When a marriage is in crisis, many people do exactly the wrong
things we've been talking about on relationship radio for the
last few episodes, a new process we've come up with, and have
come up with seven steps to rescue a marriage is in trouble in
the rescue yourself. But we're going to talk about the last two
steps, step six, and seven, in this particular episode,
hopefully, then you've got a good overview of what this new
seven step system is like. So Kimberly, what are our steps
number six, and seven.
Step number six is to ignite passion and intimacy. Or actually,
the right way to put it is to ignite intimacy and passion.
Intimacy is all about rebuilding a friendship or having a
friendship, it's about seeing your spouse as your best friend,
the one that you would go to with your deepest, darkest secrets
and your worst day that you've ever had, and you seek them for
comfort. That's really what intimacy is, passion is more about
having that romantic fire, they a craving for oneness between
the two of you. And so Step six is where we can really focus on
that part of it kind of more of that feeling of falling in love.
So to say, we're now just getting to at step six.
But what's really interesting is that if you look at Adam, in
very detailed ways, intimacy and passion, appeared to be exact
opposites. Because intimacy says, I want stability, I want
security, I want to know what's coming next, I want to be able
to predict your behaviors to predict your emotions, so that I'm
not worried about you going out there and doing that, or this
other thing happening over here. And so intimacy has this very
warm and comfortable part to it, where that are not worried
about something unusual occurring. But passion is just the
opposite, particularly when it comes to sexual passion. But But
passion has to do with the unexpected surprises, that that it's
not going to somehow become routine is not going to be to the
point where I know what's going to happen, when it's going to
happen, how it's going to happen, those kinds of things. And so
in that sense, intimacy and passion, seem to be incongruent,
it's like you can't possibly have both. Therefore, if you're
going to develop both of these, there has to actually be
intentionality. Because you have to approach each of them
differently. Now, some people think if we just have enough
intimacy, openness, transparency, vulnerability, then passion
will naturally follow. And to some degree, that's correct. But
because passion? Well, in sexology, we talk about a thing called
habituation, which basically says, If a couple of of making love
to each other for a couple of years, there's not a whole lot to
explore. I mean, you know, what's going to happen, you know,
when it's going to happen, you know, what's going to be, et
cetera, et cetera. And that can lead to this thing called Sexual
habituation, which can in turn lead to this thing called Sexual
boredom, which can make it tempting for people to look for
titillation elsewhere, is one of the reasons now it's not to
justify somebody with a porn addiction. But it's one of the
reasons that porn so big, it's like, okay, now I'm looking for
10 elation. It's also why if they're looking at porn, after they
get used to a particular kind of porn, again, there's nothing
unexpected. And so they may then be tempted to a different kind
of porn so they can and want something unusual here. So think
about a situation then where, okay, we won't have this openness,
transparency, vulnerability, stability, nothing unexpected. So
we can be close and warm to each other. How do you do that? And
also have this passion over here, which is different,
unexpected, spontaneous, those kinds of things?
Yeah, well, I think it takes a lot of intentional understanding
of what passion would look like for each person. And what are
those? I mean, talking about sexual so what are those things you
would want to try that are new or different, or things that can
spice things up in the bedroom? Or even just what are new and
different date nights that we can do? What are different things
that we can expose ourselves to that keep that newness, keep
that freshness, while also having the the stability of the
intimacy side? I think it's interesting because even in the
marriage research world, there are two big people who so one of
them says in order to maintain passion, don't share everything.
Don't be fully vulnerable and open and keep a part of you hidden
because that's what will keep the passion alive. And then
there's another person out there who says that's the most
ridiculous thing in the world. You're never going to fully trust
the way that you need to if you're keeping parts of yourself
from your spouse. And so even in the marriage world, there's two
two people who have two very different views of those, but I
believe you and I see it as it's it's a tension between the two
to balance. But that's also what can continue to make it fun and
creative and exciting when you have both of them. And you're
being intentional about both sides of it.
Dr. Peggy kleinplatz, she is a Canadian researcher. Remember
reading two different studies that she and her colleagues did, I
think she had one set of colleagues on one study and a different
set of colleagues on the other. And both of them were about the
subject of what's the difference between good sex and great sex.
