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Burning Question Part 2

torahlovesalvation2

torahlovesalvation2

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When I was thinking about the whole women seeing their husband as their source of happiness thing, I wrestled with another question. If you are familiar with the book "The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman, then you will know what I mean when I say that my primary love language is physical touch. My other burning question is how does a woman who's love language is physical touch get her love tank full when she has to share her husband with other women and she can't physically touch or be touched by God. Now there is something to be said about the loving unconditional touch of a hug from your children, family or friends, but it doesn't replace the unique and special touch of the man you love. So how does she keep her love tank full in a poly relationship and what would you suggest that the man could do to help make those emptier days feel not so empty?
 
I'm curious to see the answers to this one, TLS2. Since I am "quality time", I think I'm in the same boat as you. Lol.

My first thought is that when we redirect our focus from ourselves onto our partners then we *magically* get our needs met.
 
The premise is wrong. Marriage isn't about getting your needs met. It's about helping your husband accomplish his calling. Meeting your needs is his concern and has no bearing one way or the other on you.
 
Ummm, ouch.

I mean, meeting a wife's needs *is* a husband's responsibility, but I'd certainly say it is a concern for her. She's looking for practical advice for both her and TLS. I'd say it's a very valid question.

As to the question itself, and Windblown's very related love language, I think the key may be intentionality and quality vs quantity.

I haven't technically courted a second wife, but GG and I did get very close with a female friend once, and had she (and more specifically her family) been able to accept the idea of PM then I am quite sure it would have developed into quite a bit more. What I found is that I spent time with her, either alone or in the company of GG, it had the effect of making me appreciate the time with GG more. So to did it make me aware that the time I spent with this other woman could potentially stir jealousy in GG if her "tank" wasn't full. Additionally, the simple fact that my romantic emotions were stirred, caused my romantic emotions for GG to stir more as well. The net result is that I became more active in my intention to make my time with GG *mean* more. Often we get complacent in marriage and may start to simply exist near our spouse more than actually interact with them.

You may well find that it takes less time or touch to fill your tank than it currently does in the event of another spouse. The octane of the fuel may likely be better if you will. Does that make sense?
 
I'm going to take a stab at this one...

I confess I have not read the book about love languages. However, I have enough working knowledge of its basic content to understand what you are saying about that. (ahem...well...I think I do :) )

Here goes...

Your love language is touch, right? Let's just work with that. Does that touch have to be exclusively about you? Does it require the complete focus of the one giving you that touch? I only ask because here's my theory: let's say you are sitting on the couch with your husband and his arm is around you. Then another wife comes to sit with you both. She will probably sit on the other, available side of your hubs. Depending on how you all agree to show affection in front of each other, it's possible that his arm would still remain around you AND also be around the other wife.

In this situation, you are still getting gas in your love tank. :)

It might help you to really define what you mean by "touch" as your love language. Is it a long, lingering, exclusive hug? Is is G-rated snuggling? Is is R-rated snuggling? I find it helps when all parties involved agree on what words mean.

Overall, I agree with ZecAustin. This wonderful thing happens (not magically...sorry windblown...) when you really focus on your husband and serving him and helping him. A daily surrender of your life to help him, basically. Your heart gets filled with peace and satisfaction when you help him move forward in his vision. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying that the more you do it the less empty you feel. And the reason you feel less empty is because your husband is so happy and pleased with your desire to help him that he will want to make sure your needs are met.

In my experience, a good husband notices when a wife sincerely puts his needs above her own. He appreciates that and then shows her that he does.

I realize I'm rambling here. Sorry. I do that...

But one more thing...when you are willing to place everything in God's hands by placing your life in your husband's hands you take the risk that your perceived needs won't be met. That's true for any marriage - monogamous or polygamous. The truth as I've experienced is that the less I try to measure those things, the more freedom I feel to be myself - and the more freedom my husband has to be himself too (without having to be concerned that I'm keeping record of his actions as they pertain to my needs...).

That's all I've got for now.

Love it that you are asking such great questions.

You remain in my prayers, beautiful, sweet friend.
 
