Sex Before Marriage Disrupts Growth of Heart, Character

When people view sex as just a physical matter, even between consensual partners who agree to just use each other for sex, the levels of harm are deeper.

Harm means one has done wrong and someone has to be held accountable for his or her actions.

No harm means that if one feels distressed after having an uncommitted sexual relationship, then the problem lies within that person, not in the practice.

Those who feel guilt may be thought of as too sensitive or having an conscience that is overactive or the person has a belief in outdated religious values.

No harm means that social fallout can be blamed on socio-economics and no one has to question their personal conduct.

No harm means that one can believe the falsity of sex without consequences.

Reverend Moon speaks about sexual misconduct affects the individual personal development, future pursuit of loving relationship, and upon the next generation.


Effects on the Individual

The emotional, psychological and spiritual harm that is caused through insecure sexual relationships is felt on a semi-conscious level if at all.  This is eclipsed from the pleasure that arises from sexual relations and the belief that one benefits from such an experience.

Unfortunately, the damage of having sex outside of marriage may only been seen years later.

Child psychologist Thomas Lickona relates the story of one woman psychiatrist describes the aftermath of being sexually promiscuous in her college years.

She says, “That sick, used feeling of having given a precious part of myself . . . to so many and for nothing, still aches. I never imagined I’d pay so dearly and for so long.”

These feelings are common.

The Biblical explanation of the union brought through sex is actually bringing two people into ‘one flesh’, even if that was not the partners’ intentions.

Lickona further states that when two people break this bond and go into other relationships, the personality disintegrates and the person feels deeply-seated frustration and a dissatisfaction.

There are many facets of this disintegration on the psychological and level of moral health among young adolescents.


Effects of non-marital sex on the Individual

1. Spiritual and moral growth stunted
2. Character becomes corrupted
3. Guilt, regret and diminished sense of worth
4. Heartbreak and destructive behavior
5. Spiritual disorientation
6. Degradation of love, life and lineage


1. Stunting of Spiritual and Moral Growth


The most central challenge to becoming mature is learning to be unselfish and live for others.

In adolescence, one needs to learn how to discipline their sexual impulses that are awakened, just as they learn about toilet training.

Learning to be unselfish is obviously the central challenge of growing up.

The reason why a person’s development is impeded when they delve into premature physical involvement is because their egos are boosted just to gratify only their own desire - to take rather than give.

A person learns selfishness instead of nurturing their unselfish love and compounds their self-centeredness. Within marriage, sexual intimacy supports the partners’ mutual love and commitment.

Everyone should reach a certain developmental period and sufficient growth within the heart within the child’s realm and sibling ream, a person is not prepared for the potent power of sex.

As Genesis describes it, his or her ’fruit’ of love is not yet ripe for eating.

It is a challenge for to hold one’s sexual desire for just one person for life, especially for the males.  Sarah Hinckley speaks about how sex ruins this:  “a crucial challenge to the man—an essential test of his masculinity— is lost or failed.”

Sleeping Beauty, and other counterparts in other lands, express the moral reality.

A princess has a spell cast on her through the piercing of her skin and drawing blood.  This represents the onset of puberty.

She falls into a deep sleep and is restrained in the forest.  But she is protected until the bravest and most virtuous gentleman, mature in heart and character, overcomes the obstacles to awaken her with a gentle kiss.  He then introduces her to the world of true love forever.

On the other hand, the tale of Snow White tells of the story when a young girl makes a mistake by eating of a poisoned ‘fruit’.  This symbolizes the virgin who fails the test to save herself for maturity.

Fortunately, a pure-hearted prince frees her from the consequence of her mistake.

The scars from sexual intimacy in uncommitted relationships all too often cause lasting emotional desolation and a sense of irretrievable loss. 

This can jade a young person who may become cynical about life clouded by crushed hopes.

Allan Bloom of the University of Chicago lamented how early sexual experience impoverishes the imagination.

Virginal students are still “fresh and naive, excited by the mysteries to which they have not yet been fully initiated,” while those who “have nothing more to learn about the erotic” are “flat-souled . . . unadorned by imagination and devoid of ideals.”

Moreover, when people are involved in sex within insecure relationships, it drains the individuals, especially the youth.

At the time of adolescence they are starving for attention and energy which is needed for their emotional, moral, creative and intellectual growth.

When people are promiscuous or continue to have sex outside of a committed relationship, there is always anxiety over the possible unwanted physical consequences from the union.



2. Character Corruption

The people of Paradise quickly went from innocence to deceit.  This illustrates how unprincipled sex hinders character growth.

People look to others not as holy spiritual beings, but as bodies which they can use to get their own gratification.  They have to practice cunning techniques to try to get another to have sex.

Most sexual liaisons are not like the romantic notion of two lovers drawn naturally into lovemaking, but are the result of one partner seducing the other.

