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Prologue
So here is the scoop behind the Bikini Relationship Rescue book series. This story captures the real motivation for writing these books. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
The Power of A Super Confident Bikini
There were not more than fifteen people within one hundred or so yards of us on that section of the beach we chose. It was still a warm afternoon but there was a gentle summer breeze and with the skies being slightly overcast, it was surprisingly pleasant.
Jay, our six year-old at the time immediately wanted to hit the water. Even at home in the bathroom he would have a lot of fun just frolicking in the small space of a bath tub. Heck, with at least twenty feet of clear, tranquil water to play in, at no point more than three feet deep, this was paradise to a six-year old boy.
Geo, my husband, seemed to want to just sit on the sand and read. I didn’t really care and I wasn’t about to ask him to join us in the water.
This was for my son and I was determined that he would have a great time as I had promised weeks before. After all a promise is a promise. That was what I always preached to him; now mommy had to step up.
We were into about fifteen minutes of frolicking and messing around in the shallow, clear water when someone on the beach let out a rather subdued whistle, but one I could clearly hear, as if they were whistling at someone. Out of curiosity I turned around to look at what could be so interesting.
There she was, strolling along the beach at the water’s edge, barely getting her feet wet. She was dressed in what I would describe as the skimpiest of bikinis, which she seemed to be able to wear so tastefully.
That was probably the first thing I really noticed. How do you wear such a skimpy garment in such a tasteful manner?
No, she was not naked, but not much was left to the imagination. You would think that imagery would leave you thinking, ‘Girl go get some clothes on.’ That was certainly not what I found myself thinking. It was more like, ‘Oh my God, she barely has anything on and you want to see more of her.’ Not literally see more of her, but more of her presence. I just felt drawn to this striking imagery on that beach. What the hell was going on?
I didn’t want to be seen looking so I turned back to play with my son. But something about her just made me want to take another look. So it was too with a few other people on the beach, including of course Geo my husband.
Heck, here I was, a heterosexual girl trying to fight the urge to take a second look at a female-clad bikini strolling along the beach. Yes, that is how it seemed to me – a female-clad bikini. This felt weird. But I had to look again.
As I looked towards the beach, I could see that she was still commanding the attention of at least five other people, including that of my husband, and one middle-aged lady. Now I didn’t feel so bad, if another lady could be moved to stare, then surely my looking could be justified.
Yes, she was a beauty. I have to admit that. But so what? It could not be just that. Nor was it the well toned body, less than 2% of which was under that bikini.
It was the walk, or the stroll or whatever it could be called, that really caught my eye and seemed to want to just command my attention.
It was a walk with an unpretentious, easy gait that had the innocence of a child but the confidence and grace of royalty, with emphasis on confidence. It was as if her body was carrying her and there was something there that you could not see, just sense, which her body was gladly transporting.
Yet, she revealed so much wearing that skimpy bikini. It was a bit weird, but one of those weird things that just draw you in.
Thankfully, Jay got back my attention with his antics, but not before I noticed that Geo who had chosen to stay on the sand to read, was still staring, even after lady intrigue was at least thirty yards past him.
Yes, he was still staring. Why the hell was he staring so much? Okay, I get it. She had our attention, all six of us who were staring at her, including two women, and deservingly so. But why was my husband still staring?
After all, here we were as a family on the beach and there he was having chosen to not join us in the water, staring at a bikini strolling along the water’s edge. He should have been looking at us. Yes, looking at us, his wife and son having a good time on a beautiful summer afternoon.
Those were the crazy thoughts that were going through my mind. Why, I did not know. I was a bit angry but maybe I was also picking for a fight. Again I did not understand why I even felt this way. I just found the whole episode annoying.
So I made a mental note. The next time we had an argument about our marriage, this would surely be discussed. Not that I found it compelling to stare at a female in a bikini, though that would be true. Rather, that I found it very annoying that my husband’s eyes were not on us, his family, but on that same bikini. ‘Hypocrite me’ I was thinking to myself, but my need to vent would have none of it. I could not wait for next time.
Well, next time was not long in coming.
