ClydeStyle

Tag: Marriage

  • Are you a true believer in love?

    Neil Diamond wrote the song “I’m a believer” in 1966, and the Monkees performed it with Mickey Dolenz as the lead singer. It was a song about falling in love and the assurance of knowing that exact moment when the feeling was birthed.

    It is a great feeling to be in love. Out of all the things in the world that can be experienced, love has to be the best. When someone feels love, it’s like a superpower. You feel like you can do anything! It seems that dreams can become a reality, and all is right with the world.

    In like fashion, it seems that the world comes to an end when love is gone. The feeling of missing love is bitter. The sadness is covetous and touches every part of your life. You can’t eat or sleep, and nothing feels the same.

    This power of love has been misused and is still the deadliest costume to where in that someone can pretend to love you, not love you. Love has been misunderstood as infatuation, like, admiration, and lust.

    There are people who say they love you for what they can get out of you, and love is also used to control you.

    This blog is for those who are really in love. There are no holidays in August, but this is a good time to let your number one love know their position in the universe. Let’s make today, August 19, 2023, the inaugural Lover’s Day. On this day we celebrate love, with the one you love. This day is exclusive — meaning you don’t spend it out in public at a restaurant or movie.

    Lover’s Day is exclusive, and it is only spent mono e mono! It’s an interruption in your daily life to spend quality time alone. It’s a time of reflection, renewal, and rest. It’s a time to express love, enjoy being alive with your love, and enjoy a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual entanglement for 24 hours. There is no need for gifts because YOU are the gift!

    Spread the word!

  • Who made marriage sacred?

    Most people, in reading the headline of this blog post would say that God made marriage sacred. Much of what we know about marriage is really heresy and misinterpreted biblical text. Much of our marriage information was learned from movies and TV shows and so it’s really difficult to separate fact from fiction.

    The other problem we face in our understanding is which viewpoint we choose to believe. You see, it’s not enough to just do a Google search or go ask your local pastor. We must consider too whether the information is coming from a conservative, moderate or liberal point-of-view as the three do not agree.

    So how can you tell which one is right? Is it even possible to have an absolute truth to the marriage question? Most of our beliefs will be shaped around the generation we are from. That doesn’t make the stance right or wrong, just familiar. So is your familiarity more correct than mine?

    From my generation, marriage is honorable among all and it is between a male and female just as it is written in the bible. My generation was not accepting of same-sex marriage and really felt “funny” about interracial marriage. We believed that multiple marriages at the same time has it’s highlights, but would be a bad thing overall. And my generation frowned upon divorce but it was growing in popularity.

    The generation before me believe marriage was between a man and a woman and divorce was flat out wrong. They believed there were men’s roles and women’s role and as long as each person “stayed in their lane” the marriage would be considered successful.

    The generation after me believes that marriage is none of your business and whatever a person decides to do and who they decide to do it with is their business. If two men want to be married then that is their business. If you are in love with a sheep and want that animal to be your wife, help yourself but above all, they believe, people should mind their business.

    As for the biblical interpretation, you would think that because the Bible describes marriage as a covenant that it should be sacred. However, covenants are broken all the time (Israel was enslaved due to their covenant breaking with God) and marriage didn’t become sacred until the Catholic church deemed it that in the 12th century.

    Furthermore, the vows that you said at your marriage and definitely the ones in the movies and on TV are not biblical. The whole love, honor and obey line was written by a Baptist pastor. Divorce was allowed when the covenant was violated — meaning you broke your promise so the contract is dissolved. Divorce is a sin but not an unforgivable one. The sin of divorce is managed the same way lying, murder, covetousness and stealing are managed: You repent.

    The key to understanding and having a successful marriage is about choice. You make a choice to stay with someone and work things out. And it is your choice! It’s your life and you decide your barriers and boundaries and be at peace. If you are with someone who is please to dwell with you then cherish them. The God that loves you would not want you in a toxic situation waiting on him to intervene. He never said he would. He already gave you choice!

  • Part 1: Unconditional love?

    Love is probably the most overused and misrepresented word in the English language.

    I say this because of the condition of the world. How many men use this word love to lure innocent woman into sexual relationships? How many children were conceived to teenage mothers under the idea that it was love? How many people have been betrayed by people who claimed to love them?

    Love is NOT something you fall in, something that finds you or something that you feel. Love is something that you know, it is taught and those who know what it is, practice it. It is a by-product of experiencing Jesus Christ or people like Him. It is expressed in many ways. Clearly, it is a way of life.

    By the way love is done in our country, we will never understand it the way it was intended. Love is conditional in America. People practice it conditionally and place expectations of the people they are loving. Love is distributed based on whether or not you meet the lover’s expectations.

    This explains why a young woman searching for love will give herself sexually because she understands love as conditional. Men have long made sex a condition for their love. After all, that fits the love economy we have here so people just run with it.

    This also explains the divorce rate.

    Fifty percent of all marriages will end in divorce. That number goes up 20 percent for law enforcement and fire fighters. Why? Conditions were just not met.

    We have played with this concept long enough. Next week I will show you a more excellent way.