Now, what I'm going to summarize it because she came up with
like seven or eight different things, I can't name them all just
like that right now. But summarizing them basically said, this
great sex is when a couple of each person, husband and wife can
completely let go, and allow themselves to become almost
hedonistic in the sense of, I'm going to look for and surrender
myself to the sensations and feelings of pleasure. But she also
points out that if that's going to happen, you have to feel
completely safe. Because if you don't feel completely safe,
where the other person, then you're afraid, if you completely
let yourself go, that he or she may do something beyond your
belief in value system, or something that you'll find that
unpleasant, or whatever it might be. And so you have to have the
trust, the intimacy that we talked about, so that when you're in
the bedroom, that you can, so trust the other person that each
of you can be completely uninhibited, because you don't fear
anything from the other person, or that kind of trust. But at
the same time, then you can also both be free to tell each other
about anything that you want to do differently without fear. So
for example, or another set of years ago, it was in a particular
denomination, they didn't name the denomination. And they
contacted the pastors in this particular denomination, all the
pastors are male, and they are trying to ask them about in this
research project, if they use pornography, and if so they had
questions to follow. The older pastors were indignant. How dare
you even ask, the younger pastors, some of them admitted, and
then they started looking into okay, why, since this is outside
your belief in value system, why would you do that? Well, not
looking at all three of the major reasons, but one of the
reasons was this, is because of the fact that I'm afraid to tell
my wife, what I really want to do sexually for fear that she
will judge me as being ungodly. And therefore, I cannot tell her
that. And so to explore that, I'm not wanting to be looking at
pornography instead. And I'm thinking, whether your spouse
agrees to do something or not having the ability where you could
talk about it with each without either one feeling censored,
without feeling judged. Then you can have the spontaneity and
etc. As a matter of fact, in I think it's one of our membership
levels, we actually have a course spark your marriage, which is
all about how to do that. Right.
Yeah, and are strengthened membership for when you're
reconciling. Yes.
If you're reconciling, you can take that. So intimacy, crucial,
but also passion, to the point that Dr. Baron McCarthy says, If
you ever hear your spouse say, I love you, but I'm not in love
with you. Mary says that means your spouse is the eroticised
you, they don't think of your neurotic terms anymore. So
intimacy and passion are both important. So what's the seventh
step?
The seventh step is to build your dream life together. So this
one is all about looking forward into the future. How can you
have aspirations together as a couple? How can you work towards
things when life tries to pull you apart? What are you working
on together that you're aspiring to, that is continuing to bring
you and focus you together as a couple.
Now, this one can be a little tricky, too. Because it does not
mean giving up your individual aspiration. Right. As a matter of
fact, Dr. Gottman talks a lot about that, that you need to be
honoring your spouse's aspiration wherever it might be, and
helping your spouse get there, even though it makes no sense to
you. So we don't want to give that up because then it feels like
I don't have my own individuality anymore. So how do you
continue to seek your own aspirations, but find a mutual
aspiration that you can do together?
Right? Well, again, this talk this is a lot of conversations
asking the other person what is it that we value that we enjoy
to do that we would like to do together? What do we want our our
marriage in our lives to mean when we're older, right? What do
we want to have done? So this can be something that's super long
term that you work toward, like we want to retire in the Swiss
Alps, right? Or it can be something that you work towards on a
yearly basis, the things that continue to bring you back
together as a cup Pull as a family. So I know for us, it's every
year we want to do an international vacation as a family,
because we love to travel, it brings us together, it's something
we can continue to plan and look forward to throughout the year.
And we it's we both love it, it's an interest we both have. And
so both of our respective individual aspirations, we have still
helped to bring this one to flourish to fruition, because then
there's purpose, there's purpose in the work, and you know, the
jobs that we're doing and things because it's allowing us to
save up money to be able to go on these international vacations.
That's pretty cool.
Actually, I know a minister friend who does something similar to
that he has a part time side job. And every dollar he makes
there, he puts into the travel fund, and once a year, they go do
whatever they can afford that year, based on how much he made.
That's a good example. So this thing you do together should be
something that didn't trail enthralls both of you. But sometimes
it has more to do with what you accomplish, than what you go to
enjoy. Yeah,
sometimes it does. So this can also look like doing something to
maybe it's volunteering together at at something that you do
doing a mission trip, you know, something like that,
volunteering at a soup kitchen. Or maybe it's all that's another
one of going camping, you said something that you accomplished.
Yeah. So maybe it's doing something that's leaving more of a
legacy. And that's what you want to work towards and figure out
how to do as a couple.
I remember meeting a young man, several years ago, down in
Birmingham, Alabama, and he and his wife had a mutual
aspiration, that they were going to build a business big enough
that they could give away $1 million per year. And that was
their goal. So first thing, first part of the goal is we're
going to have to build that bigger business, that we can have a
million dollars left over after we have what we need to live on.
And then we're going to have to learn how to make decisions as
to where to give it, those kinds of things. So here they were
not making anywhere near enough money. When I met them, they
were both very young. But both is totally sold on that as an
aspiration. That's what we're going to do. So why is that
aspiration part of building a dream life together? What does it
do to a person and are a couple emotionally?
