Scot McKay asked:

My younger brother got married a few years ago. It was a typical church wedding, which meant that the minister who was marrying them inevitably gave a sermon.

And it was a good one. By this, I mean I remember the outline of it three and a half years later. And I can’t remember that much about any sermon I’ve heard since, frankly.

The title of the sermon was, “The Three Ingredients of a Successful Marriage”. I remember my exact, admittedly cynical thoughts upon hearing that announcement. My first impression: Yawn. Then I thought, “Yeah, yeah…’Love, Trust, and Commitment’, right? Or being friends with each other. Or something else I’ve heard before.”

How wrong I was. Going through a divorce at the time, what that minister proceeded to present was a gift beyond price. The three “ingredients” turned out to be anything but the trite, usual drivel we’ve all heard before. In fact, they are all but secret to most of us.

Today, it is my pleasure to take those three secrets and impart them to you-albeit with my own spin, of course.

1) Always Think The Best Of Each Other

Basically, the concept here is that both spouses should gravitate towards the positive options when considering each other’s intentions, actions, whereabouts, etc. If s/he says something that could have two meanings, assume the positive one. If s/he says s/he is “working late”, believe it. Yeah, I realize this is all about “trust”, but it’s much deeper. It’s more like having the self-esteem to be confident in one’s choice of a spouse…enough to believe that s/he has the best interests of both partners in mind. What an amazing gift this is. And you know what, I would tend to believe this is an attitude that falls under the “self-fulfilling prophecy” department.

2) Forgive Quickly

There is absolutely, positively zero chance that a long, successful marriage is going to be 100% free of mistakes having been made over the long haul. Hell…over the short haul, either, for that matter. And when they happen, just let it go. This is disarmingly important. See, if this isn’t done, there ends up being a “cumulative effect of all the small things”. Don’t ask me why that’s in quotes-you don’t want to know. Let’s just say it leads to divorce. Let me ask you this: Assuming you have a “significant other”, has there ever been an argument where one or both partners brought up something that happened weeks, months or even YEARS ago? Yeah, well… then that’s what has to be addressed here. There wasn’t ever any true forgiveness if that’s going on.

Now, I’m not talking about forgiving major, real breaches of covenant here as covered in a previous newsletter. There’s a different concept at play here, and I think you get my drift. If you don’t, email me right away for some coaching!

3) Never Compare Your Spouse To Others

Hey, guess what? If you have a partner, and didn’t “settle”, and KNEW THAT FACT from the start, then you’ve got a GOOD ONE. After the “honeymoon” is over, and you have gotten to know your partner really well, it’s easy (but pathetic) to forget that and incredibly tempting-and oh so easy-to start with the, “Why can’t you be more like X?” stuff.

Well, resist that temptation and DON’T.

Beyond the simple fact that it betrays trust, makes both of you feel inferior to someone else (Did he say “both of you”?…uh, yeah I did.), and is just flat-out “dirty pool”, it MAKES NO SENSE.

Look, here’s the deal: Anyone you are comparing your significant other to is 1) someone you do not know as deeply, and are therefore more easily able to “idealize”, and 2) someone you likely haven’t known as long, and is therefore “novel” to you.

So, the comparisons aren’t fair at all, let alone comprehensive. If you’ve got a good partner, rejoice-and don’t make comparisons that will throw water on, if not outright kill your relationship. If you don’t feel you have a good partner, change that if you are unmarried and get to where you DESERVE WHAT YOU WANT instead; or if you are married, get the help you need to get the relationship to where it needs to be.

A few weeks ago I was talking to my brother on the phone. I asked him if he remembered what the minister preached about at his wedding. Indeed, he did. Does that somehow correlate to the fact that he and his bride are still blissfully married three and a half years later-with an excellent prognosis for the future? I think so.

In six days my brother, who has since gone on to be a minister in his own right, will be the officiant at our wedding when Emily and I get married. I’m looking forward to the sermon.

Kansieo.com

Karl Augustine asked:

If you are in a sexless marriage and are unhappy because of it, don’t worry, it isn’t unrecoverable but it is serious cause for concern. You may even be thinking that you need a divorce because of your sexless marriage, that’s only natural. But, in order to really decide what to do, some thinking needs to be done so you feel good about your decision, regardless if you stay married or not.

Being stuck in a sexless marriage can have you feeling a wide range of feelings from loneliness, listlessness, confusion, unconfident, etc. These feelings come about for a variety of reasons and they can be overcome if you just figure out why you’re in a sexless marriage. You need to get to the root of the problem and uncover the real reasons that you and your spouse are no longer sexually active assuming of course, you once were!

To get to the heart of the causes for a sexless marriage will take some time. On the surface, you may be thinking that the cause of your sexless marriage may include one or more of the following scenarios:

Sexless Marriage: “We both work too much!”:

You both work extremely hard and there just never seems to be enough time to get together, your schedules are skewed. This is true a lot nowadays with the ‘new’ economy, lots of couples are married but just live together like roommates if both parties have ‘time-consuming’ careers. If not managed properly, it is unfortunate but common for people in this type of lifestyle to end up in a sexless marriage.

Sexless Marriage: “You work, I stay home with the kids!”:

One of you works very hard with your career and one of you stays home to raise the children (child), which is equally as hard as any career! This situation can lead to a sexless marriage in many cases because of the seemingly disparate priority base of each party. The spouse with the career may need to work after hours, travel, or attend “post work” functions and the spouse who stays home raising the children (child) may not have any other outlet for relaxation away from the home front. This situation can easily lead to a sexless marriage because there may be underlying feelings from both sides that contribute to an already tough situation based on personal and work related schedules.

The spouse with the career may say at times, “Why do you think I work so hard? I do it for you, the kids, our family, etc.”. The spouse who stays home with the children (child) may say at times, “You have another release, you have social interaction daily with the outside world. I feel stuck here sometimes, I need to get out and have time for myself.”. If the spouse that stays home feels like the spouse with the career enjoys being out and working more than being home, that calls for a whole different and escalated level of concern! Chances are the sexless marriage was bound to be that way before the current situation even arose.

Sexless Marriage: “I don’t know why…there’s just no spark left, you don’t pay enough attention to me and our sex life and I guess I don’t either!”:
This is a common sexless marriage situation and it can be caused by a variety of things including emotional scars, bad experiences, boredom, laziness, etc. In this situation, there is deep cause for concern from both parties because both parties aren’t happy sexually but don’t really know why it ended up this way. Both parties have just “let things go” and didn’t place a high enough priority on their sex life with their spouse, which in and of itself is very concerning.

Why would either or both parties let things get this way when love making is so important?

Sometimes there’s a feeling of being taken for granted that can occur in this type of sexless marriage, and both parties should realize that sex is a basic human need and should take priority over other things at the right time. It takes work to get out of this type of sexless marriage, you need to sit down and figure out why your marital love life has dwindled. If you both really want to rekindle things, you can do so, but you both need to take equal responsibility for correcting the problem.

Whatever type of sexless marriage you are in (there’s certainly more types than listed here), remember that it is not unrecoverable. If you’re to the point of thinking about getting a divorce because of your sexless marriage, take the time to sit down and figure out how it got to be the way it is now.

If you’ve lost interest in your spouse from a sexual point of view, you need to define exactly why that occurred. If you don’t know right off hand, you need to think back to a time when you did ‘have the spark’ and recall what you both were doing, feeling, thinking, etc. From that point, identify what has changed, why it has changed, and what you can do about it. When you get that portion figured out, you may well on your way to taking the first step of recovering from your sexless marriage. Remember, if you really want to rekindle your relationship, you can.

Kansieo.com