Читать книгу The Chase - Oscar Jr. Joseph - Страница 6

So if a Hot marriage is within my reach as a married man, why don’t I have one?

How can I keep that fire of desire from going out after we get married?

Excellent questions.

The history of many marriages can be summed up in the three-word title to this chapter. First there are THRILLS, then come the CHILLS, and finally the SPILLS.

The Thrills, Chills, and Spills pattern is the default path for marriages. If you don’t intentionally choose and invest in your marriage after the wedding with the thrill of The Chase, you will automatically end up with the typical pattern that breaks up so many marriages. Knowing that will help you want to choose wisely and give you a motivation for pursuing a marriage.

The Thrills

From the time that first spark of attraction draws you to her to the time she says “I do,” you see the Thrills. It’s the part of the relationship that you see portrayed in every romantic chick flick and remembered by guys as the fun part of their history as a couple . For the guy, it’s the time when she stirs his desires to the point that he is willing to do things he wouldn’t normally do. It’s the time when he buys her flowers, puts on his best personality, dresses to impress, and will do and say almost anything to get as close as he can to her body, heart, and soul.

The Thrills phase is a time when the game of capturing her heart is front and center in our thinking. The excitement and anticipation is enough to make even our favorite sports seem irrelevant. We eagerly look for “green lights” from her to take the relationship further. How we rate with her matters a lot. Though we always put up the cool front for her and everybody else, we will chase her and her affections with great passion because she has what we want. Like a theme park thrill ride, we are willing to stand in long lines and wait for our turn without hesitation or complaint because we are thrilled with the excitement of “The Chase!”

If you are in this phase or still looking forward to it, don’t fall for the common mistake of making sex part of your thrills before marriage. This cheat that so many people are taking will ultimately be a thrill-killer. Like a boy sneaking into his hidden Christmas gifts, you will kill the thrill of your wedding night by opening it early. You will be unwittingly giving away a lifetime of thrills in exchange for a few hours of early thrills. You will be cheating in advance on whoever you eventually do marry and inflicting damage on that relationship before it even begins. Not to mention that you will be offending God and opening yourself up to STD’s that you would not want to share with the woman that is really meant for you.

Even though we had strong desires before we were married, my wife and I purposely postponed the rewards of sex for after we were married. Thirty years later, we are still relishing the benefits of waiting for each other. We understand even more clearly what we would have lost if we had gone ahead and opened the gift of sex before we were married. We trust each other now because we didn’t cheat with each other then.

The Chills

For all too many, though, the commitments of marriage somehow put a chill on the thrills described above. The guy thinks there is no more need for pursuit. He sees the commitment made at the altar as a release from emotional demands of The Chase and a permanent entitlement to whatever benefits he wants from her. In his mind, the game is over. He feels like he has won his prize and it’s now time to move on to the next challenge of career, hobby, or anything that appears shiny. But she is just getting started in the intimacy she has longed for and has hoped would last forever. Both begin to pull back and wait for the other to meet their unspoken expectations.

His early retirement produces unwanted chills from her. Instead of continuing as his cheerleader and lover, she becomes his mother and critic. He begins to hear her expectations and complaints. He chafes at the new demands she is now making in order for him to win the prize he thought he had already won. He wonders if he has made a mistake in his Chase. She wonders if she has given herself to the wrong guy. They are both feeling cheated and now both are heading for the final phase of the syndrome.

The Spills

Once a couple starts experiencing the Chills, it will only be a matter of time before one or both gets too full of frustration. The upwelling anger inevitably gets spilled. When you get bumped in life by someone you live with, you are probably going to spill whatever you’re full of all over them. It gets spilled in wrong words spoken the wrong way and at the wrong time. The spills take place when she says something that bothers him. Because he’s tired and angry himself, he spills his own anger in the form of silence, sarcasm, put downs, or complaints. Then she either comes back with more of her own accusations, or she simply withdraws from him in cold, prickly silence and distance. The toxic spills begin to accumulate in the relationship. Though she is obviously pulling away, he no longer wants to chase her anymore.

He chased the wrong one, he thinks.

She chose the wrong one, she thinks.

The Spills continue. “The Chase” has now degenerated into “The War.”

The Good News

The good news is that this pattern of Thrills, Chills, and Spills, doesn’t HAVE to happen.

The thrill of The Chase can be nurtured and preserved. And the pain of Chills and Spills can be minimized. And you don’t have to be a relationship expert to get these benefits.

When you consider the alternatives, the price you pay to avoid marital disaster is well worth the investment.

My wife and I are pretty ordinary people. We are not glamorous or rich. We can’t afford to go to the Bahamas and we buy our clothes on sale. The most unusual thing about us is the fact that we have a dozen children, all ours. You wouldn’t think we would have a hot marriage with that kind of profile. But we DO! The bottom line is that you don’t have to be a pro-athlete married to a fashion model to have a sizzling marriage! And we all know even having that combination doesn’t guarantee success.

I have to admit that I did have the advantage of getting some inside information from my wife. Knowing I was a typical clueless guy, she artfully let me know about some “buttons” that I didn’t know she wanted pushed. Fortunately, I was interested enough to upgrade my understanding. I didn’t want to lose what I was enjoying so much. So I listened well when she told me she needed to be chased and visibly cherished even though we were already married. This was a real surprise to me, but I took the challenge. I also had the advantage of having the help of God (the designer of marriage).

Those advantages are both readily available to you too.

What follows is my attempt to give you all the “codes” you’ll need to get into the system that gives you the kind of marriage both men and women really want.

So why not GO FOR IT! Starting today, you can begin chasing down a PERMANENTLY hot marriage instead of short term thrills, disappointing chills, and painful spills.

Read on do discover how to get it and KEEP it!