Mom raised us, my ? is, what's married life suppose to be like, normal daily activities? I never experienced dad/mom together, so I have a hard time being satisfied in my marriage, I fear being alone, but yet, wont be controlled, Im up & down, confused.

Marriage is ANYTHING BUT A PROBLEM SOLVING DEVICE!!!Hope this Helps, it's part 1 of 6 & the Longest, but I know U can Understand it, just go Slow. Enjoy! John DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE (Part 1) A. Introduction. 1. Application principles. These principles explain every problem in marriage, in romance, and in human relationship. a. Application without truth is false. b. Application without facts is folly. c. Application from emotion is the life of the loser. d. Application without principle is distorted thinking. e. Application without doctrine is distorted learning. f. Application without virtue is distorted living. 2. You cannot base doctrine on experience. You cannot base doctrine on what you see other Christians doing or failing to do. You base doctrine on what the Word of God says. Neither empiricism or rationalism is the source of absolute truth. If experience contradicts the Bible, then the Bible is correct. 3. Application of doctrine cannot be made without inculcation of the principles of doctrine. You are designed to learn doctrine and apply it from your own soul. You have to learn doctrine, metabolize it, apply it, and use it to solve problems. The pattern is learning, thinking, solving. For the Christian, the basic solutions to marriage are spiritual, which means they are doctrinal solutions. 4. All psychological solutions and multiapplication answers from counseling are not only human viewpoint, but are someone else's thinking. You cannot solve your problems using another person's mind. 5. Marriage changes people. a. While marriage inevitably changes people--for the better or for the worse--they are basically no better in marriage than they are as people. Winning and losing lifestyles carry over into marriage. b. Disobedience to biblical principles in childhood (Eph 6:1-3) can put scar tissue on the soul which does not surface until faced with the pressures of marriage. c. In the spiritual life, however, everyone starts at zero in marriage and, through learning and applying Bible doctrine has the opportunity to become a winner. 6. There are three stages in the man/woman relationship. a. Attraction. (1) This first stage is that characteristic of a person which elicits interest or attention, hence, an attractive quality in another person. (2) There are two man/woman relationships in which attraction occurs: romance, marriage. Attraction begins in romance. (3) Attraction is generally overt and emphasizes physical appeal. It can include many things, such as allurement, enticement, or fascination. Attraction may include physical beauty, overt personality, or seeing the fulfillment of one's personal standards (the knight in shining armor). (4) Attraction is the reconnaissance stage of the man/woman relationship. It has to do with the superficialities of life, such as dress, appearance, personality, manners, smell, sex appeal. This is the empirical approach. It is a dangerous stage because you assume that what you see is what you get, and that is rarely true in marriage. (5) Attraction is the blind stage of romance or marriage. A person often sets aside, ignores, or is blinded to the flaws or potential flaws in the object of romance. You don't see the real person. (6) Since attraction is often based on libido, most people get married in this stage; and that is a great disaster. (7) The attraction stage has not come to grips with the problems the other person has or can create, and has not resolved any of the problems of incompatibility, or even recognized the existence of incompatibility. (8) The attraction stage has not yet faced the facts of life. Another person's problems may be the catalytic agent that destroys the relationship. (9) Concentration on the object of love in the attraction stage has a very narrow field of vision, often resulting in the erroneous conclusion that the object of your love is the only person in the world for you. (10) This false confidence of subjectivity rejects or ignores warning signs against marrying this person. Rationalization, simply dismissing it from the mind, or reaction results. (11) People who get married in the attraction stage have very little chance of success, but it can be overcome by strong spiritual growth. (12) When the believer is overpowered by emotion in the attraction stage, virtue and stability in romance are virtually eliminated. The removal of virtue and wisdom, caused by emotional revolt of the soul, is in direct contrast to the normal and legitimate emotional function of romance and love. (a) Emotional revolt of the soul results in blotting out everything that sustains love. This is because emotion has no doctrinal content, no ability to think or reason. (b) Emotional revolt of the soul often emphasizes premarital sex, and therefore, handicaps marriage. (c) Emotional revolt of the soul brings into romance two categories of sins: the sins of arrogance (jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge, slander, gossip, maligning) and the sins of emotion (fear, worry, anxiety, hatred, anger, violence, murder). (d) Emotion is irrational arrogance which blots out reality and virtue and ignores the problem-solving devices. (e) While emotion can respond in love and does, it cannot be love. (f) Emotional arrogance is a system of converting reality into illusion and hallucination. (13) The strength of romantic love is virtue, which is produced by consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. From this comes biblical conceptualism, which is the transition from attraction to compatibility. b. Compatibility. (1) Compatibility is the capacity of a man and a woman to combine and remain together without undesirable after effects. (2) Compatibility is a mutual tolerance, motivated by three categories of virtue-love: personal love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, and occupation with the Person of Christ. (3) Compatibility is a total adjustment to the other person so that he or she is the most important person in the world to you. (4) While attraction is the blind stage of romance, compatibility is the enlightened stage. In this stage you have learned the strengths and weaknesses of the object of your love, and you have already resolved most of the problems of relationship. Whatever the sins, failures and weaknesses of your partner, they do not diminish your love for him or her. (5) Compatibility is the problem-solving stage of romance; therefore, it is the best time for marriage. Those involved have used the privacy of their own priesthood to solve the problems. (6) In compatibility both male and female take responsibility for their own decisions. Tolerance and understanding prevail in this stage. (7) When attraction in romance becomes disappointment or disillusion, you can end the