UNLEASHING THE K.I.S.S. MARRIAGE – Pain or Pleasure
Posted: April 1, 2011
Humans seek pleasure. Most people believe that this essential pleasure will be found in a marriage relationship and that it will ultimately fulfill their soul craving for acceptance, understanding and of course…love. This powerful, plan was created by God and He said that “it was good.” Something has gone awry, or has it?
For the next few months I will be writing on K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple sweetheart) simple, yet powerful steps to build the kind of marriage that God intended us to enjoy. Marriages can indeed be the joyful, fulfilling relationships God intended them to be.
I was married at nineteen, a young clueless woman, thinking that my husband would make me happy and enrich my life. I had no one to mentor, or teach me as to what it takes to build a marriage. I went through years of resentment, pain and feeling I had made a dreadful mistake by marrying this particular man. Yes, the divorce word did come up, but I am so grateful that both of us chose to say NO to divorce and were determined to make our marriage work. In the midst of our struggle we both prayed and started our personal relationship with God. Once we brought the third person (God) into the picture, we began to change as individuals and ultimately our marriage started to heal and flourish. After twenty years of building a beautiful marriage, my husband, Dick died on the basketball floor two weeks before Christmas.
I have remarried and am the wife of a pastor in a large church. We have a blended family of five children and nine grandchildren. I am telling you all this so that you will understand I have walked every step of a journey from, initially, a painful marriage, to the kind of pleasurable marriage relationship that God intended it to be. Throughout my journey from being an immature, young wife to a confident, God honoring woman, I have experienced anger, betrayal, rejection, shame, unforgiveness, being a widow, a single mom, and now a mom and step mom in a blended family. I have also experienced the powerful healing and incredible joy through forgiveness, understanding, letting go of expectations, finding common values and learning to build and fight for a good marriage.
All of our feelings come from either pain or pleasure. When we begin to feel pain in our relationships, we will start to look around for something that will make us feel better. All of us can tolerate pain only for so long and eventually we will:
- Blame.
- Become angry, ugly and abusive.
- Pull away in silence and ultimately shut down all emotions. Become depressed, suicidal, despondent or ill.
- Move away from the pain (leave, walk, out, divorce).
- Look for a different friend, i.e. the bottle, food, shopping, drugs, pornography, an affair.
- One day one you will may say, “I am leaving this relationship because I just don’t love you anymore.”
- Find another relationship.
None of the above will be the answer or healing you are looking for. But, all of those can be turned back into pleasure. Maybe that sounds radical but I believe with all my heart that with some insights and hard work, you will be able to build a great, pleasure filled marriage.
In the weeks to come I will address some basic stumbling blocks, and some simple, yet powerful steps to overcome them. Some of these items will be:
- Create a Story.
- Ask him.
- Love is not enough
- Don’t Lock Me In
- Red Flags
- Top 3 Needs
- Developing Intimacy
- Expectations
- Resentment
- Start Talking
- Laughter
- ……and more
If you have any particular issue or question, please e-mail me directly at heidi@heartconnection.ca
