Threats to oneness and intimacy in marriage relationships

THREATS TO ONENESS AND INTIMACY IN MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIPS

For sometime I have been asking my self why many Christian couples are not enjoying their marriage relationships. And in this message I unveil to you some of the reasons why it’s hard to find true oneness and intimacy in many marriage relationships.  I want you to know that today in our generation many marriages are deeply influenced by the culture in which we live, and of which much of the influence does not encourage marital oneness. Most couples have not adequately prepared for the gravitational pull of difficult adjustments on the marriage relationships. 

Now let’s look critically at some of these threats to oneness and intimacy in marriage relationships:

1.       A complex culture

In today’s world there’s much that is driving the wedges of isolation deep in to relationships between husbands and wives. Most people today don’t realize how deeply we have been influenced by the sociological changes over the last 100 years. The world chart graphically portrays a strong cultural current that has swept the family far from it’s moorings of commitment and stability. Our culture has come to think of the family as a risk, not the harbor and haven it used to be.  That is why today a lot has been introduced to our families that have deprived the family values that contribute so much to oneness and intimacy in marriage relationships.

Quoting from an international official who said: ‘the fall of traditional family is a triumph for human rights’. Our culture has been so much poisoned by these abominable practices that have separated families hence a threat to oneness and intimacy.

Today more than 70 percent of people in different countries live in cities. We are so much urban, Mobile and constantly tempted to compare what we don’t have with those who appear “to have it all”. These comparisons have turned out to be one of the most lethal forms of poison for any marriage.

Over the past 100years, oneness and team work was not an option if the family was to survive, the pressure to survive forced families together unless today where selfishness is eroding the cement of commitment causing marriages to crumble.

The complex cultures we are living in have reached a hint where divorce is advertised as an option. A century ago, families might have starved to death if one of the mates chose to bail out hence divorce was not an acceptable alternative.

2.       Selfishness

Harmony in human relationships has always been difficult to achieve. The greatest test of harmony is marriage, where two imperfect creatures seek to defeat isolation and become one. Two people going their own selfish, separate away can never hope to experience the oneness of marriage as God intended it.

On illusion marriage couples fall for in this new age of liberation is belief that they can both be “independently successful” and still have a great marriage. A few couples seem to make it work, but most do not. Isolation is never defeated when each spouse operates totally independent of the other. The only way to unity, oneness, and a successful marriage is through mutual dependence. If each partner doesn’t control “self” and subject it to the Creator of marriage, the marriage dies.

As I have counseled and spoken to couples through physical engagements and internet Charts ,I have seen the corrosive effect of selfishness and independence in marriages. Men stubbornly ignore the needs of their wives. They prefer spending an extra hour or two at the office. I once met a pastor who frequented Christian bookstores and libraries with the sole purpose of avoiding his wife. And I have counseled women who spend countless hours shopping, not for their families but to avoid responsibilities at home and gratify them selves.

Often these self-styled independents spurn counseling .They do not want any help or, if they do concede to enter the counselor’s office, they defy being taught anything by anyone. Arms crossed, head held high, they refuse to hear anything their mate or the counselor has to say. They are   miserable, lonely people, and so are those who have to live with them

But marriage frozen in the isolation of selfishness didn’t start out that way. People get married with “stars in their eyes.”They don’t see reality when they’re dating or during the engagement. They wear blinders equipped with special lenses that filter out all the unpleasantness. Some are so desperate to love and be loved that they deny reality. Engaged couples are in love with romance because things are going their way. It’s a special time they don’t want to be bothered with the truth or obvious facts that suggest there could be some problem down the line. Instead, they want to experience this thing called “love.”This is exactly why it’s very hard to correct two people who have fallen in a wrong relationship.

Many couples think marriage promises fun that will never end. Nothing in the world arouses more false hope than the first four hours of a date or the first day of the honeymoon.   

Then reality sets in. Comedian Benny Fields said it well: “The glances over candlelight that seemed so sweet do not seem so amorous over shredded wheat.”The lovely person who, during the engagement was an ideal now starts to become an ordeal. Selfishness begins to rob the relationship of its romance in tiny but significant ways.

Humorist Sam Levenson summarized the problem when he said “Love at first sight is easy to understand. It’s when two people have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle.”

Many people say ‘There’s no hope. I can’t change him,’ or “What is the use? She will never be any different” I want to tell you that marriage offers a great  opportunity to do something about selfishness that is why you need to learn as couples to apply a plan that is bigger than human self- centeredness.

Many marriages are just like that. We can’t stand the isolation but we desperately need to learn how to live with the sharp barbs and quills that are part of coming together in oneness.

Is there a way to have oneness and intimacy without the pain driving us apart? I believe there is.  And the best answer is in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. Instead of wanting to be first, we must be willing to be the last. Instead of wanting to be served, we must serve.  Instead of trying to save our lives, we must loose them. We must love our neighbor (our spouse) as much as we love ourselves. In a nutshell, if we want oneness and intimacy, we must.

Marriage provides the opportunity to live life for someone besides yourself and to avoid the terrible judgment, what keeps letting us down is the mentality of “I can’t depend on anyone”

The key to solving selfishness is learning you have to depend on someone else because you really have no other choice. To experience oneness and intimacy you must give up your will for the will of another (your spouse). But to do this you must first give up your will to Christ, and then you will find it possible to give up your will for that of your mate/ spouse.

Unless you come to this “giving up of the wills” and learn to depend on one another, selfishness will cripple or destroy your marriage as you face the inevitable difficulties that are bound to occur.

3. Extramarital Affairs

It’s true that extramarital affairs are often sexual in nature. But there are other types of affairs and one them that I want us to have a look at is “Career” Often people escape the reality of their mediocre marriages by pursuing wealth and materialist desires, or through the affair called “Busyness”

Our desire to escape is promoted by the pressures of the secular culture in which we live.  In unban centers today comes a barrage of advertising TV Commercials, films and public relations schemes, all designed to teach us that we should seek self-satisfaction in life. Unfortunately many mates enter their marriages with this programming aspect mounting up their expectations and fantasies to compare themselves with what they see on TVs and so they ask themselves this question “How come my love life doesn’t match up with the one led by my favorite TV hero or heroine? Why can’t my mate be that cool, that sexy and that romantic?”

Let me up your eyes and mind, you must know that you are comparing your relationship with your mate to a fantasy that’s been developed with a multimillion shillings, dollars or pound budget and so it’s easy enough to be duped into thinking that you deserve exactly what the fantasy on the screen depicts. As the scriptures tell us “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the world’s” (Romans 1: 22-23) and also Romans 12:2 also speaks more about this.

It is no wonder, then that so many people take the next step into an extramarital affair. Instead of finding happiness and fulfillment in the real world with a real Husband, real Children and a real God, they bail out and chase after the illusions conjured out of their fantasies.

Therefore, escaping reality to pursue fantasy ultimately results in a retreat to emotional solitude. Discouraged and lonely, we stop caring. We have become passive, bored, resigned to mediocrity and as a result it has caused many marriages which began well to end up in divorce.

There are many more threats to oneness and intimacy in marriage relationships. But as you analyze each of the threats to oneness and intimacy I have detailed, you should be able to pinpoint specific areas in which your relationship is affected and work on them so that God’s purpose for your marriage is fulfilled and also enable you to defeat isolation so that you can experience intimacy and true oneness.

May God bless you

Mr. Bril Emma Opanyi

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