How BDSM Broke the Church Officials-Not a love story

As I sometimes do, let me start at the end of the story and then show how I got there.

The end of the story: I was not only fired from being a pastor, I had my license terminated, my career all but snuffed out, and barred from attending any of their churches unless I made a public confession of my sins.

Officially, they were removing me from all my duties present and future because I refused to attend any of the Christian and Missionary Alliance churches.

I had told them, in writing, that I would not attend any of their churches until they made some changes.

I iterated that I would not attend “unless and until the denomination came clean on their involvement with the cover-up of Ravi Zacharias’ crimes, AND renounced christian nationalism AND renounced Donald Trump.”

They had no intention of doing any of those things, and so I have not attended any of their churches since. So their official reason for blackballing me was my refusal to attend.

It was a clean severing, and it was easy to make. It was much easier to do that than to explain the real reasons. If they had gone into the real reasons, it would have been messy and painful for them as well as for me.

They hated the changes in my doctrine, which became many.

They hated how I would not stop talking about their cover-up of Ravi Zacharias’ crimes.

They hated how I would not submit to their authority.

But maybe more than anything, they hated how I supported LGBTQIA+ people. They were confused and bitter about how sex positive I had been for years. I openly taught that all sexuality was good except sex that was illegal, non-consensual, or involving people with more power seducing people with less power.

But, in this article, let me tell you about one of those elements of sex positivity that thoroughly disgusted them and delighted me at their disgust.

For years, I had been a thorn in the side of leaders of the denomination with my insistence on being sex positive. At the same time, pastors, pastor’s wives, and other church leaders sought me out for therapy on sexual issues. One area they wanted instruction and direction was in the area of BDSM. BDSM is about using practices of domination and submission, pain and pleasure, role-playing and costumes. In short, BDSM adds spice to a sexual relationship. It is also focused on many fetishes and kinks. In my therapy practice, I have become very knowledgeable in most variations of kink. The denomination apparently was unaware of how many of their leaders talked to me about it. I was not going to reveal it to them either.

I am, after all is said and done, a therapist. Pastoring became more of my hobby than my calling. As a therapist, I am bound by HIPAA regulations that will not allow me to disclose personal information about clients without their consent.

In the process that led to my blackball, a group of people from one church spied on my Twitter account. They compiled page after page of tweets I had made about anything to do with sexuality. These were not hard to find. I tweet a lot about sex because people need accurate and safe information about sex.

They sent this collection of out of context tweets to my district superintendent. He convened a panel of three national leaders of the denomination due to my notoriety. They spent two months grilling me on every tweet I had sent expounding on sex positivity. To their minds, they had done a ‘gotcha’ on me. They wanted me to know they found me to be morally repugnant and in need of a verbal spanking.

Spanking had a lot to do with their objections to me actually. So did bondage and torture, St. Andrew’s crosses, and dominatrixes in leather outfits.

They hated that I liked kink and wrote about it.

They sent email after email demanding I explain the terms used in my tweets. You might have suspected they had a prurient personal interest in the subject. They were THAT interested.

Like most christians, they approached sexuality from the repressive angle. Repression is the act of subduing or denying sex as a basic human need so that any thoughts about sex and any actions about sex are expressed only through the unconscious. Or, in the case of many evangelicals, expressed only in particular types of marital sex. To their minds, this did not include kinky sex.

They pointed out to me that the “S” in BDSM could stand for Sadism, which they considered evil by its association with the Marquis de Sade. I remarked that they were about a half century behind the times. The “S” could also stand for submission or slave. That’s when I decided to get theological with them (I do have a theology degree after all).

The bible is big on submission; submission to god, submission to one another in the church, submission to the elders or deacons, submission to the governing authorities, wives submitting to husbands, couples submitting to each other. One would think that the concept of submission would get their genitals all in a tizzy. It did not. At least, they didn’t like the idea of submission being applied differently than a church-sanctioned way.

I also pointed out that the Apostle Paul, a supposed author of half the christian scriptures, described himself as a slave of christ. He also describes himself as a slave to his gentile friends on behalf of christ. In addition, he didn’t have any problem with telling actual slaves to be good slaves and to obey their masters. In short, the bible is quite fond of the master/slave dynamic.

“But” they pointed out to me, “you are taking all those things out of their context and applying them to sexuality.” I don’t think I am. The context of most teaching in the bible is patriarchal, meaning that built into all sexuality is the concept of a man being the master over a woman. This is also true in biblical ideas about sex. Please note: I am NOT patriarchal, and I hate all of the tenets of the patriarchy. I just made this argument to them because they could understand it. Then I went further.

I pointed out that Hebrews 13:4 where it says “Marriage is to be respected among all and the marital coitus to be undefiled.” It’s a difficult verse to translate into English because there are no verbs at all in the verse. And really, there are no verbs that can be borrowed from nearby verses either–which is the other way of finding a common verb. In essence, the writer of Hebrews is saying that marriage is a respectful institution. And as such, the sex that two people in marriage have should not be defiled.

