If Only I Had Listened: Grounds for Marriage Ii

By John Fulling Crosby Ph.D. and Joe Lee

This is a book intended to help people think two or three times before getting married. The book challenges the separation of societal romanticism from love and sex. The basic question is, Are you in it for sex or are you in love? Is it commitment or is it lust? The heart of the matter is one’s expectations. What we can bring into the marriage and what we are willing to commit to it are always in central focus. Crosby treats many of the usual and unusual challenges that we encounter whenever we join forces with a partner. This second edition includes a new chapter on traditional defense mechanisms. Passive-aggressiveness, dependence, obsessive-compulsiveness, and paranoia are reviewed as barriers to solid marital communication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728317663

John Fulling Crosby Ph.D.

John F. Crosby served as a Presbyterian Minister for eleven years before leaving the ministry for teaching in the area of marriage and family development and marriage and family therapy. Crosby taught at Indiana University for six years and the University of Kentucky for sixteen years, serving seven years as Chair of he Department of Family Studies. He won a Senior Class Council teaching award at IU and a Great Teacher Award at UK in1979. Crosby served as a regional officer in the American Association For Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) 1988-1992. Crosby is the author of 13 books, (Three in theology, 4 edited volumes, and one book of fiction (Divided We Stood) A Tale of Lee’s Lost Orders 191. Crosby is married to Marjorie Eastwick and has three grown sons.

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Copyright © 2019 John F. Crosby Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/05/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1767-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1766-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019908811

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The reader is assured that all examples and case study material is fabricated for illustrative and teaching purposes and, as such, is fictitious. The author disclaims any resemblance to any person, living or deceased.

John F. Crosby Ph.D.

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I    My Expectations – What I Want From You

Chapter II    My Resourcess - What I Have To Give

Chapter III    Romance And Commitment: The Feeling Of Love And The Fact Of Love

Chapter IV    Beliefs, Values, And Family Processes

Chapter V    Issues Of Power And Equality

Chapter VI    Communication And Conflict

Chapter VII    Living With Personality Problems

Chapter VIII    The Second And Third Times Around

Chapter IX    Sexuality

Afterword

PREFACE

THE PROBLEM THAT NEVER GOES AWAY

After a lifetime of teaching about sex, love and marriage, whether as an ordained Presbyterian minister, as a professor of marriage and family studies, or as a marriage/family therapist, I continue to study and write about this most fascinating and sometimes mysterious aspect of human life. Further, I write as a "Silent Generation" author, born in 1931, and henceforth as an observer of the Greatest Generation, born prior to 1928, as well as the post Silent Generations, including the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the Millennial.¹ I call attention to this simply because one cannot, in works of non-fiction, divorce oneself from the chronological point of view of one who has lived and labored amongst the values implicit in an earlier time period.¹

Experience has led me to the point where I believe the issue of sex and sexuality is the most appropriate jumping-off point for any discussion of love and marriage. I say this for several reasons, the most important being that the earth brings forth creatures that have two basic physiological purposes: 1.) To sustain life and 2.) to propagate life. We could word it alternately, that is, to survive and to procreate, or to maintain our own life even as we bring forth new life. There is no species of animal, sea creature, nor of plant, insect, or any kind of creepy-crawly that does not seek first to survive and almost simultaneously to procreate in species-specific manner.

Love is a word that may or may not be applicable to species other than Homo sapiens. Some few species are known to be monogamous. However, Homo sapiens alone practice rites and rituals of marriage, which has always been intended for the protection of the offspring. There is no known human society on the face of the earth that does not have (or has not had) some form of arrangement between the mating pair, that is, an agreement in conformity with the authority of the state or body politic, for the purpose of safeguarding, acculturating, socializing, and educating the children resulting from the union of sperm with ovum.

And so it is with sex, love, and marriage. Sex is basically physiological. Love is psychological/emotional. Marriage is legal and sometimes religious.

Generation X, and the Millennial.²

INTRODUCTION

A QUICK LOOK BACK

Necessary Questions

The problems to be addressed are multi-faceted and it includes the following:

• How do heterosexual sexually active couples (casually dating, cohabiting, or married) maintain sexual relations without becoming pregnant?

• What responsibility, according to current standards and mores, does the male have in protecting against unwanted pregnancy?

