For the last three weeks we have been looking at the topic of intimacy because it is so vital to the success of marriage. We began with a discussion of how our intimacy with God will impact intimacy with our spouse. With this foundation established, we looked at three types of intimacy and some signs in marriage that may indicate a deficiency in intimacy. Today we will discuss ways to build intimacy in marriage. People tend to rate their levels of intimacy based on their feelings of love for one another. Because terms like intimacy, falling in love, and falling out of love are sometimes hard to quantify, we want to look at a concept developed by Dr. Willard Harley called the Love Bank. He claims that we all have a Love Bank and everyone we are in relationship with has an account in our bank. Here is how the account operates: if someone does something that makes us feel good, “love units” are deposited, and when they do something that makes us feel bad, “love units” are withdrawn. We tend to be emotionally attracted to those who have large balances in our Love Bank and dislike those with negative balances. As you can see, our emotions will lead us to spend time with people who treat us well and steer clear of those who treat us poorly.

For our discussion we will focus solely on the accounts spouses have with each other. Spouses tend to evaluate their intimacy by how well their needs are being met. In order for couples to deposit love units in one another’s accounts, they will need to meet each other’s needs. This seems basic enough, but the first step in meeting your spouse’s needs is to become aware of what their needs are. It is easy to assume that our needs are similar to our spouse’s needs, and then set out to meet those needs only to have them respond with a lack of appreciation or rejection. In His Needs, Her Needs, Dr. Harley lists what he believes are the top five needs of both men and women.

Man’s Five Most Basic Needs in Marriage:
Sexual fulfillment
Recreational companionship
An attractive spouse
Domestic support
Admiration

Woman’s Five Most Basic Needs in Marriage:
Affection
Conversation
Honesty and openness
Financial support
Family commitment

As you read through these needs you may not agree with some or all of them, but the key is to understand that the man’s and woman’s lists are completely different. In order to help your mentees make deposits in each other’s Love Banks they will first need to communicate their needs to one another. Once they have done this, encourage them to be intentional each day to make deposits in each other’s accounts. Before long they will find their account balances increasing and their intimacy growing.

“It means so much to me that you planned our dinner tonight!” I heard these words from Lynne as we were on our way home after stopping at her favorite Thai food restaurant. She had experienced a really tough day in the office and I knew the last thing she needed was to figure out what we were going to do for dinner. This verbal exchange might not seem like any big deal, but truth is when small blessings like this consistently occur in our marriage, we become more confidently secure in our relationship and God is pleased in our efforts.

One of my love languages is “affirmation,” and one of Lynne’s is “acts of service.” When she gave me the spoken blessing of affirmation, she was actually acknowledging her gratitude for me placing high value on her and not demanding she plan something for dinner. She saw my action as serving her.

We have all seen marriages dissolve after something big occurs like an affair or emotional or physical abuse. It is easy to point a finger at these types of things and say that is why the couple separated and divorced, but in almost every case there was a time when both spouses stopped extending small blessings to each other. Unfortunately, unmet expectations and entitlements ensued, which eventually led to these types of actions and decisions.

Here’s the point. Every marriage doesn’t automatically become good or bad once the wedding takes place. Both good and bad marriages evolve over time. When husbands and wives stop extending small blessings to each other, they are giving way to Satan’s destructive power that acts like a chisel to move spouses further apart from each other. But when spouses learn each other’s love language and consistently take time to extend small blessings to each other based on what they learn, God sees to it those blessings becomes a powerful cement that bonds the marriage relationship together. So, what are you allowing to occur in your marriage, Satan’s chiseling power through neglect, or God’s incredible bonding power through blessings?

“because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” – 1 John 4:4

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Dr. Donald Harvey’s concept of “commitment drift” in marriage is much like the physical aspect of exercise. If we don’t exercise, muscles will atrophy. However, when we do exercise they grow stronger. When couples fail to put positive energy into their marriage, it grows weak as well. According to Harvey, “drifting of marital commitment is a gradual, subtle, often unintentional, sometimes intentional severing of the emotional ties between a husband and wife”(“When Commitment Drifts”, Christian Counseling Today 1996). This is the kind of marriage that looks good to others on the outside and also usually functions fairly well internally. The problem comes when a crisis occurs in this type of marriage. Instead of a commitment to work through the crisis, the couple reacts with hostility toward one another. One way to help mentee couples who have allowed their emotional bonds to drift apart is to help them understand some of the ways they have drifted. Here are a few ways couples drift apart:

Unintentional Drift:
Becoming overwhelmed with life’s demands:  When life becomes demanding, the home becomes the place one or both spouses come to just collapse. They don’t feel like being active or intentional at home and they don’t feel like being nice. Maybe you can relate to hearing this phrase from your spouse. “Everyone else gets to enjoy the “good” you; the fun and animated you, and we get what’s left over”. Ouch! So often it’s true.