TLS2, how many minutes in a day would you spend having quality physical touch with your husband?

How many minutes a day does your husband have outside of work, when he could conceivably be giving someone quality physical touch?
 
Ginny said:
Your love language is touch, right? Let's just work with that. Does that touch have to be exclusively about you? Does it require the complete focus of the one giving you that touch? I only ask because here's my theory: let's say you are sitting on the couch with your husband and his arm is around you. Then another wife comes to sit with you both. She will probably sit on the other, available side of your hubs. Depending on how you all agree to show affection in front of each other, it's possible that his arm would still remain around you AND also be around the other wife.

In this situation, you are still getting gas in your love tank. :)

It might help you to really define what you mean by "touch" as your love language. Is it a long, lingering, exclusive hug? Is is G-rated snuggling? Is is R-rated snuggling? I find it helps when all parties involved agree on what words mean.
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YES!!! Heart heart love love! This! I know some poly families have a stigma against showing a wife affection in front of another wife, bit the couch scenario you describe is ideal in my mind. It very clearly demonstrates an aspect of poly life I find beautiful.

And I laughed out loud at "R-rated snuggling"!
 
I did read that book! I remember liking it!

My first completely uncalled for comment is that I scarcely know any men who are capable of filling their wife's love tank, UNLESS IT HAPPENS TO BE THEIR LOVE LANGUAGE AS WELL.
I'm guilty as... something really guilty. My wife needs to hear words. I regard repetition as disingenuous, so it's hard for me to say things at the frequency that she would like them said. And she's the only wife around!

I confess that I do believe in filling a love tank for a wife as much as possible, because I am to treat my wife as my own flesh... and I prefer to pamper my flesh. If I was less of a hedonist, maybe I could justify a starvation diet of affection BUT ALAS. Touch would be easy for me to fill, words are like pulling teeth.

But I don't believe that 'keeping the tank full' is a realistic goal. Just like my own car... it gets down to a quarter tank before I remember to gas up. If you need filled up every day.... maybe part of the answer is to get more fuel efficient? Don't get me wrong, a husband should please his wives! But just like blessings from the Lord come in seasons of leanness and plenty, sometimes a husband pours out and sometimes he runs dry.

Final thought, my wife wasn't sure she could love a second child as much as the first, but when we had her, she found that she could indeed. True, our son doesn't get the undivided attention and doting upon that he had grown accustomed to... but that's kind of a good thing. And it isn't like he is starved for affection, he is just no longer glutted with it. Not that I'm assuming anything about you at all, please don't take it that way!
 
Zec can be abrupt sometimes (love ya, brother!), but I want to offer something that's probably going to irritate some people and is mostly congruent with Zec's post above.

I haven't read The 5 Love Languages and don't intend to. The reason I don't intend to is because of questions such as the one asked in the OP.

In my experience (maybe I just hang out with the wrong people, but this has been my experience), the principal preoccupation of people that have read that book is my love language and how I can be loved (or 'get my love tank filled', if we're going with that metaphor). I have a couple of times heard someone say something like "my language is this and my spouse's is that", so kudos for noticing and remembering. But in conversation, in discussion, in application, the discussion has almost always been focused on how I need to be loved the way I need to be loved, according to a book I read. I don't think this is healthy.

If your principal focus is what you are going to get out of a relationship, that's not your "love" language--it's your "neediness" language or "want" language or "get" language or something like that.

A "love" language would have something to do with giving, with being the lover rather than the lovee. For those familiar with the idea of a state of 'flow', you could think in terms of "when are those times that I am so caught up in doing something for someone else that I just lose track of time and hunger and anything other than what I'm doing?". That would be your 'love' language.

Another way to put it would be "what are the giving activities that actually give me energy instead of draining energy?". What can I give away and not feel any loss or lack, or even feel restored and refreshed? That's a love language.

Instead of worrying so much about keeping your own love tank full, consider instead having the kind of relationship with God that makes you the kind of person through whom flow rivers of living water.

