Intimacy is evidently best amongst married and committed couples and can get even better with time.
An aged couple were sitting around the breakfast table, when she looked at the old guy reading the paper in front of her and said: “Arthur”. “Uh-huh”, came the typical reply. But she persisted enough for him to lower his paper and remove his spectacles: “Yes dear, what is it?”
“Arthur, do you remember how we once sat around a breakfast table like this and took off all our clothes, giggling like naughty school kids?” “Yes, I remember it. The next year our firstborn arrived, how could I ever forget such exciting times”. They laughed and sighed at the memories.
“Arthur”, she continued, just as a he started to replace his spectacles, “wouldn’t you like to relive that moment?”
Somewhat abashed, the old man just answered her question with his own more awkward questions. “Arthur, my breasts are so hot for you dear”, she crooned. “Well maybe, Mavis, it’s because one is almost in your porridge and the other is in the toast.”
I used to do Family Life conferences and once read in our material, that conservative Baptist women were reporting a better sex life than many contemporary younger people. I can imagine what was going on in their minds as they eyed their husbands swaying to church music in an otherwise serious Sunday service.
I don’t wish to be crude in all this, merely to provoke married couples to work towards real intimacy, whilst provoking unmarried people to hold out for the wonder of marriage. Marriage provides a safe context of mutual trust that enables couples to enjoy a depth, intensity and honesty that is rarely possible in extramarital love. Oh sure, sex with a relative stranger is probably wildly exciting, I am guy enough to understand that. But intimacy (not exclusively sex) with a lifetime partner is beyond comparison.
It is an experience that also provides a good thermostat for testing how the relationship is doing. If there is a cooling off, a real relationship is in a far better place to make appropriate corrections to daily schedules, work pressures, priorities, time-out and health issues. So an intimate, life-time relationship is also key to a longer, more fulfilled life and statistics indicate that ultimately such couples are also wealthier and more effective.
An aged couple were sitting around the breakfast table, when she looked at the old guy reading the paper in front of her and said: “Arthur”. “Uh-huh”, came the typical reply. But she persisted enough for him to lower his paper and remove his spectacles: “Yes dear, what is it?”
“Arthur, do you remember how we once sat around a breakfast table like this and took off all our clothes, giggling like naughty school kids?” “Yes, I remember it. The next year our firstborn arrived, how could I ever forget such exciting times”. They laughed and sighed at the memories.
“Arthur”, she continued, just as a he started to replace his spectacles, “wouldn’t you like to relive that moment?”
Somewhat abashed, the old man just answered her question with his own more awkward questions. “Arthur, my breasts are so hot for you dear”, she crooned. “Well maybe, Mavis, it’s because one is almost in your porridge and the other is in the toast.”
I used to do Family Life conferences and once read in our material, that conservative Baptist women were reporting a better sex life than many contemporary younger people. I can imagine what was going on in their minds as they eyed their husbands swaying to church music in an otherwise serious Sunday service.
I don’t wish to be crude in all this, merely to provoke married couples to work towards real intimacy, whilst provoking unmarried people to hold out for the wonder of marriage. Marriage provides a safe context of mutual trust that enables couples to enjoy a depth, intensity and honesty that is rarely possible in extramarital love. Oh sure, sex with a relative stranger is probably wildly exciting, I am guy enough to understand that. But intimacy (not exclusively sex) with a lifetime partner is beyond comparison.
It is an experience that also provides a good thermostat for testing how the relationship is doing. If there is a cooling off, a real relationship is in a far better place to make appropriate corrections to daily schedules, work pressures, priorities, time-out and health issues. So an intimate, life-time relationship is also key to a longer, more fulfilled life and statistics indicate that ultimately such couples are also wealthier and more effective.
One profound by-product of an intimate marriage is less selfish, more confident and better balanced children. So in addition to all the other benefits you even get a low maintenance home. Wow!!
Don’t we all want these things? Then why do we settle for less?
Don’t we all want these things? Then why do we settle for less?
(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com
No comments:
Post a Comment