Posts Tagged ‘relationship’

Control is not a bad word. It’s not a bad thing. Yet in our culture today, people treat it as is if it is a cuss word. Many think it’s a horrible insult and freak out when someone accuses them of trying to control something. Frankly, I just don’t understand it.

Here is a scenario to help illustrate what I’m talking about:  A wife is texting and emailing very personal, sexually charged and inappropriate things back and forth with a guy from work. She is also meeting this guy alone for coffee and lunch. When her husband talks to her and challenges her on this, she fires back, “You can’t tell me who I can be friends with and what I can and can’t do! You are just trying to control me!” And then he feels bad and backs down.

Or maybe it’s a husband who goes out drinking and partying with his friends several nights a week till the wee hours of dawn and when his wife confronts him, he shouts ”You are a control freak!  You can’t tell me when I can come and go in my own house!” Then she thinks she’s wrong and just lets it go because she surely doesn’t want to be controlling. Are you kidding me?!

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When you first start out dating, and then in the early stages of marriage, most of the relationship is automatic. You are running off of emotions and hormones that drive each of you to be nice, be considerate, spend time together, and tend to one another. But eventually, marriage happens, life kicks in, kids come along and things change.

Most people think that the early stages of love—that chemically induced time of bliss and ease—will continue indefinitely. After all, they are “in love” and have found “the one” that will make the rest of their days as euphoric as the honeymoon phase.

But that’s not the way it works. The reality is this automatic phase is short-term (lasting six months to a couple of years) and when it fades away your marriage and your sex life must happen on purpose. You have date night on purpose. You plan to have sex on purpose. You make time for each other on purpose. Couples who don’t make the transition from automatic to intentional have marriages that suffer the most.

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In these days of hook-ups, serial dating, friends with benefits, stay-over relationships and other such collective stupidity, I can understand how the real purpose of dating has gotten lost.  Just to be clear and fill in the blank for those of you who are wondering…the whole point of dating is to find someone you love and want to build a life with and to get married. I know people “date” for all kind of reasons—anything from boredom, and loneliness, to getting sex or boosting their egos—but none of those should be the motivation to date. It’s pretty straightforward people: If you don’t want to get married, then don’t date.

I frequently hear young couples say things like this: “We’ve been dating for three years but we just can’t afford to get married yet.” “I’m just not ready to settle down.” “I want to complete my education and get established before I think about marrying.” Why in the heck are you even dating to begin with?

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Imagine if you will, all of the major news networks announce that starting tomorrow there will be no police presence in a city, let’s say Chicago. The news report states that for the next 72 hours, no security, no officers, no squad cars, nothing will be patrolling the streets of downtown, nor will they respond to any 911 calls for help. No rules or laws will be enforced. What would happen?

We all know that absolute anarchy, chaos, and lawlessness would reign. People would be robbing, looting, even murdering if they could get away with it, and what would the public outcry be? All would be yelling, “This is crazy! Where are the police!?” Because it’s the police that are supposed to enforce and uphold the law, and if they are simply going to neglect their duty, then people will run amuck.

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A recent poll of 4,000 couples found that those spouses who described themselves as “very happy” tended to hug one another at least four times a day. Science has found many direct correlations between human touch and physical health…and I’m not even talking about actual sexual intercourse!  Just holding hands, hugs, a pat on the back, a hand on the arm or other touches like this have a great impact on our mental wellness, our health and the state of our relationships.

Studies have shown that people who don’t have physical touch don’t fair as well. Single people, who generally don’t get as much physical touch have more health problems, and babies in ICUs and people with chronic health conditions who get touched more heal faster and fair better.  We are not designed to be people who are never touched or held. We really do need to have it. See the following article on the connection between touch and the release of oxytocin.
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