What did the ancients considered defilement? It wasn’t BDSM or any equivalent. It was adultery, plain and simple. In other words, the writer here is saying, “These married people are doing something worthy of respect and no one should interfere from the outside in their fucking around.” Yep. That’s what it says. We get the word “coitus”, meaning good old fucking, from this greek word sometimes translated “marriage bed.”

The ancients knew that most people like sex. The writer here is saying that if you are going to be married and have sex, keep it among yourselves and don’t stray. Pretty clear teaching. It also implied, I believe, that whatever the two of them do is fine if it’s consensual.

Now, why did I bring that up to them? I pointed out that in most surveys, the majority of people who practiced BDSM do so in the marriage relationship. Role-playing, bondage and impact play, toys, mind games, etc. are done in marriages. They are done in christian marriages. They are done in the marriages of christian leaders.

I know this, because I counseled many of them to do it with an eye toward SSC (Safe, Sane, and Consensual) behavior. For instance, I taught them where they could safely use a flogger and where a crop could do permanent damage.

The leaders who were examining me were horrified. I’m not sure what they were horrified about. That their colleagues enjoyed kink? That I would counsel people on how to do it? That upwards of 70% of adults have tried BDSM in the past year? That this 70% includes christians?

Their horror pointed out one more of the many instances where sexual repression is harming church people. Next week, we will dive into the harmful effects of sexual repression.

Now we’re back to the end of the story.

The kink is no longer a pastor.

Selah.

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Why ‘Amatonormativity’ is a Word You Should Know

Willa Cather was the world renowned author of “O Pioneers”. Edith Lewis was editor of several of New York’s better known publications. Over time, Lewis also edited all of Cather’s work. Eventually, the two of them moved in together. The world assumed they were two writers functioning as each other’s muses. In reality, though they hid this from many people, they were also lifelong lovers. But two became three. Later in life, they added socialite Isabelle McClung to their triad. The three of them traveled the world and reveled in their unique love for each other.

Virginia Wolfe was another famous author in love with another female writer, Vita Sackville-West. But this time, both women were married to men. Both couples had open marriages and both husbands approved of their relationship. In time, though Vita and Virgina did not have sex with each other’s husbands, a deep bond formed between the four of them. Eventually, they split up, which actually caused more pain for the husbands than the women.

Janeane Garofolo and Bradford Cord are much different people, one an actor and the other a singer. They are both asexual and very proud to be so. Though they have had many loves, each of them describes how they enjoy living as a person for whom sexual attraction has never been part of their lives. Because of this, both of them have met confusion and opposition from other people. In interviews, they both regret how their asexual status has closed doors for them in their professions and in life.

What do all of these famous people have in common? In essence, they have all bucked a belief system that almost all of us were given as a legacy. It’s called Amatonormativity. It’s a word you may not have heard before. Most people have not.

Amatonormativity is a word author Elizabeth Brake coined in her book “Minimizing Marriage; Marriage, Morality and the Law” to describe the widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship.

There are so many implications of this for our modern world. Amatonormativity marginalizes so many groups of people: singles who want to stay single, asexuals, polyamorous, open relationships, triads and quad relationships, long-term nonsexual friendships, aromantic married people, divorced people, etc. In our American cultural setting, our laws are geared toward those who are in Amatornormative relationships.

Triads cannot have the same parental rights as couples.

Asexuals and single allosexuals are not afforded the same rights as renters compared to amatonormative couples.

Abiding friendships often must relinquish inheritance rights if adult children contest wills in court.

But beyond the legal stipulations against all these individuals, the culture itself looks down upon all people who do not buy into the idea that the ultimate goal in life is to find one person, fall in love, have children, and stay married until you die. Though most adults in our culture do NOT fit into this scenario, most movies, television shows, books, and songs have this concept as a bedrock belief.

In the 90s sitcom “Seinfeld”, the main characters were always quizzing each other on whether they had found “The one”. At times, they played around with other options, like never having kids, open relationships, remaining single. But they ultimately rejected all of those options. In one case regarding open relationships, Jerry remarks caustically,

“Don’t you know what it means to become an orgy guy? It changes everything. I’d have to dress different. I’d have to act different. I’d have to grow a mustache and get all kinds of robes and lotions and I’d need a new bedspread and new curtains I’d have to get thick carpeting and weirdo lighting. I’d have to get new friends. I’d have to get orgy friends.”
— Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld, Season 6: The Switch
ANNOTATION
After his girlfriend accepts the idea of a menage a trois with her roommate and Jerry, he has second thoughts.

Now that you know what the word and the concept encompass, spend a few days/weeks looking at the popular media and see how often these ideas still persist.

And challenge yourself: In our day when we are ridding ourselves of heteronormativity, gendernormativity, mononormativity etc., isn’t it time to at least question the philosophy of amatonormativity?

