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To Love
Forever
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by:
Jard DeVille
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Some time ago we were leading a college
seminar for sexually sophisticated, exuberant and articulate young
couples from a local church when James, one of the husbands, said:
Nancy and I have long since learned how to insert Tab A into Slot B, so
we don't need a sex manual. We know all about adequate foreplay for
women, exotic positions, and multiple orgasms. We love our nights of
romance but we now must learn how to make our marriage worth keeping
together when we are not making love.
Emotionally healthy men and women almost always share their lives with
lovers whose happiness is crucial to their own fulfillment -- even if
they failed to understand the reciprocal nature of mutual satisfaction
while they were young. In our youthful years we may be so filled with
such intense sexual desires that we forget it really does take two to
tango successfully for any length of time. If either lover feels
deprived, the music soon loses its ability to charm us. As we learn to
love a person deeply, we want both to be personally satisfied -- while
also becoming a pleasing lover. Our sexual pleasure remains second rate
unless the lover becomes a full partner in the intimacy. Of course,
some neurotic persons use sex in a power play for ego benefits that
have little to do with love. We insist -- all psychospiritually healthy
women and men want to please the sweetheart with whom they share
physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy. Anything less is
selfishness -- is prima facia evidence that one is still an emotional
adolescent, grasping what he or she can in a short term relationship.
Sexual selfishness and the potential for abuse that follows is always
the result of one's serious emotional and spiritual failures.
Despite the universal need for loving relationships, one marriage out
of two fails, with a major cause of divorce being serious sexual
disappointment caused by some form of narcissism -- satiation or some
kind of neurotic power struggle within the relationship. Many of the
marriages which survive are such emotional and sexual disasters that
the partners are left with a terrible sense of disappointment about the
entire affair. Actually, comparatively few men and women actually
remain lovers for life with the joy that a sound relationship
guarantees. It is obvious that many couples have not mastered the
attitudes, activities and relationships needed to make love permanent.
We, Roberta and Jard, realize that we have done pretty well -- we are
still sharing our love for one other and enjoying our erotic intimacy
after half a century of love and marriage. We have thought much about
all this and have come to the delightful conclusion -- We are not yet
through! Despite all odds and some glaring mistakes along the way, we
have managed to remain lovers because we understand some key factors
about relationships:
To begin with:
WOMEN AND MEN REALLY NEED EACH OTHER FOR LOVE TO PROSPER.
SEXUAL AROUSAL AND PLEASURE IS A NORMAL STATE FOR LOVERS.
SATISACTION INCREASES EXPONENTIALLY AS WE MATURE TOGETHER.
These are attainable ideals that unfortunately, because of narcissism
and nihilism, can be crippled enough to destry relationships. However,
since the need for love and intimacy does not end with conflict and
unhappiness -- even after separation and divorce, most persons with
failed marriages usually seek someone new with whom to share romance.
We have learned how vital it is to have a loving partner who cares
deeply about us; who eagerly and joyfully joins their body, mind and
spirit to our own. Unfortunately, some people continue looking for a
perfect partner rather than learning how to become a better lover.
Nevertheless, most second marriages succeed well enough to be held
together. Couples, the second time around, usually have more realistic
expectations and attitudes -- can abandon the youthful selfishness that
comes between themselves and their lovers, and accept the partial loaf
of a sound relationship if not a grand romance..
Actually, many marriages fail because the institutions that are
supposed to help men and women live together without too much conflict,
fail at their tasks. For example, many people tell us that the church
must accept a full share of the responsibility for the failure of many
relationships. Its emphasis on archaic rules, the condemnation of
spontaneous sexuality made possible through birth control, and
reluctance to accept lovemaking as a spiritual relationship in and of
itself, long after science has separated sex from child bearing, has
been crippling to a great many marriages. Too many reactionary
clergymen have simply not come to grips with the realities of life and
love since neurotic medieval myths and superstitions about sexuality
were accepted as basic religious morality.
