Third Exercise – Living in Love and the Language of the Body

PLL Session 4

10:45 AM – 11:50 AM

Introduction: (5 min)

Preparing to Live in Love Sessions 4 and 5 correspond to Every Day in Love Session 2, "The Passionate Couple," and contain the secrets of staying in love.

Preparing to Live in Love Session 4 is the centerpiece of the whole course

It offers the insights into nonverbal communication and especially lovemaking that we shared with you in Every Day in Love.

These insights can prevent so much hurt and disillusionment in marriage, and can empower all married couples to experience the unbridled joy God intends for them.

This session was honed and perfected over ten years and is powerfully effective with all kinds of couples in every situation.

It comes before the session about the Sacrament of Matrimony, because it flows so naturally from the last session on verbal communication, and because the engaged couple already feels comfortable and close to the mentor by now in the private setting of their home.

This is the reverse of the large group setting (Beginning to Live in Love) which is fewer sessions and more formal.

In Beginning to Live in Love, it is more comfortable to start with the sacramental aspect of Matrimony to motivate the kind of intimacy we are calling them to.

Who remembers how they answered the question, “Sex is …? on Every Day in Love?”

If no one raises their hand, ask them to look in their EDIL Workbook, “The Passionate Couple” (Session 2) page 10, to see how they responded.

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Remember your answers, because it will help you relate to the engaged later on.

Before we influence the engaged couple one way or the other, we ask them to answer that same question, “Sex is…?” and have them write their response on page 2 of the Couple Pack.

The question serves as an “ice breaker”. This is generally when we would hand out the Session 4 Couple

Pack to the engaged.

The Ice Breaker is just a way to break the tension and pull the engaged couple into the topic of the session.

They know we are going to talk about sex sooner or later, and they are unsure of what we are going to say.

If the engaged couple is sexually active, they think they know it all and may be smug and condescending.

They may also be defensive and presume the church is going to scold them or perhaps be even harder on them, but they are quickly won over by the mature intelligent tone of this session that respects them as thinking adults.

If they are virgin, they generally feel inadequate or uncomfortable talking about sex but are open and eager to listen.

We are not looking for anything more than a few single word answers.

Whatever the response, we can validate it and in some cases, suggest that there is more to it.

If possible, share how their response may also have been true for you.

This makes you real and adds credibility to what you will be saying later.

Some of the most likely responses are: Fun Natural No big deal Sacred A sin outside of marriage More important to men than to women

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The Mentor Trainers may share how they would have responded and the resulting unintended negative consequences to their relationship.

If the Mentor Trainers have not already shared their personal experience of having the attitude that sex is fun (when presenting EDIL) and the consequences that this attitude has had and is still having on their marriage, the following content can be covered as part of a personal sharing.

In marriage, when we treat sex as a fun, we tend to think of it as a form of recreation.

It will get a lower priority than other activities that seem more serious or responsible.

Cooking, cleaning, chores, work. We will limit sexual communication to those times when we allow

ourselves to have fun. When we’re on vacation, feeling celebrative, or “in the mood”

Then lovemaking is at the mercy of moods we do not control rather than a way to freely choose to get close.

It does not occur to us to make love when we are weary or stressed which is precisely when we may need to draw closer the most.

We can unwitting communicate that we are only there for each other in the good times.

Even the most harden Cohabitating couples are delighted by and agree with the insights presented in this session, because they resonate with their own experience.

Virgin couples are grateful to be warned away from pitfalls they would likely have fallen into.

Sex as Activity (up to 15 Minutes)

As you recall, the most pervasive and limiting attitude in our culture is that sex is an activity.

This attitude keeps us self-centered and self-conscious rather than other-conscious.

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It inevitably results in a performance mindset that causes hurt and loneliness.

Brainstorming with the Candidate Mentors

We begin this section by brainstorming with the candidate mentors about the experience of sex as an activity. Typically, in any mentor training group couples will be reluctant to share anything personal about their experience of sex as an activity; so, brainstorming in this way gets more participation and is a safe way to admit that they have had this attitude in the past.