Lust can come to motivate nearly every word or action in regards to others, as one is constantly grooming friends and acquaintances towards a sexual encounter. 

A study showed that this behavior has become acceptable among singles.

Dating singles regard “lying, cheating and dumping each other” as ordinary behavior outside of committed relationships.

A large number of men revealed that they would even hide a deadly infection like AIDS from would-be lovers in order to receive sex.

Even though these same people would never practice such treachery in their business dealings or tolerate others doing this to them, when it comes to physical love, they debase themselves.

There are countless statesmen, clergy and business executives who have a trusted character and leadership who are loosed from their moral standard by the power of sex.

The cheater may not even notice the profound violation of the partner, any children or relatives and friends.

Even though the lies, and blatant cover-ups, silent deceptions and trust is exploited wreak havoc on the cheater’s conscience may not know the depth of how they are using their lover.

Finally, self-deceit must complete the picture in order for the cheater to live with himself.

He will rattle off walls of reasons why he had to partake in such behavior - about how he or she is the victim himself because the other did or did not do this or that.

By trying to hold onto any semblance of integrity, this leads to moral blind spots not just in their love life, but in other areas of their lives.

Tomorrow we will continue the next four effects that having sex before marriage has on a person.  See you then!



Return for Tomorrow's Post: Effects Sex Before Marriage on a Person


This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on love and marriage.

5 Myths About Sex Part II

We discussed the two myths of sex in the previous post, part 1 to the 5 Myths About Sex and debunked these wrongful ideas that can cause many immature and young people to indulge in the act with the wrong people and in situations and relationships which are not secure.

Now we continue the talk with the next three myths:


3. Is Sex a Natural Expression of Love?


The third flawed premise of sex is: Sex is a natural expression of love.
It is an instinct for those who indulge in romantic-based love to want to express this love through sex, even in no marital relations.

But, it is natural for true love to want the best for the one a person loves and the relationship.  In true love, one will avoid doing anything that will jeopardize either of these in any way, including refraining from delving into harmful activity.

People who love one another will sacrifice themselves to this end. 

The most authentic expression of love is to wait to pledge pleasurable sex and bonding which can have drawbacks only within the commitment of marriage.

When a man or woman anticipates opening such a precious gift from the one they love, they will be repelled by the idea of receiving something used by a prior lover.

It is not too late for those who have given away their virginity, they can recommit to their current or future loved one through a pledge of celibacy.

Would any woman really be so proud to accept an engagement ring that had been on the finger of five other girlfriends before her?

Most men would not take delight in having photos of their wife’s ex-husband laying around the house.

These expressions are an innate desire for exclusivity.

If people think that sex is a natural expression of love, then they should also believe that they should reserve this gift for one beloved who is special enough to be chosen as a lifetime mate.

Sex within Marriage Honors the Intrinsic Moral Aspects of Sexuality

4. Does Sex Promote Maturity?

The fourth falsehood is: Having sex only in marriage restricts growth and creates sexual inhibitions.

The sexual revolution brought on in the 60s made the idea that parents lived a stifling life confined within the walls of marriage and it was time to break through.

Many people can name a range of sexual experience and many partner as evidence that they have grown and  “exploring the farthest reaches of love and the self.”


Yet lifelong monogamy demands self-honesty and maturity than having an open relationship.  Yet, deeper adventures in loving will be experienced in a secure relationship.

When one invests in another person in such a way where they replenish and sustain a lasting love, is precisely the context that stretches every faculty and promotes the greatest personal growth.

It is too convenient for people to just run to a new partner instead of dealing with the deeper issues that real and enduring intimacy demands.

“It is easy to associate multiple sexual partners with personal change,” writes human potential philosopher George Leonard, but it is “far more likely to be associated with the avoidance of change.”


This may sound like a paradox, but one who continuously run from one relationship to the next before healing what is broken in the one before, will find they repeat the same patterns they experienced in the last relationship they tried to escape.

Physical intimacy within the love and commitment of marriage maintains the fundamental integrity of the body as an expression of the mind. It keeps the outer expression congruent with the deepest heart and conscience.

The body has its own symbolic language: a fist means hostility; a smile signifies good will. 

A misuse of the body’s language for example would be to use a smile to concel malice which would be deceptive.

In this same vein, sex between a couple represent the total union of their hearts, minds and lives.

Therefore, if sex is merely just to experience pleasure or an expression of warm feelings, then this would be considered a false message.

This kind of deceit goes against the moral maturity in a healthy relationship.

Finally, the issue of inhibitions is ironic.

Those who are involved in non-marital sex constantly speak of having performance anxiety, guilt, feeling cheap, fear of being compared to other partners, fear of unwanted pregnancy,  diseases and other experiences that complicate their sexual experience.

