Nuggets from Neck on The Marriage Relationship

[Neck]

(Note from Renda - these nuggets were posted in the other thread and I realize many aren't interested in reading that thread, however, these posts are too good to be missed.)



The conversation being discussed on this thread.

Is one of or if not the most personal and defining intimate conversation between husband and wife or wife and husband.

While working in sales over the years, I have heard it all.

Men bragging and just talking about all sorts of adventures with their wives, girlfriends and extra marriage experiences.

In all of those years, I have wondered why these men talk so freely about these things?

Are they bragging? Are they missing the boat? Are they wanting to justify themselves?

To me it is a form of intimacy cheating on their spouse.

Relations with a spouse are personal, honest, pure, loving, mutual, caring, respectful, spiritual (in a non salvational sense), memorable and the last mile of intimacy.

Way to many people invite their extended family, friends and others into this intimacy.

This place of intimacy is one that no other individual should ever have an open door.

Long before 2 people cheat in the act.

They cheat in the doorway of adultery.

These men and woman share these intimate thouughts, desires etc.

With others because they do not have a pure intimacy with their spouse.

I would not share with anyone on this forum what I am against or for in my marriage.

What I do know is an abomination in the eyes of God in my marriage.

Is acting outside my marriage and intimacy bond.

My wife has also heard it all from her friends over the years.

This bond needs to built on the trust of ultimate intimacy....

[Neck]

Originally Posted by George

Thank you for this post! Really, this thread needs to stop. It is a very intimate subject that is really nobody's business except the married man and his wife. They alone decide what happens in their bed. If the wife agrees to AS and the husband OS or vice versa, that is their perogative. It is none of my business if they do or don't. God doesn't care either. As long as that married couple is in agreement it is none of our business.

It sounds to me as if someone is trying to prove a point to shove in their spouse's face to get what they want and this is not the way to do it. If your spouse says, "No," respect their wishes. Intimate actions must be in agreement.

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I agree.

If I were to counsel couples before they were to marry.

I would ask them to talk intimately about.

More than..... at what table each friend and family member would sit at.

I would share that they need to talk about money, workload and intimate relations.

I do not know about anyone else on this thread.

I am 44 and have been married in Dec 22 years.

So this coming March marks me being married half of my still young life.

I remember sitting and talking with my girlfriend and asking many things about her dreams and hopes.

I also asked her for the OK to talk about intimate things.

We went into engagement and marriage with intimate understandings.

These understandings were not contractual or devisive.

They were understandings of protection and behavior to have us bond together in both spirit and body.

So there were no hidden agenda's or hidden fetish.

If we were going to change as many ended marriages end because someone has changed.

We were going to change with each other.

While growing up in the church atmosphere that I did as a child.

I saw many a men teating their closest human contact in their adult life as if they were a machine and not a mutual intimate bond.

What I see as confusion in many marriages and intimacy even in the church today.

Is summed up in selfishness, control, fear, stress, and anxiety.

This leads to stress in a relationship.

How many ladies on this thread.

Start to feel stress as the days of the week start to tick towards Saturday morning.

When a relationship is pure and intimacy is true.

These moments are not dreaded or avoided.

They are shared, intimate and loving.

I did not need to read any self help books to understand intimacy.

I started out with a conversation with my girlfriend.

From there we made our mistakes in life and we made them together.

In the past 22 years we have laughed, cried, worried, prayed, loved and (wow) stayed together.

What I see today in society are acts being acted out.

Without the bonds of love and intimacy.

Anyone want to better thier intimate life start with a conversation.

Use that same example into your relationship with Chrsit and have more conversations with him.

[Neck]

Originally Posted by ILG

I am really going to go to bed to sleep after this! I am never up this late!!

I'm not talking about the natural drive differences. If a person does not have respect towards their spouse....in reasonable frequency...in what is done in private....but feels a need to constantly pressure something that is not desired by the other....I would suspecy a sexual addiction. Because this person is not using sex as a means to more intimacy. The sex act is actually causing less intimacy and driving the couple apart.

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The addictive behavior is a quest for true intimacy.

Intimacy will not be found ever solely in an act.