“How would you describe the experience of sex when it is approached as an activity?”

Give the candidate mentors time to respond.

They will typically say things like, “Minds wander,” “You can feel guilty,” “It’s impersonal or mechanical,” and so forth without having to admit that that is their experience. Our hope is that since experiencing The Passionate Couple on EDIL they are working on approaching lovemaking as communication; so, this exercise gets them back in touch with the fact that they have good news for the engaged couple.

To summarize, the attitude that sex is an activity leads to: A performance mentality. Impersonal interactions.

Mechanical or meaningless behavior. Feelings of being used. Guilt, control, and irresponsibility. Isolation.

When sex is experienced as an activity, both men and women can feel: Shallow Dishonest, insincere Alienated, used Impersonal Ashamed, guilty

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If sex is approached as an activity, it will inevitably lose its original meaning and its profound message.

Without that meaning, the less priority it will have in the marriage and the more frequently the wife will discourage, avoid, or simply say, “No!” to intercourse.

She thinks she is saying “No” to an activity. He hears her saying “No” to him.

It cuts him off from his preferred means to achieving intimacy.

He will feel isolated and is likely to withdraw from relationship.

It is much like she feels when he refuses to talk to her and clams up verbally.

Please, turn to page 12 in your Passionate Couple workbooks to recall what you wrote.

One engaged couple who had been living together for 7 years and who had had a “know it all” attitude coming into the course, blurted out in amazement at this point; “How do you know all of this? Have you been in our bedroom? They hung on their mentors every word from then on.

It is such a blessing at this point to share with the engaged the key insights you learned on Every Day in Love about how differently men and women prefer to pursue intimacy.

Remember we told you that the primary way that women get close is through deep, verbal communication preferably on a feeling level; whereas, men prefer to get close nonverbally through eye contact, smiles, and every touch all the way up to and including lovemaking.

They are both equally virtuous and valuable and need to be honored

We want you all to clearly understand that we are not saying that women do not enjoy making love or that men cannot benefit from deep personal conversation?

Does anyone have any questions at all about that key insight into how we reach out to get close?

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The Mentor Trainers may have to explain again that our preferred ways of getting close tend to be gender specific while love languages or love gestures are more rooted in personality or family of origin.

Our preferred way of getting close is how we instinctively reach out to get close, especially if there is distance between us.

Our love languages and love gestures are how we consciously choose to show love or like to have others express love to us.

Sex as Communication (15 min)

The key to intimacy is integrating verbal and nonverbal communication!

Giving Session 4 of Preparing to Live in Love to a cohabitating engaged couple is just like giving Every Day in Love to married couples – the insights are so liberating!

Remember how we taught the concept of the language of the body on EDIL?

We had you think about your first touch and what it said, what your first kiss said.

We teach it the same way to the engaged and it makes perfect sense to them.

Has anyone tried putting language on each touch?

How has it changed your experience of the message communicated by the touch?

Each time we make love, we should approach each other as if it were the first, last, or only time we could say these things.

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Brief Couple Exercise: (10 min)

Please, take a couple of minutes right now to review the Developing the Language of the Body Worksheet from Every Day in Love.

You’ll find it on page 15 in your Passionate Couple workbook.

Look at what you checked and decide what you want to recommit to, or perhaps you would now be willing to try something new.

After you have looked at your own worksheet, please share the renewed desire of your heart with your spouse.

Allow the couples up to 5 minutes to reflect and share.

The engaged do not get this worksheet, but you can share it with them after they are married or encourage them to make Every Day in Love or Living in Love.

We do get to share with them what the experience of speaking and even praying while making love has been for us.

It is a life-line to the engaged to help them see that making love is not something we are doing to each other but rather something profound we are saying to each other.

That resonates with them and is what they want their experience of lovemaking to be in marriage.

They also want the joy they see in you!

