THE DESEXUALIZATION OF THE AMERICAN MARRIAGE THE MARITAL-ABUSE FACTOR: THE KIDS! THE KIDS! THE KIDS!
“If God wanted sex to be fun, He wouldn’t have included children as punishment.”
ED BLUESTONE
Super Marital Sex Rule: The kids do not come first!
I don’t remember how it was before we had kids. I’m sure we must have done something then, but I can’t remember what it could have been. They seem to be everything now.
Kids are a unique pressure and joy for marriages, so I have separated the “kid factor” from the ten items above. They deserve their own category, for they are the worst and the best thing that happens to a marriage. I maintain that kid priority has overburdened American marriage, resulting in doing for instead of with our children, applauding only them instead of each other. We fall victim to “P-M-S,” parent manipulation syndrome by our children.
This child focus has an additional twist. Once the child focus dominates a marriage at the expense of the marital relationship, even the parents themselves can become infantalized, childlike in their own behavior and orientation to life. Husbands begin to buy their own toys, to expect to be mothered by their wives, cheered at Softball games, tolerated in their own immaturity. Wives become princesslike, protected, cared for, and idealized. Soon everyone in the family is behaving more like a set of siblings than parents and children.
As many marriages fail because of children as children fail because of faulty marriages. Until we learn that children are not special, but equal in importance to all of us, until we learn that we must not lead our lives and our marriages for children, but with them, we sacrifice our marriages, our own development. After all, wasn’t one of your greatest wishes that your own parents would be happy? Think of giving that gift to your children.
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