On the other hand, research shows that highly religious wives report the greatest number of orgasms.  This is a clear sign of freedom from neurotic inhibitions and guilt found in sex within an unsecure relationship.

Evidence shows that those who were virgins before getting married, had the greatest sexual satisfaction.

These married women have security within their marriage, trust and time to accommodate to their partners.

Those who are religious and waiting for sex within the bonds of marriage, find great meaning and freedom from the guilt that their faith provides.


5. Is Sex Liberating?


The fifth myth is: Having sex only within marriage oppresses women.


Some claim that ideals of purity and fidelity is only a piece of paper that protects men’s property rights over their women.

There is some truth to this exaggeration.  The thought that traditional morality is linked to male exploitation of women can be seen in history.

There has been a double standard for men and sex; chastity has almost universally been enforced for females but not for males.

Even though society says that women should stay pure, boys and men are free to indulge in free sex at the expense of girls and women.

Women pay the price fore any illicit liaisons through having a stigma attached to them or punishments such as having to endure pregnancies without the father.

Even though society view women differently in the context of sex, it is foolish to not follow the protective moral code for sexual ‘freedoms'.  It would be better just to clear this injustice to women.

It is unsafe for women to claim the ‘right’ to enjoy casual sex just to join the sexual ‘freedoms’ of men who exploit their partners and using sex for domination.

The timeless gold standard of sexual ethics—reserving sexual intimacy only for the spouse—recognizes the moral implications of sex and the deeper need for enduring love.

Women choose casual sex to stay equal to the wrongful lower standard for both genders than to succumb to the double standard placed upon women.

This means that women inherit men’s weakness, which separates the body from the true heart, and sex from responsibility and true love.

Despite popular belief, permissive sexual standards has not truly been liberating to women.

Females are now expected to want many sexual partners and males are expected to treat them as such.  Thus, women have denied their natural instinct of self-protection: Women are the ones who pay the heavy burden of the consequences of having sex outside a secure relationship.

Unwanted babies, and abortions and other liabilities plague only the women.  Even with the responsibility of contraception is placed mainly with the female.

Despite women being sexually independent and self-sufficient, they are still expected to still be feminine, soft, yielding and undemanding at the same time.

Because of this, women have to suppress their inclinations to be monogamous.  Research shows that even women who have sex outside of marriage, they desire less partners than their male counterparts.

It is almost universally the women partners who end up in the awkward position of trying to negotiate commitment in a sex-only relationship.

What is worse, that women play the part of wives by living together with a man.  They offer domestic services and sex without any emotional and material security which marriage provides.

Many women sadly play house with many partners and find out too late that time causes them to miss the experience of real marriage and motherhood.

After a certain age, finding a committed partnership becomes a more elusive goal for women while male peers often find younger, attractive women who are ready to marry them.

In addition, after age 28 or so, female fertility begins to decline rapidly.31 This is not the case for men.

In conclusion, these are the top myths about sex outside of a committed relationship is not freeing which have degraded not only many marriages, but also has brought society to a lower standard of love.

Photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: Sex Before Marriage Disrupts Growth of Heart, Character

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook ‘Educating for True Love’ written by a team of writers explaining the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

5 Myths About Sex Part I

In order to give credibility to the timeless sexual ethic in the present world, the prevailing mindset to have permissive sex needs to be refuted with sound arguments.

These facts need to be based upon good reasoning and contemporary research.



1. Is Sex a Primal Need?


The first misunderstanding about sex is that it is a need and an entitlement.

This is the foundation for all the other wrong assumptions about promiscuous sex because it carries a certain moral imperative: since sex is needed for people to be physically and mentally healthy, then it is unfair to deny them.

Therefore, since people think sex is a must, then it does not matter if one is married, young or have other concerns.

Plus, there is a moral pressure for the person who does not want sex by the one who claims they need sex to yield to their desires.

Now, because society believes sex is healthy and normal, the person who resists sexual advances have to explain themselves.

Because of this belief, many single people and even children pursue sexual involvement earlier.  Also, they do so in insecure situations they may not have been inclined to do.

Obviously there is no sexual ‘need’ - there is not one shred of scientific evidence that sexual inactivity causes a threat to anyone’s health or well-being.

No one has ever received medical treatment because of celibacy. 

On the other hand, there is mounting evidence of people being treated for sexual excesses and sometimes are told to be abstinent as their therapy.

This sexual ‘need’ is actually being confused with the need for genuine love.

Even though the human body desires to connect to another body, any other body, the heart has the need to connect to another heart, to love and be loved as an irreplaceable person.

This is actually what is necessary for the mental and physical health of a person, not sex.

Studies show that infants who lack attention or touch from caregivers perish and spouses often die of a broken heart soon after their partner passes away.