Even today in most fundamental and orthodox religious denominations,
morality is connected almost entirely to sexuality. In much of the
right wing church you can engage in virtually any kind of racism or
sexism -- condemning minorities and manipulating women -- so long as
you profess to have been born again and do not commit adultery with
your neighbor's child or spouse. Or at least, don't get caught
committing adultery! We find such practices not only a simplistic view
of spirituality but really a mockery of faith, hope and love within the
Judao/Christian and the Islamic traditions.
Our educational institutions have done just as poorly, for they
occasionally teach sexual mechanics and techniques while ignoring the
need for spiritual love which is vital to keeping a relationship alive
and well, filled with sexual satisfaction and make the sweethearts
mutually supportive over the years. Few of the sex classes we see go
beyond simply teaching how to be sexually effective, how as James said,
to insert tab A into slot B. Now, with most of the emphasis on how to
have a glorious orgasm (or half a dozen of them), it's as though love,
acceptance and mutual support have become sexual taboos. Not enough
attention is paid to those things that make intimacy satisfying
throughout life, to keep one's relationship permanent. The vast
majority of sexual self-help books have failed to make this vital point
clear since they are often based on several distorted assumptions about
life and love. Usually missing from such books is the understanding
that human are always subjective beings with deep spiritual needs that
must be satisfied or else life turns sour. Life must become meaningful
rather than just successful if we hope to live with satisfaction. Our
needs and motivates go beyond the physical and psychological levels of
personality to the philosophical. As a result, many books that don't
consider the psychospiritual aspects of life fail to help the users all
that much.
Our book, LOVERS FOR LIFE is based on the principle of honest
partnership and mutual acceptance. We simply cannot find lasting
satisfaction except by being truthful. It is also based on the belief
that we all need to live with spiritual values, positive attitudes,
high expectations, mature beliefs and responsible choices. Of course,
few couples begin this way -- we must learn how to survive together
while we mature as real persons. The myth that men and women are so
different that misunderstanding and conflict are inevitable is just
that -- a myth. Conflicts arise when we relate as lovers from the
immature or neurotic needs of adolescence, when we fail to understand
personality patterns, when we are pushed from our comfort zones, and
when we behave in selfish ways that cause resentment. Then lovers
become adversaries who are struggling to win power, prestige pleasure
and possessions without regard for the other person's needs.
Dissatisfying lovemaking virtually always occurs because one or both of
the lovers behave narcissistically.
Because sexuality and love-making is so compelling in and of itself --
so important to normal, well adjusted women and men, we sometimes fail
to realize that consistent sexual satisfaction is always the result of
having a mutually supportive relationship rather than the cause of a
good marriage. Because of the prominence of the pleasure principle,
many people still put that cart before the horse. Many and many a
person in counselling tells us that they cannot understand why they are
having so many problems when the sex is still good. Of course it is --
it is the only thing still holding them together -- with so many other
problems both are determined to make something work well. We find that
fearful women who remain with brutal, battering men often engage in
wild lovemaking with their cruel abusers, doing everything the men
want, trying to make something, anything, satisfying in the
relationship. But it isn't a mutual connection -- such a man is very
much the tyrant she is frantically trying to please in the only way she
can share intimacy with him. This seldom lasts long when everything
else good has collapsed. And unless a woman feels trapped, unable to
take care of herself, with no one to turn to for deliverance, many
women soon decide that sexual satisfaction purchased at such a price is
too expensive in the scheme of life. They move on.
Others make the same mistake our sexually frustrated and often neurotic
Victorian ancestors did as they tried hard to turn love into a sexless,
platonic relationship. No one personifies this more clearly than Mother
Lee and the Shaker sect of Christians who came out of England during
the Victorian era. We understand why this happened and why groups like
the Shakers became celibate; the men and women living within the same
colonies but in separate dorms and never sharing sexual love. Sexual
diseases were rampant in Victorian England and America at the time.