Later that evening when Jay went next door to play with his friends, I decided to bring up the bikini issue. Yes I was looking for an argument, and since I knew my husband was aware that I saw him staring at the young lady, I did not want him thinking I was totally indifferent to that, even if our relationship was not at its best. So while fixing dinner I brought up the matter.
“Had a good time at the beach?” I asked.
“Yep, I just wanted to relax a little bit.” He replied.
“Yup, I saw that. It’s really hard to relax while staring at hot chicks, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hot chicks? What are you talking about?”
“You know what I am talking about; the same one in the orange and black bikini that you stared at while she paraded by you lying in the sand.”
“Peta, she did not parade by me, what are you talking about? And I wasn’t staring, as you put it.”
“Okay, as I put it you were not staring. Geo, what were you doing? Gawking?”
“For crying out loud, I, I don’t even know why we are having this argument!”
“You don’t know? Of course you know. We are having this argument because you chose to spend your time at the beach gawking at a bikini, rather than having some fun with us. That is why we are having this argument!”
I knew I was beginning to sound ridiculous now, but I really didn’t care about being reasonable. Maybe that was where we were in our relationship – just two hurting persons unable to be suitably reasonable with each other any longer.
Geo just stood there, looking confused and tired. You could see he was in no shape for a fight.
“Honey, I don’t know how and why this whole scenario is being interpreted in this manner. Everyone found that young lady interesting, interesting to look at. It doesn’t mean anyone was gawking. It’s, it’s just one of those things you come across that if you are a human being, you just look at out of maybe, habit, curiosity, I don’t know.”
“So you have a habit of looking at women in bikinis? Geo, we go to the beach once a year, at most.”
“That’s not what I meant. Christ, what is the matter with you? I meant seeing something unusual will tend to draw your attention. I think that is why everyone around us was looking.”
“Yeah, right, unusual!”
“Yeah, right?” Now he was getting a bit annoyed, and I could not blame him. “Peta, you were among those of us who were looking! So let me ask you, why were you looking?”
“I don’t know” I quickly shot back, trying to hide the guilt I felt at being so self-righteous and hypocritical.
Now all of this was beginning to get more confusing. Because he was right, I was looking also, yet there I was pretending that I saw nothing and all I had seen was he looking at her.
This was not going so well for me. In fact it was not going so well for either of us. But this was nothing new as this was how most of our silly arguments went as of late – nowhere. No wonder our marriage felt like it too was going nowhere.
“This is crazy” I said to no one in particular. “You know what, I feel like a long shower; excuse me, I have to take a shower.”
“Okay bee-kini lady. Go bare it all.”
“What? Are you mocking me?” I snapped.
“No, I am not mocking you. I am just saying you are too caught up with this bikini stuff. It’s nothing!”
“Yeah, right, it’s nothing.”
Maybe at a certain level he was right. Maybe he was right about the stupid argument we just had. But there was something that I could not put my finger on that mattered, something related to this whole episode. It was not ‘nothing’, as Geo thought. That much I knew. It was something.
The whole thing felt so weird – this girl in a bikini, who admittedly was almost naked, almost naked for all intents and purposes. Yet, not in an offensive way, but in a manner that seemed so tasteful, so innocent even, so beautiful. No, this made little sense, what I was feeling made little sense. I really felt like a long, warm shower.
As the warm water gently ran down my back I found myself going over the image of that afternoon on the beach – a seemingly every-day image that seemed to be not so every-day. A dozen other things were competing with this image in my mind, but yet it would not go away.
I thought about me and Geo; the path we had both taken to get here. We had made missteps in our previous relationships, missteps that we spoke about and promised to not have happening in this relationship. Maybe even more important, we were committed to avoiding what we called ‘mediocrity in our marriage’ – just settling for less than we desire because there seem to be no other option.
I went back to all those years when we were friends, when we never had a quarrel and somehow longed for those times and the friendship we enjoyed. I longed for the days when we would talk endlessly about any and everything and had such fun doing so.
Now I wanted all of that in my marriage and none of the mediocrity we both feared and knew could happen unless something changed.
Yet, at times I could not help but thinking this is exactly where we were headed – mediocrity. We were not quite there, but it scared me to even think about it.