The specific need of adults is for the experience of marital love. 

Our spirit craves the sanctity of marriage for the emotional and spiritual rewards.

Sex is only one dimension of what is needed and desired.  The idea that sex is a need came from the distorted ideas of Freud.

Research shows that three percent, which is more than a hundred thousand, have been celibate throughout their whole lives and that millions worldwide have kept their virginity until the age of thirty and beyond without any ill effects.

Infidelity in marriage is the great exception.

When there is no opportunity for sex, the interest for sex has been known to drop down to zero.  Many married couples find themselves needing to schedule time to make love because they are too busy or forget the need.

Therefore, the ‘need’ for sex is not on the same level as the need for food or sleep.  If one neglects the need for food, this need asserts itself within a matter of hours and becomes stronger the longer it is deferred.  It does not lessen.

“Sex is a natural urge, but the role it plays in your life and the importance you attribute to it . . . is a matter of free choice,” concludes psychologist Peter Koestenbaum.

Sex researchers Masters and Johnson have stated, “In one respect, sex is like no other physical process . . . (it) can be denied indefinitely, even for a lifetime.”

Being abstinent can represent a redirection of erotic impulses.

Even though one may be married, they must maintain a large measure of self-control when their spouse is ill, pregnant, menstruating, busy at work or involved in the demands of being a parent.

The belief that sex as a “need” is oppressive.






It is oppressive for people to believe that the need the physical gratification of sexual impulses.

Sexual compulsion and exploitation of women increases.  It makes it hard for those  who are immature and weak to refuse their own or someone’s else’s sexual ‘need’.

Because of such a notion of need, then children and married people begin to doubt themselves if they do not have a desire for sex as much as they are pressured to have.

Therefore, they vulnerably push themselves into sexual involvement earlier and in an unsecure situation.

Teenagers speak of virginity as something they are happy to finally get rid of as there is a lot of pressure to do so.

It is very tragic that such innocence and authentic need for a committed love are often sacrificed on the altar of a physical ’need’.




2. Is One Partner for Life Unnatural?

The second mistaken notion of sex: It is natural to have many sexual partners.

This is because humanity compares their actions on the same level as animals.  Animals are not monogamous creatures.

Such people speak from evolutionary terms about the need to propagate the species through having many sexual liaisons.

From this viewpoint, people see monogamy and marriage as almost an impossibility.  They think that to withhold sex is contrary to our genetic makeup.

Despite what evolution has taught, humans differ from animals in obvious ways.

First, sex among animals is a seasonal matter and driven by instinct for just the sake of reproduction.

On the other hand, men and women enjoy a physical union more frequently than animals and the sake of pleasure between the two.

Secondly, animals come together without discrimination in regard of who their partner is.

In contrast, humans are spiritual beings with a need for meaningful and lasting love, but also to be loved as a specific and whole person.  Humans also need this love to be returned.

Thirdly, children require many years of parental investment in order to thrive.  This is unlike primates.

The kind of love which a child needs affects his resilience and capacity for being a great contribution to society.

When parents do not properly take care of their children, this does not make sense even from a species-survival mentality.

It is natural for men and women to bond for life to care for each other and the children they have.

Many other mammals take care of their young.

When those compare themselves to animals who have multiple partners, this evidence refutes this matter.

Therefore, those who have a tendency to get involved in temporary sexual liaisons because of immaturity, bad conditioning and because of the Fall.

Humans have the natural tendency to let the body dominate the mind.  This is not a ‘natural’ state from God or even evolutionary traits.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: The 5 Myths About Sex Part II

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Why Moral Sexuality is Golden

Sexuality of course is more than just the act of sex.

Sex includes everything that a person possess in mind and body that is male or female.

It is the “aspect of our being that lies behind, produces and is given expression by our physical sexual characteristics and reproductive capacity,” in the words of Christian ethicist Stephen J. Grenz.

He describes that masculinity or femininity is “not operative in one restricted area of life but is rather at the core and center of our total life response,” as the Catholic Church has put it.  In other words, sex is not just a simple act of a few moments of enjoyment.

Because sexuality encompasses a person’s whole being, then any sexual relation with another will include all the dimensions of a whole person, good or bad.

Each of us has a material body, thoughts, feelings, a conscience, connection to higher meaning, family, community and so forth.

This is the same with sexuality.

Sex involves the physical and psychological aspects, social, cultural, interpersonal factors, too and moral dimension and spiritual implications as well.

Sexual union is a person-to-person encounter and the dimension of morals deals with the whole-person realities.  This explains why it is much more than just a private matter between partners.

This traditional view of sex is why, “a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh,” Genesis declares 2.24

The term ‘cleaves’ represents the bonding process of two people in a marriage.  This word determines that there is more than just a oneness of flesh as a result of a sexual union, but a better translation is closer to ‘one person’.