relationship forever. But when attraction in marriage becomes disappointment or disillusion, you cannot jump out and be in the directive will of God. (8) Compatibility must be established before marriage, not after marriage. Do not get married in the attraction stage, but first attain compatibility. Compatibility will blend in with the problem-solving devices. Compatibility is the stage of virtue-love. No decision should be made about marriage until you have all the facts; and all the facts are not in until you have reached the stage of compatibility. (9) The greatest manifestation of compatibility is conversation. A successful marriage is a long conversation that seems all too short. Your moment-to-moment compatibility is in conversation. (10) Premarital sex destroys those standards of virtue upon which compatibility is based. Premarital sex causes the fornicators to use emotion as the strength of their love, and emotion has no strength. The strength of romantic love is virtue, which is produced by learning, thinking and solving problems using Bible doctrine. c. Rapport. (1) Rapport is the harmonious stage of romance and marriage. This is the status quo of sympathy and empathy, the spiritual identification with the object of your love. (2) This is the fusion of opposites in the understanding of feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of the object of your love. (3) This is the fulfillment of the divine mandates of marriage. (a) Col 3:18-19, "Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter against them." (b) Eph 5:22, 25, "Wives, be subordinating yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord." "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her." (c) The husband is required to have personal and impersonal love in marriage. The wife is required to have enforced and genuine humility, objectivity and teachability. This means that the husband teaches the wife in marriage. His personal and impersonal love motivate him to teach her. (4) Rapport is where the wisdom of application of metabolized doctrine pays great dividends in human relationships, including how to rear children. Children bring out the worst in men. Parents teach their children to lie when they are too tough on them. 7. An ode to a loser. Personal love in the human race always begins, then turns out base. Minus virtue, it cannot stand; Loss of control, it's out of hand. Love is the victim of its own decision; Life without virtue has no precision. The arrogant cannot give it; The loser cannot live it. Frustrated love becomes an obsession; The lover fails and loses possession. You cannot hold a husband or wife; For minus virtue, all is strife. So think again before you leap; Without virtue, life is cheap. Your love becomes a real frustration; Leaving you as a bitter illustration. 8. Poems and one liners cannot solve the problems of marriage, even when true. For example: a. Intimacy should not destroy privacy. b. Love is motivation for communication. But it takes more energy to communicate than it does to copulate. c. Possessive people are possessive because they are preoccupied with themselves. d. The arrogant male does not take responsibility for anything in marriage; therefore, he reverses the role with the woman. e. Marriage is the triumph of habit over hate. A good husband is a man who is unattractive to other women. 9. Marriage for the Christian is the most difficult, the most challenging, and the place of more failures than anything else in life. Failure in marriage is a failure of the believer's own spiritual life. 10. Marriage is designed by God as a divine institution for both believers and unbelievers. 11. As marriage progresses it retrogresses, because the attractiveness begins to disappear as people age. Flaws that were hidden by youth and attractiveness become manifest in older people. In a good marriage, as the two people grow older and become less attractive, the relationship becomes sweeter. You cannot go back in time and undo past failures. 12. Any relationship in life must be founded on principle. In order for marriage to continue, there must be an understanding of principles of Bible doctrine. You cannot build a marriage on human viewpoint practical application or on philosophical writings. You must know and apply biblical principles. 13. No marriage will last without impersonal love, just as no believer can advance to maturity without impersonal love. a. Legalism and moral degeneracy as well as immoral degeneracy destroy marriage. b. Marriages do not fail because of financial problems, unfaithfulness, or other controversies but because believers fail to execute the protocol plan of God, especially in the area of impersonal love. c. Out of impersonal love comes true personal love. d. When people depend upon emotional love and emotional entertainment, they have no ability to choose the right person to marry. 14. There are three basic enemies of marriage: bitterness, jealousy, and anger. Anger represents all the emotional sins. You cannot be in a state of Christian degeneracy and be successful in marriage. 15. Personal Love and Intimidation. a. Personal love in marriage depends upon impersonal love as a problem-solving device. You cannot have full capacity for personal love when you are intimidated. Intimidation begins in romance, not in marriage. b. Intimidation in marriage eliminates capacity for love and substitutes fear. Fear introduces emotional and irrational sins which complicate the marital relationship. c. The husband can be intimidated in two categories. (1) By a strong woman who assumes the masculine role in marriage. (2) By a weak woman who intimidates by nagging, self- righteous arrogance, or legalistic activism. A woman in polarized legalism is always right in her own eyes and is always trying to superimpose her viewpoint on her husband. d. Intimidation in marriage becomes a problem without solutions when one or both partners are ignorant of the problem-solving devices. 16. The unharnessed woman in marriage rejects the authority of her husband. Therefore, she will inevitably enter the three stages of Christian degeneracy. 1 Cor 11:8-9, "For the man does not originate from the woman, but the woman from the man; for indeed, the man was not created for the woman, but the woman was created for the man." When the woman is a blessing to the man, the woman gets the greater happiness. This is why women are greater in making sacrifices and in patience. 17. Marriage is a test for your spiritual life, since it is a problem- manufacturing device. What passes for goodness in single life often becomes a flaw in romance and marriage; therefore, marriage demands the best from every believer. 18. All human relationships emphasize the prime importance of consistent inculcation of Bible doctrine. No relationships in life are more dramatic than the relationship between the man and woman in marriage or between parents and children. 