When we explain that the part of the body that communicates permanence is the genitals, because they link generations past to generations future, it is often an epiphany for the engaged.

It is why intercourse says I love you totally and permanently; I love you and your children and your children’s children.

These messages are so affirming when they are true.

The reality is that they are only completely true in marriage.

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It is almost true in engagement, but it is not yet completely true. This made so much sense to one particularly bright young man

that he literally jumped off the mentor’s couch with enthusiasm and announced to his fiancée that they were going to be “celibate” until their wedding night, even though they had been having sex together since high school and had been living together for years as adults.

Another young man who was not a virgin, kept saying, “This changes everything!” and added, “If it something I am saying, it is not more special if I said it to 50 other girls. I wish someone had explained this to me when I was a teenager.”

We give the engaged the same homework assignment we gave you, to put language on every touch.

It is the best homework in the whole course, because it is fun, but also because it will help them connect words and touch and literally train them to make love more sincerely.

In a very loving way, we also invite the engaged couple to consider not making love until their wedding night; so that, the messages of intercourse will be completely true, and they will connect their love-making with their wedding vows.

Couples who have tried this have told us that their wedding night was thrilling!

If they make that connection, every time they make love in marriage it will become a renewal of their vows.

By this point in the course, the engaged couple knows that you love them and only want the best for them; so, they take your invitation very seriously and are always very respectful.

Typically, they will nod or smile, other times they are visibly enthused.

Either way we do not press them for an answer, we simply ask them to please think about it for us.

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During the large group Beginning to Live in Love they have an opportunity to write and share their answers with each other, but in Preparing to Live in Love, they do that for homework.

From our experience, couples who do embrace this challenge are always visibly more in love on their wedding day !

The Mentor Trainers share 1-2 stories of positive responses from the engaged that they have seen or mentions the following: One mentor received a thank you text after session 4 from a very sophisticated engaged couple who were living together in New York City. They thanked their mentors for the “truly intelligent and mature conversation” and said, “You have literally changed our lives.”

If the mentor candidates seem worried, you have the option to tell them the following story of the only time the authors ever met any resistance to the celibacy challenge.

As a favor, they were mentoring a dear priest friend’s very worldly sister and future brother in law who already had a child together and had been living together for a long time. The engaged couple protested that all of the messages of intercourse were already true for them and so the mentors offered this hypothetical analogy: Suppose you were about to buy your “dream” car. You have been shopping for a long time, and at last, you have decided which one is the one for you. You might go into the dealer and say, “I am going to buy this car, but before we close the deal, I’d like to take it for a spin.” While on the road, a friend pulls up next to you and says, “Great car! Is that yours?” and you say, “Yes.” Is that true, or is it a lie? You certainly intend for it to be yours, but the deal could fall through, because it’s not real yet. 

Common Sense about Cohabitation: (5 min)

One of the things you will find in your Mentor Training materials is a booklet titled “Common Sense About Cohabitation.”

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The reality is that a large percentage of our Catholic engaged couples are living together.

It is very important to presume that they are well intentioned. Respecting couples as thinking adults is the best way to

evangelize.

The good news is that each of the negative consequences of living together prior to marriage are countered by the positives skills and strategy taught in Preparing to Live in Love.

We give a copy of the Cohab Book to each fiancé(e). Even if we know they are personally cohabitating, we do not point

this directly at them. We simple tell them that we know that cohabitation is a megatrend

in our current culture but suggest that this booklet has some fascinating insights that can be helpful to anyone who is or is considering cohabitating.

While we hope that they will read the booklet, we don’t leave it completely to chance; we briefly mention some of the key points covered in the booklet to whet their appetite.

Our attitude is that we are offering the engaged a real gift, They all want to take their relationship to the next level; that is why

they are marrying! We are giving them an opportunity to do just that.

Taking your relationship to the next level: (20 min)

The reason why Session 4 of Preparing to Live in Love is so universally effective is not just because the insights make sense or are cleverly articulated.

