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Romance
The Crimes We Commit Against Our Marriages
By Beth Young, Senior Editor for
MarriageAdvice.com
Are you guilty of one or more of these "crimes" in your marriage?
The crime of indifference, parallel living, failure to communicate
or killing passion are crimes we often commit in our marriage.
All is not lost, with a little effort and changes
in thinking; you won't be spending time in the "Crimes Against
Marriage" prison. Read on and you'll be paroled from your prison
sentence in no time at all. ______________________________
The Crime of Indifference
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As we become busier each day with the needs of our
children, our employer, and our community, it's easy to put the
needs of our spouse on the back burner. After all, they know we love
them...right? By not keeping the needs of our spouse on the front
burner, it breeds a feeling of indifference and lack of caring.
How do you overcome the indifference routine that
you've fallen into? By daily acts of kindness, letting your spouse
know you are thinking of them throughout the day.
Never leave the house without a deep and
passionate kiss for your sweetheart...give them a little passion to
remember you by for the rest of the day. With the advent of e-mail,
it's extremely easy to take 30 seconds to send a note of caring,
sensitivity and even enticement.
Also set aside time to have a weekly date night so
your relationship can continue to grow.
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The Crime of Parallel Living
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What is parallel living? Parallel living is a
husband and wife co-existing in the same house, but rarely
interacting with each other. Although this is part of the
indifference problem, it goes a step further where you live almost
two separate lives in lines that are parallel and rarely cross each
other's paths.
You are roommates who are polite to one another,
but far from passionate and only see each other in passing.
This crime is a little more difficult to overcome
because it usually includes schedules that make it difficult to
interact. To overcome this "crime" there will be a need for both to
sacrifice some of the activities they engage in that keep them in a
parallel life.
This may include reducing the number of
extracurricular activities of the children...in reality do they
really need to be playing on various sports leagues year round,
taking dance, gymnastics, karate, piano and a whole myriad of other
activities to "enrich' their childhood?
What a lot of kids need is some time to play,
climb trees, and be kids. Many families are stretched to breaking
points in activities for their children and never have time to be a
family or husband and wife.
In reality, it's very easy to have each child
choose one or two activities they want to participate in a year. You
might be surprised how eager they are to reduce their schedule as
well.
The tougher things to streamline will be the
activities that you and your spouse participate in each week.
There are many noble and important causes to lend
our talents, skills and efforts toward. However, life is a marathon
and we need to pace ourselves to get to the end, so it's important
to say no to a few of the causes, and focus on just one at a time.
As you evolve through each season of life, your
focus may move from PTA to Mothers Against Drunk Driving to Meals on
Wheels. Remember, if you are the President of the PTA, it's
difficult to also be the Team Mom, Cub Scout Den Leader, be on an
adult softball league and ever hope to see your spouse.
As you and your spouse strive to streamline a bit,
you might find some activities that you could do together that would
steer your lives back to the same lane rather than parallel living.
As you streamline your life, there is more time to
rediscover your spouse and spend time with them.
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The Crime of Failure To Communicate
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Have you ever had a discussion with your spouse
and when you are done, they have a confused look on their face like
you we speaking some foreign language?
Sometimes it's due to the fact that we are doing
some other activity as we are talking to them and aren't focusing on
communicating well.
Other times we have been so heavily involved in
what we're talking about, that we leave out key elements of
information as we are explaining the situation to our spouse. It's
like talking in shorthand, and they don't know the code.
Anytime you are communicating with someone, but
especially with those you love, it's important to take the time and
effort to focus on your discussion.
This tells them that they are important enough to
you that you will set aside other distractions, and that you want
them to understand the message you are trying to convey.
______________________________
The Crime of Killing Passion
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Nancy J. Wasson, Ph.D., is co-author of "Keep Your
Marriage: What to Do When Your Spouse Says "I don't love you
anymore!" has written a wonderful tongue in cheek article that helps
bring this into perspective.
You'll find it on our web site in our Department
under "Sex". The article is titled, "Twelve Ways to Make Your Spouse
Dislike Sex". You'll glean some interesting insights as you read
this article.
All kidding aside, we need to avoid the behaviors
that will bring passion in our marriage to a screeching halt.
There are times when you may not be in a romantic
mood, but that doesn't mean you can't show passion to your spouse.
Whether it's a passionate good-bye kiss or a
tender touch, this conveys your love and passion for your spouse and
doesn't necessarily mean you will be jumping into bed with them in
the next 30 minutes.
Passion is defined as a strong feeling or emotion.
For us to have strong feelings or emotions about our spouse, they
need to be the focus of our life...our life's passion.
We know their thoughts, feelings, successes,
failures, fears and joys. The interesting thing about passion is we
feel what they feel if they are our passion. As we allow passion to
live in our marriage, our daily interactions as well as our intimate
moments will be more full and alive.
As we strive to avoid committing these 5 crimes
against our marriage, we will find greater joy and happiness in not
only our marriage, but in all of our life endeavors.
About the author. Beth Young is the Senior Editor
of the leading marriage advise web site, Marriage Advise.com. For
more articles related to strengthening your marriage go to http://www.marriageadvice.com.
MarriageAdvise.Com is a web site dedicated to a community of
husbands and wives who are working to create happy marriages that
last a lifetime.
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