Thoughts on Marriage
      BASICS TO RAISING THE INTIMACY LEVEL IN YOUR MARRIAGE
                                      (some helpful links below)

1.    Respect the mystery of your marriage.

If you are having a hard time understanding what is going on between you and your spouse, see
if you can let yourself into accepting that – that’s the nature of relationships.  There’s an element
of mystery that, if accepted, can take the pressure off you to manage or control what is going on
in the relationship and bring your natural curiosity to the surface.  If you don’t understand what’s
going on in your relationship, it doesn’t mean you are unintelligent or stupid or ignorant or a
failure.  It means you are a normal human being with limitations, but with the capacity to learn,
just like everyone else.

No one relationship can be completely understood.  Your relationship is unique and should be
respected as unique.  Try not to force it into a certain kind of mold, or to be a certain way - you
may destroy the mystery!

“God, I don’t really know what is going on or what to do
and I am frustrated.  I want my relationship to work better,
but I’m struggling with knowing how to think or what to do.
Will you help me accept the fact that I am not all-knowing
and that that is ok?  Will you help me to accept that our
relationship holds mystery and leaves a lotto be discovered?”

2.   Try to consistently respect the personhood of your spouse.

This is about remembering that no matter how difficult you see your spouse to be, he/she is still
a person made in God’s image and therefore has dignity and value and should be treated as
though that is true, perhaps by faith, to begin with!  Frank Barron once said, “Never take a
person’s dignity; it is worth everything to them, and nothing to you.”  Attacks on a person’s
dignity always provoke defensiveness and are always destructive and out of bounds in conflict
resolution.

Remember, your spouse generally isn't trying to be difficult.  He/she may be stuck in some
destructive and unproductive patterns of relating, but try to see him or her in the light of
someone who is very disappointed and struggling, rather than wicked!  Try to communicate
respect for their value as a person, even though you may have difficulty with many of their
choices.

“God, I occasionally lose sight of the fact that my spouse is a person made in your image and
deserves respect, no matter how poorly he/she may be living.  I know how I feel when my
dignity is attacked, so help me to restrain myself when I am tempted to act out of my pain by
attacking the basic worth of my spouse.”

3.   Work to disengage yourself from reacting to the behavior and/or attitudes
of your spouse.

Learn to tell the difference between being pro-active and re-active.  Reactions generally provoke
more reactions, so if you are truly interested in contributing positive energy to your relationship,
learn to take time to check yourself before you react.  Work at leaving at least a little space
between stimulus and response.  When working at change, it’s important to keep the focus of
change on the perspective, thoughts, and behavior of the only person you have any control over
– yourself!  Practice becoming less reactionary and more active in identifying and making the
changes that are yours to make.  This is very difficult and requires vulnerability and a sincere
desire to experience self-control rather than other-control.  Willingness to focus on one’s own
contribution to the difficulties takes the pressure off the relationship and eventually helps free it
up to work more naturally, thereby meeting the needs of both to a greater degree.

“God, the fruit of your Spirit is self-control.  I confess that oftentimes I simply react to my
partner rather than stay in control of myself and relate to him/her out of a stable place.  Help me
to bring something solid and good into our relationship that comes out of being able to control
the only person you ask me to be responsible for – me.”

4.    Put forth some effort to understand and respect how men and women
are different.       

Men and women not only are made up physically different, they approach life differently.  So, in
order to relate well, women and men need to respect their differences and learn to appreciate
the perspectives each brings to the relationship.  Sometimes men and women have been
wounded in their sexual identity and so have a difficult time fully accepting themselves as they
are.  A marriage can be a healing place where manhood and womanhood can be affirmed rather
than degraded.  Learn about your partner’s wounds and learn what you can do or not do that
contributes to their wholeness.

Often men’s and women’s felt needs are met differently.  A husband may do for his wife what he
would like for himself, but that may not be what meets her need, and vice versa.  Learning how
needs are met differently by communicating and accepting them as legitimate rather than
fighting them can go a long way to diminish power struggles and free up the desire to give.  
Women are legitimately women!  Men are legitimately men!

“God, in the beginning you created human beings in your image as male and female, both
equally good.  Even though I may not understand why my spouse is different than me, help me
to learn to appreciate the legitimate differences that are there because of our sexuality and
learn to contribute to our marriage the best of what it means for me to be a man or a woman.”