The truth is that the mentor couple’s joy and enthusiasm for approaching lovemaking as communication is irresistible.

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So, we would like to recommend to you two key daily practices for married couples to help you invite more joy into your relationship.

These can be the keys to living in love every day!

The first was recommended during Every Day in Love, and it is daily Prayer for Passion

Remember that by “passion” we do not mean urgency for intercourse but rather to be passionately other–centered.

You each got a little prayer card at the end of the Passionate Couple session of Every Day in Love; however, it is most effective to ask the Lord for passion in your own words at least once a day.

Each Mentor Trainer briefly shares their first reaction to praying for Passion and why they decided to try it. Wife shares first.

Mentor Trainers briefly share how and when they pray both as individuals and as a couple and the positive impact on them individually and for their relationship.

Let’s all take a moment right now to pray for passion for our marriages.

One of the Mentor Trainers prays out loud for themselves and then for the whole group. This will model praying for passion in a simple concrete way.

Skin to Skin

If we are really serious about immersing our marriage in the sexual atmosphere that our sacrament calls us to, then the very best and most powerful change to make is daily Skin-to-Skin.

Skin-to-Skin is simply taking 20 minutes of prime time each day to lie naked in each other's arms.

This is time spent getting back in touch with the basics of being a man and a woman in a sexual, committed, love relationship.

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It is an experience of what scripture calls being “naked and unashamed.”

It helps us to regain our perspective after a day of distractions, to remember who we are and what our life together is all about.

There is always some confusion about whether or not skin-to-skin includes intercourse.

Obviously the “Living in Love” Police are not going to come if you make love using intercourse, and to be very candid, the truth is that, in the beginning, you will have intercourse a lot.

There is a reason for that … Very simply put, you owe “back rent!” (pause)

But, once you have paid that “back rent” the experience will evolve into a spiritual and emotional intimacy that is so profound that whether or not intercourse is part of it will be less and less significant to both of you.

The experience of Skin-to-Skin broadens our notion of lovemaking and has a number of powerfully positive side effects.

For starters, most of us have trained ourselves to think that if we are naked, it will lead to intercourse; so, we avoid getting naked, and that is a loss.

Being naked is a powerful statement in and of itself. It says I trust you, I am willing to be vulnerable to you, and I do not want to hide anything from you.

The more time we spend “naked and unashamed” in each other’s arms, the more other-centered we can become.

Primarily, Skin-to-Skin expands our experience of sexual communication, helps us to begin to verbalize the language of the body, and invites God into our intimacy.

It is the stepping stone in transforming making love from something we are doing to something we are saying.

You see, once we have an experience of speaking affirming and profound messages from our hearts to one another while we are naked, it becomes more natural to do so while we make love.

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Not only can Skin to Skin take our lovemaking to a whole new level when we do choose to include intercourse, but it will also provide an alternative experience of having an intimate conversation with our whole bodies in a deeply sexual, contemplative atmosphere when we do not.

When we speak words of affirmation or commitment to each other in that intimate atmosphere, it is powerfully affirming and bonding.

It is a great time to put words on every touch and verbalize what you are saying by giving yourself as a gift to the other.

It’s also nice to spend some time just holding each other in silence, paying attention, and looking into each other’s eyes.

Part of the joy is that there is no agenda. Just take time to breathe each other in.

Skin to Skin is a profound experience of simply being grateful for the gift of the other’s masculinity or femininity.

To make this all a little more concrete, we would like to share with you what the actual experience of skin-to-skin is like for us personally, how we managed to put it into our life, and the effect that Skin-to-Skin has had on us.

Each Mentor Trainer shares their initial reaction to the practice of skin to skin, why they decided to try it, and what they love most about their experience of skin-to-skin.

One of the presenting spouses shares when they now take their skin-to-skin time and why. Mention other typical times.

Share examples of unbridled joy or giggly playfulness that is the fruit of skin-to-skin.