Sexuality Reflects the Dimensions of the Whole Person

Sexuality reflects the heart’s impulses.

Because male has no meaning apart from female, and vice versa, sexuality also means incompleteness.

In a sense, sexual instinct is a counterpart to the spiritual heart impulse.

Ethicist Lewis B. Smedes describes sexuality as the “human impulse towards intimate communion.”

Even though contemporary beliefs lend toward the individual being self sufficient and our defensive reaction isolate themselves from painful encounters, sex impels us towards a close connection with another person.

Not only the sexual urge and act, but even our organs give testimony to the principle of living for another.

In this sense, our genital organs symbolizes the desire of the heart for oneness with the spouse.
 

This is at the core of what Pope John Paul II called the “nuptial meaning of the body,” that is, its capacity for union and communion through selfless giving.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach observes that sex is “simply the only human activity that physically necessitates another human being.”

The sexual organs are the only body part that cannot fulfill its fullest function without their counterpart in a member of the opposite sex.  Otherwise they are almost useless.

This is true also for the spiritual heart.  It cannot find fulfillment without the beloved either.  Indeed, the heart and the sexual parts are connected.  One moves the other.

There is a mysterious link of reinforcement between the communion of lovers’ hearts and union of their genitals.

A man must yield his body to the woman in order for her to experience the true meaning of her physical sexuality and vice versa.

This primal, inescapable need draws the two sexes to bridge the divide between the two and strengthens and concedes their weakness for one another.

Therefore, the sexual urge gives an innate push of both masculinity and feminity to become one towards a greater love and completeness.


Three Responsibilities of Sexual Love

These inherent responsibilities translate into the most basic and universal of sexual codes: An individual’s sexual expression is reserved solely for his or her spouse.

The first responsibility of those who want to delve into sexual love is to be true to one’s conscience.

The good mind which directs our heart’s desire to find joy through love.  When you are responsible toward your good conscience this represents living by morals, honoring the sacredness of one’s heart and body and the power of sexuality to merge all of these aspects with another‘s.

To be responsible is to respect the gifts of love, life and lineage.

Also, sexuality has the potential to enhance or through its misuse compromise these gifts.

In addition, when you respect the guidance of your conscience, the responsibility to your parents, grandparents, tribe and past ancestors are included.

One aspect is upholding the family honor.

“I’ve gone a little farther than I intended to sometimes,” Cal, 21, admits. “But my fiancée and I have basically held the line at just holding hands. Partly it would be against what I believe in that lovemaking is for marriage.

"But partly I’d be ashamed in front of my parents. My father’s first and only woman was my mother and he was pure and inexperienced when he married my Mom. It was the same with my grandparents. Dad once told me he had been really tempted one time during his marriage, but one reason he didn’t give in was because he did not want to set that kind of example for me. Times are a lot different than they were for my father, but I still feel I want to uphold my family’s principles.”


Conscience Child Sexual Love Spouse

Another aspect is to make sure that one’s sexuality is a force of blessing for the community and nation and not become an opposite force.

Clearly there is a public dimension to the private sexual act. 

Even though we have become a society of people that believe that whatever someone does in their spare time is their own business, private matters can become public problems.

When you think of cases of couples who conceive children who partly become the responsibility of community.

This includes the legal devastation to the families who are torn apart through one of the parents, or spouse having sex outside the marriage.

Raymond J. Lawrence, an ethicist, stated, “what happens in any bedroom is always potentially the business of the whole human family.”

Furthermore, to be responsible to live up to one’s own conscience involves one to achieve full maturity of their heart and character.

This also means for a person of sufficient mind and body unity to be worthy to partake in the privilege of sexual love and to fulfill the other two responsibilities.

If we compromise our chastity in any way, then we must heed the guidance of our conscience, make amends and rededicate our live to God’s original standard.



Responsibility to the Present or Future Spouse


This second responsibility of sexual love recognizes the obligations that come with a lasting marriage.

The potential for conjugal love is destroyed if shared with anyone besides the spouse. 

For a couple to have a lasting marriage, this means they must have a commitment to cherish and care for the other and dedicate their heart and sexual expression only to their partner alone.

Through this commitment, this preserves trust, which is the bedrock of love, by allowing the couple to be faithful to each other.

Single people are not excluded from this responsibility.  They must be mindful of their future husband or wife and practice fidelity before they meet them.

In today’s society of free sex, this does not come naturally and sometimes have to be fought for against the worldly view of sex for recreation.

“I imagine it’s my future wife,” explains a high school student about an empty picture frame near his bed. “I’ve had it there since I was 13, and I sometimes write letters to her when I get lonely. When my friends tell stories of fooling around with their girlfriends and I start to feel left out, I think about my future wife and how I want to save the excitement for her.”