The drive to succeed:  Being driven to succeed outside the home can lead a spouse to spend all their time, resources and energy anywhere but home.

Intentional Drift:
One partner decides to keep their distance emotionally:  More intentional drift occurs when one or both spouses decide to distance themselves emotionally from the marriage. This may be to protect their feelings or to exact revenge for a perceived injustice.

Investing in outside interests as a way of avoiding home:  Some spouses may intentionally spend more time at work or out with friends just to avoid coming home.

Asking your couple to prayerfully look at how they may be intentionally or unintentionally contributing to their own commitment drift can help pave the way for them to become intentional about investing more energy into their marriage. So many of the issues couples face in marriage result from the subtle drift we allow to creep in. Sharing the day’s events with a good friend instead of our spouse can possible prevent us from doing the same with them, because we have already had that need met from someone else. While sharing with friends is not a bad thing, it can become a problem over time because this type of sharing is needed to promote intimacy in the marriage relationship. Help your mentees become aware of possible commitment drifts and then hold them accountable to take positive steps to combat it in their relationship.

This time of year it’s easy to find ourselves focused on holiday traditions. The dust has barely settled after Thanksgiving and Christmas is already just around the corner. For many this is an exciting time of year filled with fond memories, for others there isn’t a more stressful season. Family get togethers can cause anxiety for even the most patient individuals. Add to this a spouse and an attempt to blend family traditions, and the holidays can be downright overwhelming. Whose family do you spend Thanksgiving with? What about Christmas? Are presents opened on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? How much money should be spent on gifts? Is the family meal a big deal or just another day? Does the family normally cook a big meal or go out for a special dinner? What about the Christmas tree? Is an artificial tree fine or is cutting down a live tree the only way to go? We could go on and on, but you get the point. So much of what we do around the holidays depends on the traditions we grew up with. Not much thought is usually given to these traditions until someone tries to mess with the “way we’ve always done it”. What’s the big deal, right? Who cares if presents are opened Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, if everyone opens one at a time or it’s a free for all with everyone tearing things open as fast as they can? The bottom line is we don’t always realize how much traditions may have become part of our identity, until we find ourselves getting defensive when someone wants to change them.

So are traditions good or bad? The answer may be both! Traditions are a great way to bond and pass down family values from generation to generation. They can be a part of the family culture and identity. It’s amazing how doing something with your children that your parents did with you can immediately bring back great memories and the emotions you experienced with your parents. That’s the good side. The flip side is when we hold stubbornly to traditions that are not in line with the Word of God. You may not consider some things tradition, but many families have unspoken rules that become a part of what it means to be a member of that family. These unspoken traditions (culture) can exist where things such as pride, privacy, or avoiding conflict at all costs are greatly valued in a family. While many traditions are neutral and neither support nor conflict with the Word of God, traditions such as these may prevent individuals from following God’s direction for their lives. For example, some individuals may have grown up in a family where the sharing of struggles and emotions was discouraged. It was a family tradition to just deal with them internally and not share struggles with anyone else, especially outside the family. This tradition not only causes people to struggle with issues for years, but also stands in opposition to God’s Word. Galatians 6:2 and James 5:16 both clearly admonish believers to share in each other’s burdens and to lift one another up through prayer. An unwillingness to do this because of family tradition will hinder a person’s ability to progress personally and in relationship with Christ.

As mentors, it is important to recognize when your mentees are holding themselves back from progress in the marriage due to old habits they aren’t willing to change. Watch for instances when an unhealthy habit or belief is continually causing your mentee couple problems and shine the light of God’s Word on it. Ask your mentee why they choose to believe or act this way. Then ask what God’s Word says concerning the specific action or belief. These opportunities allow the Holy Spirit to expose ungodly traditions and replace them with Biblical habits and truths.

