Journey to Surrender

Friday, August 31, 2012

More Marriage Vital Signs

2:11 PM | Posted by Scott | Edit Post

In my post yesterday, I gave a few important “vital signs” that can be used to monitor the health of your marriage: communication and selfless giving. Just as doctors use our physical vital signs to look for signs of trouble, you can use these key indicators to keep your marriage strong and fit for the long haul.

Here are two more important marriage health factors:

Total Intimacy

As with your total cholesterol reading, the total intimacy reading in your marriage is made up of multiple types of intimacy. The key to marital health is to keep the components in balance. As our wellness literature put it, “An incorrect balance of cholesterol may indicate elevated disease risk.” So too are spiritual, emotional and physical intimacy all needed, in good balance, to maintain optimum marital health.

Intimacy is organic, a living organism, and so it is either growing or dying. Your marriage is on one of two paths: The Path of Intimacy or the Path of Separation. If you don’t keep a watchful eye on the intimacy level between you, it’s easy to slip unknowingly onto the path of separation.

Spiritual Intimacy

Do you pray together regularly?
Are you on the same page spiritually?
Are you comfortable talking about your faith with your spouse? Do you?

Emotional Intimacy

Do you attend to the romantic needs and desires of your spouse, regardless of your own needs in this area?
Are you emotionally engaged and present the majority of the time?
Do you withdraw emotionally either in retribution or in reaction to stress?
Do you avoid emotional reactivity in the midst of conflict or do you let your emotions run away.

Physical Intimacy

Do you make sex a priority, settings aside time and energy for lovemaking?
Do you maintain a healthy dose of non-sexual physical contact throughout the day?
Do you kiss a lot?
Lastly, a question that leads to the next vital sign: What is your…

Sexual Temperature

The truth is, just like your body temperature is a good indicator of the presence of infection, your sex life can reveal the existence of “disease” in some part of your marriage. The difference is this case is that a hot sex life is actually good sign.

When things grow cold in the bedroom, it’s often because there is a problem somewhere else. Examine the other areas of intimacy in your relationship (spiritual and emotional) for signs of strain or pain. Pain, frustration and resentment from unresolved issues have a way of finding their way into your bedroom and infecting your sex life.

Here are a few ways to take your sexual temperature:

How often do you make love? Frequency isn’t everything, but it is important to regularly set aside time and energy for this unique kind of intimacy. Do you know each other’s expectations of “normal frequency?”
How comfortable are you discussing your sex life with each other? When’s the last time you asked your partner, “How satisfied are you with the ways things have been going?”
Do either of you struggle with sexual shame? How comfortable are you to be naked with each other? Are there any hidden sexual sins that need to be dealt with?
When was the last time either of you brought a new idea to the bedroom (or wherever)? Would you say you are stuck in a sexual rut?
How often do you think and act sexually outside the bedroom? Do you flirt, plan your encounters, daydream of your spouse, send each other sexy notes or texts?

How are your marriage’s intimacy vital signs? Do you check them regularly? Is your sex life telegraphing issues elsewhere in your marriage? Don’t fool yourself into thinking that sex isn’t that important. It is.

That’s four vital signs so far:

Communication
Selflessness
Intimacy
Sex

I have just a few more to share tomorrow. In the mean time, I’d love to hear your vital sign ideas.

Labels: Intimacy, Sex, Watchfulness | 2 comments

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Marriage Vital Signs

9:23 PM | Posted by Scott | Edit Post

Last week I had my annual health screening, as required for my company insurance plan. It got me thinking about the vital signs we watch for our physical health and wondering about what the vital signs might be for marriage.

Here are two from my list.

Communication

Communication is the lifeblood of your marriage. Good communication keeps the (blood) pressure in your marriage low. Poor communication, like high blood pressure, taxes your heart.

The truth is that you can’t NOT communicate with your spouse. You are both sending messages all the time, either through what you say, what you don’t say and how you choose to say it. The real question is whether the messages you are sending are helping or hurting your marriage.

Here are some key indicators:

Is there a safe atmosphere of transparency? Can you share your feelings without fear of judgment or retribution?
Are you both good listeners who value each other’s input?
Are you careful with your tone and body language?
Is respect and honor the top rule for communication?
Do you ever use guilt and shame to get your way in a discussion?
How well do you handle stress and conflict? The question isn’t whether you have struggles and difficulties, but how you resolve them.
Are there any “off-limit” topics that you don’t feel you can discuss openly?

GGR – Give/Get Ratio

Body Mass Index, or BMI, is a general indicator of the difference between how much we put into our bodies in the form of food, compared to how much effort we give out in the form of exercise (yes there are other factors like genetics involved, but I’m keeping it simple here). The equivalent for marriage I call the Give/Get Ratio, a measure of the degree of selflessness in your relationship.

In a healthy, fit marriage, both husband and wife are focused more on what they give to each other than on what they get from each other. In that way both get plenty of relational nourishment, but don’t get plump and lazy because they are giving out in equal or greater measure.

Give some thought to these GGR measures:

When was the last time you did something for no other reason than to make your spouse happy – not to get her to have sex or to get him to do the dishes?
Do you work more on changing your spouse or on changing yourself?
Do you know what your spouse’s key love languages are? What most says, "I love you" to him or her.
Would you say you are generous toward your spouse? What would your spouse say?
Do you know what you can do or say that would truly delight your husband or wife? Do you do or say them with some degree of regularity?
Do you withhold the kind of affection your spouse wants in order to get (or until you get) the kind of affection you want?

In your own marriage, how would you rate the vital signs of communication and selfless giving? Could you stand to get a little healthier with them? What can you do differently this week get in better marital shape?

I’ve got a few more marriage vital signs cued up for the next few posts. In the meantime, what would you say are the most important vital signs of a healthy marriage?

Next in the series: More Marriage Vital Signs