s not much difference between being in love and being insane."

After the first or second year of marriage, when the initial "tingle" is starting to fade, many couples find that their "love tanks" are empty. They may have been expressing love for their spouse, but in reality they were speaking a different love language. The best way to fill your spouse’s love tank is to express love in their love language. Each of us has a primary love language. Usually, couples don’t have the same love language.

Dr. Chapman recommends that you have a "Tank Check" 3 nights a week for 3 weeks. Ask one another "How is your love tank tonight?" If, on a scale from zero to ten, it is less than 10, then ask "What can I do to help fill it?" Then do it to the best of your ability.

Our modern society has an egalitarian worldview. That is, as a society, we view everyone as a civilly, politically and morally equivalent being.

The greatest evocation of this ideal is the preamble to our own constitution – “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”. Some groups even go so far as to view other species as morally equal. (This is called “being stupid”).

Because of this paradigm. it is sometimes hard to recognize the inherent, built in differences between men and women - those differences that are by design, not a result of environmental factors.

Time magazine had a cover in 1992 that read “Why are Men and Women Different?” “ … new studies show they are born that way” The Christian says “duh!”. For if there are differences in men and women from birth, God made them that way and he did so for a purpose and that purpose was not so it could be an eternal mystery, but so we could fulfill the roles he intended.

Differences in Values

 This polled information is from a 1982 book by Carol Gilligan. I shows how men and women think differently about what is fair and how fairness should be adjudicated. the study identified 2 distinct approaches. The first being justice focus; the rule of law, logical arguments and making rules. The other, care focus; talking things over, compromise, compassion. The study showed that:

90% of men and women use both care and justice values; however, 65% focus on one value more than the other, as follows:

Men:          93% have a justice focus;

                   7% have a care focus;

                   0% have justice absent;

                 38% have care absent

                 (62% have some care).

Women:      62% have a care focus;

                  38% have a justice focus;

                  23% have justice absent;

                    8% have care absent

                  (92% have some care)

Because of this disparity, Freud posited that men were morally superior beings. Able to dispassionately adjudicate a problem unencumbered by the emotion tied up in the care and concern for individuals. Obviously Freud’s personal concept of “morality” was secular and influenced by his own “justice focus”.

Differences in Intelligence?

“While there are essentially no disparities in general intelligence between the sexes, a UC Irvine study has found significant differences in brain areas where males and females manifest their intelligence.

The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray matter related to intellectual skill, revealing that no single neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that different types of brain designs are capable of producing equivalent intellectual performance.

Differences in Communication

In her book, You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tanen asserts that “even if they grow up in the same neighborhood, on the same block, or in the same house, girls and boys grow up in different worlds or words.” These gender differences in ways of talking have been observed in children as young as three years of age, about the time language is developed. While little girls talk to be liked; little boys often talk to boast. Little girls make requests; little boys make demands. Little girls speak to create harmony; little boys prolong conflict. Little girls talk more indirectly; little boys talk directly. Little girls talk more with words; little boys use more actions. While boys and girls both want to get their way, they use language differently to do so.

Body language is also used differently by men and women. While women typically use nonverbal communication directly, men use it indirectly. Women stand in close proximity to each other, maintain eye contact, and gesture more frequently. Men hold their distance, rarely establish eye contact, and gestures less dramatically. Men and women also handle conflict differently. While women avoid conflict in order to insure closeness, men use conflict to gain status. These are just a few of the common differences in gender communication.

Men and women express gender communication differences in content, style, and structure. What do men and women talk about? Men often talk about sports, money, and business; women most often discuss people, feelings, and relationships. Why do men and women talk? Men often express themselves to fix a problem, converse for competition, and talk to resolve problems. Women most often express themselves to understand, converse to support, and talk to connect. How do men and women talk? Men typically use precise words, to the point, without descriptive details. Women are more detailed, apologetic, and vague.

women tend toward internal debates, good/ bad thinking and sorting behavior. Men’s thinking typically has few words (i.e., what feels right usually causes the next action).

