Daniel Dowling has some challenging advice that will change your perception of “normal” relationships—and also ruffle a few feathers.
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Blunder # 1-
You have to have sex with someone to know if you’re sexually compatible, so don’t wait for sex.
Studies of secure couples show that only 15-20% of their happiness is attributed to sex, while insecure couples attribute 50-70% of unhappiness to their sex lives. Though important, sex is not the deal breaker in a relationship. Emotional connection and commitment are meant to come first, and when they do, sex can stay hot for life.
If a couple has access to a penis, a vagina, an emotional connection, and vulnerability to explore sexually, there is no chance of sexual failure, because sex is something you can get better at each time. You can always learn more about pleasing someone’s body, and if you devote your focus to emotional and spiritual connection, you will have all the skills and sensitivity you need to engage with someone sexually.
If sex is anything other than a symbol of deep commitment, then you’re toying around with the greatest power we possess; the power to create new life.
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The blunder of a prematurely physical relationship lies in chemical attachment. If you don’t know someone inside and out before sex, the chemicals of oxytocin and dopamine will leave you feeling strongly bonded to someone for reasons that have nothing to do with virtue. Since virtue is what keeps marriages strong and intimate for a lifetime, premarital sex is a colossal blunder.
I don’t know about you, but I want to be bonded to someone based on their character and the goodness they bring to the table, not for how they “make” me feel. In the absence of virtue and sacrifice, there is no substance to keep a relationship together. It’s a recipe for five different breakups with the same person; once you’re hooked on the chemicals, it’s hard to quit. And if you mistake chemical dependency for love, then you’re really in for it.
If sex is anything other than a symbol of deep commitment, then you’re toying around with the greatest power we possess; the power to create new life. When you build strong emotional, spiritual, and intellectual connections, then the physical bond of sex is a celebration of the sacrifices you have made as a couple, and the virtue you have built.
Without building up a strong foundation of commitment for marriage, sex becomes a liability
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Sex will serve to keep you bonded through parenthood and any amount of stress that comes your way if you’ve already fully committed to your partner’s mind, heart and spirit. Without building up a strong foundation of commitment for marriage, sex becomes a liability. It will dampen the warning signs of terminal relationship behaviors because the act of premarital sex indicates a commitment to pleasure over virtue.
Blunder # 2-
Marriage is for suckers, and the institution is flawed.
This conceptual blunder is held fast by many divorced couples and young people who have been jaded by poor examples of romantic love. But the reverse is true: Suckers aren’t for marriage. Marriage is hard, hard, hard and is designed to test us in ways that promote continual growth.
Marriage is not something anyone can certify—it is actually a natural state achieved between two whole people for the purpose of love, security, edification, and expansion. Key word: achieved. Love in marriage is achieved by balancing privilege with responsibility and sacrifice.
No blessing by a priest or paper issued by a government can make a marriage because the thing exists solely in the hearts, minds and relationship of the two people in question. It is ironic how two people who have made sacrifices to know and love one another intimately can make a vow in the presence of a third party, and though they are actually wed, their marriage will not be recognized by a state or governing body. Conversely, two people who drunkenly signed a contract in Vegas will have more legitimacy in the eyes of the state than the couple who is actually married.
If two people who are not in emotional, spiritual, and intellectual union get a marriage license, they will have difficulty keeping up the act for two years, let alone a lifetime. And so we’ve been conditioned to think that marriage is a joke, but it is only our preparation and perception of marriage that is laughable.
And so we’ve been conditioned to think that marriage is a joke, but it is only our preparation and perception of marriage that is laughable.
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It’s sacrifice that makes a marriage, but sacrifice seems pointless in how we’ve been conditioned to view love and marriage. Rather than a tool for unlimited intimacy and growth, we’ve come to see marriage as a compromise of sexual freedom for comfort and security. Thomas Jefferson said that those who would trade freedom for security would have neither. And so, unsurprisingly, those who view marriage as a compromise wind up with less security, less freedom, and less comfort after all is said and done. And then they call it a big joke! But the joke is in the preparation.