19. What you really depend on in life will determine the status of your marriage. To depend on Bible doctrine means ultimate (not immediate) success. To depend on the advice of others means confusion, misdirection, and ultimate failure. Success or failure in marriage in a reflection of your spiritual life. Defeat isn't bitter if you don't swallow it. 20. Marriages fail for two general reasons. a. Getting married in the attraction stage of romance. b. Never growing up in marriage. This means never attaining the stages of compatibility or rapport. 21. In romance and marriage two categories of learning are necessary. a. For unbelievers and believers - the laws of divine establishment. b. For believers only - Bible doctrine from which virtue and the problem-solving devices are extrapolated. B. Romance, Marriage and Premarital Sex. 1. Sex before marriage, or fornication, generally occurs in the attraction stage. It is a sin of polarized antinomianism. Sex before marriage creates tremendous handicaps in marriage. Fornication is voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons. It is distinguished from the word adultery, which is voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with someone other than a spouse. 2. The couple involved in fornication are in the process of destroying the very standards of virtue required for a successful marriage. Sex before marriage substitutes emotion for good standards, and no marriage ever succeeded on emotion. 3. Premarital sexual intimacy destroys the standards of virtue on which compatibility and rapport are founded. This causes the fornicator to encapsulate his romance in deceit; hence, the basis for romantic love becomes not only the sin of fornication but the sins of arrogance and emotion. After premarital sex you have very little chance of getting out of the attraction stage. 4. Premarital sex not only destroys the standards on which attraction is based, but causes the fornicators to switch to their emotions for the motivation and strength of their love. Human personal love cannot be carried by emotion. Emotion plays a part in love when it is a response to normal things, but emotion destroys love. a. Emotions are irrational. Love and romance are not irrational unless they are based solely on emotion. Emotions have no doctrinal content, no ability to reason, no ability to apply doctrine, no common sense, and no content for solving problems and perpetuating human love. b. In premarital sex, you drop the standards of Bible doctrine and pick up emotional revolt of the soul. Loss of standards through premarital intimacy and reverting to emotional revolt of the soul destroys the very foundation and ability for a successful marriage. 5. The strength of romantic love is virtue. For the unbeliever this virtue is attained through adherence to the laws of divine establishment. Virtue is attained in two ways by the believer: a. Doctrinal conceptualism, which is consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation. b. Understanding and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. 6. Loss of standards through premarital sex creates two categories of problems which destroy both romance and marriage. a. The problems of the arrogance complex: self-fragmentation through mental and verbal sins. b. The problems of emotional control of love or romance. 7. Premarital promiscuity in the attraction stage of romance destroys the possibility of entering the compatibility and rapport stages of marriage. Intimacy destroys attraction when it precedes compatibility. There is always the problem of reaction from failure in romance due to premarital sex. There are four categories of reaction. a. The reaction of entering a life of promiscuity with many sex partners. This results in Christian immoral degeneracy. b. The reaction of seeking comparable chemical stimulation in drugs and alcohol. c. The reaction of depression, self-pity, and even suicide. d. The reaction of revenge through the function of polarized legalism and resultant Christian moral degeneracy. 8. Biblical warnings against premarital sex. a. 1 Cor 6:18, "Flee fornication. Every sin that a person commits is outside of his body, but the one who practices fornication sins against his own body." Premarital sex destroys the rhythm and success in sex between one man and one woman in marriage. b. 1 Thes 4:3-4, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is, that you abstain from fornication. That each one of know how to possess his own vessel [your wife] in honor." c. 1 Cor 5:11, "But now I write to you not to associate with any man who is called a brother, who happens to be a fornicator." To succeed in marriage you must avoid the believer or unbeliever fornicator. d. Heb 13:4, "Let marriage be held in honor among all; and let the marriage bed be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers God will judge." 9. Promiscuity before marriage creates handicaps in marriage. A premarital promiscuous man cannot perform adequately, and the premarital promiscuous woman is always thinking of someone else who did it better. a. The handicap of self-gratification. Both men and women enter into premarital sex simply to satisfy their own libido. There is no genuine love or sense of responsibility for a sex partner in this kind of fornication. This is especially true of the man. The woman is simply an instrument for his self-gratification. This leaves the woman frustrated, which often results in lesbianism. b. The handicap to compatibility and rapport stages of romance and love. Premarital sex makes a direct attack on two of the postulates of marriage: (1) Marriage is more than finding the right person, marriage is being the right person. Premarital sex eliminates being the right person, so that finding the right person is frustrated with regrets. (2) A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short. Premarital sex eliminates the possibility of ever attaining compatibility or rapport. 10. Premarital sex destroys a marriage long before the marriage occurs. Marriages are often destroyed by the patterns of sexual life in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Premarital sex often results in Christian immoral degeneracy, which eliminates the virtue prerequisite for a successful marriage. 11. Promiscuity destroys discernment. a. The attraction stage is the most vulnerable to premarital sex, which always destroys the spiritual life. b. Premarital sex eliminates the understanding and use of the problem-solving devices you need and substitutes the irrationality of the emotional sins. For example, fear, worry, guilt, hatred and anger are emotional sins which often result from premarital sex. Emotion takes over and erodes the standards on which true love is based. (1) Promiscuity leads to emotional revolt of the soul, which converts genuine personal love into pseudo-love; for it removes personal love from the integrity envelope of impersonal love. (2) The irrationality of emotional revolt of the soul takes over the life and erodes virtue standards on which true love is based. (3) Entrance into marriage with premarital sexual experience handicaps the marriage. The only recovery from this problem is the accurate use of rebound followed by both grace and doctrinal orientation and the proper use of the other problem-solving devices. 