Sexy personal trainers life lesson in her Dance of passion Dance of Romance..I think its a name on twitter...how lovely that sounds to us all. Specially to me because I love dancing! lol (my videos rock with it even though I admittedly am not a great dancer) And the LOVE that comes with Romance and Passion can be life altering. Wow those words are a winning combination. But what happens to us when that Dance of romance seems to be elusive, or just has evaporated completely? Men and women BOTH have experienced this. A lot of men get involved in outside relationships to replace the passion they feel they are missing in their marriages. Some women have begun to do the same. This is not about judging people who are involved with other people...I'm sure there are a lot of them out there including myself. But if we get past pointing a finger...what is REALLY going on when this happens? As a very religious and fairly conservative person I have come to realize that in our lives we constantly have to face the things that challenge us the most to grow as a person. I for one said that I would NEVER be divorced..but here I am, divorced. I also said I thought that being Gay was bad, but now I know some wonderful gay members of the community, some of whom are family members and obviously I do not think they are bad. We can as individuals disagree with another persons life choices, but why do we feel like THEIR choices threaten us? Why do we get others to see our point of view as to how we must all hate and fear them in order to feel like we are doing our job to protect others in society from the same mistake?. My thoughts are that with a marriage, it is a very fragile environment which, when shattered, can fragment many lives, so it is VERY important to me, in my journey through my emotions and my choices, to get to the unhealthy things that led up to loss of passion and romance. I have researched and read many different opinions from men and women on this topic Some think that marriage, as an institution, is valuable and needs to be protected. Others think it is outdated.  I still think that both views are putting a bandaid on the REAL problem which is the need for valuable communication within relationships.Not just marriage relationships but ALL relationships. What causes a person to change jobs at work and end that boss/employee relationship is the same thing that causes a marriage to end. Such as, failure to see things the same way, inability to discuss differences and find rational or equitable solutions. I have actually heard that some people think that women should be able to be sued if they refuse to have sex for a specific amount of time within the boundries of a marriage. OMG!! Are you KIDDING me? Sex is the ultimate expression of love between two people. A contractual agreement for sex is um..prostitution isn't it? But maybe then men would get more turned on by their wives if it was forced (kinky) and maybe women would be more willing if they got financial compensation...Do you see where this is going??? Obviously the LOVE in that situation would be EVEN MORE ELUSIVE! So, back to the beginning, where you have two individuals who are finding the relationship strained, unhappy or boring..FOR ANY REASON..that is a red flag for you to start digging for solutions if you want to save or salvage your relationships. Usually NEITHER person WANTS to break up initially. They just know they are not feeling that LOVE any more.Feeling loved in my opinion is ESSENTIAL to a quality relationship. In my own case, I started out very in love with my husband. We have five kids ( three of mine from a prior marriage) He is a hardworking successful businessman who has a one hour commute each way and  also coaches on the side and is actively involved in the church as a sunday school teacher . As a mom I have cared for the kids and have had them in everything from tennis to soccer to scouts to orchestra to art. I have taught my kids to cook, sew, have jobs, do chores, volunteer and get an education and I even homeschooled them for years. In addition I have my own business with full time hours that I squeeze in between caring for the family. My job as a trainer is not just working out with clients, it is planning menus and cooking with clients, creating and editing videos as informational and motivational tools and creating new content for my website on a regular basis. When my husband and I were dating we played volleyball and worked out together and went on bike rides and hung out with friends at the local bars and at camping trips and friends homes. I am not a drinker but I enjoyed the parties and the dancing and the social aspects of being with other adults. Once we started having kids our lives changed..and then years later when problems were apparent and we looked back we could see the changes and see how we had slowly drifted apart. What happened to us? From my perspective, when my husband and I got married and started our family he felt it was important to practice his religion more and  he wanted to get involved back in the church. I supported that. But his involvement included a decision to stop drinking which also included a decision to stop hanging around people who used drinking for socialization. Well that pretty much eliminated us from THE WHOLE WORLD! We still would go out to dinner occasionally but we lost touch with most of our original friends. Money was very tight when my husband lost his job. My training business and his retirement account kept us afloat but we were very close during that time because WE COMMUNICATED with each other ALL THE TIME. And since we did not have the funds to do a lot of expensive activities, we did a lot of camping with our kids which EVERYONE loved. Camping..means spending quality, non electronic time with each other and it means great communication..by a campfire, on a hike, in a tent in sleeping bags. But once we got back into the rat race of jobs, the camping trips went away and were replaced by my husband spending hours at work,  church or reading the bible locked up in his study, and me spending hours at work or on the computer chatting with random people I did not know. Because he was unhappy with me for chatting he would criticize everything I would do. Because I was unhappy with the criticizm and the isolation I would withdraw from communication with him. I felt completely fine with my choices to entertain myself because he was never physically or emotionally available. He felt fine with ignoring me because he said he was building his character with the bible. (side note here). Speaking of criticism, I have read a NUMBER of articles in the media directed at marital problems that