# Passionate Marriage



## SFladybug (May 25, 2009)

:catfly::catfly::catfly: It's been a while since I visited this forum. Thought I would share with ya'll about a book I recently started reading. Passionate Marriage is written by David Schnarch, Ph.D. 

One of the premises of the book is that marriage (including the conflict) is the crucible in which we can develop better intimacy, sexual fulfillment and passion. And, this often only happens when we are out of the youthful body stage of life.

I am still deciding whether I want to share this with my husband...so I guess I am assessing how intimate I really want to be with him? :scratchhead: 

Still, so far, the author really gets it. He claims that our culture has a distorted view of marriage and that a large majority of married people are unsatisfied with their sex life (born out by the many posts here). 

He goes beyond discussing techniques to spice up the bedroom and really delves into learning how to differentiate in order to increase intimate connections.

Anyway, it is thought provoking and maybe it is just the perspective someone else out there needs right now. 

Good luck to all and keep learning to love each and every day.

P.S. If I find a break - through by reading this book and eventually sharing with my husband, I will post an update.


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

I do think our culture has led us to believe that a "normal" "satisfying" marriage consists of two well-educated, perfectly toned, wealthy people who are 40 but look 25, have perfect kids, a spotless house, and frequent, amazing sex. A good year for my grandparents meant having something to eat, living through pregnancy and childbirth, and going a whole year without at least one child dying. Sheet-scorching sex and six pack abs probably weren't high priorities for them. A good day for most of the real world means just still breathing at the end of the day, having a place to sleep, and something to eat. For each American wife unhappy cause her husband leaves the toilet seat up or tosses socks on the floor, there are literally millions of women around the world who would think they hit the lottery if they could have him.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

SFladybug said:


> :catfly::catfly::catfly: It's been a while since I visited this forum. Thought I would share with ya'll about a book I recently started reading. Passionate Marriage is written by David Schnarch, Ph.D.
> 
> One of the premises of the book is that marriage (including the conflict) is the crucible in which we can develop better intimacy, sexual fulfillment and passion. And, this often only happens when we are out of the youthful body stage of life.
> 
> ...


Be intimate. Don't hold back otherwise your husband will never know you.

Bob


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## SimplyAmorous (Nov 25, 2009)

SFladybug said:


> :He goes beyond discussing techniques to spice up the bedroom and really delves into learning how to differentiate in order to increase intimate connections.


I also got this book on my shelves, I bought it well over a year ago, I did not read it cover to cover, I did get a little lost when he kept using this term "DIFFERENTIATE" , maybe I am a little dense here, but It sounded as though we should not ever need or expect "positive validation" from our spouse, whereas this is NOT the same thing that other relationship specialits teach. 

Am I missing something? 

I got a little confused, but I did value this book very highly. It was the 1st I truly got a feel for how Husbands feel about Intimacy with their wives, it makes them feel loved-like nothing else in life. Sex is healing for men. 

Until I picked up this book, I truly didn't "get it", I never looked at it in those deep terms of how much it hurts a man if/when we reject our husbands. 

Great book! Share more of your insights.


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## JeanneH1968 (Jun 12, 2018)

From what I've read (which is a little over half the book), the differentiation means that you need to be your own person without feeling like you need to live up to your spouse's view of you or how they thing you should be. I had a hard time, too, with that word. If you keep reading, you might try to think of it in terms of how you think of yourself without depending on what they think of you. Does that make sense?


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## Vinnydee (Jan 4, 2016)

We are married 46 years and still are very passionate. How we did that is unconventional since it involved playing with others at times, trying every fetish we heard about or saw online and sharing a girlfriend for most of our marriage. Our marriage was not built on a foundation of monogamy, yet we only played with others as a couple so we were monogamish. We learned that sex can be just sex and fun with others that you have a friendship with. With our girlfriend we learned that you can love more than on person without shutting the other out of your life.

We have had a great marriage and sex life. Still do in our late sixties. Funny that we never visited sex forums all those years. Maybe we were too busy doing to post about it. Most who post on sex forums are living their sex lives online. That has been shown in many studies and articles by professionals. It is interfering with marriages. Men are masturbating to porn and as a result are not interested in sex with their wives which they find boring because they are used to orgasming to unrealistic porn. Read an article that said couples in this generation have less sex than in mine. It is just that we never talked about it.