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Comeheregoaway! Intimacy and Isolation.

Joanne and Mick made out in the car at the drive-in every Friday and Saturday night. They made sure they were in all the same classes together. They ate lunch at the same time, in the same place, facing each other. They drove to school together and drove home together. They did homework together.

They shared every moment of their senior year of high school with each other.

And for some inexplicable reason, both of them resented all that time together. At the same time, they loved each other deeply and without reservation. This confused each of them so much–but their love blocked them from ever talking about it.

Mick decided to work longer hours at his after-school and weekend job. He told Jo that he had no choice, but he had volunteered to do it. Joanne had her own phone line in her bedroom–this was before the Internet age–and she chose to leave it off the hook more often in the evenings.

By the end of their Senior Year of high school, they saw each other less and less. This made Joanne sad and she started to put her phone back on the hook. This made Mick sad, so he told his boss he needed to work less hours so he could focus on end of the year exams.

By May, they were back to spending all their time together. It felt right and they were both happy to do it. But then again, in July, they both started to pull away. This went on until Mick went away to college and Jo got a job at a local food coop. They were still in the same town, but now their time was completely given over to post high school necessities. This made them all the more desperate to be together.

Finally, after months of yearning for each other, Mick proposed marriage. Joanne accepted.

Throughout the 44 years of married life, they have gone through many of these seasons of intimacy followed by isolation. In the numerous counseling sessions and marriage seminars they’ve attended, they have sought to figure out why they alternate between wanting to be with each other fanatically, and also wanting to isolate with the same amount of vigor.

Some day, I’d love to write an essay on the psychoanalyist, Erik Erikson. Even though he taught at Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, his academic accomplishments consisted of a certificate from a Montessori school, and another certificate from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. He earned no advanced degrees.

But his understanding of human nature and the human condition far surpassed most of his contemporaries.

His most significant contribution to psychology was his chart of the psychosocial development of the human being. He broke down the human condition as a learning process of eight parts. Each of these parts highlighted a different tension between two opposites:

Trust and Mistrust
Autonomy and Doubt
Initiative and Guilt
Industry and Inferiority
Identity and Confusion
Intimacy and Isolation
Generativity and Stagnation
Integrity and Despair.

I want to focus attention on his sixth stage of development: Intimacy and Isolation. He recognized that all of us have this growing need to be connected to others. In later years of the development of Psychology, Dr. William Glasser would identify Love and Belonging as the second most basic human need behind only Safety and Security. After Glasser, others would notice that our early years define how we will attach to others–or in some cases, seek not to attach.

This gave birth to the Attachment Styles movement.

But no one denies we have a need for others in our life. This is the Intimacy Stage in Psychosocial development. At the same time, as Jo and Mick discovered, there are so many things that can make this stage difficult. We may have been betrayed by intimate friends or family, lied to, abandoned, rejected any number of ways, abused, neglected, or marginalized. Individuals may do this to us or collective groups may hurt us.

In addition to this, most people try to control our lives either actively or passively, and this makes us afraid or aggressive toward them.

In addition, a lot of time spent with another person can invoke boredom and a sense of over-familiarity.

Therefore, along with the need for intimacy we also develop a need for isolation from others.

All of our life reflects this tension between wanting to be close to others and wanting distance and agency from others. Each person finds their own path to it. But the balance of both intimacy and isolation is not easy. The reason we struggle with this path is that too much emphasis in our society is placed on the supremacy of intimacy.

Psychologist Esther Perel notes that

“I see others who believe that Intimacy means knowing everything about each other. They abdicate any sense of Isolation, then are left wondering where the mystery has gone.”
Esther Perel, “Mating in Captivity”

This is the problem that has plagued Mick and Joanne for years. They have a pendulum swing toward total intimacy, but it leaves them without any autonomy. When they swing back to isolation, they lose a sense of closeness.

Within Christianity, the goal of monogamous marriage is stated this way: “That a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife. And the two of them shall become one flesh.” Many modern interpretations of “one flesh” teach that this one flesh concept applies to more than just bodies joining together sexually. The idea is that two people would be dyadic–which means they will find all of their emotional, sexual, and psychological needs met primarily through this person they married.

Since this ideal supposes that the couple will meet most, if not all, of their psychosocial needs through each other, isolation feels like failure. Even couples who take a break from sex, sleeping together, or even hanging out with each other are seen as “in trouble”.

But many couples find seasons of isolation from each other to be rejuvenating and restorative. This is not just true of people in long-term relationships, but can apply to friendships, family relationships, and even co-workers at job sites.

I have spent many hours with couples in crisis in my counseling practice. Though I don’t give this advice to many of them, I have suggested some pairings do in house separations where they do not spend much time together. Almost all of them found this period of time therapeutic.

Perel writes about this in “Mating in Captivity”. In working with one couple, she noted that the husband was doing so much care for his sick wife that they had lost the closeness seen in other elements of their relationship. Here is what she advised them:

“To John I said, “You are such a caregiver that you can no longer be a lover. We need to reestablish a degree of differentiation and re-create some of the distance you had in the beginning. It’s hard to experience desire when you’re weighted down by concern.”

