Well happy Easter/Resurrection weekend to all of you. I just want to remind you at this time that this blog is dedicated to a wide and general audience, not just religious people. I mean after all, every body has families whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Mormon, Atheist, Scientific, or what ever; we all need to work at making our family business as successful as possible in order to improve society as a whole. So how ever you celebrate or don't celebrate Easter, I hope that the week end was an enjoyable one.
In the last post I mentioned that marriage is Multilevel Intimacy or MLI. The big 3 parts of this intimacy is spiritual/emotional, physical, and financial. Marital relationships, whether legal or common law, struggle or eventual end when there is a disconnect in these areas with emotional being the most important, in my opinion; which was discussed in the last post. This time I'd like to deal with number 2 of the big 3 which is "physical intimacy". Why is this part of the big 3 so important? First of all there is what I call "nature's factor". The Bible says "And the two shall become one flesh"; that's sexual y'all. Why does nature require us to become one flesh? The Bible also says, " Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth". You see in the wonderful world of procreation 2 becomes 1 and then 1 becomes at least 3. You see what just happened? Nature requires us to give birth for the purpose of guaranteeing that human life goes on. Marriage, by nature, is about establishing families and perpetuating life on the planet. This is accomplished through physical intimacy. No offense meant here towards homosexual couples; I love you guys, but without a man and a woman coming together physically, human life does not go on; period! Even if you are born gay, it takes a man and a woman to produce the birth. Even if a gay couple adopts and raises a child, at some point a man and woman had to provide the opportunity. This is nature's reason why the population will always be overwhelmingly and predominately heterosexual.
For this reason, we are sexual beings. We are naturally designed to want sex; mainly for the purpose of being fertile. Now; listen closely: In order to guarantee that we would indeed engage enough in sexual activities so as to preserve the perpetuation of the population, nature fixed sex so that it would feel sooooooooooooo good, that we would do it; even when our minds tell us, or society tells, or our parents tell us, or our pastor tells us that we shouldn't! Men and women want sex; it's by divine design. Furthermore, as humans, good sex is healthy both physically as well as mentally. Unlike animals, humans have the mental capacity to enjoy sex, not just have it. A good orgasm releases chemicals in the body and brain that helps in the control of stress, sickness, and disease. Have you noticed that after a good sexual encounter how people tend to sleep better and be more relaxed? In addition, I personally believe that regular sex and orgasms is one important key to good prostate health in men, and may even help menstrual cramps in women when that time of the month rolls around. Having sex also may help the heart in that the heart rate increases with having sex. Also, for those of you who would like to loose weight, having sex burns calories; particularly for those of you who actually get actively involved in the session and don't just lie on your back while he or she does all of the work.
God has designed sex/physical intimacy to be so desirable that it is a basic need of human beings, much like eating fruits and vegetables. Notice I did not say like food or water; without these we would die soon. However, just like many of us go a long time without eating our veggies and yet still live, so to are many of us deprived of healthy and wholesome sex, and yet still live. However, just like deciding not to eat fruits causes you to miss something important in terms of vitamins and nutrients that may affect your good health in the long run, so to does going without sex have potentially negative affects on our health over a long period of time. Catholic priests, I love you guys and your ministry, but God aint never told you all not to marry for the purpose of ministry. Now if you can dedicate yourselves to celibacy with no problems, so be it. But look at some of the sex scandals that have come up in past years and see if it doesn't trace back to this requirement of celibacy. With all of this in mind, if you are married, either legally or common law, and you are withholding sex or using it for selfish control purposes, you're not operating in love, and you are weakening a very important part of your intimacy base. And then we wonder why our man, and many times woman, is seeing someone else on the side. If you aint cooking at home, don't be surprised if he or she sneaks off to a restaurant; do you hear what I'm saying?
One other note on physical intimacy before moving on: both men and women, particularly women, are designed by nature to have what I call a "baiting system" in order to arouse attraction physically. In other words, when a man sees a woman looking "hot", what ever his version of hot is, that's nature's bait of attraction. A woman sees a man's rippling muscles and tight buns of steel, that's nature's bait: That NEVER changes, even when you get married. In fact, if you're married, looking and smelling good is even more important than ever because the familiarity and commonality that marriage tends to produce has a way of reducing excitement over time, and sitting around the house looking like your grandmother or Aunt Jemima doesn't help. Trust me baby; if you're not looking good and sexy, someone else is. Stay sexy!