To the extent that the content of the next three paragraphs has already been covered in the personal sharing, it need not be repeated.

It is important to choose a time of day when you both can be at your best, meaning fully present to each other.

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This might be when you first come home from work and are changing clothes anyway, or it might be after supper.

It's probably not late at night when you're climbing into bed ready to fall asleep.

Most people would not show up for a job interview in the shape that they show up to be present to their spouse

Perhaps the greatest disservice we can do to each other and the Church is to limit our Passion and Skin to Skin to the infertile periods of the wife's cycle or to allow it to diminish after the childbearing years are over.

The wonderfully good news is that we can be passionate, loving, and intimate every day of the month, every year of our lives, because Prayer-for-Passion and Skin-to-Skin are not necessarily a prelude to love making. They stand on their own as a beautiful time of contemplation of the closeness we're experiencing and desiring to experience.

So too, if we develop the language of the body and are funded in an experience of Skin-to-Skin, the physical dysfunctions or hormone fluctuations that come with age will not destroy our ability to communicate sexually.

Each couple needs to adapt the way they express their passion to their own unique situation, but it is truly a blessing to be able to touch each other, hold each other, and affirm each other, whether or not we have intercourse.

Those who practice Natural Family Planning know how good it is to be conscious of the natural rhythms of the body as well as responsible for the power of procreation entrusted to us by God.

Skin-to-Skin provides a practical way to remain sexual while abstaining from intercourse.

We may fear that it will be too difficult to be naked in each other’s arms if we have agreed not to make love, but experience has proven otherwise.

In fact, Skin-to-Skin is a life-line for our relationship during the fertile periods and the practice that makes Natural Family Planning positively most workable.

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The key is to stay other-centered, that is, fully present to the other strictly for his or her sake, actively lavishing affirmation, affection, and tenderness on them so as to communicate that they are thoroughly, completely, and passionately loved.

Seeing the whole person, not just the body, is what turns lust into authentic love even in marriage.

The focus is on being present rather than any particular physical expression.

It sounds too simple, just like time in front of the Blessed Sacrament sounds too simple.

Actually, these two practices are parallel, and when priests make Living in Love that is the practice they adopt daily, because when we are in front of the Blessed Sacrament, we are simply aware of God’s presence, we often praise Him; we listen; we’re attentive and filled with gratitude for the gift of Jesus’ body in the Eucharist.

For couples, that daily dose of attention, affirmation, and gratitude in so intimate and exclusive a state.

Nakedness heals us and accomplishes a return to original innocence.

Original Innocence - Team Wife

Scripture tells us that in the beginning, Adam and Eve were “naked and unashamed” with each other as God intended.

That is what we call “original innocence.”

But then, sin entered in and with it shame and all kinds of fig leaves to hide ourselves from each other as husband and wife.

The GOOD News is that Christ came and redeemed the Body through the incarnation.

The experience of inviting God into our bedrooms, being naked in His presence and in each other’s presence, helps us to see ourselves through His eyes and to see our bodies as good again.

In a concrete way, what happens to most wives is that they finally see their bodies through their husband’s eyes and not the distorted vision of the culture.

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The vision of love is the truth, in other words, God loves me at least as much as my husband does, and since Jesus is the truth, the beauty He sees is the truth.

We could all come up with objections, excuses, or reasons why Skin-to-Skin is too difficult, impractical, or just not for us.

We don't have the time, the kids are around, we're too old for that sort of thing.

The truth is, we can't afford not to.

If we adopt the practice of Skin-to-Skin, we will absolutely change our lives.

It's that simple and that powerful.

The impact over time of the simple practice of daily skin to skin is transformative at many levels.

The fruit is deep trust and unbridled joy

Couple exercise (10 min)

We have a final Question for you to write on and share with each other over lunch.

What am I willing to do to prioritize living in love and why? Share any specific practice you are willing to incorporate into your lives.

LUNCH BREAK Noon- 11:50 AM - 12:30 PM

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