Welcome back to abundant sex blog number three – mentoring!
Last time we discussed the importance of building everything in your life, especially romantic love and sexual intimacy, on a solid foundation of tried-and-true principles. We learned that principles develop the fully unique and individualistically creative expression of romantic love and sexual intimacy. It is the dummies books, the formulaic, the 1-2-3 guides that create the restrictions, the boredom, the mediocre in our lives.
So, principles are the foundation.
First principle: You need mentors and mentoring.
You need that in every aspect of your life, especially for romantic love and sexual intimacy. We are not talking about anything creepy – no soft-core training videos, we’re not inviting anyone into our bedrooms. None of that. There are much more effective and healthy forms of mentoring than that.
What do I mean by mentors AND mentoring? There are actually three parts to it:
- You need to be in mentoring relationships with those who have significantly more experience than you do in long-term, joyful, mutually satisfying, romantic relationships.
- You need to be in what I call mutual mentoring relationships where you are in co-mentoring relationships with those who have a similar level of life/relationship experience as you do. Friends, neighbors, people you would hang with on a semi-regular basis
- You need to be in mentoring relationships with those who have significantly less experience than you do in romantic relationships.
You need all three, and for most people, for most couples, it will be difficult to find, develop and maintain each of those three types of mentoring relationships. Often times it will be very difficult. But, it’s the hard that makes it great. (again, no pun intended)
My wife Vicky and I were non-practicing Catholics when we got engaged. The priest at the local Church we wanted to get married at, recommended/required Catholic premarital counseling called Pre Cana. Vicky was 20 and I was 22. Our weekly Pre Cana class had about 5 other engaged couples in it of varying ages. The leader of the weekly class, much to our surprise, was a married couple. One who was married for about 10 years, maybe a little more, and they had 3 or 4 kids.
The weekly sessions were often awkward, especially at first. The topic of conversation included things like: finances, babysitting, date nights, dinner and dishes, toilet seats, taking care of the kids, shopping, cuddling, foreplay, nude dancing, org*sms and the different ways men and women experience them – pre, during and post org*sm (which included some pretty funny charts and graphs), sexual fulfilment of men vs women, some specifics on sexual activity, you name it.
It was pretty embarrassing at times – but it was extremely valuable and informative. The truth is, those classes, or more specifically, the investment of that couple into our lives for those eight weeks or so, has made, and continues to make a HUGE DIFFERENCE in our marriage to this day. The beginnings and foundations of many of the healthier habits and perspectives we have in our marriage as a whole, including romantic love and sexual intimacy, are a direct result of that couple’s investment in us.
Doing it in a group setting was very awkward and embarrassing at times, but, the dynamic created resulted in questions being asked and answered that would never have been asked or answered in a more one-on-one format. Opinions were shared, stories were shared. Hopes and dreams were shared. The interactions between the other couples being invested in were a huge part of the success of the experience.
You will not be anywhere near as successful in any areas of your life – especially one as difficult and important as long lasting romantic love and meaningful physical and sexual intimacy – without the three types of mentoring.
Now, it is important to state another principle. Only take advice from those who you would like to be like. I remember working out with my cousin, who is probably one of the biggest, strongest guys I have ever met in my life. I remember this annoying, skinny, weak, know-it-all coming up to him and giving him some advice on body-building. My cousin, who also has the gift of blunt and direct communication, said, “If I want a body like yours, then I will take advice from you. I don’t like the way your body looks. I don’t like how weak you are. So I will never take advice from you on bodybuilding”
Ouch! But, it’s true. If you ever have to choose between taking football passing advice from me or Peyton Manning, you know what to do. Do not allow yourself to be advised, to have your thinking shaped and moulded, by those who do not have a life, or component of life that you desire to duplicate.
Getting advice on meaningful sexual intimacy from pornographic movies, books, videos, magazines, whatever, is not going to create the thinking, habits, speech and behaviors that create meaningful sexual intimacy. It should be a no-brainer.
Taking romantic advice from your friends who have gone from relationship to relationship, or who have less than stellar relationships and marriage themselves does not make sense. That doesn’t mean you don’t like them or respect those people as individuals and friends. You just do not let them cross the healthy boundary of moulding and shaping your experience in an area of life that they are not qualified to advise you in.