In the next few months Beatrice did move out. In a remarkable turnaround she found her own apartment, sent in her application for a PhD program, took a trip with her friends, and started earning her own money. Gradually, as John became convinced that she had two feet to stand on, and as it became clear to Beatrice that she did not need to abdicate her own person to merit love, they created a space between them into which desire could flow more freely”

Excerpt From
Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

Not every couple needs that degree of separation. There are many reduced levels of isolation that can be helpful.

Here are a few:

Have one day every weekend where each person just does their own thing with no expectation of getting together and no need to account for what was done.
Adopt markedly different hobbies
See your own therapists, not for relationship work, but for personal growth and fulfillment
Take separate vacations occasionally.

Many people reading that will immediately think this is a recipe for people having affairs. But that fear is based on a false presupposition. Many affairs are chosen because a couple already feels isolated from each other. Rarely do affairs happen with people who feel too close to each other.

I worked with Jo and Mick on two occasions. Once when they had been married just over 30 years and the second time coming up on their 40th wedding anniversary. They both noted they felt over-enmeshed with each other’s lives and were becoming bored. During our discussion, Jo mentioned she had always wanted to take a three-month sabbatical. Her profession allowed for paid time off to do this, so she asked Mick what he thought.

He answered, “But I can’t take that amount of time off.”

“I know” she said.

“That’s why I want to do it.”

In the end, Mick agreed to her sabbatical and to the relative isolation from him this would bring.

During those sabbatical months, Jo did a lot of things that Mick was not included in. I met with them at the end of that time, and both of them told me it was so refreshing. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t see each other, but that they felt no pressure to spend time together. Several times, Jo went away for a weekend with friends or by herself. She went mountain biking and slept in a tent for three days without Mick.

He told her when she returned how impressed and turned on he was with her independence.

They are still going strong together at 44 years. Perhaps we do need a balance of intimacy and isolation in all our relationships.

Bravo, Erik Erikson.

Move Past the 5 Love Languages

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Starting in the early 1990s, I had couples in therapy start to mention something about their “love languages”. As a trained therapist, I was confused by this term “love language”. I had never heard it used in any context before, and I asked my clients to explain it to me.

Eventually they pointed me to the book by Gary Chapman called “The Five Love Languages”. I did a quick read and felt it reflected the approach taken by many pop-psych books. I mistakenly predicted it would have no impact on the counseling world.

I was wrong. At least, I was wrong about one aspect. It certainly does have an impact on the counseling world, if one refers to people going to marriage counseling. It has virtually no impact on therapists. There are some pastoral counselors who made extensive use of the material in their pastoral offices. But the concept itself does not line up with any therapy modality accepted by psychologists.

The premise of the book is very simple.

There are five ways we show love to others
Each of us prefers two of these languages
Our partner will appreciate us more if we express love in their language.
Couples should buy the book, identify their love languages, share this information with each other, and have a happy life together.

Boom! Instant marital success. Well, to Chapman’s credit, he never says this is a panacea to solve all difficulties in long-term relationships. Though, after reading the book, that implication is not hard to pick up. More to the point, desperate people in difficult relationships viewed it as a fix-all for their relationship. And on the surface, following this formula can improve some elements of a marriage.

But it can also make some existing relationship problems worse.

Long-term relationships are difficult and nuanced. Tricking out one element of the relationship may mask other problems. Following the principles in this book produce only a temporary fix. And when a couple puts all their hope in a temporary fix, the result can be devastating.

Chapman’s concept, and all the subsequent spinoff books, has several significant problems connected to it.

It is a Reductionistic List

Some people claim that Chapman never said this was a comprehensive list. But he actually does claim that. He goes into detail explaining his background in pastoral counseling and that the love languages that made the cut are the five he sees most often with couples. In fact, he claims several times that all expressions of love can be placed in one of these five categories.

To be fair to Chapman, research psychologists are always trying to reduce relationship and personality characteristics to three, four, or five categories. And Chapman may have seen that and wrote his thesis accordingly.

So in essence, these are five love CATEGORIES. But he doesn’t say that.

My first caution about the book is that it is dead wrong. Not only are these five love languages not the only ones, they may not even be the most important ones.

Let me give several examples of other love languages. Note that these are not even close to being all of the remaining love languages. There could be thousands of love languages for all I know. The five that Chapman chose are very Americo-centric, cis-heteronormative, and very much based in white culture. I am sure that individuals from other cultures would have a tough time identifying Chapman’s five as their subset of love expressions.

Sex: Chapman mentions several times that sex is just a type of Touch. But in this, he is wrong. There are many people that come into sex therapy with me who distinctly don’t like being touched. But they love sex. And then there are some who love to be touched and held, but do not have any desire for sex. Sex would never mean love to them, but touch would.