Next post we'll look at the 3rd of the big 3, financial intimacy; stay tuned.
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Marriage: What It Really Is, What it Aint Part 4
Greetings to everyone who has tuned in at this time, I hope that you are doing quite well. After the pain associated with having a very sick appendix and having it removed a couple of weeks ago, I'm feeling better. Well, last time we left off by stating that what marriage "really" is is spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial intimacy. I would like to combine spiritual and emotional intimacy as one because, I believe, emotion is the language of the soul. Think of emotion as "E"nergy in motion", which is sort of what spirit is.
Yes boys and girls, Multilevel Intimacy is what marriage is. Without MLI (Multilevel Intimacy) the symbols and legalities mean nothing. Did you know that you can have MLI without the symbols and legalities? Yeah, you really can; there are high school girlfriends and boyfriends with better MLI than many grown married folks. This starts with emotional intimacy which is the deepest level of MLI. Have you noticed that many times when a relationship is fresh and new, that two people can spend hours talking, whether on the phone or in person; they can talk all night long until the sun comes up, without appearing exhausted. This is because of the emotional energy they feed one another during these initial stages. This is when souls come together and began to engage one another; when minds began to "hug and kiss". Sometimes it's so intense that their thoughts seem to be your thoughts, and your thoughts are theirs; almost like esp. When you're away from them you think about them and can't wait to see them; and when you're together you hate to leave or see them go. This is the connectivity of two spirits intertwined. This is very deep. Virtually no sacrifice is to great for them. If they needed a kidney, you'd give one of yours. Their mood may affect your appetite. This is the reason why emotional affairs outside of the marriage is so serious. A man can have sex with a woman without even knowing her first name; simply because he likes the size of her boobs, and not call her for the next two weeks after wards while enjoying #1 specials at Burger King. But loose his appetite over a woman he hasn't even touched yet just based on an emotionally deep connection that's been lost.
Why is this so deep? Why is this the most important of what I will call the "big 3" of the MLI? Because it transcends the physical realm; it's spiritual. It's an intimacy of invisible vibrational proportions. It is the "spirit" that inhabits and gives life to a relationship much like the spirit inhabits a human body and gives it life. How does a couple maintain this extremely important part of the MLI?
One thing they need to try to do is start their relationship with as many things in common as possible including religion, politics, and hobbies. When couples have too many interests that naturally separates them from each other like different TV shows that may have them watching different TVs in different rooms of the house, a gap in emotional connectivity may start to develop and evolve over time. They may even go to movie theaters or plays separately because they have broadly different tastes in entertainment. Emotional intimacy is likely maintained the more time spent together enjoying similar interests. Another very important factor, speaking of time spent together, is work and career schedules. For the exception of maybe a handful of couples, long distant and separate relationships are, at the very least, challenging. If you have schedules, jobs, or routines that don't allow for regular and significant time spent together, there is the danger, or tendency (however you see it) for ones soul to fill in the gap with someone else; be it a co-worker, another church member, next door neighbor, or anyone else more available for you than your spouse. Many times this is not deliberate, it just happens. Couples should go on trips and vacations together. Although I do support and think it healthy for everyone to have some "me time", it shouldn't be that every time you have to go out of town, the wife or husband is left behind.
There are some rather smaller issues as well regarding this spiritual/emotional factor. For example: is your man funny, or at least tries to be? Perhaps when you first hooked up a number of years ago his jokes were funny enough to you that you fell over laughing; remember that? When was the last time you laughed at one? What; he's not funny anymore? Maybe time and life has robbed you of your sense of humor? Laughing at each others jokes and humorous stories, sharing interesting stories about ones day at work, the mall, or church, discussing a movie, TV show, political views, the news of the day, etc., are ways that couples emotioanlly engage and connect to one another. Eating dinner together at home, or showing up for a lunch date at her job. Buying yellow and red roses for her just because it's Tuesday, or fixing his favorite dish because he mowed the lawn; these are all simple ways to make love to each other emotionally. Now if you're going to do these things it should genuinely come from the heart; nothing phony. Do you really love him or her? Then these ideas should'nt be to big of a deal.