Well, I don't know about emotionally. But mentally, when you're
thinking about the future, and you're planning a future
together, it's keeping you focused on being together, and
looking forward into the future together. Because a lot of times
couples don't have that they're just going through day to day,
year to year, kind of waiting for maybe they're waiting for the
kids to graduate, you know, high school so that they have an
empty nest again. But then when they become empty nesters, what
are they going to do together, they've typically not
intentionally continued to bring themselves together with
something they enjoy or something they want to accomplish
together. And so that's when they typically look at each other.
And we'll say, Who are you or I feel like I'm married to my
roommate, because there's nothing that they've continued to do
new experiences, they've had new hobbies that they've had
together, that have kept them in that interdependent part of
them to get to where they are their individual selves, but they
choose to be together and want to be together through the things
that they enjoy doing together.
And so when they do that obstacles rather than pushing them
apart, tend to push them together. Because it's like we have
this goal that is really extremely important to us. And we're
going to make that happen. Will it be perfect? No. Will we have
just bliss and happiness every step of the way to get there? No.
I mean, like, oh, one of your vacations you had planned last
year, and then was it COVID It came along, something came along.
Every vacation for the past four years, has had been canceled or
delayed because of sickness, or broken bones. Every one of them.
This is the definition of buy travel insurance.
But his silly aspiration that you and Robin the kids have, yeah.
And it will affect your kids when they're grown when you were a
child. We traveled all over America now. That's why I love it so
much. We were traveling everywhere all the time going all kinds
of places. And so you get that in me the first of all went to
Australia, you went with us. You were like in junior high or
high school, junior in high school or in high school at that
point. And so Rob, of course being in the military and his dad
having been in the military and so it's the kind of fire you're
gonna put in the belly of your kids. But it may be a little
different. Like it may be okay we want to internationally
traveled but we will not go to India and teach him how to garden
and orphans homes, which is also something you have done. Yep.
So just interesting how it goes goes on and on and on. Well,
this is a brief overview of the seven steps, you'll be learning
a lot more about it because of courses, we'll be adding at
marriage helper, because of a webinars that we'll be doing, et
cetera, et cetera. But we really hope that you see these seven
things. So what's the first part, stabilize, this got three
steps to it. The first is calm down. The second is
get clarity. And the third, stop your pitches and start your
polls.
And then the healing process, which is step four, which is
to forgive and hopefully reconcile, okay.
And then if you do reconcile steps, 6756 and seven are to
rebuild
trust, to ignite passion and or to ignite intimacy and passion,
and then to build your dream life together.
And if you're thinking, Well, wait a minute, what if I get to
step four? And reconciliation doesn't take place? Just stop
there?
Well, yes, to an extent. But if you ultimately if your marriage
is not going to reconcile, well, let me say this in two
different ways. First of all, reconciliation might not happen
immediately. So there is a little bit of a holding period where
you kind of wait and see what's going to happen. But ultimately,
if the marriage does end and you decide to move on, then there's
a bit of a detour, that it would take, and you would follow a
different set
of steps. So we're actually going to have steps five, six, and
seven, for people whose marriages don't make it right. Like, for
example, perhaps your spouse dies, or something like that. And
but our goal is to help save and strengthen marriages, but we're
not going to abandon you. If that doesn't happen, we'll have a
different step five, six, and seven for you, then, so you can
create a great future. Alright. Well, thank you, Kimberly, and
anything we need to say, before we end this episode.
Yeah, if you are interested on how to get started, and you've
said, I want to get all the way to building a dream life with my
spouse, I want our marriage to be rescued and better than it's
ever been. Where do I start? Great question. If you're ready to
start now, and you know that you need to get calm. And that's
where you need to begin your process in these seven steps, then
join our membership and consider getting involved in coaching as
well. But guess what, when you become a member, you get
discounted coaching rates that are available only for members.
So in our membership, it's created and our save membership, it's
created, so that it'll guide you through those first four steps.
And then if you're saying, well, actually, I'm at the point
where I, I'm talking to my spouse, and they're willing to go to
a workshop with me to work on the marriage, then you can still
start your your journey with marriage helper by going to the
workshop, we will cover the things that will be involved in all
seven of these steps in the workshop. And it'll really be that
catalyst transformation, opportunity for your spouse to also see
how things can be different. So start with that workshop. And
then we'll get you in our strengthened membership, which will
include the parts of the steps one through four that are going
to be unsaved. But it's also going to include everything, past
reconciliation. So steps 656, and seven will all be in the
strengthened membership and the strengthened membership. When
you attend the workshop and you get the strengthened membership
with it. We give you a year of support through our support calls
that have happened in the membership through the content in
there through the community aspect of it, because we want to see
your marriage and in building a dream life together to not end
with a divorce but to end in the seven steps and to continue
forward long past your need for marriage helper because our
mission is to save and strengthen marriages and the marriages
that are saved is the number one thing that we exist to see.
Thank you very much for being part of this episode and we look
forward to seeing you again on another episode of relationship
Radio.