• When a couple first decides to live together, inside or outside the bonds of legal marriage, how, if at all, does the relationship change?

• What factors come into play that may affect and influence the quality of sexual union?

• When is the honeymoon over? Really?

• Are men by nature promiscuous?

• Are women by nature promiscuous?

• To what extent do differences in expectations of husbands and wives affect sexual satisfaction in marriage?

Necessary Considerations

The Child Factor

The Distance Factor

The Romance Factor

The Grand Illusion: Love Conquers all

Body Centered Sex

Person Centered Sex

The Value Factor

The Abuse of Love

The Second-Marriage Factor

LET US CONSIDER:

The universe is approximately 14.5 billion years old.

Earth is approximately 13.5 million years old.

The Homo of Genus Homo sapiens is approximately 7 million years old.

Species known as Sapiens is approximately 200,000 years old.

Does marriage and the idea of marriage go back to the lore of Adam and Eve? In the Hebrew language Adam is man or Everyman and Eve is woman or every woman? In Christian lore Adam and Eve are symbolic terms. Adam and Eve reportedly were parents of Cain and Abel.

What about Islam? Most Islamic sources support the Genesis interpretation. What about the mystic religions, the world views of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Shintoism, not to mention the thousands of mythologies of Africa, Asia, South America and the American Indians including Aztecs and Mayans.

Which came first? Marriage or sex? Sex. Sex universally and always is an experienced reality. As such sex comes first. Marriage, everywhere, is always an invented/created/constructed reality. As such, marriage is seondary to sex.

• As stated previously, there is no known society that has not exhibited a vested interest in the mate selection patterns of its young. This is usually because of only one factor. It is not because the society cares about the welfare and happiness of its citizenry but rather because the sperm- father and birth mother are held responsible for the socialization, the acculturation, the education, and the overall safety and well-being of its young.

• In this sense all societies are but one generation removed from extinction.

• Is it better to marry than to burn? Read I Corinthians 7.

• The Apostle Paul was preparing for the earthy return of Jesus. He was attempting to persuade his listeners of the veracity of his belief.

• Unrestricted intercourse. Is there? Was there ever such a reality?

• Property rights

The Need For Definitions

Monogamy

Polygamy Polyandry and polygyny

Patrifocal

Matrifocal

Patrilineal

Matrilineal

Bilineal

Patriarchal

Matriarchal

Avuncular (Mothers brother)

Mother Right: Matrilocal, Matrifocal, Matrilineal and matriarchal, (See J.J. Bachofen)

Hypergamy

Hypogamy

Inheritance patterns:

Primogeniture vs. Unigeniture (Alexis De Tocqueville. Democracy in America Love In the Western World. Dennis de Rougemont

As I wrote in the PREFACE, I write as a "Silent Generation" author, born in 1931, and henceforth as an observer of the Greatest Generation, born prior to 1928, as well as the post Silent Generations, including the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the Millennial. I call attention to this simply because one cannot, in works of non-fiction, divorce oneself from the chronological point of view of one who has lived and labored amongst the values implicit in an earlier time period.

Experience has led me to the point where I believe the issue of sex and sexuality is the most appropriate jumping-off point for any discussion of love and marriage. I say this for several reasons, the most important being that the earth brings forth creatures that have two basic physiological purposes: 1.) To sustain life and 2.) to propagate life. We could word it alternately, that is, to survive and to procreate, or to maintain our own life even as we bring forth new life. There is no species of animal, sea creature, nor of plant, insect, or any kind of creepy-crawly that does not seek first to survive and almost simultaneously to procreate in species-specific manner.

Love is a word that may or may not be applicable to species other than Homo sapiens. Some few species are known to be monogamous. However, Homo sapiens alone practice rites and rituals of marriage, which has always been intended for the protection of the offspring. There is no known human society on the face of the earth that does not have (or has not had) some form of arrangement between the mating pair, that is, an agreement in conformity with the authority of the state or body politic, for the purpose of safeguarding, acculturating, socializing, and educating the children resulting from the union of sperm with ovum.

And so it is with sex, love, and marriage. Sex is basically physiological. Love is psychological/emotional. Marriage is legal and sometimes religious.

A QESTION TO THE READER

Who among us is so wise, so knowledgeable, so insightful, so self-aware, so well put together, so hip, so cool that he or she can choose a mate at the age of seventeen, twenty-three, (or even fifty-something,) who will prove to be a true and loving companion, friend, and lover over the next twenty to seventy years?