  • Relationship Builder

    So you started the New Year a little on the rocks with your significant other and now they’re gone. One or both of you finally realized that it was time to move on.  Now it’s over.

    You tell yourself that you are better without them. You start tossing out reminders of him, like pictures, various articles of clothing, some gifts (of course not any diamonds) and you quickly change your Facebook status to single.

    You are left with unfulfilled expectations and anger.

    Typically what happens at this point is that you say you want to be alone and you remind yourself that the next person would only be a rebound, but not too soon afterward you are smothering the rebound.

    You begin to take those stored “unfulfilled expectations” and assign them to the new partner. You quickly find out that you are instantly attracted to anything that was the opposite of your ex. For example, if the guy you were with never opened the door for you, then all of a sudden that quality is escalated because of the past. If you were with a woman who really couldn’t cook too well, you’d be all over the woman who could provide you with the southern comfort of food.

    The danger is that whatever the new quality is that you are coveting may not have been a quality that mattered to you originally. It only became important when your previous relationship ended. This relational baggage makes ordinary qualities greater, thus confusing your judgment and actually making you “rush” the relationship and not even be able to recognize true love anymore. I have a friend on Facebook who a month ago was “in a relationship”, then two weeks ago she was single. One week later she was “in a relationship” again and I called to ask if it was with the same person and she was so excited to tell me about this new guy and how wonderful he was. As of today, they are engaged!

    Now I’m not saying that I don’t believe in love at first sight or any of the other fairytales given to us as children. I’m not saying that Hollywood’s boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again stories aren’t true. What I am saying is that these situations are as rare as hitting the lottery, becoming a professional athlete, becoming the next American Idol or winning an Olympic gold medal. Oh sure you have seen it happen before and you know that it’s possible, but the question here is: Are these scenarios probable?

    Before you try to “hook up” with another, you must first exam yourself. You can’t be “two” if you (or the other person) are not ones.

    We often enter relationships broken, wounded and with baggage. We have high expectations and are afraid to fully give of ourselves. How many times have you seen a relationship where a couple is together, and the guy hasn’t been working since they hooked up. Nine months into the relationship and the guy still hasn’t found ANY work. Before he entered that relationship, he should have mastered the whole job/car/house/independence thing before trying to connect with another. And what of the man who meets a woman who needs more than just a companion? This woman needs a caretaker, lawyer, doctor, sugar daddy and butler – and she’s not afraid to ask for it! Every phone call leads to her asking him to do something for her. She should have worked out all those needs in the beginning, before trying to start a relationship.

    Building a relationship should not be rocket science. It should start off with hesitation and anticipation. There should be long periods of talking and sharing (which is how you actually build the relationship) and a lot of patience.

    Only fools rush in.

  • Breaking up is hard to do

    Marriage has become big business – especially in the United States.

    Not only do we spend a fortune on daddy’s little girl’s special day, but the lawyers in the divorce settlement get to have their “special day,” too!

    On average, fifty percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce.

    The occupation you and your spouse choose may also have an effect on divorce statistics.

    If you are a clergyperson, the divorce rate dips to 20 percent (probably due to pressure from Protestant churches – most won’t accept a minister who is single).  But if you are in law enforcement, that number swells to 70 percent.

    But no matter where you fall on the divorce meter, divorce is still a traumatic event. Few husbands and wives consider the need for calm, rational thinking while making decisions that affect not only the adults, but impact the children, too.

    Many important decisions need to be made when a couple is considering divorce. But at some point, things often get so bad that one or both partners decide that they can’t stand to be around each other any longer – let alone conduct a rational discussion.

    What was once thought to be love has now turned into hate. here is no agreement on anything. There is no such thing as a compromise. And as a result, there is no peace in the household.

    Add kids to this volatile mix and now you have something very explosive.

    Like a drive-by shooting, I have seen a spouse use the kids as a shield to block insults or send them to the soon-to-be-ex in the form of an emotional bomb.

    Don’t be fooled. This isn’t a marriage anymore – it’s now a war!

    One couple I counseled was masterful at this.

    When the wife wanted to leave, the husband deflected her insults about men by telling their six-year-old son that when his mom made disparaging comments about men, she meant all men – including him!

    In another case, the wife sent her young daughter to her husband after he announced that he was leaving her because of her drinking problem. The daughter looked at her dad with those cute little brown eyes and said, “Daddy, why are you leaving us?”

    Breaking up is hard to do because you have to learn again how to talk to each other, be civil, and choose not to retaliate or play the tit-for-tat game.

    Plus you also have to consider the kids FIRST in everything.

    Divorce is like a war – but no matter who is left standing at the end, there is no winner. All sides lose – especially the kids.

    I’ve had to teach couples how to be cordial, how to react, how to avoid extra hurt for the kids and how to be fair.

    I have to remind them that their decisions shouldn’t have anything to do with the spouse and everything to do with the quality of person they are.

    We as humans tend to trade our good qualities for bad ones when we’re angry or emotionally upset.

    One might question if we really had the good qualities in the first place.

    A marriage and family therapist would be worth his/her weight in gold if couples were to start out with one for premarital counseling and then keep the therapist around for the first few years of the marriage.