were written to women to advise them about things such as not going to bars when married or to not be mad at your husband for falling asleep at the table and being bored out of your mind. These articles use GUILT and CRITICISM directed at women for DARING to be upset with their husband but in my case, the husband falling asleep happens ALL THE TIME and is an unhealthy pattern..NOT FUNNY! This is what I have to say about that. You can us a media article to GUILT someone into doing what you say but on maslows hierarchy of needs, you are only reaching the bottom level of cooperation from that person and you are DEFINITELY NOT solving the problems they have. No one wants to be stuck forever in a boring, unstimulating, monotomously endless relationship. The problem is not that the man or woman is sleeping. The problem is that they are not making the other person a priority. Money is important but PEOPLE are more important. As another sideline example...I have only met two celebrities IRL..One was very warm and friendly and the other was totally rude. Celebrities deserve privacy and consideration..but in a "one on one" random encounter, where no one acknowledges that the person is a celebrity..how that "Celebrity" treats a random unoffensive stranger,  by using either a courteous approach or a disdainful rude one, is an ultimate sign of their character. My own personal opinion of powerhouses in the media is VERY MUCH shaped by how they handle the little people like US. The same is true in a marriage. People have to care about each other when no one is looking. We can get laws to force women to stay married, to force them to have sex, to force them to cover themselves like they do in other countries...but when we look DEEPER into the dynamics of relationships, often if not always, the offended party has a legitimate gripe and is not feeling loved and supported. Support is more than just dollar bills. That is why in a community property state the woman and the man split all the assets because the courts have recognized that ALLsupport even  in the form of child rearing or working for a lesser paying job is equally valuable in the relationship. That is a good step. But now a better step would be to progress in society to a point where couples are encouraged by friends and family church and outside organizations to do activities together that enhance communication and spending time together. What good is all the money in the world if you lose the person you love the most in the process? No one wants to lose the one they love.  So what makes people drift away? Once the communication in a relationship stops being quality and is more task oriented, often the person will look for a connection somewhere else. It can be in the form of volunteering at church or in the form of becoming a workaholic or in the form of another person. In each case both people find satisfaction from activities where they can reinforce feelings of self worth. My husband was always at church and I was always on the phone. The man I had met who I communicated with  was saying all the things I needed to hear and I told my husband I wanted to leave. Yes we tried counseling. Yes we agreed to stay together for the sake of our kids. Were either of us happy? NO.  The one thing that kept us bound was our marrige agreement and our spiritual connection because both of us kept praying for a right solution. I moved out eventually and went to live in colorado to try to write and to destress. I had been asked to get married by the OTHER man. I was completely entranced by the romance and passion I felt. I accepted and we had several townhome shopping expereinces. Things took an unexpected turn when I found out this man was not only married, but he had three kids. I was face to face with the "I WILL NEVER BE THE OTHER WOMAN IN A RELATIONSHIP" promise I had made to myself.  I told my husband and I was devastated. I forgave the OTHER man for being dishonest for almost a year but I could not turn off the love I had allowed myself to get caught up in. This continued for three years until, after much prayer, I ended the communication with that person and am now in the process trying to reestablish good communication with my husband. Is it going to work for us? I do not know.  But what I have learned is this...After watching the OTHER man for three years I saw a VERY hardworking man who had a wife who drank, was unemployed and who contributed very little to the family economic health who yelled and criticized her husband. He did all the kid activities, all the teacher meetings, all the grocery shopping. He said she was disgusting to him. No wonder he was excited when he ran into me? In my relationhip, my husband does NOT drink and is NOT lazy but he was NEVER INTERESTED in anything I did. No wonder I was interested in a man who was willing and interested in talking to me for hours every day on the phone and REMEMBERED EVERYTING I SAID and tried to help me be a better person. Anyone can say they love someone but if that love is never expressed in the action of shared activities and conversation, the words I LOVE YOU are meaningless. Though I am all for marriage, when two people are not able to find a common ground for affection, I think maintaining a marriage for the sake of propriety is very destructive to the emotional health of each individual. Taking the initiative to get counseling and to SPEND TIME TOGETHER as if you were dating, however is wonderful and hopefully constructive and solutions oriented. I personally would rather live in a cave with the man I love than to live in a mansion with a man I do not know...I am grateful to say I have been able to express to my husband my sadness over the loss of OUR relationship and my feelings that our relationship is forced and strained and has a long way to go. He is aware of how he contributed to our problems and is trying to change since I have ended the other relationship.  Being willing to listen and HEAR what the other person is saying is what we have accomplished so far..NO JUDGEMENTS..just respect and love. I believe those who try too hard to pound in the idea of the institution of marriage are afraid that THEIR women will make a mass exit...lol..if that is the case, WHAT ARE YOU DOING to make women WANT to leave? We are not sluts or atheists..we are working christian members of society so there are no stereotypes that are relevante..we are the world...Marriage is good, but marriage needs to be a DANCE OF ROMANCE...Lets ALL help make it that way..particularly for those who are struggling with their relationships! Last Updated on Wednesday, 21 September 2011 16:36

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