Kings and I had zero marriage counseling on the way to what was quite a shotgun union, so periodically I like to attend marriage courses or do temperature checks…
Sacred Influence (by Gary Thomas):
What a Man Needs from His Wife to Be the Husband She Wants
Sex.
What, like it’s hard?
Fine, Mr Thomas had more and the seminar is available here. And he says it a lot better than me too. But then he’s a best-selling author with his own website.
In The Eye (Asian horror version or Jessica Alba remake version), this blind girl has a cornea transplant from an unknown donor. She can see again. She can see what her grownup self looks like in the mirror. Hurrah.
Formerly blind girl then drops off a roll of film for processing. As she looks thru the prints she thinks they’ve given her someone else’s pictures, she doesn’t see herself in them. Her friends are all in the pics – But Where Is She?¬
She realizes all along she has been seeing the image of the dead girl donor in the mirror, not her own image, through the dead girl’s eyes. She discovers this only when she sees herself in pictures for the first time.
It’s fiction, it’s horror, but I love the illustration of how completely different something can look thru another’s eyes (and how blind (sorry) they can be about it). Like looking through rose-colored corneas. Creepy dead-girl lenses.
We’re reminded in the seminar that our perception will matter a lot in how we deal with our other half. Did we forget how happy we were with their good bits just because we now only see the bad bits?
1. Wives, satisfy your husbands. Dress for them (not to impress other women which you can do on your girlie lunches at Nicholini’s), dress like you did when you were still dating. You’ll be able to engage him more, emotionally.
2. Husbands, be emotionally available. You’ll get more sex.
(And don’t forget the flowers.)
She dress hot. You treat her hot.
Men don’t get excuses for cheating or watching porn (I guess women wouldn’t either). One reason for keeping sex sacred is because men get more motivated to sort the relationship out.
Yes, that includes talking to you about their <ahem> feelings.
(Remember men, you’ll get sex.)
This totally breaks down when you can buy sex. Or access it with a click of your mouse.
I seriously had an “OOHhhh. Is that whyyyy,” moment. I was otherwise an (albeit rather guilty for being so) impassive observer as others talked about the evils of prostitution and pornography.
So I really don’t know where people got the idea Christian writers are fuddy-duddy and uncool. I still find it really hard to shake the impression they’re all fuddy-duddy and uncool. The whole time I’m listening to Gary Thomas (who mentions he once thought he was least likely to remain a virgin, he had so many girlfriends) I’m just going “How come this guy isn’t fuddy-duddy and uncool?”
I mean, he’s not “Greek God” either, but well I never expected him to be.
Oh, and he mentions his friends are just teasing the hell out of him with the whole “Sacred” set of books thing…
“I think I’ll have the Sacred Burger.”
“Oh Gary, I have to go to the Sacred Bathroom.”
He sounds like a normal guy. And I, supposedly also Christian, am also mildly surprised. Where did we learn to be that way?
“When the church teaches a glum faith of responsibility, devoid of joy……..when people of faith speak as though they are anti-sex, anti-humor, anti-fun, anti-anything-that-brings-pleasure, we risk fostering the kind of devotion that the Bible shockingly and without reservation rejects.” – Gary Thomas
Then there was the excessive porn user’s testimony someone mentions, where he said his concept of beauty had been so colored by bunnies with the fake boobs he could no longer perform for his wife.
I can’t imagine many husbands wanting to watch pornography after hearing that. It’s all a point of view, isn’t it? “My wife doesn’t turn me on” is also “I can’t satisfy my wife”.
We don’t hear it for all the “cool” tv out there. I enjoy a little Gossip Girls and Dexter, but I once refused myself Desperate Housewives because I thought it was de-sensitizing – when I was just getting married, I thought it would make me think cheating was more ok than it was <sheepish>.
I…. just didn’t want to have my perception changed. This from someone who never used to want to get married, just in case I wanted out. (That from having had people I love trapped in destructive relationships.) If I thought I wasn’t the kind whose idea of marriage and fidelity could be altered by what I saw from too much tv, I would watch, no problem. But knowing my original attitude to marriage, I didn’t want to risk it.
So if you’re a more mature adult about this than I am, go OD on DH this weekend. My mum certainly does 😀
But at the end of the day, I didn’t want my own enjoyment of what we have to be tampered with – I don’t think Kings and I are the coolest people, but we’re probably not the absolute nerdiest, loser-est either. I don’t want to watch stuff that makes me think that other way is cool and sexy.
Yet I’m glad Mr Thomas also defends cheaters a little. No excuse for cheating sure, but then he also helps you understand cheaters could have been driven into the arms of another person. We as Christians should never get to judge which sins are “worse” than others.
And above all, the most lasting image stuck in my head was when in his encounter with 9-11 widows Mr Thomas mentioned how one of them had said she would give anything to come home and find the toilet seat left up.