In terms of what a husband can do to help, he can start by being that kind of person as well and setting an example. Not preoccupied with what he gets out of the relationship, but totally absorbed with what he can give. UntoldGlory also gave some good advice for husbands.

Hate to be the Grinch as far as the book goes, but I honestly think it's misleading at best.
 
Just saw Slumberfreeze's post that came in while I was typing. I don't have time to do the line-by-line, but generally, I would submit that it supports my comments above. I can get into that more tomorrow if necessary.

Everybody knows the story about the locked elbows in the afterlife, right? In hell everybody is having trouble feeding themselves, not being able to reach their mouths with a spoon, throwing food up in the air and trying to catch it, or bending over to just try to suck up the food. In heaven everybody is graciously feeding the people next to them.

Pretty simplistic, but in a lot of ways, marriage is like that. Focus on taking care of your spouse. Don't worry about your love tank. Punch a hole in it and drain it and forget about it. Die to yourself, and let the Lord resurrect a new person that is 100% focused on serving and giving, as an aqueduct of living water. Try to outdo each other in acts of kindness and service, and go for the creative and spontaneous; don't limit yourself to what some book tells you that you or your spouse 'needs', and by no means focus on your own narrow definition of what you think you require from the relationship.

My two cents. Good night, y'all!
 
Very good points Andrew. I'll just point out that the "love languages" concept can be taken both ways. You can find what "I want" and try to get that, or you can use these principles to see what your spouse would appreciate and then understand better how to be the kind of person you encourage people to be in your posts, towards your spouse. I don't think it's the book that is at fault when people choose to be, or possibly unintentionally come across as, self-focussed.
 
Much is already said but i thought i give some of my experience in my mono marriage (when my husband still lived).

We weren't focussed on our own needs, we were both giving to each other. And my experience is that is far more fufilling than when you are focussing on your own needs. Giving to my husband was amazing, it felt realy good to give so much love (love is a talent) And it felt good not to think or worry about my own needs.
 
Heh, I haven't actually read the book either, but only because I think the concept is simple enough to not require a whole book.

I think this is a great topic, and there are some awesome insights coming out! Every single post has them

I get the concerns about the 5 love languages, but I think the frustration I'm seeing and the belief that they're primarily about being selfish is in part misconception, and in part mis-application of the principle by Christianity at large (hehe, that *never* happens...)

If someone is only focused on making sure people know their love language, and getting their tank filled, etc, then there is definitely a problem. It is also a clear misapplication of the principle of the 5 love languages. As I understand it, the book primarily focuses on understanding the love languages of others, so you can best love THEM. It also deals with how knowing someone's love languages can better help you recognize when they are displaying love, even if it may not feel like it.

I've seen what an understanding of the love languages can mean for a family. I've seen a wife who deeply loved her husband, and is fantastic at submitting, go from feeling unloved to recognizing that her husband has actually been expressing love for years, just in ways that she did not feel as love because their languages were not the same.

The mere *understanding* of someone's love languages, in my experience, has broadened my own, and allowed me to feel loved even when the expression is not my primary. In fact I'd say that my own personal love languages have changed so that I am able to recognize and receive love in ways that I once was not really able to. I have become a "flex fuel" vehicle if you will, lol!

On the practical side, if a husband knows the love languages of his wife or wives, he can best utilize his time and be a better husband. Andrew, I've seen you do this with the ladies subconsciously, tailoring how you interact with each wife to best husband her as an individual. That, combined with the fact that your wives are awesome as individuals, is why I think your family is so successful where so many others fail. Not everyone though is capable of figuring out how to do that on their own, so I personally think a certain amount of training in the love languages would be very beneficial for everyone! For me all it took was being made *aware* of the concept. Others though would maybe want to read the book or take a class.

