Love Secrets Revealed What Happy Couples Know About Having Great Sex, Deep Intimacy And a Lasting Connection

Long-term commitment to an intimate relationship with one person of whatever sex is an essential need that people have in order to breed the qualities out of which nurturant thought can rise. a?Gerda Lerner (1981) Chapter 1 The Stuff You Have to Understand for the Rest of This Book to Make Sense Love in Today's Social Context Pat and Jane are in their mid-thirties. Jane worked during the first part of their relationship and supported the family while Pat attended law school. After Pat graduated and passed the bar exam, they started expanding their family and today enjoy two beautiful children. For the past several years, Pat has been focusing on building his career, spending long hours at the office, going above and beyond the call of duty, to impress the partners of the firm. Jane's new job is raising her two children and managing their recently purchased home. This shift in their individual roles was not easy. Pat has been having trouble connecting to his wife after a full day's work; he's often exhausted and doesn't know how to get close to her. He helps her out because she seems so tired and drained by caring for their two young children throughout the day. But something is missing; he is helpful, but disconnected from the woman he loves. He suffers in silence, as do most men. He never developed the ability to tell his wife what he wants; his personal language is poorly developed because in his family of origin his father focused on being a provider rather than a participant. Jane also contributes to their problems. She is unhappy with their connection, but because Pat works so hard she swallows her unfulfilled desires in order to not burden Pat. She tries to remain loyal to her love for Pat, but she never learned that mature love means to having loyalty to herself too. So she remains silent. They are both suffering from a lack of intimacy. In Jane's family of origin, she learned to please others at her own expense as a way of expressing love. A deadly combination for this young couple, wouldn't you agree? The good news is that they have reached out for help. They want more than just a marriage in name only; they want a passionate, loving connection. They are not alone. Today the forces that join two people are extremely complex, but love has emerged as the central concern for the first time in the history of Western civilization. What does this mean to you and me in the twenty-first century? I believe we are in the midst of a dramatic social change. We are moving toward a more personal and authentic consciousness. Self-help books now fill a whole section at the bookstore. Reality TV dominates much of the programming on television as we watch people from all walks from life struggle with their personal lives. We watch to see how they get along with friends, lovers, husbands and wives and to witness how they face real, practical issues and difficulties. Our willingness to study human interactions resulted in the Civil Rights movement, the women's movement and the men's movementa?and it continues today. Our increased life spans present special stresses to our relationships. Because of advances in medical science, we are faced with learning how to love a person for a longer period of time. Today a couple's marriage may last two decades more than their parents'. The challenge becomes how to stay connected and passionate for the entire course of the marriage. What all this means is that love no longer exists merely as a courtship ritual that withers after the first year of marriage. An altogether different sort of love is emerging: a love that is based on individuality and integrity, rather than on social dictates or emotional dependency. Erich Fromm anticipated the character of this type of love when he stated that, "Mature love is union with the preservation of integrity." This is the type of love we need to embrace in the twenty-first century.Berger, Allen is the author of 'Love Secrets Revealed What Happy Couples Know About Having Great Sex, Deep Intimacy And a Lasting Connection', published 2006 under ISBN 9780757303975 and ISBN 0757303978.