Passionate marriage

What Hacker News says

1. elizardbethJul 2022
   To me it sounds like you're going through the moves to find the right guy, but you don't actually take the ideas and self-reflection parts to heart.

   Some questions: Why do you want kids? (There are basically two answers, either it is because you have something to give or because you want something. I guess you can figure out which mindset is healthier.)

   Are you actually interested in the people around you? Not only men, but people in general? Do you make an effort to get to know them? And by the same token, are you ready to experience intimacy? I am not (only) talking about sex, but about the effort it takes to open up to someone and to trust them.

   Something that can (!) happen when you grow up with a single parent is that the parent confides in you just as if you were their partner, which leads to an unhealthy dynamic (parentification). Since children learn relationship dynamics from their parents, the learning experience in this case is "my needs and boundaries do not matter". As the child grows up, this can (!) lead to a pattern where they avoid intimacy in order to keep their needs and boundaries.

   You may want to google "fear of intimacy", "attachment styles", "scared of commitment" and if this resonates with you have a look at books like "He's scared, She's scared" by Steven Carter and Julia Sokol and David Schnarch's books on intimacy (his book "Passionate Marriage" does not only deal with marriage but mostly with the connection between sex and intimacy in general).

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2. zentr1cFeb 2022
   Things nobody tells you about relationship dynamics when you are young. Whats a head of you emontionaly? I recommend these to my son.

   Erich Fromm The Art of Loving

   David schnarch Passionate Marriage: Sex, Love & Intimacy in emotionally committed relationships.

   And before you get married... Get some new perspective why ...

   Wolfgang gädecke, Sexuality, Partnership and Marriage : From a Spiritual Perspective

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3. bpraterJun 2009
   Tolerance? That's what makes a "successful" long-term relationship? That's the best we can do in this lifetime, finding someone we can tolerate?! That's not living a full life!

   Here's a hint: how often do you look deeply into your partner's eyes? Yes, the way you did when you were dating. In most long-term relationships, it normally stops happening. It's one of the defining characteristics of a relationship that has a lack of commitment to growing in intimacy. Figure out how to grow in intimacy and you don't have to worry about simply tolerating another human.

   I follow a more esoteric spiritual path, but there is a mainstream book that is well-regarded, "Passionate Marriage", that touches on some of the techniques folks have used to build successful enduring relationships.

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4. hsitzAug 2017
   "The key to passionate sex is actually caring about the person you're having sex with."

   That sounds nice, but it's a load of baloney. I would wager that most people over the age of 20 (25?, 30?) have experienced a significant relationship(s) where the sex tends to be passionate (and frequent) at the very beginning, and tapers off and becomes less frequent, less passionate, more boring as time goes on (and years drag by). In fact, that is the typical progression of sex in a committed, caring relationship. So, no, I would not say that the key is "actually caring about the person".

   I haven't read the linked article yet, but the subject reminds me of some work done by a psychologist named David Schnarch, who has built a career and written several books on the subject. These include a book called _Passionate Marriage_, intended as self-help for a lay audience, and _Constructing the Sexual Crucible_, which is more of a technical handbook for therapists and counselors.

   See http://passionatemarriage.com/

   http://passionatemarriage.com/catalog/15

   Alain de Botton also examines the issue in a similar way on the impressive "Book of Life" website. E.g., he says:

   "In a wiser world, we would collectively admit that the very rare cases where love and sex did run together were astonishing exceptions with no relevance whatsoever to most of our lives. We would instead learn to pay admiring attention to those who had accepted with a reasonable show of dignity and grace that the natural price of long-term togetherness is a decline in the quality and frequency of sexual contact – and that this is, in a great many cases, a price very much worth paying."

   http://www.thebookoflife.org/love-and-sex/

   http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/relationships/

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