Intimacy is pure, honest, loving and without selfish motives.

Fullfilment comes in a union of peace, love and unity.

Many pursue the next act to try and restore intimacy and unity.

Intimacy is found in a full relationship before the act, during the act and after the act.

All the talk on this thread about this act, that act, these facts, those facts only avoid the relationship that should exist outside the act.

Move away from the act and look at the motive.

If there is true beauty or poetry in tendor intimacy.

It will not intimidate, frustrate, or denigrate it will illuminate and elevate.

She is not an object to be pandered at my will.

She is the desire of heart, before she is the desire of my desires.

We all have a love story, many have just forgotten that their are 2 characters in the story.

[Neck]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Great post, Neck. You've really had some good thoughts on this thread. I especially like the part above.

MissBrattified...

Thanks.

If I could have 5 minutes to review a person's credit report.

Or sit in the back seat of a couples car.

I could conclude their relationship with Christ.

How one spends their money or treats the private time with their spouse.

Is the measure of their spiritual realtionshiop with Christ.

I watch some of my friends and how they tear each other apart.

They constantly battle for position.

I was reminded of power, watching George W Bush and Barak Obama walking the outside walkway at the White house the other day.

I played it in slow motion.

At each turn in the walk, Bush moved out in front, then at the next turn Obama moved out in front.

Each step was a step for power.

Just like the little second graders who try and make the door of the bus first.

Then they both try and force their way into the last seat on the bus.

What they don't realize is that the rest of their lives they will look for the parking spot at the front of the line at the mall.

Perspective changes but the pursuit always lingers.

Loving someone and caring about someone is not surrendering.

It is about being at the top of the hill or in the valley together...

[Neck]

Originally Posted by George

I am calling my pastor tomorrow and telling him he needs to hire you for all premarital counseling!

WOW! Another excellent post, Neck. So many good lines in this one post! I'm particularly drawn to the last sentence I put in bold print. Too many have strayed from the desire of heart and pursued selfish desires.

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The interesting thing about my thoughts.

They were not read in Men are from Mars, Woman are from venus.

They have been lived and cherished in my personal relationship with my wife and mother of my children..

I do not define my relationship with my wife or my wife as a battlefield that is summed up by conquest.

It is defined by mutual respect, understanding, forgiveness, and trust.

I remember asking my girlfriend a question.

A question that was asked even before... will you marry me?

I simply asked her... Will you be the mother of my Children?

It was not about marriage where so many view marriage as a contract.

It was asking for a bond that would bring us together for the rest of our lives.

With that as a starting point and not just birthdates in time.

We often find ourselves remembering together that conversation.

I have always taken my wife back to these private and intimate moments.

They put a pure perspective on our busy lives.

We made a committment to each other.

The problem with so many couples they make a committment without building the relationship or safe guards to protect the relationship.

Why do so many people call sex making Love.

Sex does not make love, It expresses Love!

When expressing Love you do not act Love.

Here is a poem that I wrote in 2003.

It has been published....

Scent of Love


There is beauty in the forest;
When the tree's are grown and fare.
There is beauty in the meadows;
When wild flowers scent the air.
There is beauty in the sun-light.
Those Soft blue beams above;
Oh! The world is full of beauty;
When for you my heart is full of Love!


Copyright ©2003 Nathan Alan Eckstadt

[Neck]

Originally Posted by George

And you speak for thousands of Pentecostal girls. It is a shame the parents shy away from talking about sex with their children.

The problem with Christian parents. They find it odd talking about sex.

I did not talk to either of my sons just about sex.

I talked to them about intimacy in relationships.

I shared with them as part of the intimacy a man and a woman will come together.

In this union and experience comes great responsibility.

The need to protect the heart, emotions and the future of the person you are with and yourself.

I shared with them sex is not just an act it is the ultimate expression of love.

Many feelings are part of love.

Desire, chemistry, emotion and intimacy.

We all felt many of these expressions at a very young age.

To many people "Love" the act and not the person they are with.....

As for me I chose to love the person.....