Sex is a completely different category on its own. Some find rough sex to be loving. Others find the same with oral sex, slow sex, BDSM, group sex, ethical non-monogamy. There are ways that other people find some sex to be unloving. As a love language, sex can have many expressions. But it is ludicrous to place sex under the Touch category.

Respect: Some would say Respect is different than love. But that argument could be made about quality time, and any of the other love languages. Many people believe that if a person shows respect, this shows their love for a partner. And there are hundreds of ways respect can be offered.

Example: A University of Washington study showed that couples married more than 40 years had one thing in common more than any other: The husbands respected their wife’s opinion. That is the only common identifier they found in interviews with these couples. Yet it does not show up on Chapman’s list.

Gentleness: In this sense, I am using the word “gentleness” as the opposite of “violence”. This is one of my major criticisms of Chapman. He does not differentiate between the five love languages shown in a gentle atmosphere versus a violent home. If a person is violent and then buys their partner gifts, the gift does not equal love. Neither does quality time if there is violence. Affirming words do not mean much if someone has bruises from last night’s fight. On their own, gentleness and safety are important ways that love is expressed. Most people would identify that as their first love language if they knew it was an option.

Partnership: This is the willingness to partner with someone you love as they attempt something difficult or painful. There are many examples of this. Being willing to sacrifice money, time, and effort to see your partner get a degree or a better job. Going with them to a funeral. Standing by them as they confront a difficult person. All of these rise above and beyond Chapman’s limited categories of ‘acts of service’ or ‘quality time’.

Listening With Understanding: One of the most loving and effective things a partner can do is to listen in a conflict with the goal of understanding. Most of us in conflict get defensive or want to win. But when someone listens with the goal of understanding, this shows the partner there is a greater goal; to love and work through the issue. The Gottmann Method, a standard in partner therapy, claims this is the greatest of the expressions of love.

There are too many more love languages to mention. Food, giving space for your partner to have time alone, inability to be easily offended, telling the truth, living in integrity; these are all love languages in their own right and should not be diminished because they didn’t make Chapman’s five.

The Basic Premises are Simply Not True

Since the book has now been in existence for over 30 years, it is not surprising a number of studies have been done to determine if the book is accurate.

This study looked at the questionnaire that Chapman uses, the five languages themselves, and whether participants could adequately measure their own preferences from the list. Their study showed that one could not determine their love language consistently from this questionnaire. So, the bottom line is that Chapman’s questionnaire is not accurate by any metric.

You should be aware that Chapman is not a psychologist. Neither is his theory based on any scientific research at all. He never claims it is. He simply says that the book is based on his own observations as a marriage counselor with no degree in counseling. That’s it. He is very up-front about it. So it should not surprise anyone that his results cannot be reproduced by scientific research.

There are several other studies that debunk his hypothesis, but I’ll just mention one more. In 2013, Polk and Egbert published this study in which they proved that people do not have two primary love languages, that they do not respond better if someone shows love in those languages, and that it can’t be proven that learning about and utilizing love languages helps relationships.

That pretty much says it all.

‘Love Languages’ Concept is Manipulative

We manipulate others when we do something for the purpose of getting them to behave the way we want them to. This is the underlying premise of Chapman’s book. He is telling us that if we learn another person’s love language and use that love language with our partner, they will respond better to us. This is manipulative and many people have identified it that way.

I was in therapy with one person who made it quite clear how he felt about his partner doing this. He knew when his partner was trying to get him to agree with him when he bought him expensive gifts over a short period of time. His partner would always follow it up with a big “ask” for something he wanted him to do. It was blatant manipulation. He wasn’t buying gifts out of love or concern.

Now, not everyone does this. But the book lends itself to this kind of use. And though this is an obvious misuse of the book, Chapman’s only caution about it shows up in a subsequent edition, suggesting that he didn’t see this kind of misuse until long after people were trying to implement the book into their relationships.

(Note: It is impossible to find original copies of the book unless you already own one. The book has been revised many times due to outlandish claims in the original edition).

Many therapists have written about the co-dependent nature of the Five Love Languages. They note that many people who are already co-dependent can be easily manipulated via love-bombing using this format. Though I would hope Chapman would be mortified by narcissists and other abusers using the Love Language modality in this way, it is exactly what love-bombing does. Nowhere in any edition of his many derivative books on the Love Language subject does he warn about love-bombing.

Nowhere is Trauma/Abuse Accounted For

One classic symptom of those who have been abused as children is the inability to trust that they are safe with other people. Therefore, a traumatized/abused person will notice how someone is using love languages and will immediately distrust it. If the person who is trying to love notices that the response is distrust, this will create further tension from the non-traumatized partner.

The best way to love a traumatized person is to keep checking in with them, holding space with them, and ask them how they would like to be shown love at any given juncture of the relationship. This is much better than trying to read your trauma-affected partner and guess what their love language might be on any given day.