About one person in five had a serious venereal disease at the time of
our Civil War and there were no cures. The young Confederate general A
P Hill contacted gonorrhea as a West Point cadet and suffered from it
the rest of his life until he died in his late thirties. In addition,
because they had no reliable birth control methods many wives were
pregnant or nursing almost all the time. Married women were baby making
machines and every major religious denomination in England and America
in 1900 still insisted that birth control was a sin against God and
humanity. It still in in the Roman Catholic church. Birth control was
forbidden because primitive societies needed a constant flow of strong,
young persons to do all the scut work needed to keep life running
smoothly. Such churches still confuse social traditions with
spirituality as they always have. As late as 1900, each childbirth was
a trip down into the valley of the shadow of death for every woman. The
childbirth death of great many women was an acceptable trade-off with
the need for more workers for the farms and companies of the time.
Childbed fever due to contaminated bed clothing was so virulent that
most women had their wills written before giving birth.
Roberta's maternal grandfather, an undeniably devout Methodist
preacher, had seven children with his first wife before she died after
the final birth and then had twelve more kids with his second wife
before she also died in childbirth. Women had no rights -- they could
not refuse their randy husbands access to their bodies even if another
pregnancy would be fatal. Their marriage dowry was given to their
husbands, they could seldom work outside the home and if they did, the
law required them to surrender their earnings to their husbands every
payday. Actually, they were treated as brood mares as Abigail Smith
Adams wrote and wrote again to her husband Samuel Adams when he was
helping form the United States government. She urged him over and over
to give women some civil rights but he was unable to persuade the
southern contingent of politicians to treat women fairly. It took more
than a hundred years for women to gain the vote and some simple rights
to manage their own lives. With disease and death a common outcome of a
sexual relationship, and with a complete loss of freedom from entering
into a marriage, Roberta says she can certainly understand why Mother
Lee founded her Shaker colonies. The arrangement was so women could
care for themselves -- by themselves -- and with the celibate
companionship of those men who were willing to treat them decently. Of
course, Jard also understands why the Shakers prospered during that
period and failed when women won some freedoms, learned to plan their
babies and could avoid venereal disease through modern medicines. The
lives of women became so much better during the 20th century that few
needed to abandon marriage and children in order to become real
persons. Thus the Shaker colonies vanished as society changed
drastically.
Men and women who have lovingly committed their lives to each other
have every physical, psychological and spiritual reason to develop
deeply satisfying sexual relations as a positive aspect of life. Each
of us needs a loving soul with whom to share the many responsibilities
and rewards of life, to labor with during the day and to fill the
nights with the magic of a passion that doesn't fade but becomes more
mature and fulfilling as we enfold one another with kisses and caresses
We believe that anyone who teaches otherwise, who wants to ration a
couple's sexuality to conception, whether in the church or out, is
emotionally crippled and wants others to suffer with him rather than
mature in the physical aspects of love. The very concept of life-long
celibacy and sexual deprivation is a wicked sociopath requirement laid
on couples by medieval minded clergy who are trapped by their sexist
theology. Which is why ninety percent of English speaking Catholic
women of child bearing age defy their clergy to practice proscribed
forms of birth control. And why almost seventy percent of Catholic
priests from African, Asian and Latin American nations are rearing
families with secret wives or with women with whom they are in
permanent sexual relationships. To end this practice of love and
affection would destroy the Catholic leadership of most nations south
of the equator.
Fortunately, even a when person has been crippled and confused by
religious, political or cultural myths about the role sexual
relationships play in life, human resilience is so great that he or she
can learn how to live a purposeful life, one leading to happiness and
permanence in relationships. No one is doomed to unhappiness in a
partnership unless he or she accepts someone's manipulation of himself.
Ridding oneself of distorted symptoms and selfish behaviors can help
pave the way toward maturity and fulfillment.
We, Roberta and Jard -- have lived together for almost half a century.
