OH MY GOODNESS...This is what I was thinking but could not say.

Also, I hope you don't get offended but I think your religion / beliefs prevent you from being happy in your marriage and in life in general. I say that because of what I have read in your thread.

Chris voiced what I was trying to say. When I was pushing religion on everyone and was very involved in it myself, trying to please God and the church, etc, I was terribly unhappy in my life. I am afraid to go and get involved in church now because of it. I am afraid if I get caught up in the "church thinkings" that I will lose the hard won life I have now and will start hating myself and others again like I did when I was a fanatic.

I went to church a few times this year and when I felt myself starting to get sucked in I quit going. I barely made it out alive! Whew. I dont need that mind numbing place "helping me make decisions about life" and causing me to become unhappy with myself and my husband. As if we are never GOOD enough.

and for men to love (agape) their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave His life for it...that's unconditional love...

the family is in essence a "mini Church"...just as Christ is head of the Church...the husband is the head of his family and the wife is to submit, but NOT as you'd probably define the word "submit"...Christianity isn't Islam, where women are regarded as second class citizens and even some forms of protestantism takes advantage of St. Paul's teaching of women...then again, one should understand the time period St. Paul was addressing and the fact that Pagans were being converted and bringing alot of extra baggage into the Christian Church of the first Century...

Ok, I'm done....

Yes - and MB says that romantic love has conditions (it's not UNconditional)...So your comment underscores my point.


I will comment and say that your explanation is exactly as I learned it in Cathoilic School & in Church over the years.

And Mr A ... Make no mistake - women ARE indeed second class citizens in most organized religions. I did a paper comparing Christianity to Islam fully expecting to prove that Christianity treats females better. After the research, I had no choice but to refute my original hypothesis.

The sad thing is that a "church/religion" addiction is a hard thing to face. But it could be as bad as any other addiction to your marriage and your life.

Porn addiction = Bad for marriage and relationships
Religious addiction = Bad for marriage and relationships

Anything can become an addiction. What scares me about religion and churches is that they encourage "turning off your thinking caps" and trusting the religion/church as being RIGHT.

Whenever you turn off your thinking cap for any length of time, by alcohol, drugs, or religion/church, you become a sheep. And that is not a good thing.

I concur Bubbles...

Hopefully Think isn't pissed off but I have been wanting to tell her this for a little while now.

The good thing about giving up a religious/church addiction is this. (from personal experiance)

When I faced my church addiction (God helped me see it) I was really humbled and shocked at what a blindness I had had toward myself and others. And how HOLY deep inside I felt as I SACRIFICED things in the name of religion all the time.

The more I gave up (money, my life, my relationships, my friendships with non Christians, etc) the more holy i felt way deep inside my corrupt spirit.

When I faced all this I began crying asking God to forgive me for using the church and religion as a crutch and feeling I was better than other people inside and outside the church. I was crying for days with this harsh, true relization of my real spiritual condition.

My life had been all about Bible Study, sacrifice, meetings, retreats, praying, punishing myself, keeping myself away from sinful people, no movies, alcohol, etc.

My life should have been about LOVE, and LOVING GOD and other people.

The change was amazing, I quit hiding behind religion and started living in the real world God gave us!

I felt alive and things became clear and focused and I could make decisions again. I was feeling much better. Those around me liked me better. I was no longer feeling bad or alone. I could actually have freinds apart from my meetings and the church. Those were not real friends anyway, I found out later.

So, this is just my experiance. I can tell you when you come out on the other side of this 'addiction, you will feel alot better about everything.

It's really weird how perspective can change things. Two people can look at a piece of artwork, for example, and react very differently.

I believe that there are a couple of reasons that Dr. Harley doesn't delve too much into religion in his books or even on this site. First, obviously he is going to have a wider audience and impact more marriages if he removes the stumbling block that religion often becomes. But I also think he understands that there are some thing that even he - as a marriage and counseling expert - should not have his "finger in," so to speak. For those who do not have any vested interest in faith or religion, it is more of a nuisance to a marriage sometimes. But to someone who believes in God, who believes the Bible, who has placed their faith in Jesus, it is part of who they are. To ask them to stop is like asking them to stop having eyes or stop having arms. If my DH walked in today and said, "I no longer believe in any God. Either renounce your faith or we will divorce," and he could not be dissuaded.....I guess I'd be heading over to the divorce forums. Becuase as much as I love my DH....my faith is for eternity. And that's just how it is. It is fine with me if other people don't view faith that way. Not everyone has to be like me (heaven help us!) But if it is true that the only way to have a "real" happy marriage is to cast aside my faith....then I guess I won't have a real marriage.

BTW, though H and I have both had our own faith struggles over the past 16 years, our relationship actually began as we served in our faith together.

Sorry to T/J, think, but lately I have felt I needed to be very careful not to mention God....even though Dr. Harley is a Christian. And though I would never proselytize or look down on anyone for not having my exact beliefs, I don't want to feel I have to apologize for that part of my life - or marriage - either.

My faith has been stronger once I got over my "religion/church" addiction. I love God more than I ever have. More than anything or anyone.

I was blind and now I see....

I just wanted to chime in on one thing about my perspective of religion. I am christian but NOT religious and I will give you one line that explains it all.

"Religion is about DOING the right things to get to heaven, Christianity is about believing in whats already been done."

Anyone can be religious about anything. You can watch TV religiously, you can play baseball religiously ... etc.