Let me let the guys in on a little secret: For most women, physical sex in the bedroom, or shower, or laundryroom, or kitchen, or elevator or.........(let me stop; some of you more conservative folks are getting uncomfortable) where ever, starts in the mind or emotions outside of the bedroom. If you get a woman hot early with some emotional stroking before you get her to the bedroom, then it may not (I said "may not") take her as long to "bust one" in the bed room, if yaw catch my drift here; you understand! This brings us to the second of the big three which is Physical Intimacy, we'll discuss that next time.
But before I close today I just want to say that every marital relationship should at least start with two people falling in love with each other. When your mind becomes emotionally consumed with a person you are also very physically attracted to, and you want to share all you have with them, that's the definition of "falling in love"; this is why people should get married. Unfortunately, people get married for other reasons such as, "Well I got her pregnant by mistake", or "Hes got a really good job with benifits", or "Her parents are loaded", or "This will make me a US citizen", or even "So the church won't judge me". I understand that there are examples of marriages that start out for the right reasons and end in divorce a few years later anyway. On the flip side, their are marrieages that start out due to legal or financial advantages only to last until "death do they part"; there are always exceptions to the rules. However, every marital relationship should start out with the true "falling in love" experience.
Yes boys and girls, Multilevel Intimacy is what marriage is. Without MLI (Multilevel Intimacy) the symbols and legalities mean nothing. Did you know that you can have MLI without the symbols and legalities? Yeah, you really can; there are high school girlfriends and boyfriends with better MLI than many grown married folks. This starts with emotional intimacy which is the deepest level of MLI. Have you noticed that many times when a relationship is fresh and new, that two people can spend hours talking, whether on the phone or in person; they can talk all night long until the sun comes up, without appearing exhausted. This is because of the emotional energy they feed one another during these initial stages. This is when souls come together and began to engage one another; when minds began to "hug and kiss". Sometimes it's so intense that their thoughts seem to be your thoughts, and your thoughts are theirs; almost like esp. When you're away from them you think about them and can't wait to see them; and when you're together you hate to leave or see them go. This is the connectivity of two spirits intertwined. This is very deep. Virtually no sacrifice is to great for them. If they needed a kidney, you'd give one of yours. Their mood may affect your appetite. This is the reason why emotional affairs outside of the marriage is so serious. A man can have sex with a woman without even knowing her first name; simply because he likes the size of her boobs, and not call her for the next two weeks after wards while enjoying #1 specials at Burger King. But loose his appetite over a woman he hasn't even touched yet just based on an emotionally deep connection that's been lost.
Why is this so deep? Why is this the most important of what I will call the "big 3" of the MLI? Because it transcends the physical realm; it's spiritual. It's an intimacy of invisible vibrational proportions. It is the "spirit" that inhabits and gives life to a relationship much like the spirit inhabits a human body and gives it life. How does a couple maintain this extremely important part of the MLI?
One thing they need to try to do is start their relationship with as many things in common as possible including religion, politics, and hobbies. When couples have too many interests that naturally separates them from each other like different TV shows that may have them watching different TVs in different rooms of the house, a gap in emotional connectivity may start to develop and evolve over time. They may even go to movie theaters or plays separately because they have broadly different tastes in entertainment. Emotional intimacy is likely maintained the more time spent together enjoying similar interests. Another very important factor, speaking of time spent together, is work and career schedules. For the exception of maybe a handful of couples, long distant and separate relationships are, at the very least, challenging. If you have schedules, jobs, or routines that don't allow for regular and significant time spent together, there is the danger, or tendency (however you see it) for ones soul to fill in the gap with someone else; be it a co-worker, another church member, next door neighbor, or anyone else more available for you than your spouse. Many times this is not deliberate, it just happens. Couples should go on trips and vacations together. Although I do support and think it healthy for everyone to have some "me time", it shouldn't be that every time you have to go out of town, the wife or husband is left behind.
There are some rather smaller issues as well regarding this spiritual/emotional factor. For example: is your man funny, or at least tries to be? Perhaps when you first hooked up a number of years ago his jokes were funny enough to you that you fell over laughing; remember that? When was the last time you laughed at one? What; he's not funny anymore? Maybe time and life has robbed you of your sense of humor? Laughing at each others jokes and humorous stories, sharing interesting stories about ones day at work, the mall, or church, discussing a movie, TV show, political views, the news of the day, etc., are ways that couples emotioanlly engage and connect to one another. Eating dinner together at home, or showing up for a lunch date at her job. Buying yellow and red roses for her just because it's Tuesday, or fixing his favorite dish because he mowed the lawn; these are all simple ways to make love to each other emotionally. Now if you're going to do these things it should genuinely come from the heart; nothing phony. Do you really love him or her? Then these ideas should'nt be to big of a deal.
