Passionate Love: Secret #2

Secret Number Two: Rehearse Your Response

As we continue to examine the keys to managing your passionate love, our next secret offers a concrete tool for changing your reaction to your desires.

In previous chapters of this series, we’ve talked about my belief that passionate love-what many call chemistry-must be at the foundation of a successful long-term relationship. We also touched on the potential damage that a pre-marital sexual relationship can do, even between two who intend to be married the rest of their lives.

But, you may say, that’s interesting reading material Dr. Warren, but what can I DO to control the God-given desire to physically express my love for this special person?

Secret number two: Write out a statement, either separately or together, about how you want to be with each other in the sexual arena and read it out loud to yourself or to the other person three times a week for 26 weeks.

Now you may think that this idea makes no sense at all, but let me tell you why I utilize it. I believe that the impulse region of the inner person, your inner person, consists of two basic drives. One is sexual. The other has to do with aggression or anger. I have had a lot to do with persons who have anger management problems. Consistently, those anger management problems are established through learning such that a response pattern exists; when they get provoked, they automatically relate their anger to the other person or persons or to the situation in whatever way they’ve learned to relate to it in the past.

The only way that I know how to help them manage their anger more effectively is to help them rehearse the approach they want to take the next time they get angry. They have to do this rehearsal at a time when they are not angry.

The same thing applies to sexuality. If you want to manage your passion in relation to another person, you need to write out how you want to be the next time you are in a situation that provokes a sexual reaction; then you need to read it out loud to the point that you are highly rehearsed, almost like you’re a quarterback on a football team with a hundred thousand people shouting in your ears. You must know exactly what you’re going to do when you take that ball from the center.

The quarterback knows which way he’s going to turn because he has rehearsed this play so often. The same is true here. Write out that statement. Rehearse it by reading it over and over and over. Get yourself fundamentally committed to it so that the next time you’re sitting in a car, in the woods, with the radio playing, and all those romantic urges are surging through you, you will know exactly how you want to be in that circumstance.