12. Premarital sex destroys the possibility of compatibility and rapport as the years of the marriages increase. Society becomes unstable when a large number of marriages lack compatibility and rapport. Too many unhappy marriages among believers in a nation causes instability and the function of Christian degeneracy, which has an adverse effect on the nation. As goes the status of marriage, so goes the nation. 13. God's reasons for forbidding sex before marriage. a. Periods of unrestrained licentiousness are followed by periods of unrestrained guilt and depression. b. Licentiousness often ends in suicide because of the deep depression. c. You are responsible for your own decisions. Two categories of decisions are involved in premarital sex: the volition of the male, who is usually the initiator; and the volition of the female, who is generally the responder. The more you learn about grace as the divine policy, the more you take responsibility for your own decisions. Premarital sex is fool's paradise. d. The road to disaster is paved with sex, drugs, and excessive alcohol, which means that the debauchery kids never make it. They are losers in the spiritual life and in marriage. God had good reasons for forbidding sex before marriage. God is not unkind, unfair, or trying to deprive you of any fun in life. He knows the end from the beginning. e. No one is ever the same after salvation; we are either better or worse. f. A male with virtue will never take a female past her own volition in the sphere of intimacy. The man must always be in control of the man/woman relationship. g. The man who does not respect your volition, ladies, is the wrong man for you. 14. In a nation and society that depends on the divine institution of marriage and family the consequences of the destruction of marriage are devastating. a. Most divorces occur in the first five years of marriage, which means the victims are often very young children. They enter a period of shock and acute depression, so that even while playing they cannot overcome their fear, depression and loss of security. b. One of the many dangers of premarital sex is the development of an arrogant and erotic self-gratification in which a single person wants sexual sensation rather than a true love relationship. 15. The increase of Christian degeneracy means the decrease of both spirituality and the utilization of the problem-solving devices in romance and marriage. 16. Just as the believer must continue to learn doctrine to advance in the protocol plan of God, so good sexual response in marriage is a continual learning process. Good sexual response in marriage includes the four categories of the sexual cycle: volition, excitement, orgasm, and resolution (a general relaxed feeling of well-being and muscular relaxation). a. Premarital sex destroys sexual response in all four categories of the sexual cycle. b. Premarital sex often hinders sexual energy in the marital relationship resulting in impotence. c. Sexual compatibility is related to mutual response of both husband and wife in the fulfillment of the four categories of the cycle of sex. This results in mutual pleasure derived from the husband's love and thoughtfulness in first satisfying his wife. Mutual orgastic experience is often a matter of the husband's ability to learn his wife's response system and to control his own response to correspond with her response. This is sex in compatibility and rapport stages of marriage. d. It is impossible for an alcoholic husband or wife to find mutual satisfaction in sex. e. Sex was created by God as a binding force in marriage. f. Illustration: paraphilia. (1) Paraphilia involves fetichism, transvestism, pedophilia (sexual activity with young children), bestiality, exhibitionism, voyeurism, sexual masochism, and sadism. (2) Arousal in paraphilia includes: preference for non- human objects; preference for sexual activity with humans which involves real or simulated suffering; sexual activity with nonconsenting partners. (3) Since paraphiliac imagery is necessary for erotic arousal, it must be included with masturbation, in which the person establishes false rhythm for sexual satisfaction, and may never achieve satisfaction in sex as a result. (4) Such activity often results in guilt or shame, and even depression which further complicates mutual sexual response in marriage. Sex was designed for the pleasure of two people, not one. (5) No man is qualified to be a successful lover in marriage who practices voyeurism. Voyeurism means looking at strangers in the act of undressing, and watching strangers engage in sexual activity as a means of sexual arousal. If you add masturbation to this, you have a person who will be a loser in marriage. Do not confuse voyeurism with normal sexual activity in marriage which involves sexual excitement in observing nudity, undressing or sexual activity with your wife or husband. (6) No wife wants a husband whose sexual arousal is based on being bound, humiliated, or made to suffer. Sexual sadism is the motivation behind rape. 17. Every premarital sexual involvement in some category of fornication destroys the possibility of having the marvelous blessing God designed for you in postmarital sex. 18. Premarital sexual activity often hinders interpersonal marital relationship. Postmarital sexual activity is a learning process; and nothing you picked up in the gutter is going to help you with that learning process. 19. 1 Cor 6:18 says that fornication is sin against your own body. This means there is a physiological factor in sexual arousal as noted by the phrase "one flesh" in Gen 2:24. a. "One flesh" involves biological rapport as well as mental, soulish, and spiritual rapport. Biological rapport is difficult, and even impossible, if there has been premarital sex. Premarital sex destroys the biological conditioning for one man or one woman in the marital status. b. Libido is the function of biological sex. But the maximum effectiveness of sex in marriage also depends on the status quo of the soul, the function of the spiritual life, the attainment of spiritual contentment and growth. Premarital sex numbs the normal biological sexual responses. c. 1 Cor 6:18 implies that premarital sex decreases the source of sexual energy in marriage. This is why sex becomes dull for married persons. 20. Premarital sexual experience establishes the attitude a person will have toward sex for the rest of his life. Because premarital sex is sinful, it implies that the orgastic quality will be less than under the optimum circumstances of marriage. God designed sex in marriage as a reinforcement of the relationship. 21. Premarital sex in adolescence is generally not satisfying, but frustrating, not fulfilling in itself. This frustration results in bad interpersonal peer relationships, and has an effect on future marital relationships. 