Sometimes, the best expression of love is for one partner to leave the other partner alone for awhile.

Church and the Low Libido Trap

“I don’t know if I want to be married to James any more. This marriage is torture and I can’t see any solution.” Adeline slumped over in her chair and sighed. James just rolled his eyes and sighed a different sigh than hers.

She sighed out of hopelessness. I thought his sigh had tints of anger in it. I asked him to explain how he saw it.

“She’s making something out of nothing. Every time we fight it’s always about sex. And I don’t understand it. I give her all the sex she wants. And it’s never enough. And I hate that we have to keep talking about it all the time. Can’t we talk about something else in marriage besides sex?”

James and Adeline had met in a short-term Bible training school. They knew instantly they were perfect for each other. They both loved God, loved to travel, and wanted to get married and have a family. They had so many things in common. They shared so many of the same basic goals in life. Soon, each of them felt they had found their soul-mate

James planned to get a job in computer-aided design and already had his degree. Addy still had to finish her professional year in preparation for teaching high school. When James proposed marriage, she accepted and they began to plan the wedding. They were both ordered and structured people. They knew what they wanted and when they wanted it.

And they knew they wanted each other.

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Embracing Reality: Part 2 of the Myth of the Wonderful marriage

There are signs and then there are SIGNS.

This final premarital counseling session was a warning about disaster looming. This is the first wedding I had ever officiated or counseled someone about, and ten minutes into our time together, the bride-to-be looked at me and said, “I don’t think we should get married. This is a mistake.”

Up until that evening, they had both expressed positive feelings about getting married. Neither had voiced any real concerns about their relationship. In this session however, she pointed out a half dozen things she didn’t like about her fiance. Most of them were minor, especially the details of his personal hygiene.

At one point we heard a siren. It was the tornado warning. We trundled down to the shelter and waited until the all-clear. When we got back to the apartment, I wondered aloud if this warning was some kind of a sign. They both smiled. I went on to convince them they just had cold feet. Both of them finally agreed that despite their misgivings they still wanted to get married.

Two weeks later, we had a beautiful and uplifting ceremony. Immediately after the reception, they left on their honeymoon for two weeks. Since this was my first wedding as officiant, I wanted to know how they were doing as soon as they got back. I called the bride and casually asked how the trip went from her perspective.

“We’re getting an annulment Pastor Mike. So, I guess you could say it wasn’t a great trip.”

I could not convince her to stay married. Neither could the groom or her mother.

About a month after she applied and received the annulment, we sat down again and she went into more detail about her reasons. Surprisingly, neither her decision to get married nor her decision to annul the marriage was made hastily. The man she had intended marrying was a good man. He lived a moral and ethical life and she really liked him.

But there were several things about him she could not abide. Each day of the honeymoon, she asked herself one question repeatedly: “Could I live with this for 50 years?” Because she answered “no” too many times, she decided not to waste his time or hers on a marriage which would not work.

I asked her to list what she found objectionable about him. They were all variations of the same three categories: approach to money, their sex life, his personal hygiene. She noticed all these things before they got married (Note: don’t judge. They wanted to know if they were sexually compatible before marriage, despite the Church’s strictures against it. That was their choice). These grievances were the basis of her telling me at the premarital session she didn’t want to get married. She apologized for heeding me and going through with it even with her doubts.

At the time, I was only recently married myself, and I didn’t know her decision may have been based upon a very faulty premise. She believed these incompatibilities were insurmountable and would bother her all their married life. I wish I could have that proverbial Time Machine and go back to give her the wisdom I have garnered through time and experience. Here’s what I would tell her:

Almost every couple on earth is incompatible. It takes several years to clear a lot of that up. Many couples are very successful at doing that; some are not.

Couples endure a great deal of pain Continue reading “Embracing Reality: Part 2 of the Myth of the Wonderful marriage” →

The Myth of the Wonderful Marriage – Overview,

I have told almost a dozen couples over the past month the same thing: There is no such thing as a wonderful marriage.

I don’t tell them this because I am a marital skeptic. I have been married for 38 years. I have a good marriage. But it is not a wonderful marriage.

I believe that the idea of a wonderful marriage is a myth. It is theoretically possible, and I have had many people seek to prove to me that it exists. But the many ways a marriage can be scuttled and disassembled are greater than the ways it can be wonderful. Do the math.

In light of that, I can’t decide how to start this article.

Do I tell you, the reader, about the pastor’s wife who smokes weed every week to cope with the mania of dealing with her husband who constantly changes his vision for ministry and for their family?

Do I tell you about the woman who admits to me her husband’s violent behavior, and his use of prostitutes, and then goes on Facebook to tell the world how wonderful their marriage is?

Do I tell you about the man who came home to find his wife using cocaine minutes before his arrival, a woman who the very next day was leaving on a 20-day tour to speak to Christian Women about their prayer life?

Or do I tell you about the missionary who, after losing a child to a mysterious fever, decided he and his wife should have an Open Marriage to deal with their pain?

