This Needs a Title! #2

My Abundant Life study remains on hold, why I don’t know, but that’s the way it is.

My frontal lobe is clogged with fidelity thoughts! Why, I ask myself, should I be concerned with marital fidelity? I’ll be 80 this year, we’ve been in love for 57 years, and very happily married 54 years; why is my head full of fidelity concerns? Can’t answer that; I can only share what‘s on my heart.

The benefit of this sidetrack may be singularly mine, but I’ve learned to follow the leading I have, and not complain about the leading I don’t have. This is longer than planned, but some topics can’t be covered 140 characters; sometimes 1,000 pages are skimpy.

So, here goes!

First, a working generalization; men are physically immodest and emotionally modest. If you ask a man about family life or business, you’ll get a general answer, but few details. Men don’t talk much (emotionally modest) but if you give them a problem they want to fix it.

Women, on the other hand, are physically modest and emotionally immodest. Women like to talk, “If you want to know what’s going on, ask the wife.” When asked, women will tell you about the children, grandchildren, and their bank account. (Men are always unhappy to hear their wives discussing the family finances with anyone outside the inner family circle.) Men must learn that sometimes when women bring up a problem, they don’t want a fix; they only want to express their feelings and perhaps hear the husband’s point of view. That can frustrate men, if there’s a problem they want to fix it.

Second, marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman, to give themselves to each other. Scripturally, her body belongs to him, and his body belongs to her.

Men are stimulated through their eyes (physically immodest), therefore a wife needs to let her husband see ‘his-body’, in the shower, walking through the bedroom, getting dressed, in attractive clothes, or displayed in a negligee. Being physically modest, this can be difficult for some women.

Women must keep their bodies in shape (for example, not over weight). Their body is the only legitimate body their husband has; they need to show it to him, often and displayed the best possible way!

Women, on the other hand, are stimulated through their ears (physically modest). Men must tell their wife how nice she looks, that she satisfies his every need, and that he loves her – and tell her often (in 50 different ways). Give her a gift, for no reason at all; let her know she’s special and important.

Both men and women must commit their attention and devotion to their marriage 100%, it’s not a 50-50 deal, each partner devotes 100%.

Third, the process of marriage is like a dance: he leads, and she follows. That doesn’t mean one is more important than the other, it means that dance is the marriage process.

In marriage, like dance, he leads; he does not have a choice. He can’t say, “You lead”, whatever he does is leading. She follows, but, she has a choice (not scripturally), she can decide not to follow.

If she follows closely, pays attention, works at following, the dance is graceful, and other dancers enjoy having them on the dance floor. When she follows closely (fitting in with her husband’s plans) she allows him be a better dancer, and he will try harder to be a better leader. It works best when each gives their 100%!

If she decides not to follow – there is no dance, and the marriage vow is broken, infidelity has happened!

Fourth, God created us, such that, we need acceptance and approval, just like we are. Not only do we need acceptance, we must have it, and we’ll get it – either legitimately or illegitimately.

When first married each person has the approval they so desperately need – they are happy, they are in love! Love is something they do (consciously and unconsciously).

Fifth, I have a basic operational premise: nobody, but nobody, (regardless of sex, race, religion, or age) starts out a day saying, “Today, I’m going to screw up. I plan to come home tonight a total failure.”

I don’t think people do that, rather, I think everyone does what is socially acceptable (in their thinking, at that moment, within their social circle) and they do it to have acceptance and approval from their social group. Race drivers, bull riders, soldiers, high wire performers, risk their lives to get acceptance from their social group. Teenagers wear certain clothes and hair styles, to get peer acceptance.

Now, the topic at hand, - marriage fidelity.

I’ll use a man for my example, but it could just as well be a woman. He goes to work, does a good job, gets acceptance and approval from the office, and when he gets home he is tired and does not feel the need to give his wife the acceptance she needs. He didn’t plan it, it just happened.

If that pattern continues the wife will start looking for acceptance and approval illegitimately. She may watch TV, spending too much time with the folks in the tube, and not enough time getting her husband’s attention.

Or, she may find some girl friends, meet with them regularly, let her housework slide, and thereby transfer ‘just a little’ of her devotion to ‘the girls’ and away from her marriage. She may talk about her spouse and share intimate moments that she should be sharing with her husband. (She is emotionally immodest.)

Or, it may happen when the kids are born. Unintentionally, the mother pours her love and attention into the kids, her needs are being met, and she does not feel the need to give, or get, attention from her husband, so she lets that portion of her marriage vow slip – just a little, at first.

As the kids grow, she buys extra things for them, things to keep their love and attention, but things that were not in the family budget. When the husband is displeased with the missing funds, and the bank overdrafts, she becomes defensive – he is tampering with her source of love and affection. If asked, she would deny being out of step, and not following the dance leader. Infidelity has happened – the marriage vows are broken.

If these, “just a little” attention moments continue over several years, they grow into a big deal! A silent-divorce develops, two adults living under the same roof, and they don’t have the marriage they planned. “How did it end up like this?”

There are thousands of ways this ‘just a little’ happens, and it’s different in every marriage. Getting love and attention illegitimately may stretch into one, or both, of the partners having a sexual affair – one time or ongoing.

Ethicist Richard Taylor wrote a book on Having Love Affairs (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1982) and he discusses whose fault it is when there is an affair.

“Though a wife may be ever so dutiful, faultless, and virtuous in every skill required for the making of a home, if she lacks passion, then in a very real sense she already is without a husband, or he, at least, is without a wife.

“Similarly, a husband who is preoccupied with himself and his work, who is oblivious to the needs of his wife and insensitive …, who takes for granted her unique talents and who goes about his business more or less as though she did not exist, has already withdrawn as a husband, except in name.

“What has to be stressed is that the first infidelity … may not have been committed by the one who is having an affair. The first and ultimate infidelity is to withhold the love that was promised, and which was originally represented as the reason for marriage to begin with.”

Now for a fix – from my point of view (remember, I’m a man, I want to fix things)

Infidelity happens in every marriage (not always sexual) and the fix is always the same. Healthy marriages ‘fix it’ early and often. Unhealthy marriages allow the ‘just a little’, or ‘it doesn’t matter this time’, experiences to go un-fixed, those ‘little’ things pile up - until one (or both parties) says, “Enough is enough!”

So, what is the fix?

The first part of the ‘fix’ is for each partner (or only one) to ask, “What did I do to cause these broken marriage vows?”

I’ve noticed, that if one or both partners ask, “What did I do … “ the marriage is fixable. But, when one or both partners define their problem as “He/she did/does … thus and so’” a fix is questionable. Why, because a change is required and you can’t change ‘them’!. The only person that a spouse can change, is themselves.

But there can be a fix.

Forgiveness and new actions, that’s the fix!

It doesn’t matter what the problem is – it really doesn’t. Bank overdrafts, emotional TV, and sexual infidelity – they are the same to God. He doesn’t grade sin – sin is sin, and it’s forgivable (by us and God). The ‘fix’ requires discussion, a lot of repentance, a boat load of forgiveness (by both partners), and a truck load of plans for change (for both partners). Fixed marriages can continue and become better and stronger.

Why forgive – for our own benefit! In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to forgive us as we have forgiven others – that’s why we forgive (at least that’s one reason)! We want forgiveness; therefore we are obliged to give forgiveness.

To put it another way, what has happened to us is not important, but, our reaction to what has happened is important. Forgiving will not change the past, but it can change the future.

Discussion, forgiveness, and new actions, that’s the fix!