Responsibility to Existing or Potential Children



When a couple enters into a sexual union, the commitment to any fruits this love may bare implies the third responsibility.

The parents have the responsibility to lovingly nurture this new being’s material and spiritual needs whom they chosen to create.

When parents are neglectful or abusive to their children, they do them and society a grave disservice.

A loving marriage is the most secure foundation for the nurturing of a child. 

Children need the attention of both their parents.

All children naturally long for their parents to love each other and be together.  This is not only for their physical or emotional needs, but to affirm their identity and value as an individual.

Marriage is an anchor for their lineage as children want to know that they are born of enduring love.

Such parents pass on a sound legacy and a healthy tradition for their descendants to inherit, imitate and build upon.

“As a father of four,” says author Daniel Gray, “I am reaping the dividends [of
investments made] years earlier when I heard and put into practice the message of abstinence before marriage,” a key dividend being his
moral authority in guiding his children.

All children deserve to be proud of the quality of love that conceived and raised them.

These three responsibilities of sexual love encompass the deep dimensions of sexuality: The first to conscience, the second to love and the third to life and lineage.

To fulfill these three responsibilities, one must practice commitment and lifelong monogamy and purity before marriage.

This is reflected in the words of one young adult, a male virgin, who gave these common sense conditions for beginning a sexual relationship: “a willingness to spend a lifetime with my partner and/or the children we create.”

This standard allows the power of love to bind individuals, families and ultimately a society together in strength and safeguard their futures.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: The Five Myths About Sex


This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers explaining the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon on Love and Marriage.

Qualities of True Love in Marriage

True love is virtues-based and virtues-driven and a reflection of God’s love.

True love is not selfish, but centered on others.  It is principled, serving, sacrificial and without conditions.

It is unchanging, unique, faithful, obedient and forgiving.

True love is the fuel of all good relationships.  This is even more true in marriage because it is intimate and within close quarters.

1. Other-Centered

Reverend Moon defines true love as living for the sake of others.

Living for the sake of the spouse is the overarching principle of love in marriage.

Dr. Larry Crabbe, author and marriage counselor, concluded that virtually all marital problems boil down to one being self-centered.

Dr. Scott M. Stanley, a prominent marriage researcher explains, “Love is that which will require you at some point to put aside self-interest in favor of the good of the other and the relationship.”

True love is to act for the sake of another. 

Dr. Judith Wallerstein found through her study that couples who were happy “were not envious of what they gave to the other.

They did not dole out kindness with the expectation of immediate reimbursement. They did not weigh their gifts or keep records.


“Supporting and encouraging the other was a given. They accepted this major task not only as fair but as necessary to make the marriage succeed.”


Former First Lady Nancy Reagan revealed to how she had a successful fifty years with Ronald Regan in a BBC interview with Katie Couric.

She mentioned that he was never self-centered, not egotistical and didn’t bring up himself or his stardom, or accomplishments.

Instead, it was each of their selflessness that made their marriage a joy year in and year out.

2. Serving and Sacrificial

Of course it is easy to love when the other loves you back, but it still requires maturity and strength in character to deal with the times when one the emotions are not returned.

This is called sacrifice.

It is a valuable goal when one can love when the personal benefit is not immediately felt.  Such a person hones the art of loving for the sake of the partnership.  This quality is absolutely necessary for growing in love.

Researcher Stanley said, “Love is not remotely possible without sacrifice.”

Mrs. Reagan noted in her interview that giving based on 50-50 or a ’give and take’ relationship is not a realistic option. She said that there are times when one has to give more to the other in order to carry the marriage.

This kind of sacrificial giving in a marriage is needed to develop the spirit and the realtionship through the practice of virtues

Giving to the other should not negate the self or bring about a loss of autonomy.

Nor should giving cause you to become someone’s doormat.

When one can give of themselves it means that one has a self from which to give.

A true love relationship does not exhibit dependency upon the other or codependency.  Rather it is a relationship between two people who are already developed and developing their relationship with God.

Therefore, such people are capable of sacrificing for the other without losing their identity or dignity in the process.

Through this right kind of giving, people become bigger, better and more whole.

Further, they serve and sacrifice to bring down God’s abundance of love.

Reverend Moon says, “God is creator and the originator of the two basic principles of service and sacrifice.”

When a person can sacrifice and give up themselves, he or she attracts the love and energy of God to anything, including marriage, he or she engaged in.

3. Forgiving

Forgiveness is an important part of love.



It is necessary for us to forgive as God forgives because all people fall short of one another’s needs and expectations.

It is inevitable that a spouse will hurt and neglect the other at one point in the marriage, be unable to answer the other’s needs or desires, or fail to live up to the other’s expectations.

If one is not able to forgive, the marriage becomes one full of hurts, grievances and accusations.