Let me let the guys in on a little secret: For most women, physical sex in the bedroom, or shower, or laundryroom, or kitchen, or elevator or.........(let me stop; some of you more conservative folks are getting uncomfortable) where ever, starts in the mind or emotions outside of the bedroom. If you get a woman hot early with some emotional stroking before you get her to the bedroom, then it may not (I said "may not") take her as long to "bust one" in the bed room, if yaw catch my drift here; you understand! This brings us to the second of the big three which is Physical Intimacy, we'll discuss that next time.
But before I close today I just want to say that every marital relationship should at least start with two people falling in love with each other. When your mind becomes emotionally consumed with a person you are also very physically attracted to, and you want to share all you have with them, that's the definition of "falling in love"; this is why people should get married. Unfortunately, people get married for other reasons such as, "Well I got her pregnant by mistake", or "Hes got a really good job with benifits", or "Her parents are loaded", or "This will make me a US citizen", or even "So the church won't judge me". I understand that there are examples of marriages that start out for the right reasons and end in divorce a few years later anyway. On the flip side, their are marrieages that start out due to legal or financial advantages only to last until "death do they part"; there are always exceptions to the rules. However, every marital relationship should start out with the true "falling in love" experience.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Marriage: What It Really Is, What It Aint Part 3
Hello and good evening to all of you all. I hope dinner was all that you expected (right now, as I type this, it's about 8:24pm, or 20 hundred hours for you military folk). Well last post we discussed some of the main things marriage is not, and I said that we'd discuss, this time, what it really is. But before I do that, let me mention one other thing that it's not: It's not simply your living arrangement!
Marriage is not simply living in the same house; it's not simply parking in the same driveway. I may have mentioned earlier in previous discussions that there are legally married couples who don't even sleep in the same bedroom any more, they probably haven't shared body fluids (sex) in months, and they drive separate cars to the same church on Sundays, even though there is no apparent need to. So although they may share an address, there is no real substance to the sharing. They may simply be "living together" for the sake of the kids, for expense, or in the words of a famous blues singer, "It's just cheaper to keep her". I'm reminded of the movie "War Of The Roses", staring Michael Douglas in which he plays a husband who refuses to move out of the house, even though his wife adamantly insists that she's fed up with him and that the best thing he can do for her from now on is pay child support. Those of you familiar with this interesting movie know what happens in the end: they end up killing each other!
So let's get to it: What really is a marriage? I believe that marriage, in the true spirit (underline the word "spirit"), heart, and essence of what most of us really want, what our souls really yearn for, and what truly makes us happy with each other is INTIMACY!!! But not just any type of intimacy, for you see, you can be intimate, at a certain level; to a certain extent, with your mom, your brother, your doctor, your pastor, your next door neighbor, an inmate at the county jail; anyone you share a deep connection with at any given point in time. Marriage, however, is intimacy on at least four levels: spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial. People who envision a happy marriage with another person imagine a deep connection with a person's mind, body, soul, and checkbook. I can just about guarantee you this: when ever there is trouble in a couples relationship you can trace the source of the problem to at least one of these four areas; either they're not on the same page spiritually, they're not clicking emotionally, there's trouble in the bedroom, or there's money woes. Out of the four, however, in most cases, I would have to say that the spiritual/emotional connection is the most critical, followed by the hot and steamy bedroom action (hopefully), followed up by the earning, sharing, and managing of the "Benjamins" baby. Now for many of you, according to your unique personalities, these four can be rearranged in importance. Some people feel like the money is more important, while others feel like if he aint throwing down in the bedroom it's going to be a rough "ride" (pun intended). And others just want a friend that understands them in every way. "You should be able to look into my eyes, and tell what I'm thinking". They say there should be this "vibe" between us. They feel like they should have some sort of shared esp; almost psychic in nature.
As we take a closer look at this word INTIMACY and break it down, let's say is slowly: IN TI MA CY; hmmmmm, notice how it almost sounds like you're saying "In to me see"! Did you get that? You see, when you ask someone to be intimate with you, what you are literally requesting of them is to see into you; to have enough care, concern, and interest in you as a person to consider what matters to you; to consider your thoughts, feelings, wants, desires, opinions, hopes, dreams, visions, aspirations, beliefs, likes, and dislikes, fears, hopes, etc. In other words to really "know" you as the soul underneath the flesh that you truly are. Please consider this, for this is deep. The divorce rate would take a drastic dive if couples cared enough about each other to be truly "intimate"; for this is the human soul's reason for wanting to be married.
