David Scharch is a therapist who combines marital and sexual therapy. He has very interesting observations and calls his method of therapy the sexual crucible approach. From his book,
Passionate Marriage, the first chapter, Nobody is Ready for Marriage--Marriage Makes You Ready for Marriage:<p>The poorly understood processes of emotionally committed relationships give rise to a common pessimistic view that marriage inevitably kills sex and romance......<p>My work with couples suggests something entirely different: marriage doesn't kill love, intimacy, or sex--it just looks like that at some points along the way. If you use your marriage in a particular way (which I'll illustrate throughout this book), it makes you more capable of keeping these alive in a long-term relationship.<p>Marriage is often like Procrustes' famous code of hospitality. Procustes built a bed for his guests the same way we build a marriage: according to his own expectations. Shorter visitors were stretched to fit; taller folks were surgically shortened. Likewise, your spouse will try to change you into what he or she thinks you should be, just as you have fine-tuning in mind for your partner. ..... Marriage is the procrustean bed in which we can develop and enhance our psychological and ethical integrity. It can be the cradle of adult development.<p>This is partly why my approach to therapy is known as the
sexual crucible approach. The name describes how it often feels when marriage's classroom is in session. What's an example of a crucible in marriage? How about the fact that
your spouse can always force you to choose between keeping your integrity and staying married, between "holding onto yourself" and holding onto your partner. These integrity issues often surface around sex and intimacy--about what the two of you will and won't do together. They can just as easily arise over issues about money, parenting, in-laws, and lifestyle. The more emotionally enmeshed you and your spouse are--
fused in my lingo--the more you will push this choice right down to the wire. Stay in the marriage or get divorced. The key is not to lose your nerve or get overreactive or locked into an inflexible position. I know that's tough when you think your marriage is about to explode--or you're about to sell out your beliefs, preferences, or dreams. But it's actually part of the people-growing process in marriage.<p>When you're oblivious to ways marriage can operate as a people-growing process, all you see are problems and pathology--and the challenges of marriage will probably defeat you. Your pain will have no meaning except failure and disappointment; no richness, no soul. Spirituality is an attitude that reveals life's meaning through everyday experience; however, don't bother looking for sanctuary in your marriage. Seeking protection from its pains and pleasures misses its purpose:
marriage prepares us to live and love on life's terms.<p>Facing relationship realities like these produces the personal integrity necessary for intimacy, eroticism, and a lifetime loving marriage. How is integrity relevant to marriage? Integrity is the ability to face the realities I just mentioned. It's living according to your own values and beliefs in the face of opposition. It is also the ability to change your values, beliefs, and behavior when your well-considered judgment or concern for others dictates it. Putting your partner's goals on a par with your own and delaying your agenda accordingly takes (and makes) integrity.<p>[ March 14, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>