If monogamy works for you that is super great. You can have a great passionate sex life being monogamous too. In our case my wife is bisexual and wanted to explore that part of her and so we did. That opened up a new world to us. It was like breaking a barrier that we were taught to never break as it would destroy your marriage. It had the opposite effect and was a perfect fit for all three of us, even the husband of our girlfriend.  We always put our marriage first, even before monogamy. Our marriage was not built on a foundation of sexual fidelity. It was built on the certain knowledge that we would care for and love each other to the end of our days. Time has proven that to be true for us and other couples like us. Keep it fresh and have fun during sex. We never got into a routine.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

SFladybug said:


> :catfly::catfly::catfly: It's been a while since I visited this forum. Thought I would share with ya'll about a book I recently started reading. Passionate Marriage is written by David Schnarch, Ph.D.
> 
> One of the premises of the book is that marriage (including the conflict) is the crucible in which we can develop better intimacy, sexual fulfillment and passion. And, t*his often only happens when we are out of the youthful body stage of life.*
> 
> ...


I am a big fan of Schnarch. I have read the Passionate Marriage cover to cover. It is as hard as any graduate school college textbook I have ever read. It is a very tough read. As you say it is insightful.

However, his more recent books are easier to read. I highly recommend them.

To me the hallmarks of the Schnarch approach are:

Marriage is the hardest thing two people can do, if done correctly as it takes two individuals and puts them together in a situation where they will grow at different rates. This will cause them to constantly push and pull each other emotionally as one tries to keep up with the other. Marriage by its nature (two becoming a family, having and raising children, who each year have different emotional and physical needs, etc.) involves near constant change.

The key to building a strong relationship is differentiation or finding your true inner core and what you believe.

Another key is self=soothing, which is taking the stress and fear associated with emotional challenges and change and calming yourself to the point that you can do those things that you need to do to make the marriage work. Self soothing can range from being brave and changing your child's first diaper, watching the birth of your child, because your wife needs your emotional support, trying a sex act that you have never done before, to going into an employer and asking for a job or a raise, because your family needs the money. He provides guidelines in looking at something, breaking it down into components, mastering those components and then putting them together and "owning" the act or action.

For me and my marriage, his comment that everything about marriage is a negotiated compromise and that there is no right or wrong helped convince my wife to do marriage counseling with a sex therapist. He pointed out that in marriage there is no right amount of chocolate ice cream, just as there is no right amount of sex. In some marriages the wife may "need" chocolate ice cream each night after dinner and even sneak some after lunch on occasion, while the husband may be strictly a vanilla ice cream guy, but just once a week. It doesn't make them incompatible, it doesn't mean the marriage will fail, it just means that the two of them need to figure out how both their needs can be met within the marriage. Likewise there is no right amount of sex each week or no right sex acts that define a good marriage.  Once my wife understood that and understood that marriage counseling with a sex therapist was not about "fixing her" but helping us find and negotiate compromise she agreed to counseling, which helped save our marriage.

His concepts on intimacy are fascinating. My wife once told me she wanted more intimacy in the marriage, so I showed her Schnarch's intimacy exercises including kissing eyes open, etc. After reading it and my telling her I was there for her to try some of the exercises, she told me she didn't want that much intimacy. What I took away from it was that she wasn't yet capable of the self-soothing required to be that intimate. I do feel Schnarch has nailed it when he says that not many couples experience true intimacy as they haven't sufficiently self-differentiated and self-soothed to get there.

I can probably understand your comment on being concerned about how much intimacy you want in your marriage. While change is hard, I would urge you to at least discuss with your husband the concept of self-soothing and also if he would like to participate in some the Schnarch intimacy exercises.

I also have seen something he refers to as marital sadism. That is where one partner enjoys torturing their spouse, even though it really doesn't do much to advance their own lifestyle.

I also like how Schnarch says that most long term married couples don't have a communications problem as they probably communicate too well. That after a few decades a look, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice can convey far more that two ours of "I feel" statements.

I am a real fan of his approach.

Good luck!


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## workerbee (Feb 15, 2018)

I love this book. 
I rarely have comprehension issues, but diffrenciation was, to me, a COMPLETE mind****. Once I grasped the concept, it all fell in place. 
It is challenging in Marriage. 
This book is challenging. 
The book helped our marriage and me in life.


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