22. Chronic premarital sex does affect marriage and marital adjustment. Optimum sexual blessing and satisfaction occurs among couples who are virgins at the point of marriage. 23. Eph 5:3 warns us, "But fornication and all licentiousness, or insatiable erotic desire should not even be mentioned among you, as is protocol for the saints." Why? Because for the single this becomes an arousal factor for premarital sex. 24. Marital compatibility, or marital love, is reinforced by premarital chastity in both sexes. Premarital virtue is favorable to one's own marriage and adjustment to one's own spouse in marriage. 25. Principles. a. There is a correlation between premarital virginity and postmarital happiness, especially for the believer who enters the marriage with personal love inside the integrity envelope. b. Sexual responsiveness is related to the quality of the marriage. c. The quality of the marriage is based on the following principles: (1) Understanding and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. (2) Perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine under doctrinal conceptualism. (3) Entrance into marriage in the status quo of premarital chastity. (4) Recovering from premarital sexual activity through the attainment of spiritual adulthood. d. Sexual responsiveness in marriage increases or decreases as the quality of the marriage increases or decreases. e. Marriage quality and responsiveness influences each other. Therefore, they are mutually interdependent. f. What is brought into the marriage by each partner determines the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual quality of that marriage. 26. The more premarital sex partners one has, the more difficult it is to adjust to one person in marriage. a. Each premarital sexual relationship tends to be conditioned to the response pattern of other persons, or a composite from lasciviousness. b. Many premarital sexual encounters produce a variety of responses and rhythms. Therefore, the sexual act results in a specific response pattern for each individual involved. A new premarital sexual encounter does not extinguish the previous pattern of the previous sexual relationship. c. Therefore, promiscuity eventuates in a sexual conditioning to a composite of all of one's sexual affairs. The pattern of effective sexual relationship in marriage may be permanently or temporarily damaged, depending upon the spiritual status quo. 27. The spiritual factor in God's overruling grace policy whereby the believer recovers from the destructive effects of fornication includes rebound and reaching spiritual adulthood. But rebound alone is not the entire healing factor. Until one reaches spiritual self-esteem, there is no true recovery from premarital sex. 28. Unrestrained fornication and promiscuity do not lead to freedom, but to bondage. Premarital control of sexuality is liberating, for it avoids the handicaps brought on by fornication. a. Undisciplined, obsessive, uncontrolled premarital sexuality hinders effective sexual relationship in marriage. b. Premarital chastity produces a self-control which makes the husband an effective lover of his wife. 29. The security and environment of virtue-love offers optimum circumstances for developing compatibility and rapport in marriage. 30. The husband and wife who reach marriage in virginity and virtue create a more enduring happiness through their understanding and the utilization of Bible doctrine. This overflows into their sex life, for they have great satisfaction in learning to respond fully and completely to each other. 31. Sex is the equality in marriage. Though the man is the authority in marriage, he becomes a responder in sex. The woman is obedient to the man in marriage, but she can become aggressive in sex. Both are designed for aggressiveness and response in sex. This is how sexual rhythm is created. 32. In romance there is always some possibility of violating the principle of no premarital sex. a. Premarital sex causes those involved to lean on emotions to the point where they often become irrational. This means loss of standards by which love-compatibility can be attained with a member of the opposite sex. b. Intimacy in the attraction stage destroys a relationship, for God designed romance and marriage to place compatibility first. "Compatibility first" means to explore how a person thinks, to discover what they really are, what is the dark side, what is the bright side, what are the flaws in a person. c. Intimacy destroys attraction when it precedes compatibility. C. The Active and Passive Voice in Romance and Marriage. 1. Definition of the active and passive voice. a. In the active voice, the subject produces the action of the verb. b. In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb. The subject is acted upon by someone or something else. 2. There are two categories of active living: active virtue and active arrogance. There are two categories of passive living: passive virtue and passive arrogance. 3. Active virtue means following the divine rules related to life and marriage. There are three divine rules in marriage that are designed to produce virtue in marriage. And virtue is the basis for all happiness in marriage. a. Husbands love your wives, Eph 5:25. b. Wives obey your husbands, Col 3:18. c. Husbands and wives forgive each other as Christ forgave us. Eph 4:32. 4. In active virtue, the believer applies doctrine to his spiritual life, solves his own problems, and overcomes his own failures. Active virtue is: a. Consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation and application of doctrine. This is learning doctrine, thinking doctrine, and using doctrine to solve problems. b. Understanding and using the problem-solving devices of the protocol plan of God. c. Execution of the protocol plan and subsequent glorification of God. d. Active virtue is the function of Christian service in four categories. (1) Related to your royal priesthood, there is intercessory prayer, giving, and all the functions of spiritual adulthood. (2) Related to your royal ambassadorship, there is missionary activity, witnessing, Christian administration. (3) Related to your spiritual gift. (4) Related to the laws of divine establishment. e. Active virtue always has an object. (1) The first object in active virtue is God Himself, which includes personal love for God the Father, occupation with Christ, and understanding the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. (2) People in general are the object of active virtue. This is the function of impersonal love and forgiveness of others. (3) Marriage and romance are the objects of active virtue. f. Active virtue is the function of impersonal love toward all. (1) 1 Jn 4:10-11, "In this is virtue-love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another." (2) 1 Cor 13:4-8a, "Love is forbearing and kind; love is not jealous; love does not brag; love is not arrogant; love is not unmannerly, nor selfish, nor irritable, nor mindful of wrongs; love does not rejoice in injustice but