Ex-harmony - a website for those understanding, avoiding and recovering from failure in love partnerships (marriage).
Looking at questions like:
What is God 's plan for love, sex and marriage?
Life-giving vs Vampire relationships
How does the church mess with God's plan for love, sex and marriage?
How do we mess up God's plan for love, sex and marriage?
God calls us to close intimate relationships with others. To "love" one another.
Many of us habitually and unconsciously avoid close intimate relationships and, therefore, love.
This means that we will develop habits that allow us (unconsciously) to avoid close intimate relationships (love). These habits are like addictions. They only partially and artificially meet our real need.
Marriage is the institution many persons turn to for love, to meet the god-given need for close, safe, bonding with another.
Marriage is not Love. Marriage is built by people who habitually and unconsciously avoid close intimate relationships. Marriage is a legal institution but it comes without guarantee of love.
This means that marriages will systematically build in avoidance of close intimate relationship with one life partner. Bonding in marriage is weak. The marriage bond or love bond becomes strained and can break. Therefore most of us would clearly benefit from a set of sessions in bonding focused couple therapy also called emotionally focused couple therapy.
We will very often become addicted to marriage as a way of escape from real intimate relationship. Marriage provides us with some companionship (so we are not alone), safety (another lives with us) without requiring the risk of love, the vulnerability of intimacy. The result is no love bond or marriage bond.
Other web sites by George Hartwell: Christian counselling HealMyLifeBlog Listening Prayer Christian Marriage Retreat