Whatever you want in marriage… Part 2

Whatever you want in marriage Part 2

This is the second part to this post. The first is available here

Imagine for a minute that your chosen partner is not great at communication, and is not open to improving. So they might even refuse to listen to your own sexual needs and desires. Would that not cause frustration? At first, they might try to listen or pretend to listen, but then as time goes on…. And then this would be the same for any other character defect. So why not make the effort to choose someone who has excellent character to start with?!

However, if you were to go straight for the sex itself, if you were to jump straight into bed with someone without giving yourself time to get to know them, then you might deprive yourself of the chance to assess all these characteristics in your chosen partner. So ultimately, where you had cultivated different dreams, you might find yourself flung by the wayside by your chosen partner. Or you might find yourself having to do the dumping, as certain aspects of their character come to light, which you find that you just cannot live with.

“Well that’s fine Tosin!” you say “It’s just the sex I want. I don’t particularly want or need to be with the same partner!” So what, you think you’re going to get increasingly attractive to the opposite sex as you get older and your body gets more droopy? Or perhaps you think that possibly having an assortment of children from various previous short-term or casual relationships might give you the pick of attractive and eligible singles? Yes, celebrities and millionaires might be able to get away with this. However, with the amount of work needed to become either of these, if you are not already working towards these then I’d say that you’ve probably left it too late! To me it sincerely feels a lot easier to invest the time and effort into cultivating a single great relationship, with a greater, more predictable chance of success than aspiring to become a celebrity or a millionaire.

Why I’m targeting sex: the reason I am focusing so heavily on sex in this post is because I know that in a way it is human nature to go straight for that; in a way it is counter-intuitive to focus on friendship if you are yearning for passion. However, whenever I see people who are going straight for the sex, I think to myself that they cannot really like sex. What they really like must be long periods of loneliness punctuated by short seasons of passion, which turn out to be ultimately unfulfilling, where they might feel lonely even during the passion itself. Is this why so many people forget the name of their previous sexual partners? If the passion and intimacy you shared was (so) amazing, would you not remember their names, especially if you knew that this was something important to you? I also greatly suspect that people who go straight for sex must secretly love the idea of fighting with previous partners over child-support payments.
If you really wanted earth-shattering passion on a long-term basis, then please trust me on this. You would be going about your relationship in the same way I am. Yes you would!

Pre-marital sex
Perhaps it is necessary to write a blog post explicitly about pre-marital sex. However, here I am going to touch on the subject a little by writing out a few reasons why I believe it is helpful to refrain from sex altogether before marriage, even if sex is one of your big goals for marriage and/or life. Admittedly, I am a Christian, so I would say this!

This is what I sincerely think. Even where people are not Christians or they observe no faith at all of any description, most people accept that sexual infidelity is destructive to marriages or relationships. Many relationships do manage to recover and move on after sexual infidelity from one party or the other, or both. However, many relationships do still break up. So here is my thinking: If this thing is going to be destructive, a potential deal-breaker once you are married, then in a way does it not make sense that each time you do it before marriage will potentially take away something from your eventual marriage, make your eventual marriage less special? If you are going to be freely having sex in your relationships before marriage, then what tangibly makes your marriage different from your previous relationships? To me, it seems as if your marriage is just another one in a succession of relationships where you have done exactly the same things and acted as if you were married with each one of these partners: lived together, slept together, shared finances, acted as if you were committed to them for life; the fact of actually getting married in a way feels like a technicality. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why people seem to hop in and out of marriages, because ultimately there is nothing truly substantial to distinguish a marriage from any other of the relationships which might have preceded it in someone’s life, so there is no substantial reason why it should not be broken just as easily as those other relationships were broken.

“Yes Tosin, but in this relationship we are actually committed for life!” Yes but in those other relationships you also acted as if you were committed for life, spoke the language of commitment, sometimes to the extent of conceiving children. Or can anyone sincerely deny that this is the way people generally seem to behave regarding relationships?

Christians talk a lot about the sanctity, or sacredness, of sex. Here are a couple of reasons why sex is sacred: firstly because it is a spirit-to-spirit connection, so it mimics the unity and the intimacy which exists within the Holy Trinity, between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Secondly, sex is the platform through which children are conceived, and human conception is sacred because human beings, including human children, are made in the image of God. Because of this the way children are brought into the world should be holy and pure and full of light and reverence, and respectful. Let’s say you don’t believe this, because you don’t believe in God. However, the following must surely make sense: If you plan to treat your future children with dignity, respect and love, would you not make sure you chose for them the best parent possible? Would you not give them the honour of being born into an environment that would best ensure their emotional stability and future success? Well the kind of casual relationship that ensues when you throw yourself into bed with someone is not that best environment. That best environment is a committed, stable loving relationship, known throughout human history as marriage! The best way to choose a great parent for your child is to actually choose a great parent, and invest time into making sure that they truly would be great, rather than to throw yourself into bed with someone who simply appears to be sexy.

Bible Verses:
Proverbs 5v15:
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.

Continued
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PHOTO CREDITS
Photo of Pomegranate by Stux on Pixabay
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