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Love, Sex and Intimacy in Marriage

By Angie Lewis

Love, sex, and intimacy are essential components that great marriages require for complete stability. Real love is the spiritual aspect, sex is physical and intimacy is emotional. It would be difficult to love your spouse if you only thought about yourself. This is not real love. Selfish people often have a difficult time giving of themselves, and yet, that is what love is all about. Love is more than a feeling, it is an action, and therefore, real love takes effort and sincerity.

LOVE:

In scripture, a husband is commanded to love his wife. What do you think is going to happen if that love is not a sincere love for his wife? She will feel frustration, resentment, and anger, and she will have a very difficult time submitting herself to the man she married. When a husband does not love his wife the way God has asked him to love his wife, all sorts of problems will develop in the marriage, mainly rebelliousness, and selfish thinking.

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Family Life
The Marriage Garden
Dealing with Conflict in Marriage

All marriages – even the very best of marriages – have conflict. That is a normal part of having two people work out a life together. But there are good ways to work out differences – and there are bad ways.

Learn to live with things that cannot change. You may wish that your partner was different in many ways. Some of those things simply cannot change. Learn to accept that. Be glad that you can bring to your partnership some qualities that your partner does not have. Be glad that your partner can bring qualities that you do not have.

Start a relationship discussion at a time when you want to strengthen your relationship. If you are feeling angry or tired and want to correct or hurt your partner, it is not a good time to start a discussion. If your partner is tired or frustrated, save the discussion until later.

Many relationship discussions get started late at night when both partners are tired. We shouldn’t let our tiredness be our message. Save the discussion until you are rested.

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by Alice Miller

Out of the Prison of Self-Blame

Although many of the letters we have received are of general interest, we cannot publish them all here, nor can I answer every single one of them. This article summarizes the points I would like to make in response.

I am occasionally asked how I can be so sure of myself in contradicting established opinions. After all, I do not belong to any school of thought, any cult, or other community of the like-minded that supply many people with what they believe to be the “right” answers. So what is my confidence based on?

It is indeed true that I only believe in facts I can test for myself. My access to these facts is based on my own experience and on the thousands of letters I have received since 1979 from the readers of my books.

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How Do You Know When Your Marriage Is Over?

Why does it happen?

Sometimes, the best-laid plans are laid to waste. Despite all your hopes and dreams in the beginning, and all your good intentions now, it seems impossible to continue your marriage. For many of us, the twentieth-century notion of “till death do us part” has become an anachronism. When life becomes too painful, with too many battles and battle scars, few of us question the notion, at least intellectually, of moving on.

Sometimes, Dr. Baris notes, so much hurt has been engendered over the years that it is simply impossible to get beyond it—at least in the context of your current relationship. When people harbor deep, abiding anger, and when, despite therapy, that anger cannot be resolved, it could be time to let go.

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When Will The Marriage End, After Divorce?

By: James P. Krehbiel

When a chapter closes in our lives, we must grieve the loss and let it go. This is true with divorce. It’s the finality of mourning “what could have been” that is painful. Nevertheless, the work of processing the reality of divorce, with all of its implications and consequences, must be confronted with courage and integrity.

Completing our grieving, letting go of our partner and moving on becomes even more important if there are children involved. It is difficult to save our children from the ravages of divorce if we are unwilling to complete the work of ending our marriage after the divorce.

Many divorced people, unknowingly, remain bonded to each other through the use of anger, manipulation, and the refusal to negotiate with one another. One might ask, if a couple could not promote understanding during the marriage, why should they try after the divorce?

A marriage never ends until the individuals involved are no longer bound together by animosity, stubbornness and unwillingness to promote understanding, particularly if children are involved. Any couple who chooses to end a marriage must recognize the overriding need to place the well-being of their children above their own needs. This means that both divorced parents must put the desire to protect their children above their need to put forth “their story” as to why the divorce occurred.

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by Alice Miller

LOOKING FOR A THERAPIST

AM: Certainly, if I knew of some therapists who would be respectful enough to answer your questions; free enough to show indignation about what your parents have done to you; empathic enough when you need to release your rage pent up for decades in your body; wise enough to not preach to you forgetting, forgiveness, meditation, positive thinking; honest enough to not offer you empty words like spirituality, when they feel scared by your history, and that are not increasing your life-long feelings of guilt – I would be happy to give you their names, addresses and phone-numbers.