We reared three kids and even our grandkids have kids now and we still
love each other dearly. We would like to be able to report to you that
we had a storybook romance and marriage: We would like to, but alas, we
cannot. To start with, Roberta certainly did not get a Prince Charming
in Jard. He is a stubborn, willful man who has gone through life doing
precisely what he wanted to do. Of course, Roberta wasn't a Fairy
Princess -- at times the sparks flew. They still do! But, we started
life even, both having naive attitudes about living together. She
assumed Jard would be like her father, and he thought Roberta would be
like his mother. Don't all young couples make that mistake? We soon
learned how wrong that was but above all we shared a strong religious
faith that helped us!
At one time we were even like two veteran riflemen in combat. One
soldier was from the Louisiana marsh country while the other was from
the mountains of Colorado. They had little in common but survival, they
didn't understand each other, and they would not have even known each
other but for the fact that they were in the Army at the same time.
However, they have saved each other's life so often that each has
forgotten how to survive without the partner. One kicks in the door and
the other throws in the grenade. Without a great deal of deliberation!
We have even moved past that and now are fairly tolerant and
understanding. The repeated grinding of two dominant personalities,
although it created friction and sparks on many occasions, has abraded
a pretty good fit to our marriage. Sexual pleasure and psychospiritual
intimacy are still vital parts of our ivies, and we recommend them
highly to everyone (although we realize that sexual satisfaction can
exist only as a part of our total relationship). We are fortunate that
we have kept our sexual relationship alive and satisfying -- despite
the myth that sex is for the young. I suppose many in the reactionary
church who would limit sex to conception and childbirth consider us a
dirty old couple -- but you can imagine how little time we spend
worrying about their neuroticism! Love is a constant source of
rejuvenation for our life together.
In LOVERS FOR LIFE we have included projects and processes for your
use. They have proved very valuable for us and for couples in our
seminars. In the beginning, using them may make you feel as awkward as
giving a speech or singing a solo for the first time. They will become
familiar with use, however, and will help you develop a mutually
supportive partnership that remains pleasurable and permanent. Use them
well to strengthen you mutual concern and self-transcendence; for they
are tools with which to build greater understanding. Even if boredom
and desperation have set in, these methods have the power to revitalize
a relationship and make it worth keeping -- even when you are not
making love at the time. May God bless your attempts to grow toward
happiness and fulfillment, for all of your life!
SAMPLE SELF-FOCUS
WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE OUR VICTORIAN ANCESTORS WERE SO DETERMINED TO KEEP
WOMEN SUBSERVIENT TO MEN -- EVEN TO THOSE WHO WERE ABUSIVE AND
SOMETIMES MURDEROUS?
WHY DO YOU THINK MANY MEN STILL ASSUME THAT THEY OWN THE WOMEN IN THEIR
LIVES -- THAT IF THEY CANNOT CONTROL A WOMAN, THEN NO OTHER MAN SHOULD
LOVE HER?
SAMPLE PROJECT BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
Discuss with a friend or write a short paragraph or two or three
sentences on what the following could mean to you.
MEN AND WOMEN REALLY DO NEED EACH OTHER FOR LOVE TO PROSPER.
SEXUAL PLEASURE AND SATISFACTION IS A SOUND ASPECT OF LOVE.
ONLY BY MATURING TOGETHER CAN LOVE BECOME DEEPLY FULFILLING.
We wish you the very best as you make your life meaningful and fill it
with love.
About the author:
Jard & Roberta DeVille; Psyc. Dept. Chair at Westminster
College; leadership psychology at the University of Arizona at Tucson;
published psychology books, seminars & psychological assessment
instruments. NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST was a best seller. He &
Roberta wrote 'Lovers For Life' and other courses/books together. She's
been a wonderful teacher in Minneapolis for many years. He’s considered
by many to be America’s foremost leadership scholar. Visit http://www.fulfillmentforum.com
for Free E-Book Courses and E-Biz Tools.
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