Contrary to popular wisdom, some researchers conclude that women are more logical than men and men are more intuitive than women (on average). Seems wrong, doesn’t it?

Differences in the way we communicate with each other affect every relationship and the bible admonishes us to communicate effectively:

Men and women are to control their tongues (James 3:1-12)
and speak only words of kindness (Eph. 4:29, 32).
The Book of Proverbs discusses the importance of listening with understanding to others who speak (Prov. 11:12; 18:2, 13; 29:20).
Jesus admonished His disciples to discuss conflict with a sinning brother (Matt. 1:15)
and “love our neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39).

Mature Christians realize that clear, loving, encouraging communication among His children is the desire of Christ’s heart.

Improving Communication Between Christian Men and Women

Obviously communication in our marriages is our focus here, but beyond even that, our primary purpose as a body, the church, is to spread the gospel. How much more effective we are when we can identify those differences and communicate through them and with them rather than being bottlenecked by them. Here are a few ways to start better communication.

1.         Become aware of your own communication style. Each person has a unique style of communication. Listen to your own speech. Evaluate your words, your tone of voice, and your body language. Compare your own communication style with that of individuals whom you judge to be effective communicators. Self-evaluation is an important first step in improving gender communication.

2.         Understand the communication style of the opposite sex. You may be unfamiliar with the unique communication style of the other gender. Listen carefully to the opposite sex around you - your spouse, your child, your parent, and your friends. Make observations in their conversation. What do they say? How do they say it? When do they speak? Why do they speak? Discuss these conversational differences at an appropriate time, not when conflict arises. Try to determine if your perceptions are accurate. Then you are ready to make some changes in order to communicate more effectively with the opposite sex

3.         Adjust to those conversational styles. You may think it is impossible to change the way you communicate since you have been talking that way for years. Remember that communication is a learned behavior and behavior can be modified! If you tend to lecture or “report - talk”, maybe you should work on better listening and discussing feelings not just facts. If you tend to speak in vague generalities, maybe you should work on more detail and specific information in your conversation. If your indirect body language is confusing your verbal message, maybe you should consciously work on gestures that clarify and confirm your words. Both men and women should work on improving their communication

4.         Alter your conversational style to fit the context. Effective communication is adapted appropriately to fit the setting. Some comments are best made in private while others can be shared in public. Some statements are appropriate for a group at church while others should be made to your best friend.

5.         Don’t assume that the opposite sex understands your message. Just because the message is clear to you does not mean that it is clear to the listener. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes in communication is assumption. It is always best to explain the message thoroughly than run the risk of being misunderstood.

Here are a few suggestions for women trying  to get through to a  man on his own terms. Frankly, we feel like it’s primarily the man’s responsibility to keep communication open, but these insights are invaluable tools for a woman trying to be heard.

1.         She must reduce her quantity of words. After a certain length of time he will tune her out no matter what. He must be more truthful about when he starts tuning out and why.

2.         She must be careful about preciseness. An accusation that he never takes out the garbage when he knows he took it out once three months ago may lead to his rejecting everything she says. He must express how he is affected by such globalizing comments.

3.         In his seminars on relationships Gary Smalley describes a method he calls word pictures. This method involves communicating feelings by word pictures.

Communication - Couple Communication Strengths

Here’s a short form you can fill out and compare with your spouse. It may help you identify areas of communication weaknesses and strengths. Don’t read too much into it - it’;s just a hint and these things change regularly as you work at communication and our relationships change. But it does help to find out areas we need to try a little harder.

Link: Couple Communication Strengths

Marriage problems are overwhelmingly sin problems which mean we must know how to deal with temptation and sin within our marriage. It’s important that we understand God’s provision for sin on the cross and the importance of biblical confession.

Keeping short accounts means not postponing confession of sin to each other. The best example I have heard is of a home. If we learn to pick up things immediately, the house stays clean. If, like a certain unnamed teenager living in our house, things are dropped and left, it soon becomes an overwhelming house cleaning job.