I have permission to share their stories, as long as I leave out the kind of details which would identify them to others. They all know they are broken people. They all know if they told anyone about how broken they are–other than a counselor–the world would reject them and look for another shining example of marital bliss.

They are debris from the explosion of the Myth of the Wonderful Marriage. Though good marriages do exist, and I will explain how they get that way, the wonderful marriage does not exist often or for very long. And I don’t say that to discourage you. I don’t believe the goal is to have a wonderful marriage.

I believe the goal is to have a marriage of mutual respect and appreciation of one another. If a couple also develops feelings of affection, Continue reading “The Myth of the Wonderful Marriage – Overview,” →

An Alternative Approach to Marriage Counseling

I do know the details of that initial fight and I don’t really have to share them here. It wasn’t any more dramatic than the confrontations in a million other relationships. Both of them spent a sleepless night wondering if they should contact a divorce lawyer. They both cried. They spent that night in different places, both physically and emotionally. But for some very unusual reasons, their story did not turn out like millions of others.Though each of them did go for counseling at some point, they never went together for marriage counseling. And they never got a divorce. They eventually solved the problems in their marriage (for the most part) even though they both unveiled other secret sins.

By telling their story I am not saying they are better than other people. But their choices do shed light on an alternative approach to marriage counseling. Continue reading “An Alternative Approach to Marriage Counseling” →

What Works In Marriage Counseling

I won’t bother giving them fake names to protect their identities. I don’t have permission to share the details of their story and I’ve lost touch with them. But it really doesn’t matter; their story is universal these days. He worked too much and distanced himself from his wife over many years of being married. Every year, she grew more angry at him. She let that anger color her decisions and, as a result, she easily entered into another relationship. Her husband found out she was cheating on him and she freely admitted it. I do know the details of that initial fight and I don’t really have to share them here. It wasn’t any more dramatic than the confrontations in a million other relationships. Both of them spent a sleepless night wondering if they should contact a divorce lawyer. They both cried. They spent that night in different places, both physically and emotionally. But for some very unusual reasons, their story did not turn out like millions of others.

Though each of them did go for counseling at some point, they never went together for marriage counseling. And they never got a divorce. They eventually solved the problems in their marriage (for the most part) even though they both unveiled other secret sins. By telling their story I am not saying they are better than other people. But their choices do shed light on an alternative approach to marriage counseling.

I can just picture many of you waiting breathlessly for the formula to their solution. I want to be cautious at this point. Though they stayed married, it cost them way more than either would have agreed to pay that first “fight night”. The rest of this article is not for the faint of heart. There: You have been warned.

I don’t remember if they practiced all these principles in their desire to change, but I know they at least embraced the first two. These are five things I see in marriages that overcome problems like abuse, adultery, neglect, hatred and substance abuse. I list them in order of importance and the first ones are the most difficult.

[Disclosure: Other than from the Bible, I learned most of these principles from a series of books by William Glasser on the subject of “Choice Theory”. I mention this because several readers of this blog are MFTs and could really benefit from Dr. Glasser’s observations and practice. I am also beholding to Dr. Ed Smith and the therapy method taught in “Healing Life’s Hurts” and the practice of TPM.]

Here then are five principles that will yield the healthiest motivations to preserve a marriage:

1. Choose THIS marriage. The most poignant question Dr. Glasser asks in his first counseling session is “Do you really want to be married to your spouse?” If either spouse hedges on their answer – or comes out and says “no” – he ends the counseling relationship. He contends that no one will convince a person to be married to a particular person if they really don’t want to be. Here is what I add to that. Many people who don’t want to be married to a particular person still want to be married. They like the thought of marriage: the comfort and companionship that it can have, the intimacy it seems to promise, the stability of a family. God created the first marriage and said it was not good for man to be alone. But he also knew that once a couple are joined for any length of time in marriage, they form bonds that only death can truly separate. Therefore, people may like the idea of being married, but loathe the thought of being married to THIS person. That has to change if the marriage will work.

In the Bible, when Jesus talks about divorce, his primary concern is remarriage. His teaching on marriage goes right back to Genesis. He recalls for them that a man is to leave behind his birth family (father and mother) and cling to his wife. In our traditional marriage vows, we say “forsaking all others”. The “all others” means mentally dismissing the idea of a future spouse as well.

Divorces happen…there are many people who decide they cannot live with that person any longer. But would people change their approach and attitude if they believed this was their only opportunity to get married? What if this is your only chance and there are no real alternatives? Would that make a difference at how you worked at solving the problems in this marriage? Of course it would. But that is not how most people live. We live in a world of “alternatives”. If you don’t like what you have, there is always an alternative.

The couple I referenced at the beginning of this article decided if they didn’t make this marriage work they weren’t going to get married again. Waking up to that reality motivated them to get things fixed. For those who accept a biblical format for marriage, the best motivation for working on marriage problems is a choice to stay married to THIS person…not just a commitment to marriage as an institution.