    This is the answer to the divorce problem everywhere!

    Couples who divorce must learn how to compromise and how to give up “self” for the sake of the kids.

    Isn’t that interesting?

    If it’s possible that during divorce proceedings a couple can learn how to compromise and not be selfish, I wonder what would happen if they learned these things before they married?

    Maybe divorce attorneys would become an endangered species.

  • The Gospel of Love

    There is a lot of information written about love. If you type the word “love” into a Google search, 1.4 billion search results appear.

    I was reminded of a song when I graduated from high school entitled “What about love?” by the rock band Heart. The song is about a person who has been sending love to another and for some reason it’s not getting through. The person she is sending her love to is climbing the ladder of success and doing big things and she’s reminding him about love.

    The chorus says:
    What about love?
    Don’t you want someone to care about you?
    What about love?
    Don’t let it slip away.
    What about love?
    I only want to share it with you.

    Love expresses so many things about us – our needs, desires, wants and our vulnerability. This is a universal way that we can give a part of our essence to each other. Love, done the right way, is God’s greatest gift to mankind.

    What about love gone wrong?

    It’s hard to have a conversation about love and not talk about hate. It’s great and I thank God for free will and giving us a choice. The idea was as we learned better, we would do better.

    In one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs he says:
    So I’ve learned that love is not possession.
    And I’ve learned that love won’t wait.
    Now I’ve learned that love needs expression, but I’ve learned too late.

    I believe there are people in this world who need an enema in regards to their love. In other words their love is stopped up, trapped inside of them and they don’t know how to get it out.

    These hurt people, hurt people.

    Because of their hurt, they become damaged goods and they desire that everyone would feel hurt like they do. You may have met some of these people. Some of the best places to find them is at work and at church!

    You can tell they are hurt in the things they say, the way they look, how they dress and it’s even reflected in the number of true friends they have. Their love is constipated!

    There are three ways to fix constipation:
    1. Have someone unpack it for you. In the nursing business this is the quickest way to get it done. And they actually go up there and get it.
    2. Use medication. There are some really good products on the market that use all natural ingredients for this.
    3. Let it happen naturally. Your system will get so backed up that eventually it’s forced out (drink plenty of water with that one).

    Of course, I’m referring to a literal case of bowel obstruction, but for love the answers are on the same line of thinking.

    Let’s take the last one first.

    Method Number Three has a few drawbacks. For love to eventually build up and flow out will happen in a sea of tears. Unfortunately, by this time, the person who was trying to love you has given up. This third method describes a condition where circumstances have made this person break down to a very lowly state.

    Some people never recover from this.

    They become depressed and may succeed at suicide. A person in this state needs to feel the love immediately and know that their show of vulnerability is not an embarrassment, but an improvement.

    Method Number Two is just good old-fashioned therapy. We all need therapy from time to time – it’s not that we’re crazy. Occasionally, we need to take something that will help get us back on track. Good therapy does just that.

    Method Number One has to be performed by someone who has a very close relationship with the person whose love is constipated. This person has to reach in and grab it. That means the constipated person must be confronted in love regarding their attitude, behavior or actions. The person who cares enough to confront them must not give up and be willing to fight the good fight of faith and to believe that the relationship can survive. And it can, because love covers a multitude of sins!

    This is the “good news” of LOVE.

  • Sharing expectations

    I am working with a particular couple that can’t seem to communicate or understand each other very well. The guy thinks everything is fine and claims he has no idea why they are seeing me. The lady, on the other hand, is on the verge of leaving him because she feels their relationship is too robotic. She says her husband does things out of “obligation to the paper” (their marriage certificate) and not because of how he feels about her. She says he often jokes about marriage that she’s his ball and chain and not his loving wife that he admires.

    The problem here is three fold: One, this woman is not honest to her spouse about her feelings and expectations; two, she is hesitant to say how she really feels because of the possible rejection of him not feeling the same way; and three, her two basic psychological needs are not being met.

    Everyone has two basic psychological needs: We want to be loved and give love back and we want to have a sense of self worth and feel that someone else thinks the same thing – that we have value. We go through life searching in our relationships for these two basic needs. Psychotherapy attempts to put people on the path to achieve these two things. These two basic needs complete us as humans.

    The lesson this couple is learning is that honesty still is the best policy. Before entering holy matrimony the single most important commodity in a relationship is honesty with the ability to freely communicate with each other. A marriage and family therapist worth his weight will help engaged couples reach this point. After the fact, you just simple need a mediator (MFT) to facilitate confidential discussions with the couple to connect the line of communication. Once connected and the rules of engagement are explained (i.e. the importance of honesty, truthfulness spoken in love) then the couple will be well on their way to being free with one another and eventually – best friends.

    Are there things you have not told your spouse or mate? Have you been holding back because of fears of hurt feelings or retaliation? A failure to communicate works like cancer in the body. It spreads throughout and eventually affects everything. You start off holding back personal feelings and next you have secrets. Once secrets become commonplace, your partner can never be your “best” friend. At this point you are sacrificing intimacy for your personal hang ups – very bad practice.