I remember back in high school how one particular bathroom in our school had no doors on the stalls. Needless to say, none of us wanted to use the restroom in any way that involved “paperwork” because there just wasn’t enough privacy for that. I later found out that the reason they took the doors off of the stalls was due to the fact that a few students were using those private toilet stalls as a place to secretly smoke cigarettes and do drugs.
Privacy became their shield or covering for their harmful, secret, illegal activities. Certainly, this is part of the concern associated with individual privacy in marriage and rightly so. Tragically, individual privacy is often the breeding ground for things that can harm, injure and even lead to the ultimate demise of a marriage.
Still, we meet husbands and wives who defend and even demand their right to privacy. Some even believe it is healthy to privately individuate in marriage, however, if you think about it, the phrase married individuals is a bit of an oxymoron. To be married means to give up individuality and become “one flesh” with your spouse. (Mark 10:8 Gen. 2:2)
This doesn’t mean that you do not have your own interests, talents, or hobbies, the real issue we are addressing is privacy about or within such things. Privacy, boiled down, is not knowing.
It is interesting that some translations of the Bible call intimacy between a man and woman “knowing.”
“Adam knew his wife and she gave birth to a son…” Genesis 4:25
Sex is knowing. And the truth is great sex comes from great knowing. Intimacy in all it’s forms is the result of knowing. Your satisfaction and experience of intimacy (emotionally and sexually) in marriage is directly related to how much or how little you keep secret or private between yourself and your spouse.
Sometimes men will ask me, “Todd, how much does my wife need to know?” And I often seriously-joke with them in response, “Well, how great do you want sex with your wife to be?” I say this to reveal the truth that sharing completely and openly with our wives (not just facts but feelings) deepens our intimacy with them. One terrific byproduct of relational and emotional intimacy is great sexual intimacy.
If sharing creates intimacy, then the opposite is true as well – secrets separate. In other words, privacy hinders the intimacy that comes from being fully known in marriage.
Privacy, individuality, and secrets pave the
If you are looking to deepen your intimacy with your spouse we encourage you to look into the issue of privacy. Take a look at the patterns of your relationship. There may be things that you are keeping “private” that you would never have labeled as such.
Don’t let fear of judgment keep you from sharing your thoughts, ideas, and dreams. Look beneath your justification that you are protecting your spouse by not sharing more fully. If privacy has become a cover for secrecy and sin, break free and step into the light with honest confession. Take the advise of my mentor and friend Gary Thayer (leader of the Marriage Restored Ministry) who once encouraged me with these words, “Trust the one God gave you.”
Want help building a more intimate relationship. Contact Love Ministries today. Here’s a link
“and the two will become one flesh.’
So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”
~ Mark 10:8 ~