Security and Significance
by Dr.Larry Crabb   

Editor's Note:  The articles all week  presume you understand the author's underlying principle that we are created with the deepest needs for security and significance.   

When discussing our deep longing for security in marriage, we tend to think that we must feel secure in order to function properly.  We need to understand that only God's love ultimately satisfies our deep need for unconditional love, and only following His plans fulfills our need to affect others lastingly (significance).  So the issue becomes what we believe rather than what we feel.

And we sometimes feel that we can love our spouse only if our spouse has fulfilled our need for security and significance.  Our love becomes dependent on our spouse's love for us.  This can lead to rejection, manipulation, and fear in our marriage relationship.

Questions to Ponder 

1. Do you find yourself wanting to feel more accepted and secure before reaching out to care more deeply for your spouse?

2. Do you play cat-and-mouse games with your spouse, withholding love, refusing to meet your spouse's need?

3. Do you feel that your spouse plays cat-and-mouse games with you?

This article is taken directly from The Marriage Builder: A Blueprint for Couples and Counselors by Dr. Larry Crabb.  Published by Zondervan Publishing. 

Understanding Marital Intimacy
by Dr. Gary Chapman  

We did not get married in order to find a convenient way to cook meals, wash dishes, do laundry, wash cars, and rear children.  We married out of a deep desire to know and to be known by another, to love and to be loved, to live life together, believing that together we could experience life more deeply than apart.  We got married believing we had an intimate relationship and hoping we would keep it forever.

How does this lofty and sometimes ethereal goal become experiential?  It helps to look at the five essential components of an intimate relationship. 

1.  Sharing our thoughts - intellectual intimacy.

2.  Discussing our feelings - emotional intimacy.

3.  Spending time with each other and talking about the time we spend apart - social intimacy.

4.  We open our souls to each other - spiritual intimacy.

5.  We share our bodies - physical intimacy.

This week we are going to talk about each of these and how to gain and maintain intimacy.

Article is based on the book,  The Family You've Always Wanted by Dr. Gary Chapman. Published by Moody Publishers.

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

Romans 6:17