[Neck]

Originally Posted by George

After 30 + years of marriage, you don't have to convince me that sex is a pertinent subject for couples. The bottom line is the decision is between the married couple and they don't need the opinions of people on this forum who are saying, "No, it's a sin," or "It's ok." That is a decision they have to make. If they are living in fear of having adventurous sex with their partner, they need to get therapy.

You and I may think it is senseless for a couple to live in fear of violating a sacred creed if they have OS or AS, but there are others on this forum who are saying it is wrong. This leaves the scared couple confused and we are not really helping them. They need to seek a licensed therapist. It is not any of the preacher's business to direct anyone's sex life provided it is within the bonds of marriage. Bottom line - the marriage bed is a free place providing the couple are in agreement. It is nobody elses business.

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I agree it is about agreement.

A couples bed is only undefiled if their relationship is undefiled.

You can't be at odds in every other area of your life and expect your partner to then submit to grandeur.

You first have to be a union in relationship before you can share perfect peace in intimate union.

[Neck]

Originally Posted by Esther

I don't think so if you are BOTH in agreement. I think that is what the Bible stated, is that you both give of yourself to each other.

I think Neck has made the best post on this thread, about it being first about relationship. That brings the quality you are searching for. IMO

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Most of the married men who are addicted to sexual content of anykind.

Fall prey to these lust because they have not built a relationship of love and intimacy with any of their past partners.

I have a greater desire to take my personal intimacy with my wife to a higher level.

That is what seperates me from those who have sex with an "IP" address.

I do not need scriptures, laws, prenup agreements to keep me from pursuing other desires.

I spend my time pursing the intimacy and fullfilment that comes only with honest and pure intimacy with my wife.

Without this intimacy, so many ladies resent their husbands.

So many men resent their wives.

It is why sex to them will never reach to fullfillment in their lives.

They are on the wrong road of pursuit.

We are not to pursue sex but to pursue love......

[Neck]

Originally Posted by Rhoni

Neck,

Thank you. It is refreshing that a man know the difference between lust, sex, and intimacy. I am sure your wife appreciates you very much.

Blessings, Rhoni

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Thanks Rhoni, I have a mutual admiration for her as well.

It transends accomplishments, money, or status.

Most men have it wrong.

They want to earn respect by earning money.

They want to gain respect by authority.

You do not earn respect by actions of responsibility.

You do not gain respect by dominance.

In the christian experience today that is how church authority is often executed.

A man will gain all he needs by love, listhening, caring, showing respect.

The true measue of a leader is to measure up first....

I do not have a daughter.

But what I can tell you for the most part.

Most men would not welcome a man that would treat their daughter the way they treat their daughters mother.

I had a man tell me as a joke once.

"I like my wife chained to the headboard, with just enough slack to make it to the kitchen".

The thing that made me laugh at his joke.

That is exactly how he treated his wife....

Expressing love to your wife does not start in the bedroom.

It is expressed in everthing you do.....

[Neck]

Originally Posted by aak1972

Dont really have one. I am just saying we need a history and theological genuis to tell us what dirty was when this scripture was written.

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If you are dominating your spouse for self gratification that is defiling your spouse.

If you engage in mutual expression and invested the time and sensitivity of intimacy.

You will find the top of the hill.

If you walk away and feel empty or you feel anxiety.

Then you know you have not gained the freedom of expression with your spouse.

Because you have not expressed deep love before engaging in physical expression.

Physical expression to me has always had boundries because of the lack of intimate expression and spiritual expression.

The ultimate expression in our body, soul and spirit as designed by our maker.

The physical expression with our spouse should capture the expression of our soul, spirit and body.

In the sex charged world we live in today.

Expression starts with physical.

Many of these physical expression's never reach soul and spirit.

When a man and woman join together in a union of marriage.

They should begin to join each other in this order.... Soul, Spirit and then body.

To many young couples don't make it past the first night.

Because the man wants to start with body.

The woman is dazed by the day and is looking to connect in sould and spirit.

I iwill share one thing that I made very clear to my wife on our wedding day.

Our wedding day is going to be filled with the memories of our coming together.

It will be remembered for the laughs and great times with our friends and family.

We agreed that the "big" night most couples feel pure pressure to complete.

Was appointed for another day.

After we had reflection and plenty of good old fashion rest.....