Those who have sacrificed short-term pleasure for long term happiness and fulfillment will have built up commitment and appreciation with each other, as well as a profound respect, and they will last. Though their sexual pleasure is delayed in order to know each other’s innermost parts, they will have built a lifetime of unlimited intimacy and sexual satisfaction that enhances their relationship for years to come.
Sex and marriage are gifts. If we use them wisely and in accordance with long-term plans and sacrificial love, they can enhance our lives and strengthen our live. Outside of sacrificial love, these gifts turn into our worst nightmares.
Blunder # 3-
Cohabitation is the smart choice in determining marriageability.
Marriage is not a convenience, and so practicing for the supreme challenge of marriage with the convenience of cohabitation is like preparing for an NBA basketball game eating cheese puffs and watching TV. Marriage is not a cheese puff.
Marriage is the hardest thing that any couple will ever go through, and it is hard because it requires effort and sacrifice. If you don’t practice sacrifice before going into a marriage, you will curse the institution when it brings you grief and misery. But like everything in life, marriage is only as good as what you put in it.
For any sport or any hobby that you pick up, you only get better with study and lots of practice. If you play baseball, then you practice baseball until your eyes go cross and you’re swinging at pitches in your sleep. You live and breathe baseball if you want to be any good at it, and the same goes for anything else in life.
Marriage is more important than any game we’ll ever play, because it is the gateway to new life and the bedrock of human civilization. Marriage is sacrifice, commitment, courage, vulnerability, trust, faith, love, emotional connection, intellectual connection, spiritual connection, intimacy, teamwork, hard work, planning, patience, communication, and a million other things. But instead of practicing for marriage, we practice convenience: premarital sex, cohabitation, faithlessness, impatience, pleasure seeking, non-commitment, and fearfulness.
Instead of seeing failure as a building block to success, we’ve been conditioned to see it as a sign that we are unworthy; that we failed because of who we are.
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Then after we’ve practiced a million things we cannot master and apply to marriage, we curse marriage itself when we fail miserably. And instead of acknowledging failure, we blame everything other than how we prepared for marriage.
This happens because of how shame-based we have become as a culture. Instead of being vulnerable, acknowledging our failures and having the courage to grow, we’ve been taught to fear failure. Instead of seeing failure as a building block to success, we’ve been conditioned to see it as a sign that we are unworthy; that we failed because of who we are.
Want to fix this? Look into the mirror every morning and night and repeat 10 times: I am worthy, I am beautiful, I am valuable, I am fallible, I am vulnerable, I am courageous, and I am learning. Unconditional love is the antidote to shame, so shower yourself in love when you falter. Encourage yourself when you get knocked down, but don’t pretend that it never happened. If you do that, you won’t allow yourself to get on with the business of growing and loving life.
People who deny failure in marriage out of shame ironically incite a cycle of perpetual failure; it’s hard to escape from that which you don’t recognize, after all. But as Brené Brown, expert shame researcher, says,“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it—it can’t survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.” And so one divorce turns into two, and then three, or five…or a person will lose all faith and never attempt to marry again.
But maybe those who protest labeling divorce as a failure are right; maybe most of these couples were never married to begin with. After all, a government contract doesn’t make anything different than what it is. You could give me an elephant with documentation stating that is in fact a spider monkey, and I would still regard it as an elephant. Similarly, arrangements of convenience are not marriages, but empty commitments.
