In the last year my marriage of 21 years to my wife has gone from sexless and on the verge of divorce to more in love than we've ever been and having the best sex of our marriage. Along the way there have been highs and lowsy. I've learned for the first time in my life to look to the wisdom of those smarter than myself. I've read probably close to 20 books on marriage, relationships, and a lot of other topics. In the process I've learned more than I could ever have imagined and totally changed myself for the better. Below are a few things I've learned I've learned. (Disclaimer) these are things I've learned from my experiences or from books and used myself. What worked for me, might not work for you. It depends on how far gone your marriage is or what you and your spouse have experienced.
You can't force a partner to change. If you want lasting change or a true change of heart, someone has to want to change for themselves, not for you. Forced change is temporary change and rarely lasts. And many spouses will demand that their partner change while they make no effort to change their bad habits, or they may take a "I'll change after they do" stand. A better idea is to work on changing yourself, model the changes you would like your partner to make and allow them to see the new you. Most of the time this will cause your partner to come around and start to make changes them selves for the good of the relationship. Granted this is not going to be an overnight thing. If you've been a lazy jerk for 10 years, a few weeks is not going to cut it. You have to be in this for the long haul.
Stop the manipulation. I hate the many books out there that basically tell you how to manipulate people to get what you want, especially sex. In most cases in a healthy give and take relationship each partner will want to give of themselves to show love to the other, especially with sexual intimacy. Manipulating or tricking them to get love or sex is just wrong in my opinion. What you get is something cheap and devoid of any real love or affection.
Never use sex to punish or reward. Sexual intimacy is one of the top ways to express love one to another and should never be withheld because she spent too much shopping or he stayed out too late with the boys. Obviously I'm not saying you have to have sex even if your mad at your partner, but don't use sex to punish them for something they did or as a reward after you manipulated them into doing something they didn't want to do.
Haze me if you like, but your kids are not more important than your marriage. If you try to push your marriage off to the side to make room for your kids ever growing list of activities, I promise you that your love, and probably your marriage, won't survive for long. Trust me, the greatest gift you can give your kids is to model a strong marriage in front of them and also to be openly affectionate with your partner in front of your kids. Your teen kids will probably give you grief for it and tell you to "get a room", but they want to see it even if they don't know it. My daughters boy friend told me he actually can't remember seeing his parents hugging or kissing each other in front of him. Don't sacrifice your marriage so you can give more to your kids, it won't work out in the long run when your marriage doesn't make it.
Great Sex is the glue that holds your marriage together. Many people, especially women will say I'm wrong on this. Tens months ago, my wife would have been one of them. But for us, rebuilding the intimacy in our relationship has been key to saving our marriage. Want to try to turn up the heat in your marriage with almost no effort? Commit to kissing your spouse for at least five seconds twice a day (not during sex).
Be affectionate when there is no possibility of having sex. This is a son committed mostly by us men. That we only love on our wives or are affectionate when we want sex. I am constantly showing my wife affection with hugs, kisses, flirting with her, etc. and learning to do this had probably made a bigger difference in our relationship than almost anything else. Guys, we all need to do this more. It's the one thing that will make your wife feel safe and loved more than anything else. You did it while dating. Why'd you stop?
I know i will catch flak for this, but here it goes. Porn hurts relationships. So does anything else that causes you to expend sexual energy outside your relationship with your spouse. And there is plenty if information and research available to back this up. I also used to have a problem with porn, so I speak from experience. Nuff said.
If there is anything the last ten months had taught me is that a marriage requires a lot of work to remain healthy. I one or both of you don't put in the work, your eventually headed for a divorce, or at the very least a miserable marriage.
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You can't force a partner to change. If you want lasting change or a true change of heart, someone has to want to change for themselves, not for you. Forced change is temporary change and rarely lasts. And many spouses will demand that their partner change while they make no effort to change their bad habits, or they may take a "I'll change after they do" stand. A better idea is to work on changing yourself, model the changes you would like your partner to make and allow them to see the new you. Most of the time this will cause your partner to come around and start to make changes them selves for the good of the relationship. Granted this is not going to be an overnight thing. If you've been a lazy jerk for 10 years, a few weeks is not going to cut it. You have to be in this for the long haul.
Stop the manipulation. I hate the many books out there that basically tell you how to manipulate people to get what you want, especially sex. In most cases in a healthy give and take relationship each partner will want to give of themselves to show love to the other, especially with sexual intimacy. Manipulating or tricking them to get love or sex is just wrong in my opinion. What you get is something cheap and devoid of any real love or affection.
Never use sex to punish or reward. Sexual intimacy is one of the top ways to express love one to another and should never be withheld because she spent too much shopping or he stayed out too late with the boys. Obviously I'm not saying you have to have sex even if your mad at your partner, but don't use sex to punish them for something they did or as a reward after you manipulated them into doing something they didn't want to do.
Haze me if you like, but your kids are not more important than your marriage. If you try to push your marriage off to the side to make room for your kids ever growing list of activities, I promise you that your love, and probably your marriage, won't survive for long. Trust me, the greatest gift you can give your kids is to model a strong marriage in front of them and also to be openly affectionate with your partner in front of your kids. Your teen kids will probably give you grief for it and tell you to "get a room", but they want to see it even if they don't know it. My daughters boy friend told me he actually can't remember seeing his parents hugging or kissing each other in front of him. Don't sacrifice your marriage so you can give more to your kids, it won't work out in the long run when your marriage doesn't make it.
Great Sex is the glue that holds your marriage together. Many people, especially women will say I'm wrong on this. Tens months ago, my wife would have been one of them. But for us, rebuilding the intimacy in our relationship has been key to saving our marriage. Want to try to turn up the heat in your marriage with almost no effort? Commit to kissing your spouse for at least five seconds twice a day (not during sex).
Be affectionate when there is no possibility of having sex. This is a son committed mostly by us men. That we only love on our wives or are affectionate when we want sex. I am constantly showing my wife affection with hugs, kisses, flirting with her, etc. and learning to do this had probably made a bigger difference in our relationship than almost anything else. Guys, we all need to do this more. It's the one thing that will make your wife feel safe and loved more than anything else. You did it while dating. Why'd you stop?
I know i will catch flak for this, but here it goes. Porn hurts relationships. So does anything else that causes you to expend sexual energy outside your relationship with your spouse. And there is plenty if information and research available to back this up. I also used to have a problem with porn, so I speak from experience. Nuff said.
If there is anything the last ten months had taught me is that a marriage requires a lot of work to remain healthy. I one or both of you don't put in the work, your eventually headed for a divorce, or at the very least a miserable marriage.
Posted via Mobile Device
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