Sorry I didnt have much more to offer in regards to this thread, but felt a need to say what i said.

I'm stealing that quote, Mr. Nice guy.

Awesome! I made it myself. I dont go to church very often ... only if god presses it on my heart to go. I go where god wants me to go and thats not always to church (hardly ever actually). Its like the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when your driving down the road and see a hitch hiker ... sometiems you get a gut rotting feeling you should have pulled over ... other times .. nothing. When you get that gut rotting feeling over a decision ... the gut rotting feeling is the right choice usually, we just ignore gods promting more often than not when your not in tune with it because its uncomfotable. But if god brings you to it .. god gets you though it. I am getting better at hearing what god wants from me and last few years it was to work on my marriage it just so happenend to work out that each time god wanted me in church .. the sermon each of those times was what my wife and i needed to hear that particular day.

I like it

Mr. Nice Guy, that's an awesome way to put that!

Bubbles (and Chris and others),

That really is something to think about. I agree that anything taken in extreme can be unhealthy. And I like that quote too, MNG.

I'm not so sure it applies to me currently. There have definitely been periods in my life when I've been a bit unbalanced in that area. But I'm pretty much only at church on Sunday, and not every Sunday, either. I'm pretty average when it comes to my involvement . . . well, maybe slightly more involved than most, since most are pew potatoes. With 3 kids, I've had to change my life a lot in this area.

To say I am interested in philosphy, theology, political science, psychology, and how they all interplay would be an accurate statement. I've been interested in matters of faith and spirituality since I was 3. But it's not as if I spend all my free time reading books on the subjects. Far from it. But these things are most definitely my passion, and without people in this world who have this as a passion (or art, or music, or science, or anything else for that matter) then the world would be a pretty boring place. I'm OK with having this passion. It is a part of who I am. Just as writing games and painting is part of who my husband is. We each have a creative, spiritual side, we just express it differently. If I focus on how both of our passions have a few similarities, I am much happier about the differences.

I think about Glenn Beck. He eats, sleeps and breathes political and religious philosophyt. His wife has absolutely no interest at all. And yet they have an incredible marriage because of these differences. They each provide balance to each other, he says. He talks about how she actually KEEPS him from getting so wrapped up in his passion that he loses himself in it. So it is very possible.

THAT is intimacy. Being able to appreciate each other's differences, being true to who I am, him being true to who he is, and being able to accept and love each other because we can begin to see ourselves in them and vice versa. I think I have mentioned this before, but the vow that I said on my wedding day was "I promise to be true to you." To be myself, ideally to be the best version of myself. That includes all my passions, my "dark side," my dreams, my hopes, my fears. That's what he promised too. And we are most definitely honoring that promise. We don't always LIKE each other's true self, but liking isn't necessary for acceptance or intimacy. And sometimes, we DO like each other's true self, we just sometimes both wish that we weren't married to it

I get what everyone is saying about religion. I think that's why I like my 12 step program so much, and why I say that the principles embodied in that program (which is so much more than just 12 steps, and far more than I could go into here) are my first guidance in my life. It is a "spiritual" program, not religious. If I do not feed my spiritual self, I'm like a walking corpse and no good to anyone . . . trust me, I have tried to starve that part of myself before and it was not pretty. That is the place I was in when I dated and got engaged to my husband. Sad, but true. I know who I am and what I need more than anything, and spiritual growth is at the top of the list.

Anyone else seeing what I am seeing?

I'll cop to that DJ

I think I get what you're saying, think. POJA'ing my beliefs would be like POJA'ing my bipolar disorder. I mean, I can modify the activities that I participate in to display or live out that faith. But the faith itself....is sacred (no pun intended). I would not dream of telling DH to stop solving riddles - whether it be geneology or puzzles or even a couple of those goofy fb games. And I ask about them and woot for him when he finds "the treasure." But they are my thing. He appreciates my writing and my weird humor, but he doesn't necessarily want to hear about everything Kelly and Mike are going through or my latest amazing pun. As long as we are getting UA time outside these activities, I feel fine about it.

I have a couple of friends who are atheists. We mutually like and respect each other, and we have great conversation. The reason this works is because - even though we don't agree - we do not see our goal as convincing each other that they are wrong and we are right. It's one of those social nuances that we just get about each other.

It wasn't the DJ of the couch potatoes that I was seeing. In fact you can DJ people all you like. It's only your spouse who gets extraordinary care as Dr. H put it.

I realize people ehere get that twisted though...

I'm a bit obtuse sometimes Chris. Can you just come right out and say what you ARE seeing?

I'll analyze it a bit myself and see if I can see what you are seeing?

Maybe that I'm willing to change my life for my kids, but not my husband? That is worth thinking about . . . although I could just as easily say that the changes I've made in that area of my life were just as much for my marriage as it was for my kids. It was for the whole family, me included, too.

That I'm more involved that most people? Many people who attend my church are not even registered parishioners. Most only come once a month, are there from a sense of duty rather than desire. I applaud that they are there at all, but yeah, I'm definitely more involved than that

I think a little bit of involvement is good and healthy for growing a faith life; there is no such thing as a "lone Christian." Christianity is about community.

Perhaps some people are "addicted" to marriage?

I think we need to be careful because we can turn anything, even marriage, even a religious faith, into a God. That's why the first commandment "You shall have no other Gods before me" is first.