The warm water helped to slow down my thoughts and at least I could relate to what was going through my mind and not feel totally confused and frustrated.
But that image, that image on the beach, every time I went back to it, it was as if some form of clarity was trying to get through to my thoughts; even in this moment of seeming anguish and mild confusion.
As I forced my mind to slow down, to bring the swirl of thoughts to a crawl, I knew I wanted answers. Something in me wanted an explanation of what had transpired earlier that afternoon. Why was I so drawn to that imagery on the beach?
Then it hit me. Every time I went back to that image I felt my own emotions calming me, the same emotions that I would feel when I imagined what my marriage could be like if we only got it together. The joy I would feel knowing that there is so much love in our marriage, knowing that without a doubt we had it all together – the trust, the caring, the love-making, the inspiration we got from each other.
Now I was getting the same emotions I felt when I thought about those things – just a deep sense of clarity and joy.
Why, why would the image of a young lady in a bikini walking along the beach stir those emotions? Sure, I had felt them numerous times before, even in talking to Geo about my aspirations for my marriage I would experience them, fleetingly yes, but experience them nevertheless.
So why were they coming up now when I was hardly thinking anything about those aspirations.
I forced myself to replay the scene in detail, noting what I was feeling at every moment along that scene, as best as I could remember.
And there it was again. Emotionally, all those things that I aspired after for my marriage were now so clear, so clear. As I visualized the scene on the beach over and over again my body felt like it was experiencing pure joy and my mind just kept referencing those aspirations – one by one, the peace I wanted in my marriage, the gentle passion I wanted in our interactions, the way I wanted to be held, the love I wanted to feel, the comfort I wanted from trusting each other, on and on.
As I reached for my towel, draped it around me, a wicked thought came to my mind – payback, Geo, payback.
I felt a half smile begin to form around the corners of my mouth as I walked by Geo still watching TV from his favorite chair. I certainly was going to enjoy this I moment.
“Want to experience me bare it all?” I said as if to no one in particular.
“What?” he quickly spat out, taken aback at my boldness and the change in mood.
“I said, do you want to see me bare it all?”
“Are you ok?” Now he was very confused.
“I am ok. Are you ok, Mr. Gawker?” I said, while slowly exposing my upper thighs under the towel.
“I am tired Peta, there is just too much confusion going on; tomorrow.”
“Yep, tomorrow, tomorrow will be ok, that’s fine” I said as I let out a muted laughter.
Geo still had that worried, confused look on his face. Me, I was clear, very clear, that tomorrow would be good. Tonight I would get me a good night’s sleep.
And tomorrow, tomorrow I would bare it all. Bare it all for Geo. For the sake of our marriage; for the sake of everything we both aspired for in our lives.
Yes Geo, tomorrow I think I will bare it all.
Baring It All
We normally attend the 10:00 O’clock service at our church, but this Sunday morning Geo decided that he needed to sleep in a bit as he was feeling very tired. That was fine with me, I too just felt like doing nothing that morning, except talk. Talk without getting into silly arguments that go nowhere.
A few years ago we were so much in love, such good friends, who laughed a lot.
Now, too many silly arguments and no fun was just draining all this love we had for each other. I found myself wondering, how many relationships just get destroyed by something so simple and so silly.
But this time I just knew it would be different – this would not be a silly argument, this would be a real grown-up conversation. In fact the moment I woke up I knew I was very clear about where this needed to go.
“Had a good night’s sleep?” I wanted there to be as little tension as possible.
“Nah, not really, but that’s okay. I will get some later” Geo replied, still not fully awake.
“Okay, want to talk?” I asked.
“About?” He wasn’t sounding so inviting. I better not make this too difficult, I thought.
“Well, ah, I know you may not want to talk, but can I? Just promise that you will listen; I know you are probably not fully awake but I need to talk, I really need to” I replied with a hint of quiet desperation.
Whatever it took, I was going to have my talk this morning.
“Do we have to talk now?” Geo wanted to know.
“No better time. I am here, you are here – that’s the best time to talk.”
Geo didn’t find that funny as he gave a very tired sigh, as if to say, ‘not again.’
“Alright Peta, you may think I am here, I am not too sure about that, but go ahead, I will listen.”