Forgiveness is based on the other person’s situation and difficulties and placing oneself “in the other’s shoes.”

Having the sense to forgive arises from empathy.

It may be easier for a spouse to forgive if they can see the reasons behind the other’s less-than-perfect behavior.

One who is humble about their own faults and failings which need to be forgiven as well makes spouses more prone to forgive their erring partners.

4. Unchanging

Even the most stable marriages will enter into turbulent times.  A marriage that is based solely on changeable romantic love feelings alone will not be able to have the foundation to weather the up and downs of marriage.

Every marriage experiences times when the partners need to persevere through the challenges that arise.

Only couples who have a steadfast commitment will be able to persevere when they no longer ‘feel’ like going on, when the disillusionment of marriage sets in - when conflicts are hard to resolve.




Unchanging love is the determination to remain truly loving no matter what, taking responsibility for what one puts into the marriage, good or bad, and seeking to enrich the love within the marriage by following God’s ways.








When one deserts their spouse for selfish reasons, in essence, they also desert God and the blessing and grace that becomes available through such a sacrament.

The major religions of the world condemn those who break their marital covenant.

“I hate divorce . . . do not break faith,” declares the Creator through the prophet Malachi (2.16).



Muhammad said about divorce as “the lawful thing that God hates most” (Hadith of Abu Dawud).

Jesus also said that God allowed those to divorce because their hearts were hardened but it was not part of His original plan from the beginning. Matthew 19.8

Genesis 2.24 states that, “for this reason a man will leave father and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Then he added, “What God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19.5-6).


It may be necessary for a couple to separate or divorce, but some couples plainly just give up for far simpler matter than desertion or adultery.

The vast majority of marriages can and should be saved.

Contrary to popular belief, researchers have found that unsatisfactory marriages do not poorly affect children.  The only cases where children are harshly affected was in high-conflict marriages.

Children thrive best when both their parents’ mutual presence are in their lives regardless of how dissatisfied the parents feel.

Children that were raised in high-conflict homes closely resembled children who came from broken homes.

This does not mean that such a couple should divorce for the sake of their children.  On the other hand, they should work to amicably solve their conflicts and possibly seek professional help if needed.

Couples at risk, should arrange times to discuss their problems when the children are not around or in hearing distance.

Gallagher and Waite have shown in their research that many marriages which started out unhappy later their marriages had changed after five years of sticking it out.

Some marriages that started out in conflict were much happier through their commitment.  They were rewarded with satisfactory marriages worth waiting for.

In order to have a committed marriage, it requires each individual to give to the marriage, the partner.

In today’s fast-paced society, there are many ways to find an escape in the marriage such as through the Internet, television, having a preoccupation with work or children or through other hobbies.

These are ways for people to avoid facing the difficult emotions or to avoid intimacy itself which is threatening to many people.  Finding an escape from the hard times of being married may bring only temporary joy, but will not bring long-lasting marital satisfaction.

Sometimes, a couple may not invest in the marriage out of sheer inertia.

For a couple to stay faithful, it requires for them to invest in their relationship, including sexually and save energy in order to face one another on a constant basis.

A relationship thrives when it is built on an unchanging, steadfast love that will provide an emotional safety net.

Commitment soothes relational fears and opens the way for intimacy. 

When the other partner makes a true commitment, it will soothe any fears of abandonment other partner may have.

Such a relationship will gradually make one feel secure and the partner will thrive within the marital bond.

Commitment allows for freedom—the freedom to let go and explore new horizons because the home base is secure.

In order for the couple to grow together, they need to have an unchanging devotion to one another.

Marital therapist Harville Hendrix says, “I want couples to know that, in order to obtain maximum psychological and spiritual growth, they need to stay together not for three months or three years or even three decades, but for all of their remaining years.”

Commitment is the ground that marital love needs in order to blossom.

5. Faithful

Sex is unique to the marital relationship.

Out of all the relationships one has, sex is added to the picture in marital relationships.  Therefore, faithfulness takes on a new dimension of meaning and significance.

To attain oneness, men and women need to be sexually faithful to one another. 

The sexual act causes two to become ‘one flesh’.

This establishes a bond between a man and a woman, therefore, one cannot become one with one person, then one with another, then one with another without physically tearing themselves apart psychically.

Catherine Wallace, author of For Fidelity, maintains that a deep psychological and emotional union is physically enacted in sexual intercourse.

Not only the body is involved. “We cannot split ourselves into parts,” she says. “Body and heart or soul are one.”

A person’s deep emotions and psychological being simply cannot be revealed to anyone other than the spouse.

A person’s sexuality should only be revealed to a person’s spouse because it symbolizes and embodies the intimacy of marriage.