joyfully sides with the truth; love can overlook faults; love is full of hope, full of truth, full of endurance; love never fails." (3) Mandates for impersonal love can be given without mentioning the word love, as in Eph 4:31-32. "All bitterness, both anger and wrath, both quarreling and slander, must be removed along with all malice. But become kind toward one another and forgive each other, just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven you." g. Active Virtue in Scripture. (1) Eph 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives [impersonal love] just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself as a substitute for her." Active virtue by husbands is impersonal love. (2) Col 3:19, "Husbands, love your wives [personal love] and do not be bitter against them." Active virtue by husbands is personal love. (3) Eph 5:22, "Wives, be subordinating yourselves to your very own husbands as to the Lord." Obedience is active virtue in the wife. A woman is incapable of loving where she cannot subordinate herself from her own free will. The Lord must have number one priority in your life. (4) Col 3:18, "Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord." God did not design a system where the man is to be a bully. 5. Active arrogance is the function of Christian degeneracy. In active arrogance, the subject produces his own problems and sins. a. Active arrogance includes mental attitude sins, emotional sins and all the sins involved in pulling the pins of the grenade and fragmenting yourself. Moral arrogance causes far more divorces than immoral arrogance. b. Active arrogance is the believer involved in the cosmic system. Active arrogance is reversing the roles in marriage (the man becomes feminine and the woman masculine). c. In passive arrogance the subject is acted upon by something or someone else. Passive arrogance includes any form of arrogant subjectivity, guilt, self-pity, unrealistic expectation, role-model arrogance, and succumbing to the temptations of the old sin nature. d. Illustrations of active and passive arrogance. (1) The active virtue side is sensitivity and thoughtfulness of others which stems from grace orientation. The active arrogance side is self-gratification to the exclusion of satisfying the spouse in sex. (2) The passive virtue side is the avoidance of hypersensitivity, self-pity, and guilt. The passive arrogance side is hypersensitivity, self-pity and guilt. 6. In passive virtue, the believer is acted upon by God the Holy Spirit to understand Bible doctrine. The subject is acted upon to function under grace. The subject receives love, respect honor from the execution of the protocol plan of God. The subject responds to Bible teaching with perception and metabolization. Passive virtue is reception of the teaching of Bible doctrine resulting in spiritual momentum. When acted upon by Bible doctrine, active virtue applies this doctrine to the life. Passive virtue is not receiving the grace of God in vain. Passive virtue is to receive divine discipline and to profit from it. 7. In passive arrogance, we are acted on by the old sin nature, by guilt, by others who dislike or hate us, or by a bullying husband or a nagging wife. In passive arrogance, the food gets stuck in your teeth (the teaching of doctrine is of no benefit). In passive arrogance, the man depends on the praise and approbation of others to bolster his ego. When praise and approbation are cut off, the believer in passive arrogance is deflated, discouraged, despondent, depressed. In passive arrogance the subject is acted upon by arrogance, guilt, self-pity, role model arrogance, unrealistic expectation, iconoclastic arrogance, or emotion; we receive the action. The sin nature acts on us resulting in Christian degeneracy, implosion, explosion, and reversion. You react to passive arrogance from others with active arrogance. 8. The timing of active and passive living. a. No one can live his life totally in the active or totally in the passive sphere. When to be passive and when to be active is a matter grace orientation and the other problem-solving devices. The wisdom of spiritual self-esteem knows when to use active virtue and when to use passive virtue. b. Grace timing originates from grace orientation. Spiritual adulthood is the status of effective grace timing in the function of active and passive virtue. It takes cognitive self-confidence, cognitive independence, and cognitive invincibility to know when to use active virtue, when to use passive virtue, and how to avoid active and passive arrogance. c. When it comes to sin we are never helpless; when it comes to grace we are always helpless. We are absolutely helpless in the status of marriage. If we are ever going to have a successful marriage, we must recognize that we are helpless and that God has provided everything to make it work. God has provided all of the answers in active and passive virtue. d. God has revealed in the Bible how to function in this synchronized system of grace timing. The only timing that is worthwhile is grace timing. 9. Principles for a successful marriage or the results of virtue in marriage. a. Intimacy does not destroy privacy where you have active and passive virtue. But intimacy does destroy privacy where you have active and passive arrogance. b. Marriage is not designed for the husband to be a bully or to suppress the woman's volition, but promotes it and directs it toward the man in response to his love. Anything a man does to destroy or limit the volition of a woman is disastrous. The greater the sphere of the woman's free will, the greater can be her motivation and capacity to love the man. c. In active virtue, the man's volition has two directions in marriage. (1) Impersonal love for all mankind, which produces capacity for personal love. (2) Personal love for his wife, which is the function of the husband in marriage. d. In active virtue, the woman's volition has two directions in marriage. (1) Obedience and response to the love of her husband. (2) Training and teaching children. e. Love becomes motivation for communication. f. The Bible must never be left out of marriage. g. A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short. h. Virtue never feels threatened by any aberration on the part of a partner in marriage. i. Marriage is more than finding the right person; it is being the right person. 10. Husbands act on wives and wives act on husbands, resulting in a good or bad marriage. The husband who fails in marriage uses active arrogance in bullying not only his wife but his children and pets. Passive arrogance causes the man to revert to his childhood through pouting and sulking. 11. In romance, the woman often becomes disenchanted and terminates the relationship. Male active virtue understands this and allows the woman her privacy and never bothers her again. But male active arrogance bothers the woman and makes a pest of himself. 12. Whether we succeed or fail depends on whether we function from active virtue or active arrogance. When we act on someone or something else we do so from active virtue or active arrogance. 