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by Alice Miller

The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey – or What Can We Expect from Psychotherapy?

The longest journey of my life was the journey to my own self. I do not know whether I am an exception in this matter, or whether there are other people who have experienced the same thing. It is certainly not a universal experience: fortunately, there are people who from the moment of their birth were lucky enough to be accepted by their parents for what they were, with all their feelings and needs. Right from the outset these people had unrestricted access to those feelings and needs. They did not have to deny them, nor did they have to embark on long journeys to find something withheld from them when they needed it most.

My experience was different. It has taken me all my life to allow myself to be what I am and to listen to what my inner self is telling me, more and more directly, without waiting for permission from others or currying approval from people symbolizing my parents.

I am frequently asked what I understand by successful therapy. I have in fact answered this question indirectly in many of my books. But after this brief introduction perhaps I can put it more simply: Successful therapy should shorten this long journey

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by Alice Miller

Depression: Compulsive Self-Deception

The Russian writer Anton Chekhov has been one of my favorite authors since my youth. I remember very clearly the avidity with which I read his story Ward No. 6 at the age of about 16, enthralled by his acuity, his psychological sensitivity, and above all by his courage in squaring up to the truth, calling it by its name, and never sparing anyone he had identified as a rogue. Very much later I read his Letters, which, together with numerous biographies, provided detailed information on his childhood. What struck me was the fact that Chekhov’s admirable courage in facing and telling the truth came up against its limits as soon as his father was involved. Here is one of his biographers, Elsbeth Wolffheim, on the subject of Chekhov’s father:

“The disparagement and humiliation he was subjected to at school were as nothing compared to the repressions he suffered at home. Chekhov’s father was hot-tempered and uncouth, and he treated the members of his family with extreme severity. The children were beaten almost every day, they had to get up at 5 in the morning and help out in the shop before going to school and as soon as they got back, so that they had very little time for their homework. In the winter it was so cold in the basement shop that even the ink froze. The three brothers served the customers until late in the evening, together with young apprentices who were also beaten regularly by their employer and were sometimes so exhausted that they fell asleep on their feet. Chekhov’s father … played a fanatically zealous role in the life of the church and conducted the choir in which his sons were also forced to sing.” (Elsbeth Wolffheim, Anton Tschechow, Rowohlt 2001, p. 13, trans. A.J.).

On one occasion Chekhov noted that in this choir he had felt like a convict in a penal servitude camp (ibid., p. 14). In a letter to his brother he devotes a few lines to a truthful description of his father, though this truth had no place in the rest of his life: “Despotism and lies have so thoroughly marred our childhood that it makes me feel sick and afraid to remember it.” (Wolffheim, p. 15) Such remarks by Chekhov are extremely rare. All his life he was greatly concerned for his father’s welfare, making major financial sacrifices to support him. No one in his immediate environment suspected that the suppression of the truth also demanded major psychic sacrifices of him. His attitude was generally considered to be that of a virtuous and dutiful son. But the denial of the authentic feelings caused by the extreme abuse he was exposed to as a child made huge demands on his strength and may have been responsible for the fact that Chekhov contracted tuberculosis at an early stage and also suffered from depression, referred to at the time as “melancholia.” Finally he died at the age of 44. (I have gone into these connections in more detail in The Body Never Lies).

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Every married couple will have disagreements. One of the keys to a successful relationship is knowing how to handle conflict. Avoiding conflict, walking on egg shells so to speak, being afraid of rocking the boat, or keeping peace at any price will hurt your marriage.

How to Handle Conflict in Your Marriage

Here are some ways to handle marital disputes and resolve differences:

• Make sure you clarify what it is you are discussing.
• If either of you are too angry to discuss the situation or problem, then set a time to get together later to discuss it.
• Be flexible and open to other solutions than your own. A willingness to compromise is important.
• Don’t push one another’s buttons. Don’t be sarcastic or attack one another’s self image.

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How to Improve Your Marriage: Tips for Honesty

By echoeve

If you would like to know how to improve your marriage, then these tips can point you in the right direction. Above all else, honesty is the best policy.

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