Marriage, Sex, Abuse, and Parents

The readings for March 2nd encompassed a wide variety of topics, but the motif that spanned every one of them was love. The first encouraged getting back to the love of marriage, the second to the love of intimacy, the third to the love that combats abuse, and the fourth to the love that your parents have for you. The fusion of all of these articles has one key message: we need to work hard to develop and maintain healthy relationships that are infused with love. In order to outline three key points from the articles, I will summarize the articles on marriage, sex and parents. Consequently, I will highlight the main ideas from the abuse articles later in the blog.

The first article, entitle "What Makes a Marriage Work", was written by John Gottman who seems to have done research on the topic of marriage. Right off the bat, Gottman highlights several statistics in regards to failed marriages: 50% of first marriages fail, 60% of second marriages fail. Although these statistics are daunting, he provides hope for those who are willing to understand and work on their marriages. The first topic Gottman addresses is the misconceptions about what a healthy marriage should look like. "Validating. Couples compromise often and calmly work out their problems to mutual satisfaction as they arise," is the what the majority people think is needed for success. On the contrary, Gottman asserts, there are two other healthy couples that can succeed: volitale and conflict avoiding. Once this assertion is established, he continues on to highlight the four warning signs that a marriage is in trouble: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stone-walling. In order to combat these, a couple must be calm, honest, and identify what they see to be healthy.

The second article, entitled "Lust for the Long Hall", analyzes the physicality of relationships. The author, Elizabeth Raeburn starts by talking about her own experience. Her and her husband were initially very lovey dovey: seizing every possible opportunity to make physical contact with each other. After a while though, this close physical intimacy faded and Raeburn began to question whether or not her marriage was failing. This idea launches the article into a discussion about physical intimacy: its misconceptions, its rewards, and how to make it work. The meat of the article is spent talking about how couples have a tendency to wrongly identify the reason for their intimacy problems. They blame it on a lack of physical desire, an abundance of stress, and other misguided reasons. In actuality, Raeburn asserts, successful physical intimacy is rooted in the holistic healthiness of a relationship. Couples must identify there problems, such as being too demanding or needy, before their bedroom life can flourish. The end result of achieving this is adulthood, maturity, and lifelong successful intimacy.

The third article, "Ten Count'em, Ten Uses for Parents", and it is essentially ten reasons why we need our parents. Instead of talking about all of the uses for parents, I am going to highlight my two favorites. First is number one: parents know you. The brief description of this use is very powerful. It talks about how their early exposure to every aspect of you means that parents know you better anyone else (spouses and best friends included). What it all boils down to is that "your parents came to know you before you started to hide your real self from the rest of the world." This fact is important because it means that whenever we need to look in the mirror, we can just go to our parents. My second favorite is number nine: parents are your critics. One realization that I came to in college was that the criticism I receive from my parents is the most painful and yet helpful criticism I ever get. The things that they tell me sting to the core sometimes, but I always know that they are right. The way I like to put it is that parents say everything that I fear internally...out loud.

All of these articles evoke feelings of understanding and excitement. The first two are a little over my head, seeing as I am not married or intimate with anyone, but I understand the general message. The last article is perfect: it highlights everything I have always thought about parents while reminding me to cherish them. The biggest thing that I gained from all of this came from the first article. It was very interesting for me to hear that there are several types of healthy relationships and that the normal conventions of marital success are not necessarily true. As a result of all of the information I learned in these readings, I intend to pursue a healthy marriage where honesty is the foundation, I intend to respect intimacy by understanding that it stems from other aspects of the relationship, and I intend to cherish/utilize my parents constantly.

In terms of the big picture, these topics tie in directly with the idea of constructing a good life for human flourishing. A solid marriage, healthy intimacy, and a good relationship with ones parents are all vital for personal success. What they provide is a foundation for the development of other relationships. The fact that your spouse and your parents are some of the closest people to you means that how you interact with them will dictate how you interact with others. Accordingly, one should build from the ground up: get your home life right and the rest will fall in line.

Applying all of this information to my own life should be pretty simple. All of the ideals put for the in these articles are very attainable. I would like to take a second to touch on the abuse articles now. One thing that I definitely intend to do after doing these readings is keep my eye out for domestic abuse. The "loveisnotabuse" website puts forth some accurate warning signs that prove domestic abuse is occuring. I will do my best to keep an eye out for these hints, especially when it comes to those close enough that I could accurately identify them (family and friends). Besides the domestic abuse stuff, I really intend to appreciate my parents more. Growing up, my relationship with them was extremely volitale. Now that I am older though, it should be easier to cherish, love and respect them. All the information that I got from each of these five articles should combine to increase my ability to love in healthy relationships.

Questions -

How did you come up with the one to five ratio for fighting and getting along in a marriage?

Is there anyone who is able to maintain touchy feely relationships for an entire marriage?

What is the best thing to do when domestic abuse is identified?