13. God invented marriage; He is the expert on marriage. a. Because God is the author of marriage, there should be virtue in marriage. Anything invented by God can only function on the principles of doctrine. b. God the Father performed the first marriage ceremony. The man and woman were sinless and lived in perfect environment, and they still failed. God made some rules so that marriage could be wonderful, but most people have forgotten or never knew the rules. c. The woman is more aggressive than the man. In the Garden she aggressively took the forbidden fruit and brought it to the passive man. 14. The weak man in marriage. a. The weak man acts on someone else. The weak man enters into premarital sex, which destroys his standards and locks him into the attraction stage. (1) Premarital sex is the guarantee that you will never have a happy relationship in marriage apart from regeneration and spiritual growth. The same is true of the woman. Once she engages in premarital sex with multiple partners, she will never be able to respond successfully to one man. (2) God designed sex for recreation in marriage, not just procreation. There is no meaning to bringing children into the world unless there is a system of rapport established in sex, in which the woman is completely and totally satisfied in sex. The man must understand everything necessary to satisfy a woman. b. The weak man enters into active arrogance and pursues the woman until she has no privacy and cannot stand him. Male active arrogance pesters the woman because of wounded arrogance and she reacts and rejects him. c. The weak man bullies his wife, stifles her volition, and abuses his God-given authority in marriage. Authority is given to the man by God. He also bullies his children and causes abnormal fear and resentment in them. d. The weak man is unfaithful in attraction and in marriage. e. The weak man in passive arrogance depends on flattery, praise, and approbation from women. But God ordained marriage so that the woman would look up to the man. When the woman cuts off the flattery, the man in passive arrogance is despondent and deflated. f. The weak man has no grace orientation in his life. The weak man feels threatened by doctrine, reacts to it. 15. The weak woman in marriage. a. Because men have a tendency to become hypersensitive in their relationship with a woman, it is generally conceded that women are stronger than men in certain areas of life. b. There are two categories of women in life. (1) The weak woman, whose arrogance is both passive and active. (2) The strong woman, whose virtue from doctrine is expressed in both active and passive virtue. c. The passive arrogance of the weak woman is her subjective preoccupation with self, her unrealistic expectation, her role model arrogance, her feet of clay syndrome, followed by iconoclastic arrogance, and her evil motivation from her guilt complex. She idolizes a man; then when she sees his feet of clay, she cuts him down. That is passive arrogance motivating active arrogance. d. The active arrogance of the weak woman is manifest by her intrusion into the privacy of others. She is always trying to change others to conform to her faults or legalistic ideas. e. The weak woman cannot execute either the protocol plan of God or the divine mandates regarding her husband or the general rules of marriage. f. The weak woman becomes involved in the pattern of Christian degeneracy. Christian degeneracy destroys marriage. g. In active arrogance the weak woman is always trying to change others to conform to her false and legalistic ideas and standards. h. In passive arrogance she never tries to change herself. (1) Locked-in arrogance sees no reason for self-improvement or changing self in any way. (2) You cannot change others; you can only change yourself. (3) Man has a destiny. When he gets married, his destiny must continue. The weak woman will often cut off a man's destiny because it does not please her. (4) In marriage the woman must walk around the man, not the man around the woman. i. In marriage the woman needs a soul lift, not a face lift. The soul lift originates from obedience to the divine mandates. j. In passive virtue the woman responds to her husband in obedience. In active virtue the woman functions in enforced and genuine humility, and objectivity. 16. Active and passive virtue require two things: consistent filling of the Holy Spirit and consistent perception of doctrine resulting in spiritual momentum. For both husband and wife, God must have number one priority. Therefore, husband and wife must learn doctrine together, or simultaneously. Perception of Bible doctrine is the real togetherness in marriage. a. There are three crisis points for learning in life. (1) At physical birth, when we must learn knowledge related to life in general. (2) At regeneration, when we must learn Bible doctrine related to the protocol plan. (3) At marriage, when we must learn the rules and principles related to the man/woman relationship, romance and matrimony. (a) It is important to learn and recognize the three stages of man/woman relationship: attraction, compatibility, and rapport. If compatibility and rapport are not achieved in romance, do not get married. (b) If compatibility and rapport are not achieved in romance, do not get married. (c) The believer is designed by doctrine to solve his own problems, including the problems of romance and marriage. (d) Since marriage was invented by God, He has revealed in the Bible how it works and how it becomes successful. (e) Most problems in marriage are symptoms, the disease is failure in the spiritual realm. Deal with the disease and the problems will be solved. b. Marriage was never designed for outside interference, including counseling. c. Fellowship with God must precede fellowship with people. If your fellowship with God is a failure, your fellowship with people with be a failure. Fellowship with people includes romance and marriage. Fellowship with God and people is based on spiritual growth and momentum: the perception, metabolization and application of Bible doctrine. d. To have application without principles of Bible doctrine is the human viewpoint of depending upon psychological counseling and superficial panaceas. e. General principles related to marriage. (1) Contradictions cannot and do not exist in the protocol plan of God. Supposed contradictions are eliminated through consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation and through understanding and using the problem-solving devices. (2) The believer cannot account for his actions in undefinable terms. Therefore, he must resolve marital problems on the basis of doctrinal principles, not on the basis of counseling or someone else's thinking. (3) The believer cannot execute the protocol plan of God through sharing, counseling, Christian fellowship, emotions, or ignorance of Bible doctrine. (4) Cognitive self-confidence in the sphere of Bible doctrine