Don’t take investment advice from people who a broke or career advice from people who work taco-filling station at Taco Bell.
Add up all of the discretionary free time you have, the activities you have engaged in, and the people you have hung out with. If you cannot identify more than 50% of those activities to include people who have life competencies that you desire to have in your life, you need to change who you hang out with.
If you are a girl and spend most of your time hanging out with man-hating women, man-loving women, or women in lousy relationships guess what? That is going to affect your relationship with your significant other.
If you are a guy and spend a big chunk of your time with guys that objectify women and are out looking for one thing, not faithful to their significant relationships, going to strip clubs, and not experiencing mutually fulfilling and respectful romantic love and sexual intimacy in their lives, then you will become more like them. It’s the principle of gravitational attraction.
This is where it gets really difficult. I am not saying that you cannot associate with anyone, ever who does not share your same dream for romantic love and sexual intimacy.
I am saying that a simple rule of thumb is the 50% rule. If more than 50% of the content you consume, the people you hang out with, and/or the activities you do are not uplifting your dream for romantic love and sexual intimacy, YOU NEED TO CHANGE THAT – AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE!
That’s not easy. It may mean developing some new friendships and cooling off some existing ones. It may mean finding some different hobbies or ways to have fun, with or without your significant other. It may mean getting serious about a pornography addiction. It may even mean finding a different career or vocation. How important is a healthy romantic relationship to you?
Like I said, this is not easy. This is precisely why so many people have mediocre-at-best long-term romantic love and sexual intimacy. They do not invest in it daily and they do not prioritize it in their relationships, activities and thought life.
You are not going to be a world-class athlete without discipline, hard-work, making difficult priority calls, aggressively seeking the best coaching, the best teammates and the best environment.
You are not going to have abundant, world-class romantic love and sexual intimacy without the same effort and process in those specific areas. Period. The choice is yours.
This applies to each of the three areas.
One: You need to get to know people and intentionally put yourself in the path of people who have been HAPPILY married for much longer than you, and have marriages that you would really like to imitate, AND ARE WILLING TO mentor you. Do you think that will be easy to do? (Answer: most likely not) Are you praying for it? Are you asking around? Are you researching?
Two: Are you intentionally spending at least 50% of your hangout time with people who have similar dreams, goals, and aspirations for their romantic relationships and sexual intimacy? If not, go get some new friends who do and hang out with them instead. Do you think this will be easy to do? (Answer: most likely not) Are you praying for it? Are you asking around? Are you doing embarrassing things like Meet-up to find new friends? Are you making yourself available to be the right friend in order to find the right friends?
Three: Are you intentionally investing in people with less experience than you, partially with the agenda that you want to be a role-model for them? Do you think that will be easy to do? Do you think it might be a little awkward in the beginning? (Answer: heck yeah it will be)
Allow me to let you in on a little secret – if you would like to be good at something – TEACH IT TO SOMEONE ELSE. You will learn a ton and get much better at it yourself in the process! It will benefit you more than it benefits the people you are teaching.
I used to substitute teach Calculus and advanced math classes at a local junior college. The most difficult part was having to re-learn the material every time. For me to do a good job, not embarrass myself and not waste the students’ time, I had to know the topic better than they did.
That is the hidden benefit – The-Bono-from-U2-Karma principle. Investing in people, with less experience than you – hanging out and doing peer mentoring to benefit others – will actually benefit you more every time. I guarantee it.
This solid mentoring regimen includes all three aspects in terms of live, one-on-one, personal relationships. But it also includes content – books, audio, video, conference, Pre Cana classes, individual marriage counseling, group marriage counseling, engagement counseling, premarital group counseling, courses, seminars, etc. These content-centric and group-centric activities provide SUPPORT, BACKGROUND and STRUCTURE for the live, one-on-one, personal relationships. They ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE OR A REPLACEMENT for them.
So yeah, it’s getting a little less fun and a little more serious – but that’s life in the big city. If it was easy, everyone would be experience abundant sex in the context of long-term, happy, mutually satisfying, romantic relationships. Unfortunately, examples of those doing it well for decades with the same person, are in short supply. That is because it is very difficult to do. It will cost you something – but it’s a price worth paying!! Trust me!
Check our principle number two coming soon!
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