OUR MARITAL HEALTH/SEX AND PROBLEMS OF DAILY LIVING: SOME OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS GIVEN TO THE COUPLES REGARDING THE MONEY ISSUES

Here were some of the recommendations given to the couples regarding the money issues. Remember the warning of lackie Mason, who said,’ T have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.”

1. Money is a token, a token for trading a measure of some of your work or earnings for things you want or need. It has no meaning other than that. Do not allow its amount or use to symbolize anything more than that.

2 If you’re fighting over money, you’re not! When you fight over money, you are doing so because money provides a target for interpretation, misinterpretation, and “proving something.” Look deeper, because the money is not the issue.

3 Money relates directly to roles in the marriage. If there are problems with money, consider altering the roles. All role changes should be for a prearranged period of time followed by scheduled reassessment of how the new roles worked out.

4 When money problems are severe and arguments are getting bitter, sex will no doubt suffer. This is the time to reconsider goals, hopes, and aspirations for your marriage. When such dreams are vague, unshared, or forgotten, money and money issues seem to take on a life of their own. Couples may have a financial plan, but they need a shared life dream”, too.

5. The key first question in money management in marriage is not “Can we afford it?” or “Who will pay for it?” or “Who’s money is it?” but “What do we want to do and what do we need to do it or get it? ” After this question is discussed, then money can be the focus as a shared problem, a means to an end. Most couples want money to be able to “do” things, to “buy” time, rather than “get” things.

6. In a super sex marriage, all money is “us” money. It comes from and belongs to the marriage. Any other arrangement will prevent the type of intimate trust necessary for the type of sexuality that I am discussing. For a super marriage, all major purchases must be mutual, with intense shared review and discussion. Deferring to a partner on major investments will always come back to haunt you. It doesn’t matter who knows more about money. What matters is that both of you have feelings, and money issues are never separate from feeling issues.

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SUPER LOVE FOR SUPER SEX/LOVE-MAP LANDMARKS: DESCRIBE YOUR BEST CHILDHOOD

SAME-SEX FRIEND

Whom you choose to bond with depends not only on early experience of adult sex scenes, perceived parental sexual behavior, male/female sex-role interpretations, and sex play with boys and girls, it also relates to friendship patterns. Most of us had one special friend of the same gender, that one special playmate or school chum who shared our developmental joys and griefs. We often spent time talking, listening to one another’s lies, discussing one another’s life philosophies. This friend became a major point on our love map, a major determinant of some of the characteristics we would later look for in a marital partner. Do you remember such a friend?

One man reported, “Yes, it was Dennis. He was with me from early elementary school. We played together for hours. We formed a club, built a clubhouse, and were the only two members. We didn’t talk much about sex or anything like that. We just sort of shared the same terrors and hopes. One time we actually held hands. I’ll never forget it. We must have been about eight years old or so, and they were going to take blood tests, something about civil defense procedures. We were scared to death. We just held hands in line. I’ll never forget it.”

The special support from his boyhood friend became a key part of this man’s love map, and one that directly affected his later choice of a wife. His wife reported a similar incident, perhaps explaining in part the overlapping of love maps that I mentioned earlier and the impact of this overlapping on the sexual system.

‘ T never forget her. I just cannot think of her name, but she was always with me for about three years in school. She saved me many times. I remember not being able to jump rope worth anything.

The other girls laughed at me. She told them to stop, that I could do it if I wanted to, but that I was in training for ballet school and was not allowed to jump rope. Of course, this was a lie, but I would never have been fast enough or devious enough to think of it. She could always save me.”

This woman had selected a husband who did much the same thing in their marriage, supported her and covered for her. “He gets me out of any social event I really don’t want to go to. He is a good strategic liar,” she reported.

Her husband’s report supported this overlap theory. “She is always there for me. She even held my hand once in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. She did it beautifully. She held a magazine on her lap and put one on mine and we held hands under the magazines. I was scared to death, but she really helped me, and nobody ever knew about it.” A love-system bond is evident here, a map match that helped this couple find super marital sex.

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