Relationship PIES - Marriage

This is the seventh and final part in a multi-part series of articles.

A relationship that plumbs the depths of intimacy in the physical, intellectual, emotional or spiritual requires a certain amount of commitment in order to be healthy. Imagine emotionally intertwining who you are with someone else, only to have that someone else decide that they want to jerk free of that entanglement. That is just a terribly damaging act, and divorces illustrate just how painful it can be. The greater the depth of intimacy, the greater the pain.

Not only do deep relationships require commitment, but they also seek balance. If I pursue depth of intimacy in the intellectual, I'm probably going to seek it in the other three aspects as well. That's just part of being human. We want the whole package. A common reason for people not pursuing the whole package is cynicism; the lack of belief that intimacy in a given aspect is even possible. It takes trust to accept the possibility that such depth of intimacy in so many areas can happen with another human being.

And all this brings us to the topic of marriage. Consider the notions that greater depth of intimacy implies greater commitment, and that we seek balance in all four aspects of relating. The greatest physical intimacy is procreative - sex. If a couple has chosen to be that physically intimate, then it suggests that they are equally intimate in the emotional, intellectual and spiritual. A relationship that involves sex without similar levels of intimacy in the other aspects will lead to discontent or even disaster.

A good marriage is one where the man and woman commit to each other completely. This means that they have permitted themselves to open up to each other physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Given such a setting, what are they committing to each other about? Buying and selling cars? Writing books? No, those aren't implicit in a deep, intimate relationship between human beings. What is implicit, then? Children.

Remember that the best marriage has great and balanced intimacy in all four areas. If you're being physically intimate and are committed to each other and your relationship, then you accept the healthy completion of that intimacy. Holding back will jeopardize the relationship. Refusing to say why you don't want to move to a new city is an intellectual withholding. Lying about why you're crying at a certain moment is an emotional withholding. Not wanting to have children is a physical withholding.

Holding back from commitment in a marriage is going to complicate matters and quite probably lead to disaster in the relationship. That's because of the desire for depth and balance. The whole picture is complicated by the fact that none of us has the complete and perfect understanding of how to have healthy relationships. But imagine a couple that has entered marriage with the agreement that they will have no children. A few years later, one or the other comes to understand that children would be a deeper intimacy between the two of them. One will want to pursue greater depth, while the other with withhold. Tension results, and possibly disaster. Nobody wants to hear "no" to a request for greater intimacy and commitment in a relationship.

A choice to bear and raise children is really the ultimate in relationships for people. We can pursue great depth of relationships that emphasize a particular aspect of relating, but because of a lack of balance in the other aspects, it will feel incomplete and we will be discontent whenever we have an opportunity to explore the depths of the unbalanced aspects. That is, if we have a relationship of great emotional depth and an opportunity comes to share a spiritual intimacy, there will be a disconnect between the two people. People usually work around such shortcomings by learning to avoid certain areas of their relationship, and that is terribly limiting. Many people learn to avoid areas of relating altogether because they are so practiced at it from prior relationships. Said another way, they dodge topics and issues because they've been burned in the past.

If you are of a mind to pursue a marriage with someone, remember that you are approaching the greatest intimacy that people can experience, and that you will find the greatest joy when you know how to both plumb the depths of the four aspects of relating as well as balance them. If you hold back, or if you choose to unbalance your relationship - or are faced with someone who does either - then the relationship will suffer. No relationship is perfectly deep and balanced, but you and your prospective spouse should surely be aware of the possibilities and the pitfalls. Study the task of loving. You will benefit and your children will benefit by your example.

This concludes the Relationship PIES series.

Studying Love

You love someone. They're very special to you. It might be your boyfriend or girlfriend, but it can just as easily be your brother, your mother or your child. Your love of them is so strong that anything that happens to them happens to you. As a result, you have an innate desire for good things to happen for them, just as much as you'd want good things to happen to yourself.

That begs one question to be asked: what is good?

That question must be asked because if the natural expression of love is to encourage good things for those that we love, then we need to figure out what's good and what's bad. If I draw someone that I love into a life of crime with me, am I loving them or despising them? My intention might be good, believing that we will have great wealth as a result of our life of crime, able to enjoy life to the fullest, but the intrinsic character of a life of crime is that it is bad.

Inviting one that we love into a life of crime is an extreme example, used to illustrate a point. Most everyone will agree that a life of crime is not a good thing. That's because few people's instincts and environment draw them towards it. But what about some more modest examples? Beating children that we love because we believe that they need discipline. Drinking heavily with those that we love because we believe it enriches the experiences of our lives. Dressing in an overtly sexy way and then dancing suggestively in public because we believe that our date enjoys it. Those acts are called "discipline", "partying" and "clubbing". We grant them innocent appellations so that we can avoid making any moral or ethical judgements about them.

Yet ethical and moral judgements are exactly what is needed if we're going to express love to others. We need to know that drinking heavily is a bad thing. That very knowledge will help us to resist the instinctive temptation to drink heavily - and to help others to resist their temptation. Nobody is perfect and able to resist every temptation to do something foolish or harmful to themselves or others. That doesn't mean that we can't learn what is foolish or harmful. The very fact that we know is what permits us to choose to love or to turn our back on someone.

I'm a lazy, greedy man. I'm lazy because I want to follow the most efficient path to the greatest happiness in life. I'm greedy because I want that greatest happiness. Because I'm reasonably bright, I know that learning what will bring true, lasting happiness is critical to my avoiding false paths that will waste my time and won't bring me true happiness.

Alas, today, we have many philosophies of life. We are immersed in them without even being aware of it. There is the Political philosophy, the Capitalist philosophy, the philosophy of the Better Home, the philosophy of Being Right, the philosophy of the Better Party and so on. These are relatively new philosophies of life that invite us to focus our attention on certain specific aspects of life. The Capitalist philosophy tells us that what we own is the best path to true happiness. The Political philosophy tells us that our political beliefs are the key to happiness.

You can tell what a person's philosophy of life is by discussing various topics with them. The ones that they become most emotional about are the ones that are linked most closely to their philosophy of life. That's because when a person's philosophy of life is asaulted, things get serious. If I sincerely believed that the planet was flat, that belief would be ingrained in everything I believe. It's an axiom of my world view. To show me a picture of a spherical planet would shake that, and I would reel from the impact. Likely I would reject it out of hand. So it is with any philosophy. We don't abandon them casually, even when they're wrong.

With so many philosophies of life telling us what is good and what is not, how are we to know what is really good and bad? By studying. A significant element of your life should be to study right and wrong. It's a bit like studying how to drive a car when you know that you're going to be driving one soon. Here we are, driving our lives, yet we don't really study life. We just live our lives. Using the driving analogy, we're casually turning the wheel and pushing various buttons, only to find that we keep smashing into obstacles, or overshooting our destinations, or arriving late, or breaking down. All because we haven't studied. Learn how life operates and you will know what is good and what is bad. Only then will you be able to love.