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When you agree to a marriage, you are promising to:
- Sacrifice passing pleasure for long-term happiness and intimacy
- To learn more about your partner each day
- To learn more about yourself each day so that you have more to give to your partner in terms of intimacy, connection and love
- To grow with your spouse
- To be vulnerable; to humble yourself and swallow your pride in order to learn from mistakes
- To be there for your spouse no matter what
- To bring out the best in your spouse
- To build a family and contribute to the community
- To provide security for your children and a good example of what romantic love is and does
- To love your spouse till death do you part
- To look for the best in your partner and empathize with them even when they are going through hell
- And to put your relationship before anything and anyone else
All of these things are impossible to accomplish without first knowing and loving yourself as you would expect to be loved by your partner. All of these things are also impossible without sacrifice. Without sacrifice, there is no marriage.
If you haven’t sacrificed for marriage, then you haven’t made it sacred. If it’s not sacred, then it won’t be healing and it won’t be something you will work hard to maintain and grow. If you practice convenience in preparation for marriage, you may receive a certificate that declares you wed, but nothing more.
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Why Cohabitation is an illusion
Cohabitation is practicing non-commitment; till like do us not. If marriage is the ultimate commitment, then you practice for marriage by building faith, trust, respect, emotional connection, vulnerability and admiration in each other, and through sacrifice. You can’t commit to anything without making sacrifices for it first. These flimsy commitments based on the strength of a chemical feeling are not strong enough to keep a couple bonded securely bonded for life.
Sacrificial love says: “I will do anything to know and love you better.”
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Getting married is an extremely vulnerable and courageous thing. Cohabiting to “test the waters” is an act of invulnerability that declares, “I won’t be hurt,” which contradicts the thing of marriage. Co-H appears to make sense in this culture of convenience, but the deeper you question its utility, the less substance you will find. Most people will not question cohabiting because it is much easier not to do what everyone else does.
Practicing cohabitation and premarital sex is the opposite of sacrificial love. In order to truly know and love someone, you get the opportunity to sacrifice passing pleasures in order to grow your commitment.
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Sacrificial love says: “I will do anything to know and love you better.”
Convenience says: “I’m going to like you until you no longer make me feel good. I’m going to give you just enough to keep you around, but you will never know all of me. I can’t risk you knowing all of me because that would hurt too much, and hurting is inconvenient. I will sleep with you until it is no longer convenient to do so. I will live with you until it is no longer convenient to do so.” —How romantic.
Cohabiting seems convenient, but the illusion is guaranteed to fade in a matter of time. The illusion fades when you realize that you don’t actually know the person you’ve been living with, which happens when you focus on their body and are too wrapped up in the domesticities of daily life to profoundly know one another.
Cohabiting before marriage is like going on a transatlantic ship voyage without having the deepest faith in your captain and crew. Domestic living is rough and unpredictable sailing that requires the deepest faith and knowledge of your partner, which cannot be practiced by cohabitation. Cohabitation is a demonstration of faithlessness and impatience.
Co-H is thought of as a mini-marriage, and it misleads lovers into believing that marriage can be prepared for by anything other than 100% commitment. There is nothing miniature about 100% commitment, and there is no way to practice for 100% commitment other than by doing it.
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Conclusion
If you want a successful marriage, think hard on these common blunders and ask yourself where your happiness lies. Ask about the sacrifices you can make to ensure a marriage you can share with your family and community for generations to come. Above all, practice vulnerability and work through the shame that says, “I don’t deserve any better.” You deserve a lifetime of connection and intimacy with the ones you love, and it is through vulnerability and courage that you will achieve it.
Photo—kaybee07/Flickr
Thank you, Silke!
Thanks Jed! Oh yeah, marriage will put you in the best shape of your life IF a couple actually chooses to run it. I’m sure you know all about that!!! Looking forward to your book
Daniel, Good article. I like that you recognize the difference between wanting it easy and convenient (don’t we all) and the hard work from a marriage that requires our very best. Marriage can be hard in the same way that training to run a marathon is hard. The payoffs are great, but you have to be willing to work for it.
Hi Daniel
This study might interest you:
https://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforskning.no%2Fsex-samfunn-samfunnskunnskap-samliv%2F2015%2F11%2Fkjaerestefortiden-din-pavirker-om-du-far-barn&edit-text=