The way we might unintentionally drift into unconfessed sin as Christians, we can do the same in our marriages and in the same way, it robs us of the joy of that relationship. Like a child that is out of relationship with its parents due to disobedience, the sin certainly does affect the quality of your relationship. Oh, you’re still saved, the kid is still your child, the woman still your wife, but the lines are down and all, most or some communication cannot take place.

In all these relationships, the accumulation of sins, offenses or disobedience inevitably leads to more of the same because communication is broken down. Therefore, even a minor offense which would normally be confessed, forgiven and dismissed instead is compounded and added to the list even though you may have every intention of doing the right thing as soon as the opportunity presents itself; after counseling, when the kids go to bed, when you complete your 12 steps, etc. In the meantime your fellowship is hindered and other sins flood in.

If the sin problem could be fixed by the passage of time, Christ need not have died for ours – we could just wait it out. Just like picking up in your house, your confession needs to be immediate.

Next, restitution is needed. If you steal something, an apology doesn’t amount to much without the return of the goods. In your marriage, restitution is mostly just a godly apology.

Mostly in our relationships, we learn to offer and accept a watered down version that goes something like “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what got into me” and then: “I know you didn’t mean it, that’s OK”

It’s NOT OK! First off, you DID mean it and it needs to be confessed as sin, not cast aside as something your evil twin did when you weren’t looking.

The person offended forgives you because it’s easier to do if they convince themselves that the “real you” didn’t do it, because if the “real you” did it on purpose, it would be much harder to truly forgive. Here’s a real apology:

“I was really mad this morning and I should not have been. I said those things to you to hurt you, they weren’t true and I offended you and God by saying them. Would you accept my apology?”

This is a simplistic answer and real life restitution might require much more to restore the marriage relationship. In my own life restitution has required 100%, 24 hour a day accountability, no questions asked, no complaints, for as long as it took, which was a long time. That was hard, but it worked.

By the way - your apology must not be a backhanded way to get an apology. You must confess your sin, not hers – provoked or not. You are not excused from this process by claiming you were provoked by an act of commission or omission.

Lastly, be specific. It clarifies your role in the sin, it lets your spouse know you see and understand it and it’s easier to see it coming next time and check your self before falling into a pattern of sin.

Now, especially if a husband and wife have been at odds for a long period of time, It’s not necessary to elucidate every instance of sin by name, but it does mean that every area of sin needs to be addressed – lustfulness, verbal abuse, etc. If there is a history of problems already, chances are, your spouse already knows most of the specifics.

So – what are the chances that you can even agree on what the problem or problems are? She thinks it’s everything, he thinks it’s just a few things. With the abundance of counseling available, communication guides and marriage seminars, there is precious little marriage guidance asking you to just identify sin as sin. lust is not sex addiction, verbal abuse of your wife is not leadership; disrespect to your husband is not feminism. It’s all sin and it’s based on good old fashioned self-centeredness.

Work on your communication skills, find ways to invigorate your marriage, nothing wrong with good Christian counseling either, but when sin is the problem, Christ is the solution.

Communication – Finding The Time

The one thing you can’t re-cycle is wasted time. But you can often find time for that which matters most – if you will look for it. I’m the worst. I don’t have a day-timer, I put events in Outlook…sometimes. My schedule drives me. We’re going to try to be more purposeful in our time to talk.

I realized it Sunday. Vickie took an “accidental turn” towards the Peddlers Mall after I had told her I didn’t particularly want to go. I magnanimously acquiesced to go and walked along with reserved interest, making sure I got credit for the sacrifice. After a while Vickie said “I dreamed of doing this today with you, just chatting and looking at the antiques…” Dreamed of chatting and walking??!! With me?? This girl needs to get out more.

……exactly.

Here’s a short questionnaire that might help start a conversation about prioritizing your time and finding more of it to spend together.