Slumber, I LOVE your points about gas tanks. It is unrealistic to want or expect to be always topped off. Just imagine if you tried to keep your car topped off! You'd waste so much time stopping at every gas station! At the same time, I don't like to let my car get below half a tank. At half a tank I can deal with emergencies or unexpected trips and side journeys without worrying about running out of gas, and let's not forget letting your car run out of gas on a regular basis is really bad for your engine and the life of your vehicle. In the same way, if a husband let's his wife's "love tank" get too low, then it can make it challenging to smoothly deal with the unexpected things of life, and letting a woman feel unloved for too long, too often, is bad for her and a marriage. The fuel efficiency point is also well made! A call for people to better appreciate the efforts of those in their lives! I am reminded of GG and her fruit trees. She planted them this year and we had some pretty dry weather. I asked her if we needed to water the young trees more, but she wanted to evaluate the trees and avoid watering them unless it became dire. The reasoning? She wanted their roots to run deep, and the trees to become resilient to drought and not weak, reliant on constant watering to survive. Whew, tell me you can't pull some wisdom out of that nugget huh?

I also loved the "pampering my flesh" part. I hate when people focus on wives submitting and forget the second part about husbands loving their wives as their own flesh!

Love this thread, keep it going!
 
A great thread indeed.

Although I have a guess what the answer is going to be, I still want to put it out there: what if one of the top reasons for a husband seeking poly marriage is sexual diversity? I am in no denial to myself that obviously that's what he gets but would you brothers in faith here say it is legit to have in mind why put up with all it takes esp at stages of seeking another wife?
 
And, TLS2, maybe in the midst of your service you miraculously (better word choice, Ginny?) find your tank being replenished by your SW as well as your husband....? I saw a lot of sisterly love being demonstrated at the retreat (and received hugs from more ladies than I've probably had in a year..lol).
 
FollowingHim said:
I don't think it's the book that is at fault when people choose to be, or possibly unintentionally come across as, self-focussed.
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Obviously it's not the book's fault that we are the way we are. Just want to call out one thing:

Unintentionally? "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks", right? I find that we (myself included) are most present and most transparent when we are least self-conscious about trying to say the 'right' thing. So I'll take "unintentional" over "intentional" any day as a more accurate marker of what someone really thinks.
 
UntoldGlory said:
Andrew, I've seen you do this with the ladies subconsciously, tailoring how you interact with each wife to best husband her as an individual. That, combined with the fact that your wives are awesome as individuals, is why I think your family is so successful where so many others fail.
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I'm not going to argue with you about the book. My experience reveals a pattern. YMMV.

I do have to respond to the above, though. First, a story:

When Cheryl and I first agreed to lead a youth ministry, the outgoing leaders handed me a stack of 8-10 books on how to relate to youth, thinking they were doing me a favor. They were, but not in the way they intended.

I had already started to notice the difference between people ministering out of their head knowledge and people ministering from the Spirit. I heard the Lord telling me to pass on the books and trust Him. That approach has characterized everything I have done since then.

Don't get me wrong: I read more than most, and for those familiar with Gallup/Clifton Strengths Tests, "Learner" is my top strength. Loves me some reading. But in matters of relationship I have found prayer to be the way to go.

Another story: Many of us have had some experience discipling younger believers. How long did it take you to learn that your opinion of what the new believer needed to work on first was not always the same as God's opinion? To realize that we're more concerned with appearances, symptoms, and cultural 'propriety', while the Spirit of God goes straight to the root heart issues? That programs and curricula can be useful for learning facts, but they can also displace practical wisdom gleaned from being attentive to the Spirit? ("My sheep hear my voice, and follow Me.")

Okay, so having said all that, I have to correct your assessment of our family. First, there is nothing subconscious about it, and second, the ladies would shove each other out of the way to be first to testify that any awesomeness they're given credit for is a function of daily attentiveness to the voice of the Lord. That's all we've got, and it's all we need.

Footnote: I want to be clear about something. I have no ego invested in whether anyone reads the book or loves it or is offended by my opinion. If it's working for you and helping your marriage, good on ya, mate! But we get a lot of "how do you do it?" inquiries, and the answer is it's 100% the life of God in us. No books, no programs, no natural abilities (usually that's what we have to overcome), no degrees in psychology or family counseling. Just praying and listening and doing. That's our secret.
 
Zec, you're killin me.... :rolleyes:
 
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