Posts Tagged ‘relationship’

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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There are things in life that we typically don’t think twice about until something changes or impacts our normal day-to-day activities. For instance, usually there is no reason to be concerned about things such as saying hello and greeting someone with a handshake or a hug. But that can change dramatically during times of crisis or epidemic (real or potential) and people have to consider that they are not in a “business-as-usual” situation. Take for instance the recent scenario of H1N1 in our country. For the first time people in the public sector were dealing with something that would ordinarily never be an issue. Even pastors at churches were making decisions as to the safety of something as simple as greeting those around you at a Sunday morning church service. Again, the rules changed because of the circumstances around us.
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I am convinced one of the greatest problems that couples face in marriage, whether you have been together two years, 20 years or 40 years, is the fact that we have to deal with issues over and over and over… People get so frustrated when they keep circling around and coming back to the same arguments continuously and they never get resolved. Husbands and wives become convinced that there is something wrong with their marriage (or at least the other person!) and it can lead to great discouragement.

The truth is you may have to deal with some of these issues until the day one of you dies. Many couples think that once they’ve hashed something out, it will never come back and cause trouble again. But it’s not the reality of it. I’ve seen interviews with couples married a long time—like 65 or 75 years!—and when they are asked about how and when they resolved their differences, the answer is: they haven’t! They wrestled over the same things all these years later.
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A recent survey showed that teens who take abstinence pledges are just as likely to have sex and are less likely to take precautions against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Many in the faith community are disheartened by such study results, but I can see how this happens. And it’s not a problem with the kids; it’s a problem of parenting. Parents assume because the church is has kids make abstinence pledges and wear promise rings, they don’t have to do anything. Parents are not taking their responsibility to parent and raise these kids; they get them to take the pledge and then take their hands off. They allow these young men and young women to spend inordinate amounts of time together alone and think that a purity ring on their finger is going to be the magic force field of protection. Listen, for teenagers to have sex, they have to have the opportunity to have sex and poor parenting is giving them the opportunities.
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Here’s a familiar scenario: a woman is dating a guy and thinks, “Ok, so he has A-B-C-D going on and he’s a bum, but I love him.”  Then she marries him and in the not-too-distant future she becomes… well, miserable.  She’ll then come to someone like me for counseling.  I often ask, “You didn’t see this before you were married?”  Then she’ll tell me, “Yes, but I thought I could change him.”

I think a lot of people are not being totally honest during the dating process. Or many feel obligated to follow through with a relationship just because they have been dating for a while, even though they may have some strong reservations.  But if you are struggling with any aspect of who a person is, you probably need to look at that as a red flag.  Ultimately, that is what the dating process is for – to decide, based on what you have learned, whether or not to marry that person.
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