2. Soften the Hard Heart: In a recent article, I mentioned the pastor who used our counseling appointment to announce his intention to divorce. After I reined in my anger, I asked him to explain his motivations. He cited chapter and verse to justify his biblical grounds for divorce. That’s when I told him: “Those are reasons you want a divorce. But as far as the Bible is concerned, there is only one ground for divorce. You have hardened your heart”. Jesus teaches us why Moses allowed the people of Israel to get a divorce. As far as we know from historical documents, the nation of Israel was the first culture to develop a concept of divorce. Why? Jesus explains: “Because of the hardness of men’s hearts, Moses permitted divorce”. That’s it in a nutshell. There are many things that break a covenant between a man and a woman. Adultery, violence, molestation of children, lying, abuse, neglect, abandonment, yelling, belittlement, substance abuse, eating disorders, withdrawal of sex, lack of passion, workaholism – they all contribute to huge rifts in marital closeness. But with all that, there still is only one reason people divorce: Hardness of heart.

I can give examples of every one of the above problems that people have endured only to stay married and to prosper. I know a woman whose husband molested their two oldest daughters. He went to state prison for his actions and her church insisted she divorce him to protect the kids. She did not want to. She refused to hate him or to give up on him. He even filed for divorce at one point, but she resisted. Her oldest daughter refused to speak to mom again unless she divorced her dad. Was she being an idiot? Some people think so. But she had compassion, love and acceptance of him. She wasn’t denying his crime or his sin. He paid for what he did and he still carries the weight of how he hurt his girls. My point in mentioning this is that no one could fault her for getting a divorce. And she really isn’t a co-dependent person or weak-willed. She just didn’t want to harden her heart that far.

(Note: Neither she nor I are advocating a person stay married to an abuser. In most cases, this would be a very bad idea. She came to her conclusion after several years of soul-searching. Her decision is the exception, not the rule).

How do you deal with a hard heart? You soften it with two decisions. These are what I spend most time working on with counselees. First, let go of the bitterness for how you have been treated. Stop reserving the right to feel wounded, victimized and in emotional pain. Let go of the right to enact emotional revenge. Second, forgive the person. This does not mean you excuse them. You simply choose to say they do not have to “make up for” their failures and sins.

3. Confront your own story: We all have aspects of our marriage story that focus on how we have been hurt. But if that is all you can see when the marriage is failing, then you are missing the other part of the story. Don’t rely on your spouse to tell you either. They are carrying their own hurt, so they will not be all that accurate in describing your problem. No one wants to hear the statement, “do you know what your problem is?” But we all need to hear what our problem is. As a counselor I have great hope for the person who comes to me during marital difficulty and says “I need to fix me”. Those people are the ones who stay married. The ones who say “I want you to fix my partner” do not stay married very much longer.

4. Give Yourself Time to Reconcile: As with most “solutions” in life, we spend way too much time causing the problems and allocate so little time to solving them. Remembering the disastrous Gulf Oil Spill, recall that everyone legitimately wanted the oil to stop flowing that second. British Petroleum’s stock was plummeting because people expected the flow to be capped overnight. Revelations began coming out about how many things went wrong to cause this disaster. This wasn’t cured for several years. By that time, most of us had mentally moved on to the next disaster and the next one after that. That is often how we treat marriage counseling. We want it fixed today!

If you have 20 years of problems, it won’t get fixed today. We vastly overestimate what can change in a week. But conversely, we completely underestimate what can change in a year. I even recommend in the most serious marital problems that people creatively separate and start dating from scratch. I highly commend the book “Reconcilable Differences” and the suggested time chart of putting a marriage back on the right track. Don’t rush things and don’t despair. Rushing and despair only muddy the waters more.

5. Ask God for “perspective”, not “rescue”. God cannot save your marriage. That is your job. But if you want God to partner with you in this, you must let him do what God does best. God sees the inner heart of every person. That includes our own heart. Just as in the third step we must see what attitudes and beliefs have caused us to act improperly, so we also need to see our spouse as God sees them. Why does God forgive them? Why does God appreciate them? Why does God spend time with them? What does God see in them? This is so crucial at that point where you cannot say anything good about your marriage partner.

My wife and I have times of struggle like every couple. This is not the venue to give examples of that. But one solution we have found is when we are feeling stymied by the bad course our marriage takes, we sit down separately and ask God to show us the good qualities of the other person. I do remember that horrible day when Kat came up with 20 things and I only had five. That only meant she was listening with more conviction than I was. I was still bitter and used my time to tell God how rotten she was being to me. God didn’t agree, so I wasted my time. But if you come to counseling with the attitude of hearing God about your spouse, things will change. They really will.

The couple who saved their own marriage at the beginning of this article did so over a period of several years. I don’t know all the details and I don’t have any idea how many times they wanted to give up. But now they both help other couples find the same path. These principles work much more effectively than the confusing and ineffective process of three-way counseling.