Yet this is what our society and our elders expect us to do. The implicit message is that we should choose a mate and enter a relationship that will be vital and dynamic and sexually stimulating for a lifetime. The mass media (movies, T. V., tabloids, magazines, the Internet) bombard us with romantic myth. Sensual allure and the promise of sexual bliss pervade the collective messages from Madison Avenue and the advertising industry. The love/sex hype instructs us in the belief that if we simply love one another there is no obstacle or barrier that we cannot overcome. Love will conquer all. Unfortunately, even if we think we are immune to these messages, we absorb and internalize much more than we realize and thus set ourselves up for failure, disappointment, and bitter resentment.

In these pages I will challenge the reader to consider what is myth and what is practical reality. Much of the social-cultural belief about love and marriage is nothing more than romantic folklore. Generation after generation we buy into these semi-official societal beliefs and each new generation builds up its new reservoir of unrealistic, dream-world expectations which in turn greatly increase the chances for marital disenchantment and disillusionment.

If Only I Had Listened is intended for single people, high school age and older, who will most likely marry or remarry within the next few years of their life. Everything within these pages is intended to help the reader make a more rational choice of mate. As a comedian once quipped, it is much better to want something you don’t have than to have something you don’t want. Certainly this thought applies to our choice of mate, a decision to which people often give less serious thought than their choice of career, job, place of residence, or automobile. This is because we are members of a society that not only encourages but implicitly prescribes that our choice of mate be made on the sole criterion of highly romanticized love. This love is extolled in the general media, including religious institutions, and it pervades our everyday life in more ways than most can even begin to realize.

If Only I Had Listened is not a how-to book with easy to follow steps on how to meet a prospective mate, much less how to land a mate. Nor is it a recipe or checklist for choosing the so-called right person. Within a field of eligibles there may be several persons who have the potential for being the right person. This work is not a textbook on mate selection nor is it an academic investigation into the question of why a person chooses the mate she/he does. Over the years scholars have advanced several very pertinent and creditable theories of mate selection. Most of these theories attempt to explain why we choose the person we do. These theories reflect sound academic research but they do not focus on the practical side of helping a person make the right decision.

When relevant I will sketch out several of the more important mate selection theories as clearly and simply as I can and attempt to illustrate their practical implications. Sidebars, boxed segments of information set apart from the flow of the text yet supplemental to the thought being developed, will also highlight certain principles, aphorisms, and questions that, hopefully, will bring the topic into sharp focus.

If Only I Had Listened is intended to serve as a forum of discourse by which the reader may reassess her/his hopes, beliefs, values, and attitudes regarding his/her future life. Inevitably these beliefs and values lead to expectations. And these expectations are the key to almost everything else.

In order to facilitate this forum of personal discourse I have provided a background of practical and personal information, knowledge, and fact that will increase and strengthen the reader’s ability to choose a mate with care, caution, and a strong sense of self-awareness. I hope the reader will resist the temptation to engage in any kind of computer search for a prospective mate, matching service, or newspaper personals, at least until he/she has digested the main messages of these pages

CHAPTER I

MY EXPECTATIONS – WHAT I WANT FROM YOU

Five Basic Myths About Marriage

Myths about marriage have pervaded every society and every culture since at least the beginning of recorded history. Men accumulate a set of beliefs about women and women return the favor. Both sexes, lacking means to determine the truth or falsity of these beliefs, come to believe what their same sex friends tell them. This practice, a type of peer education, continues to this day and becomes an early source of sex information and education regarding all relations between males and females.

In North America there are many myths about sex, marriage, and romance. Following is a brief summary of five of the most basic myths that are responsible for the major share of modern marital unhappiness and discord. Each myth gives birth to a set of expectations. When a person comes to believe the myth in a deep and unquestioning way she/he internalizes it, that is, believes in it unconsciously and with the expectation that reality will be as the myth proclaims. Each basic myth, together with its related sub-myths, leads to a set of expectations that will color almost all future interactions and behaviors with the other sex.

I The Myth that Your Mate Will Make You Happy. This myth claims that your mate should make you happy and continue to make you happy. This is another way of saying that happiness is finding the almost-perfect mate.

II The