Whatever that meant, I really did not want to know. Not then; and hopefully not ever.
“Geo, what if that was a guy in that bikini?”
“What? What are you asking me?” Geo replied with mild annoyance.
“What if that was a guy, would you have stared so much?”
“So hold on, this is what you want to talk about, my feelings about a guy in a bikini?”
“No! Geo, please, calm down, it’s Sunday morning. I am just asking, do you think you would have stared that much if that was a guy?”
“I don’t even know where this is going, this is crazy, moreover I was not staring” he replied, rather annoyed at what he thought I was suggesting.
“Geo I am a girl. She is a girl. I was staring. You don’t have to feed badly.”
“Ok. Fine, so maybe it’s the fact that she was almost naked and even though it was a bikini, there was just so much of her that was uncovered, I just found that a bit, I don’t know, funny. Maybe you being a woman found that, well, you probably didn’t like that. I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter it was nothing.”
“Geo, her nakedness was not a problem for me. Far from it, the fact that she was so naked and seemed so innocent, so unconcerned about it, I think was very interesting, in fact very intriguing.”
“OK, but I don’t know why you are so hung up on this. It was just a beautiful girl in a bikini. Only a girl! And you are behaving as if she is the second coming? It’s not like you are even a guy. Come on Peta!”
I know this was going to be hard, but Geo wasn’t helping. He just had this uncooperative attitude that I was struggling to ignore.
I just could not afford for this moment to be lost. I knew I was on to something. I knew that moment of realization in the bathroom the evening before was real. I felt it then, I was still feeling it, and I wanted Geo to feel it too. But the way this was going the opportunity could be lost very quickly.
This was my red-zone moment and to use a American football metaphor, I wanted a touch down here; I was not interested in a field goal. I just felt I had to score here, even if I had to play quarter back, and whatever Geo played, I just wanted him to catch that ball and bring it in.
I wanted us to score here and now, to put those seven points on the board emphatically. I just wasn’t about to have anything less. So I found myself thinking, ‘3rd down and goal Peta, this is it! You have to be confident in throwing that ball.’
You too are going to have your red zone moments in your relationship when you will have to be confident in what you want to do and who you want to do it with.
When you get to those moments, you just have to be prepared to execute, and execute with confidence and conviction. No one can do that for you but you.
My red-zone objective was to get Geo on the same page as me, to relate completely to what I was feeling.
Had we not had our practices, our drills – in the form of all those conversations we had – I would have had little confidence that he would have been able to do just that, and he would be sitting there wondering what the hell I was talking about.
You cannot wait until red-zone time or touch-down time to get on the same page with your team-mate. That will only end in confusion. You have to get on the same page from practice time – you have to have those conversations with your partner.
Ongoing conversations about what you really want in your relationship are very crucial to the outcome of that relationship.
Being able to understand the not-so-obvious problems that can trip up your relationship.
Asking yourself questions about who you are in your relationship so you can turn up everyday with the right attitude for that relationship to remain meaningful to everyone.
Building the right environment for trust to thrive. Not just building trust, but for trust to thrive.
That means being able to really listen to each other, to create the environment where each person can be heard completely without the fear of being ridiculed or criticized. Luckily, Geo and I had those conversations.
Now it was time to score, to have the outcome that we so wanted, and darn it, I was determined that we were going to.
“Well, hello! I am a heterosexual, straight girl. And in case you didn’t hear, I said I found her very, very interesting. You are not listening to me, Geo.”
“Oh? What, what do you mean very interesting? What are you getting at?”
Now, I really had his attention, without the attitude. I knew, for all of a sudden Mr. Sleepy with an attitude had become Mr. Wide Awake with curiosity.
Geo and I had shared thoughts upon thoughts about where we wanted our relationship to go, how we wanted it to look, and how we wanted it to feel to us.
Where we had gotten stuck it seemed was in making the connections between what we said we wanted and the actions and mindset that were required.
It just seemed that with all the work we did and all the good intentions we were still coming up short.
One day to my annoyance, Geo suggested that maybe we had unrealistic expectations. I was mildly disappointed and a bit upset that he would even entertain that thought.