As I've already stated, if and when a problem develops in the land of "honeymoon bliss", it's usually not because the ring's too small, or the limo's the wrong color, or the bridal shower went overtime, or the license isn't framed properly, or the kitchen should have been painted violet. People who tend to argue and fuss over small "insignificant" details such as toilet seats or how a towel is hung usually have bigger problems underneath the surface, which can usually be traced to one of these three or four (sometimes I tie spiritual and emotional together; in many ways our feelings and emotions are the language of the soul) areas of the relationship.
. ,
In the next post, we will begin to break down these three or four areas in order to try and understand what the real problems with many of us are.
Marriage is not simply living in the same house; it's not simply parking in the same driveway. I may have mentioned earlier in previous discussions that there are legally married couples who don't even sleep in the same bedroom any more, they probably haven't shared body fluids (sex) in months, and they drive separate cars to the same church on Sundays, even though there is no apparent need to. So although they may share an address, there is no real substance to the sharing. They may simply be "living together" for the sake of the kids, for expense, or in the words of a famous blues singer, "It's just cheaper to keep her". I'm reminded of the movie "War Of The Roses", staring Michael Douglas in which he plays a husband who refuses to move out of the house, even though his wife adamantly insists that she's fed up with him and that the best thing he can do for her from now on is pay child support. Those of you familiar with this interesting movie know what happens in the end: they end up killing each other!
So let's get to it: What really is a marriage? I believe that marriage, in the true spirit (underline the word "spirit"), heart, and essence of what most of us really want, what our souls really yearn for, and what truly makes us happy with each other is INTIMACY!!! But not just any type of intimacy, for you see, you can be intimate, at a certain level; to a certain extent, with your mom, your brother, your doctor, your pastor, your next door neighbor, an inmate at the county jail; anyone you share a deep connection with at any given point in time. Marriage, however, is intimacy on at least four levels: spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial. People who envision a happy marriage with another person imagine a deep connection with a person's mind, body, soul, and checkbook. I can just about guarantee you this: when ever there is trouble in a couples relationship you can trace the source of the problem to at least one of these four areas; either they're not on the same page spiritually, they're not clicking emotionally, there's trouble in the bedroom, or there's money woes. Out of the four, however, in most cases, I would have to say that the spiritual/emotional connection is the most critical, followed by the hot and steamy bedroom action (hopefully), followed up by the earning, sharing, and managing of the "Benjamins" baby. Now for many of you, according to your unique personalities, these four can be rearranged in importance. Some people feel like the money is more important, while others feel like if he aint throwing down in the bedroom it's going to be a rough "ride" (pun intended). And others just want a friend that understands them in every way. "You should be able to look into my eyes, and tell what I'm thinking". They say there should be this "vibe" between us. They feel like they should have some sort of shared esp; almost psychic in nature.
As we take a closer look at this word INTIMACY and break it down, let's say is slowly: IN TI MA CY; hmmmmm, notice how it almost sounds like you're saying "In to me see"! Did you get that? You see, when you ask someone to be intimate with you, what you are literally requesting of them is to see into you; to have enough care, concern, and interest in you as a person to consider what matters to you; to consider your thoughts, feelings, wants, desires, opinions, hopes, dreams, visions, aspirations, beliefs, likes, and dislikes, fears, hopes, etc. In other words to really "know" you as the soul underneath the flesh that you truly are. Please consider this, for this is deep. The divorce rate would take a drastic dive if couples cared enough about each other to be truly "intimate"; for this is the human soul's reason for wanting to be married.
As I've already stated, if and when a problem develops in the land of "honeymoon bliss", it's usually not because the ring's too small, or the limo's the wrong color, or the bridal shower went overtime, or the license isn't framed properly, or the kitchen should have been painted violet. People who tend to argue and fuss over small "insignificant" details such as toilet seats or how a towel is hung usually have bigger problems underneath the surface, which can usually be traced to one of these three or four (sometimes I tie spiritual and emotional together; in many ways our feelings and emotions are the language of the soul) areas of the relationship.
. ,
In the next post, we will begin to break down these three or four areas in order to try and understand what the real problems with many of us are.
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