5.    Find out what communicates love/support to the other and be willing to
do those things regardless of the other's response.  

This is about learning to love without conditions.  An attitude of “I will if you will” puts the burden
of change on the other. Investments in the relationship that you choose to make just because
you are you and not because the other has somehow “earned” it go a long way in building
bridges to the intimacy you both want.  This makes it a little easier to address problem areas
productively.  We all long to know that we can be loved and supported even when we are
performing poorly.  

“God, I want so much from my spouse and I am an expert on my pain
and who I think is causing it.  So I put up a wall instead of vulnerably
sharing of myself.  Since I know I want my spouse to choose loving
responses to me even when I am not lovable,  help me to tune into
my desire to love him/her that way. It’s a good thing that You are good
and relate to me out of that rather than according to what I deserve.”

6.   Make investments in the relationship and let time pass.

Of course you would like change to happen quickly.  We are naturally impatient, wanting things
to improve the second we make a little positive change!  Don't insist that small or even major
changes for the good that you are making should have an immediate positive effect in the
relationship.  In fact, sometimes your genuine positive change can upset the rhythm of the
relationship and it may seem that things are getting worse.  When that happens, it’s a good time
to re-check the reasons for your changes, and, if they are good and healthy reasons, to reaffirm
your commitment to yourself to continue growing and accept the suffering that may accompany
that suffering.  Suffering for the sake of good can’t hurt you.  It can hurt – it just can’t hurt the
real you.  

Relationships can be a bit like a big ship: they can turn around, but not quickly!  And, regrettably,
sometimes attempts to change in constructive ways results in the end of the relationship.  But
that isn’t a good reason to back away from your own growth.  No relationship can survive well or
grow over time if it is built on falseness.  So, pray that your changes would be encouraging to
your partner, but don’t take any responsibility for making sure they are.  If you do, you are trying
to control them.  Remember?  That is always destructive.

“God, I am impatient.  I want immediate results to constructive changes that I make.  When I do
good I want to be paid immediately.  I don’t want to trust that the paycheck will come in its time
and may not be in the form I was expecting.  I know that my impatience gets in the way of
growth.  So, help me to allow time to work for good rather than me trying to force things before
their time.”

7.   Learn to set boundaries on destructive behavior, whether it is your own
or that of your spouse.

Loving unconditionally does not mean that one should not say “no” to abusive and destructive
out of control impulsive behavior.  We all know that we need to be said “no” to sometimes, since
what we are doing at the time is destroying relationship. To communicate a clear "no" to
abusive, controlling, or manipulative behavior is to protect the relationship from that which is
destructive.  Often a person needs to develop a better sense of themselves as having dignity
and value before they can say “no” effectively.  To continue to allow abusive behavior to go on in
one’s marriage is continuing to let the lion live in the house and be disruptive.  There’s no way
the relationship can ever become safe enough to grow.

When saying “no”, try to do this in a way that is clear, but not abusive, controlling, or
manipulative.  However, when a person is beginning to learn to say “no”, it may not come out
that way, and that’s ok.  All growth begins somewhere.

“God, sometimes it is hard to know what to say “no” to in our relationship and even if I know, it’
s hard to do it.  I get afraid that I will be made to pay, either directly or by loss of relationship and
I’m not sure I have the right to say “no” – the opposing voices get pretty loud sometimes!  Help
me to get centered in You as my primary security so that I can be strong enough to set
appropriate and necessary boundaries – for my health, for the good of my partner, and to give
our relationship a chance to grow into something good or better.”
      
8.    Work on communicating directly, honestly, and kindly in your daily lives.
      
The only way to experience true intimacy in a relationship is by each person being willing to
share honestly and directly out of where he or she really is, even though it may surface some
conflict.  Often it takes time to make the relationship safe enough for this kind of communication
to take place – walls have been built up over time and those walls may continue to keep some
distance between you and may not come down overnight.  But, as you practice directness,
honesty, and kindness as a lifestyle, the natural longings for true intimacy will continue to work
for both of you, drawing you together.   

“God, I think I want to be the kind of person you created me to be, but I can’t become that alone
– I need help.  Will you help me to make the changes that are mine to make and allow the rest to
be in Your hands?”
                                                                                     10/10/99   Sheldon Swartz
                                                                                     8/24/07  Revised and expanded