We both had experienced disappointments in previous relationships that were wrapped up in maybe our stubborn attitude to not settle for less than our aspirations. In fact this was one of the qualities that attracted us to each other.
Now he was suggesting that those aspirations may just have been a bit unrealistic. Not for me, they were not.
I wanted my marriage to have zest, and intrigue, I wanted it to be interesting, I wanted exhilaration, I wanted the shivers when I remembered special moments. I wanted love that just flows without question, without doubt.
I wanted my ‘I love you’ to be celebratory instead of being obligatory; I wanted it to be in celebration of something we both found together.
For why else would I want to commit to share my life with someone if I could not have these?
So what about you?
What have you always wanted your relationship to be, to look like, to feel like?
Are you satisfied to just leave this to chance, to just have your relationship be anything it turns out to be?
Has this never crossed your mind?
Or have you thought about this over and over until it seeps into your very cells so that one day you will have your moment of epiphany and know for sure that this is what you really want?
Because let me tell you, your good character, your good looks, your good intentions, the good character of your partner, and the good intentions of your partner will never be enough to bring you what you want in your relationship.
You must vision, and foster, and live in your mind what you want from your relationship; until it has to become your reality.
You can have a marriage with zest, intrigue, exhilaration; with special moments that give the shivers.
You can have love that flows without question, without doubt.
You can have your ‘I love you’ be celebratory instead of being obligatory.
You have to believe it. For why else would you want to commit to share your life with someone if you cannot have these?
So here I was, having actively cultivated my own aspirations for my marriage, having lived them a thousand times in my mind, not really knowing what they would really feel like, but knowing without a doubt that they would feel good, really good.
There is no way I was going to allow my moment of epiphany to come to naught.
We had indulged in those conversations for too long for this moment to be wasted.
We wanted it too much to not grasp at every opportunity to have it. I had to get Geo to feel what I had been feeling since the day before. I just had to.
“Geo, I promise I will explain exactly what I mean, but tell me what did you feel when you first saw that girl?” I began. “When you first saw her, what did you think or feel?”
“I don’t know, I just knew at first she just seemed so attractive.”
“And then? You said at first, then what after?” I wanted to know for sure if what I felt was all in my head.
“Like I said, at first she caught my eye, maybe because of the outfit, but I sort of found myself noticing more, that walk, how she carried herself, I don’t know. She just seemed to have this air about her” Geo replied.
“Me too” I said.
“Me too what?” Geo wanted to know.
“I felt the same like you did, at first it was just the looks, you know, the outfit, her body, but what really grabbed my attention was the way she carried herself, almost naked and yet you didn’t even see the nakedness, what you saw was the confidence, the aura.”
“Yeah, maybe, I sort of felt that too, as if she was just drawing you in, you just could not look away.”
“Me too” I said again.
“Come on Peta, you can’t be serious” Geo sounded a bit taken aback by what he was hearing.
“No, I am serious, that is how I felt” I answered. “It was just like you were on the highway in a traffic jam and you notice one of those billboards with an attractive girl and it seemed she was always looking at you, so you had to keep on looking at her. I just had to keep on looking.”
Now I could see Geo thinking. I have seen it a hundred times, his right index finger raised across his lips while looking at nothing in particular.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I don’t know, it’s just weird” he replied.
“I don’t think it is weird, Geo. Last night in the bathroom I thought about my own feelings on the beach at that moment, thought about why I found it almost impossible to not look and I think I know why.”
“You know why?”
“Yes I know why. Every time I went back to that scene on the beach, went back to it in detail – the walk, the aura, the nakedness with so much confidence – I felt something in me stirring; every time without fail.”
“What do you mean?” Geo asked.
“Geo, every time I played back the image of her in that bikini, the walk, the air about her, the confidence, the innocence, it touched something in me that just reminded me of what I want from our marriage. It sounds crazy, but that’s what I felt.”
‘Hold on, you are losing me there. Explain what you mean” he wanted to know.
“Okay, you know we have had these conversations about what we wanted our marriage to feel like – the confidence in our love because we feel it and not just imagine it, in each other, being completely open emotionally, projecting our best on to each other, all of those things – as I viewed the image of her walking on that beach a lot of what she projected resemble what we said we want in our marriage. In the shower last evening I just had this sudden clarity of what this would look and feel like. No wonder I could not help but just keep looking, because Geo, I was actually seeing something I want in my marriage, and really feeling it.”