Jacob had been a deceiver his whole life.  He deceived his father, cheated his brother, and deceived his father-in-law, who first deceived him.  He had many struggles in his life and struggled in what must have been the fight of his life, lasting all night, with God.  The Bible tells us he was alone and that they wrestled until daybreak, which means this struggle was in total darkness.  Maybe you can relate to feeling alone and dark in your struggles, not knowing that God is present.  In that overnight struggle God broke Jacob, renamed Jacob and blessed Jacob.  It's important for us to remember that our brokenness before God can lead to a purpose and destiny beyond it.  It is the very nature of God to allow us to become a new creation in Christ as we acknowledge our brokenness before Him and receive freely the gift of redemption through His Son.  God will always give us a new name/new identity as we struggle with Him.  He will speak newness into our circumstances, our marriage or our troubles. No matter how badly we've missed the mark, if we open ourselves up to God He will make sure we don't walk away from the encounter the same.

As chapter 32 of Genesis concludes we see a description of Jacob passing by the place where he struggled with God.  The sun has risen overhead and the Bible says he was limping.  "To this day", it says, "the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon."  They have a reverence for the limp.  If you're like me you probably have the tendency to want to hide those struggles in your life that have caused you to limp for fear that others might perceive that limp as weakness, lack of righteousness, or some other false assumption.  From experience I can tell you that with each moment of brokenness I have received blessing as I held tightly to God.  I wonder if maybe we shouldn't stop trying to hide the limp and instead let God's blessings pour into other's lives through our limp.

• tell your wife she looks nice
• tell your husband you appreciate how hard he works for the family
• send a text to your wife saying she is a great mother
• express thankfulness for dinner
• say “I love you”
• pick one thing you appreciate about your spouse and tell them about it
• encourage them to do more of what they enjoy doing most

The list could go on and on, but what’s important is that your spouse is being encouraged and built up by the person who knows them best. Be intentional about filling up your spouse’s bucket so that there is plenty in there for those times you unintentionally empty it!

As I was reading my Bible this morning I had a thought. And that random thought turned into a challenge for you this week. :) So here it goes...and I warned you it was random, but try to follow. I was reading in the book of Haggai. No I’m not trying to flex any spiritual muscles by implying I turn to Haggai when I’m looking for some spiritual insight. It just happens to be today’s reading in my One Year Bible. It begins with this, “In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest:...” I’m a guy that likes to just get to the point and say what I mean without all the details.

If I were to write that passage it would have gone something like this, “God told Haggai to tell Zerubbabel and Joshua....”. Because of my personality I usually think details are a waste of time, but I don’t believe God wasted any of what was put in the Bible. As I read Haggai 1:1 this morning I paused before reading on to think about why all those details were put there. Why the year, month and day? Why the individual’s parent and position? The answer: it gives us Context. Now I know you’re not standing to your feet right now in applause at that wonderful revelation, as I’m aware I’m stating the obvious. It’s important for us to have the specifics in order to provide the context so that we can remember God’s specific activity in our lives. If not, all that comes after Haggai 1:1 is just God’s Word and His call to action somewhere at some time in history. The specifics provide context and meaning for the working of God.

Now let’s make the transition to your life. There is no doubt in my mind that if you have been walking with God for more than a day God is working in your life, whether you see it or not. It may be something huge or it may be something small, but if you are reading your Bible, spending time in prayer and trying to walk in obedience to what you feel God is speaking to you, then God is probably doing something in your life. The Challenge: I want you to take some time this week and write down something specific that you have seen God do in your life recently. It may be in the area of relationships, career direction, answered prayers, financial provision, etc. It needs to be specific: ie. I have really seen God doing a work in my relationship with my spouse as evidenced by... not just something general like “God is really improving your relationship”. Make sure to put the date on the note and any other specifics that give the situation context. Much like Haggai 1:1 and many other passages in the Old Testament, you will be providing yourself with specific context of how you see God working in your life. This will be something that you can look back at years from now and remember that on such and such date God was doing “this specific thing” in your life. This will build faith in your life of what is possible with God.

Once you have built this habit into your life, begin doing it with others. When you see the activity of God in the life of your spouse, a friend, co-worker or child, write a quick note with specific detail about what you are seeing and give it to them. There’s an old saying that “the devil is in the details”, but actually it’s God in the details because those very details give context for the activity of God in our lives.