Articles on

Marriage

"PASSAGES OF MARRIAGE"

by Minirth, Newman, Hemfelt PASSAGES OF MARRIAGE

Notes Prepared by Dr. Neil Chadwick
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I. Passage One: Young Love

(Usually lasts two years)

TASKS

II. Passage Two: Realistic Love

(Usually lasts from third through tenth year)

TASKS

    1. Hang on to love after reality strikes (Reality: Newness of sexual attraction wears off; realizing you can't change the person you married; accept your spouses temperament; realizing that your spouse is not the total answer to life)

    2. Recognize the hidden contracts in your marriage.

    3. Write new marriage contract - renegotiate "hidden contracts"

    4. Childproof your marriage

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    III. Passage Three: Comfortable Love

    (Usually lasts from eleventh through the twenty-fifth year)

    TASKS

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    IV. Passage Four: Renewing Love

    (Usually lasts from twenty-sixth through the thirty-fifth year)

    TASKS

      1. Combat the crisis of this passage. Ten Steps:

        1. Suspend the blame cycle.

        2. Acknowledge your contribution to the pain.

        3. Examine the status of your marriage: Have you negotiated all the tasks in each passage so far?

        4. Commit to recovery and determine to improve your marriage.

        5. Assess how much deep sharing goes on between you: Are needs begin met?

        6. Employ loving confrontation after you have securely and completely suspended the blame cycle.

        7. Grieve the pain in your marriage.

        8. Meet needs through a series of "give-and-take" sessions.

        9. Commit to repairing the future as well as the present.

        10. Minimize the stressors in your marriage.

      2. Reestablish intimacy - Sorting fact from fiction:

        1. Menopause does not actually affect women's sexual desires and performance.

        2. Erection failure is not necessarily a sign that a middle-age man has become sexually unresponsive.

        3. Women over fifty do not necessarily become sexually unresponsive.

        4. Generally both men and women over forty-five actively engage in regular sexual intercourse. There are, however, metabolistic and psychological changes that do affect sexuality after forty.

      3. Grieve the particular losses of this passage.

        1. Loss of parents

        2. Loss of kids - the empty nest syndrome

        3. Come to terms with your finances

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    V. Passage Five: Transcendent Love

    (Usually lasts from thirty-sixth year and thereafter)

    TASKS

      1. Prepare for retirement.

        1. Psychological preparation.

        2. Facing control and boundary issues; such as, finance, leisure time, etc.

        3. Building a mutual dream Questions asked: "Where shall we live?" "Where will we travel." "We will engage in? a home business, volunteer work, etc.

        4. Spiritual growth must be attended to - preparing for death.

      2. Continuing renewing love.

      3. Achieve a transcendent perspective.

        1. The value of suffering.

        2. Facing loneliness

        3. Physical loss can be a spiritual gain - E. S. Jones

        4. Viewing time with eternity in mind.

        5. Saying good bye

      4. Accepting my one and only God-given life.

    The Renewed Marriage Contract

      1. Statement of affirmation; at least one attribute each person admires and appreciates in the other.

      2. Statement of extent of commitment to the marriage.

      3. Promise of fidelity.

      4. Statement of faith, embracing:

        a. Each person's individual statement of faith.

        b. Clearly stated common ground.

        c. Statement of tolerance (and limits of tolerance).

      5. Statement of recognition of old, dysfunctional hidden agendas.

      6. Declaration of new agendas to redress dysfunctions.

      7. Sexual contract, including:

        a. Recognition of difficulties or shortcomings in present sexual relations.

        b. Steps to improve relations and/or explore new techniques.

        c. Details of frequency if frequency is an issue.

      8. Review of items in first contract, with updates and revisions as necessary.

      9. Details of everyday life (request for romantic nights out) established through give-and-take (be specific).

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