Geo seemed a bit stunned, but now very attentive. “Whoa, okay, I, that’s interesting, very interesting” he replied. “But what do you mean when you say you were seeing something you want in your marriage?”
“Geo, that girl was almost naked, but for all she knew, she was fully clothed, she was completely uninhibited, just so confident in her own skin. We have spoken about being emotionally open with each other, without inhibitions, without feeling vulnerable so we can be better in our relationship. That aspect of her just sort of stoked that aspiration in me.”
“Are you being serious?” Geo wanted to know.
“Why wouldn’t I be serious? I am being serious, very serious. In fact the way that she carried herself must mean that she is confident about who she is, there was no pretense about her. You saw that. That is how we want to relate to each other – if I say I love you, it’s not about making you feel good to hear me say it, I don’t want to do it because it is the obligatory thing for me to do as your wife, I want to do it because it celebrates something in me, something that I feel in me that just has to be expressed as I love you. I want to express how I really feel about you, simply because it is so. I don’t want it to be obligatory; I want it to be celebratory, because that way I will always want to feel it. If it’s just obligatory, then where is the joy? And I want joy.”
Geo just sat there staring at me as if he had never seen me before. Maybe this version of me he had never seen before, and that was okay, because what I was feeling was real, there was no pretense, it just came out of me as natural as it was for the sun to rise that morning. I wasn’t about to waste the moment.
“When we are affectionate in public we want to do so because we are confident in our love and that confidence is reflected in how we behave towards each other, without pretense, because it is so. There is no pretense, just child-like innocence like we saw with that girl” I continued.
“I want intrigue in our relationship, the same intrigue that she inspired because you just wanted to know more about her. I want us to find novelty in our relationship, because if we don’t, then we are likely to look for it elsewhere. I want novelty with honor, novelty derived from our genuine interest and intrigue with each other, not cheap novelty that goes nowhere, is self-serving and only end up making you want to look elsewhere because it’s never satisfying. I want us to be fully satisfied not only with our marriage but from our marriage. This is what I want Geo, I want it; what we have spoken about so much. We want it.”
I could see this was maybe a bit too much for him to fully grasp at the moment, but I knew my husband, he would get it somehow.
“So why do you think this happened, I mean, that you made these associations in your mind just from seeing her?”
“Because Geo, because what I felt we have spoken about so much, I try to live them in my mind, to imagine how they would feel all the time. It didn’t have to be a girl in a bikini. It could have been anything that I could relate my feelings to, anything that would hold the same qualities about it that I felt in these aspirations for our marriage. I think that is what happened. In fact I know that is what happened yesterday afternoon.”
After a long pause, Geo got off the bed and walked around to where I was sitting. He looked unsure about what he wanted to do, so he stopped short of where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and asked “You really took those conversations to heart, didn’t you?”
I knew he didn’t mean it the way it came across, as if he himself hadn’t taken them to heart. I know he too took them to heart, even if he had started to lose hope. “Of course I did, and you know it, I want it as much as you do. We both want it.”
“Wow, all from just a girl in a bikini!” said Geo.
“No, Geo, it was not just a girl in a bikini. It was also all the work that we did, all the conversations that we had. Sure we just talked about what we wanted but what was also happening is that the more we talked the more they took on their own identity in us without us even realizing it. Sometimes it takes something projecting onto you what you have always aspired after to realize what that thing really feels like. I think it was very important that we talked about these things, if we did not, then yes, she would just have been a beautiful girl in a bikini to us.”
Geo reached down to pull me upright off the bed and I heard him barely whisper “I am so proud of you, so proud of you.”
“I am proud of you too” I replied as we hugged.
From the corner of my eye I saw sun-beams shooting across our bed; sun-beams with their warmth and their clarity that just seem to be celebrating the moment and pulling you in. I can remember thinking, ‘Oh God if those sun-beams are what the sun is doing, then my marriage should be what I am doing, and should be no less warm, no less illuminating, no less attracting, and no less celebratory.’
