Day 9 – Desire, Passion, and Freedom
I remember in physics class learning about strong and weak nuclear forces. An example of a strong force is the force that keeps the atom together. An example of a weak force is gravity, or the pull that a mass has on another mass.
There’s also a difference between “love” and “desire”. Love is the weak force, and Desire is the strong force.
Let me explain what I mean. When you think of love, do these things come to mind?
- Service
- Duty
- Belonging
- Long suffering
- Care
- Protection
When you think of desire, do any of these things come to mind?
- Pursuit
- Passion
- Excitement
- Wanting
- Adventure
- Energizing
Marriages indeed need a lot of love — service, kindness, long-suffering, and patience. However, that kind of “love” is just the weak force. There’s a stronger force that binds two people together, and it’s the strong force of “desire”.
When the strong force of “desire” breaks down, the marriage becomes much more fragile and volatile. In contrast, passionate marriages full of erotic energy are the most resillient to divorce and the bumps and pulls of life.
Sex is extremely important to the well-being of individuals and long-term relationships. The sexual expression of love can be one of the most powerful ways to love and desire another person, and be loved and desired by another human being.
Sex is also powerful because, in addition to wanting to be loved, we all want to be desired. In fact, there are many people that say they don’t want to have sex, yet very few people say they don’t want to be desired.
You can’t desire something you can’t choose. You can’t desire cheesecake if someone is forcing you to eat it.
Desire breaks down in marriages when we stop choosing our spouse. We stop bringing our best self to the relationship, yet expect our spouse to bring their best. We start to get resentful when our spouse doesn’t accommodate us, validate us, or alleviate our anxieties.
In short, when sex revolves around obligation, entitlement, or accommodating the other person, passion and desire go out the window. I recently interviewed a woman for my podcast that was told by her ecclesiastical leader before she was married to never deny her husband when he wanted to have sex with her (which is very bad advice, by the way). In other words, if she was to be a good wife, she had to put out whenever he wanted it. Sex no longer became about two people pursuing adventure and play together, but was about duty and obligation — as if she had no choice in the matter — it broke down the strong force of desire by substituting it for a weaker force of love. No wonder why there was no passion or desire in her relationship!
Feeling a sense of choice and freedom in your relationship is essential to desire and building a passionate marriage that is so strong it can’t easily be broken.
All of the best romance stories revolve around choosing and the strong force of desire. My wife and I just finished reading a romance novel called Blackmoore, which illustrates the strong force of desire. I love how the guy in the story, Henry, intensely desires the main character, Kate. He goes through great lengths to be there for her. He wants her more than anything else. Yet he can’t have her. It’s forbidden for him to marry her. If he does, he’ll lose his inheritance. Yet he chooses Kate anyway.
What if you can bring a higher intensity of desire to your relationship, in and out of the bedroom? What if your spouse could feel that you intensely want them for them, just as they are? And when you hold hands, hug, kiss, or have sex, can you do it with all the tender feelings and passion you can muster?
How has feeling free to choose your lover increased passion in your relationship? What’s your favorite love story about freedom and passion? Let me know in the comments!
