Love Renewal in the Marriage -3 (continued)
A woman’s emotional makeup requires verbal expression from her husband to assure her of continuing love and security. You should be wise enough to know this about your wife and loving enough to do it. You can build up her self-esteem just through your words to her. Words have power! There are so many ways a man can show his love and regard for his wife. Say it with a card or candy or flowers. But by all means say it with words. There is the tired joke about the husband who said, “In ten years of married life the reason I never told my wife I loved her is because I told her in our marriage vows, and I haven’t taken it back yet.” This is not only a bad joke; it is unfortunately a living reality to all too many couples.
Another aspect of loving your partner involves thanking God for every good quality in her. People often complain about the undesirable qualities in their mate, while overlooking those qualities that originally attracted them. Agape love in marriage expresses byword and action, thought and prayer, the deepest appreciation for your partner, with the intense awareness of her needs and longings, past, present, and future.
Love in action on the part of both marriage partners involves physical touching. In fact because the greatest desire of love is to find an answering love, there is nothing that can so quickly build the intense feeling of love in marriage than repeatedly reaching out to a responding partner, and having that one lovingly reach back to you with tender touching—both of you gently drawing closer and closer, cuddling and snuggling and fondling.
This is vividly illustrated by teenagers, who spend too much time in close physical contact, causing their relationship to become a helpless enslavement to an overwhelming emotion, unable to see any defects, attributing all that is desirable and admirable to each other, and generating a blind compulsion to possess each other.
Oh, that more Christian married couples could learn the importance of loving physical communication to attain greater oneness within their marriage by giving to each other more and more intimate physical attention. The sexual relationship is perhaps the most logical place for both husband and wife to begin giving to each other.
As you read this book and gain new understanding and knowledge of the sexual relationship, you will find that obstacles in the physical area are being removed, and your love, which was previously hindered, is now being freed. The more freely you express your affection in physical terms by touching and giving pleasure to the other, the more love you will “feel” for your marriage partner. The physical expressions of affection will allow the love emotion, which was previously blocked, to be liberated. The feeling of love, which had been hopelessly buried under defenses and weapons, can emerge from its protective shell to bless the marriage in a most wonderful way.
The renewal of love starts with a choice of the will, a commitment to love, followed by actions that demonstrate loving concern, and the feeling of love naturally follows. Feeling is the third stage in the process. Remember that it is easier to change actions than it is to change feelings. As your actions become markedly different, you will discover that the desired feelings are following closely behind.
Renewal of love in marriage can be the springboard to experiencing the joys of the “one flesh” relationship as God planned it in the beginning.
Beginning of article: here Love Renewal in the Marriage and here Love Renewal in the Marriage -2 (continued)
Posted in Choosing to Love
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.