We have to be like the sun in our marriage – what we project have to have those qualities.
Are you clear about what your relationship should be doing in your life or what you should be doing for your relationship?
Let me ask you, do you have an idea of what your relationship should be doing in your life or what you should be doing for your relationship?
Is that idea clear? Do you know what it will take to make it clear, what are the components of that relationship, what should be your behavior?
If you don’t know these for sure then you are shortchanging yourself and your relationship.
If you somehow feel stuck now, unless you have this clear idea, you are going to remain stuck where you are. You will continue to shortchange yourself until you really know.
Do you know what it takes for your relationship to project a warm hue, a hue that you and your partner will be attracted to?
Do you know what about your relationship that will always seem to be pulling you in?
No, not in towards each other, but towards it so that you both will meet in that same space of celebratory zeal of having and experiencing something so wonderful, so warm, so comforting? Do you know?
As Geo wrapped his arms around me and we stood there soaking it in, what I just told him, suddenly I felt my body shaking, and tears, wonderful tears ran down my cheeks.
“You are crying?” he asked.
No, I was not crying, but I could not say that to him – he saw tears and that to him was crying; I felt the tears and those tears to me were showers of joy, little droplets each filled with the joy lining every cell of my body.
He wouldn’t understand that, but it was okay, it was okay because I now completely understood where we needed to go in our marriage from that point on.
That is exactly how I felt that Sunday morning standing beside my bed, the bed that Geo and I had shared for so long. I knew that as of that moment, this would be our sacred ground, our sacred space, where when we enter, all ill-will would be left at the door, and no malice will be tolerated.
Where love would be always given its chance to hold us and bring us closer together even when we may not be so inclined.
It was not only the physical space, but also the moment that would define this for me.
Do you have a sacred space for your relationship?
A space, physical or otherwise, where you both agree no ill-will should enter, neither in word or deed?
You should, you should create that space to protect your relationship from the inevitable moments of human madness that we all experience with each other.
A space where it can all be brought back together, as if it never happened – in other words, in total forgiveness.
“So where do we go from here?” Geo wanted to know.
“How about back to bed”, I said teasingly, feeling a little bit spent. “I did promise to bare it all” I continued, laughing.
“Mommy?” the unmistakable sound of Jay just waking up drifted into our room suddenly changed whatever intentions we had for that Sunday morning.
“Oh well, at least we had a good talk, even if no action” said Geo sarcastically, and maybe even a bit disappointed that Jay was about to enter our bedroom.
Me, I was not disappointed in the least, it was a great talk, a great talk. And because of this, I knew the good action would come later. Of that I was sure.
What about you?
How will you get to that place where you can be totally confident that the action that comes later in your relationship will be good, good enough for you?
The one thing that you absolutely have to do before you can be confident that you will ever get to that place in your relationship is to develop, nurture and communicate your own heartfelt aspirations for your relationship.
You must do this. You must do this to the extent that you will want to know how they will feel when they come to pass, until that wanting to know becomes your tipping point, just waiting on some experience, some encounter, and some realization to turn it into knowing for sure what they feel like.
As Jay walked towards me from his bedroom across the passageway, eyes still a bit sleepy, I heard myself saying “Touch-down Jay, touch-down, give me five.”
I felt bad for him because, poor guy, the last thing on his mind was football; and the last thing he wanted to see so early in the morning was his mom acting crazy.
Yes, I was acting a bit crazy because I felt that way; I felt good, crazy good. This was me, finally taking charge of where I wanted my relationship to go.
Geo, well he would just have to follow. What else would he do? Walk away from something that was about to get crazy good?
Do you feel crazy good about your relationship?
Like you felt on your first date, your first kiss, like hearing the first I love you? You should. Crazy good is meant for everyone who wants it.
Epilogue
So that was what led me to delve even deeper into what I wanted from my marriage, what motivated me to examine all aspects of my marriage that needed to be addressed if I was to realize what I really wanted from it.
The result? – The Bikini Relationship Book series. Every intimate relationship has the potential to be transformative. Yours no less. Don’t lose the opportunity not only for love, but a life filled with crazy good times in your relationship.