causes the believer to advance from the attraction stage of romance or marriage to the compatibility and rapport stages, where marriage has the best chance of success and survival. (5) Spiritual self-esteem demands that the believer identify the role and importance of Bible doctrine in his life. Therefore, the believer cannot afford volitional default where Bible doctrine is concerned. (6) Once the believer attains spiritual adulthood he follows the policy of conceptualism. Spiritual conceptualism involves three factors: (a) Learning, which is perception and metabolization of doctrine. (b) Thinking, which is application of doctrine to experience. (c) Solving, which is understanding and using the problem-solving devices. (7) Emotions are not adequate for spiritual conceptualism. Emotions are not tools of cognition, nor the criteria for the protocol plan of God. Thinking is a cause; emotion is an effect. Doctrinal conceptualism eliminates emotion as a criteria for the Christian life. (8) The privacy of the believer's royal priesthood is the sphere for doctrinal conceptualism and problem-solving. When the believer depends on others for guidance and counseling, he is weak; he contradicts the protocol plan of God; he subverts his own royal priesthood. God does not test us until we are prepared for it. You are designed to solve your own problems. (9) You cannot solve the problems of life from morality without virtue. Morality minus virtue is self-righteous arrogance. This is the motivation for nagging. Personal love has no problem-solving capability. (10) Response to God avoids reaction to mankind. Response to God is the function of two problem-solving devices: personal love for God the Father and occupation with Christ. Reaction to mankind is avoided through impersonal love. Reaction to life in marriage becomes a problem- manufacturing device, divorcement from reality, loss of common sense, loss of wisdom, and movement into panic palace. D. God's Grace Policy Related to Marriage. 1. We cannot justify ourselves in spiritual death. In grace God justifies us at the moment of salvation through personal faith in Christ. 2. We cannot justify sin in our lives as Christians. In grace God cleanses us from post-salvation sinning and restores us to fellowship with Himself through the rebound technique of 1 Jn 1:9. 3. We cannot justify blessing from God through our works or Christian experience. In grace God justifies blessing to believers, both winners and losers, through logistical grace. 4. The grace policy of God rules our lives. We cannot go back and rectify our sins and failures; and this includes our failures both in marriage and divorce. But we can go forward under the grace policy of God. And we can execute the protocol plan of God and glorify Him. 5. You cannot change the past, but as long as you are alive you can change the future. The consequences of past sins and failures are in God's hands, but the future belongs to you under the principle of logistical grace. It isn't what we do that counts, but what God does that counts. 6. The sins of marriage and divorce are no different than the sins of any other category of living. Therefore, if you discover that you are living in adultery, rebound once, forget it, and keep moving in your current marriage. E. Taboos in the Selection of a Mate. 1. If you are a believer, do not marry an unbeliever, 1 Cor 9:5; 2 Cor 6:14-15. If you become a believer after having been married to an unbeliever, do not seek a divorce. You have the opportunity to evangelize your spouse. 2. If you are positive to doctrine, do not marry a person who is negative to doctrine or your biblical convictions. Spiritual compatibility is the only hope for resolving many of the problems in marriage. 3. Do not regard marriage as the solution to the problems of life. Marriage is not a problem-solving device, but a problem-manufacturing status. The more problems you carry into marriage, the less chance the marriage has of succeeding. If you cannot solve your problems while alone, you cannot solve them in marriage. 4. Do not marry on a wave of libido, which is tantamount to getting married in the attraction stage. This is especially true in teenage marriages. 5. Do not marry a person involved in substance abuse, which includes alcohol and drugs. 6. Do not marry to escape from an unhappy home life, abusive parents, or an unhappy set of circumstances. 7. Do not marry a status symbol, for security, or because of peer pressure. Status symbols are usually troublesome persons. Do not marry for money, or to improve your economic situation, or for financial security. Do not go in debt to get married. Do not believe that two people can live as cheaply as one person. 8. Do not marry because you love and want children. Children do not improve a marriage, nor do they ever save a marriage. 9. Do not marry a person for his or her beauty or attractiveness alone. Beauty gives little indication of the real character of a person. Beauty blinds the ignorant, the shallow, the superficial, and the nondiscerning person. Beauty can be a disguise for flaws and defects. These need to be recognized before marriage. Beauty fades and is often corrupted by arrogance. Without virtue, beauty is often susceptible to flattery. 10. Do not marry a person unless you are in the compatibility stage of your relationship. The compatibility stage has five characteristics. a. Spiritual compatibility. If you can't agree on doctrine, the same pastor, the same local church, you will have trouble. This is the most difficult of all compatibilities to recognize. b. Mental compatibility. This is discovered through conversation. c. Physical compatibility. This is determined after marriage, and the discovery is fun. Sex is a learning process. d. Economic compatibility is agreement on how to handle finances. e. Recreational compatibility. This is a most important compatibility in the attraction stage. 11. Avoid getting married under peer pressure. It is better to take your time and avoid making a mistake. 12. The Septuagint says in Prov 18:22, "Whoever finds a good wife receives grace from the Lord. But he who divorces a good wife divorces a blessing and takes a woman who is unchaste and stupid." The Hebrew says, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains grace from the Lord." It appears that the LXX may not be a part of the Word of God, but the principle is certainly true. 14. Do not marry a neurotic person, which is dangerous to the soul and mental compatibility. This type is too unstable, too emotional, too hysterical, too self-centered, and too self-destructive to adjust to marriage. No marriage to a neurotic person ever works out. 15. Do not marry a divorced man except under those circumstances dictated by the Word of God: his former wife has died; he divorced his wife prior to salvation; his former wife has remarried; he is the innocent party of an adultery divorce; his divorce involved the desertion of his former wife. 16. Do not marry any man unless you can submit to his authority