“With my body I thee worship,” say the Anglican wedding vows, putting sexuality in marriage within a framework of worship and holiness. Indeed, Reverend Moon sees the sexual organs of husband and wife as representing the Holy of Holies in the Jewish tradition (Hebrews 9.3).

One’s marital partner is the only “high priest” or “priestess” who is qualified to come  worship in the temple of one’s body.

The sexual act is such a bonding between two people that has no place outside of holy matrimony.

Theologian Derrick Sherwin Bailey calls sexual intercourse “the psychophysical seal” of marriage.

He maintains that when sex is not under the guise of marriage, the seal is irrevocably made.  Even though the two may not have any intentions of fulfilling the other portions that require one to become one, sex bonds two people.

This ‘false’ bond with the wrong person will interfere down the road with their ability to truly become one with the person they eventually choose to share their life with.

God has stringent laws for sexual intercourse because when it is entered with anyone besides one’s lawfully wedded spouse, either before or after marriage, it results in entanglements of soul and psyche and possible interferes with having a clear, godly lineage.

Only if the marriage bed is inviolate can two vulnerable beings meet and become one. 

People long for intimacy with another and oneness, but it is only available on the foundation of deep and abiding trust.

Trust is built upon the virtues inherent in true love, other-centeredness, service, sacrifice, being able to forgive and an unchanging commitment to one another despite any circumstances.



Return for Tomorrow's Post: Redemption Through Marriage


This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Moon's philosophy on love and marriage.

Most Successful Marriages Center on God

Marriage is a major and indispensable step toward knowing God. 

Marriage is holy because it partakes and mirrors God’s true nature and the creative process.

Marriage is an ordained blessing and an eternal covenant with God.  Therefore, it should be treated as a sacred institution.  Marriage should be undertaken with seriousness, binding vows and promises.

Divorce, infidelity, sex without the commitment of marriage are frowned upon and profanes the sacred grounds of holy marriage.

Marriage propels people into a whole new realm of spiritual/physical being—the spouse’s realm of heart. 

In the realm of heart within marriage, a couple can transcend toward resembling the heart of God and love more than in any other relationship before.

To try to live in the spouse’s realm of heart without God’s blessing and laws is risky and the relationship will be fraught with difficulties.

Such relationships of love without God bring incredible pain upon each other in the relationship.  This is evidenced by the high divorce rate in developed countries.

Marriages do best centered upon God, connected to the very Source of love. 

Without the foundation of God, these relationships erode easily.

God’s love empowers couples with His true love which men and women need to get through all the difficulties of life together.

If women and men do not tap into this Source of love, they come up short to give and forgive, serve and stay steadfast and faithful to one another throughout the years.

Loving as God Loves

Marriage calls a couple to love just as God loves His children and mature the growth of our heart.

Traditional marriage vows echo the unconditional aspirations of marital love:


“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”


A couple who can love the other day in and day out when conditions are good or bad, and in all aspects of the other’s being, this love resembles the unconditional love of God.

Psychologist Lori Gordon describes conjugal love as “to feel that you can trust another person with your whole being, your laughter, your tears, your rage, your joy . . . . Its essence lies in total certainty that your partner is . . . open to you in body, heart and mind—and knowing that you are accepted and loved for what you really are, and knowing that you don’t have to pretend.”

Loving a spouse in good times and bad stretches a person’s character and capacity to love. 

One husband in a long-term marriage puts it:


“You’ve seen each other in every possible light, the very ugliest and worst and the most evil as well as the most divine and compassionate.”
We can say that marriage is a metaphor for God’s relationship to humanity.

Marriage means to “be open to the call of another without qualification.” It calls for love that is ”the steady gaze on another that does not withdraw simply because they fail to please . . . .”

This mimics the heart of God toward saving humankind.

God likens His relations with His people to the marriage of Hosea.

St. Paul said that Christ relates to the church as a husband to his wife.  The history of salvation in Christianity is to be a marriage - the Marriage of the Lamb.

Loving as God loves is crucial in the close quarters of marriage.

Marriage unleashes strong emotional and psychological forces.

Because such high emotions are experienced in marriage, the spouse may seem like one’s worst enemy.

One’s deepest needs may feel left unfulfilled by the very one whom he or she had high hopes.  Therefore, each should forgive one another 70 times 7 and be faithful when it seems impossible to go on.

When a couple going through difficulty can act lovingly when love is nowhere to be found, be kind and merciful to evoke kindness and mercy - all of these traits school a person in the qualities of divine love.

This is an example of how God love us vulnerable, flawed human beings.

God is always seeking to restore us with His love and set our feet on solid ground.  He continues to encourage us forward toward the realization that we have full potential as His children.


True Love Is Built, Not Born

This love is a far cry from the romantic love experienced in the Western world.

Western society sees love as a force that is out of one’s control and outside of oneself.  They see it as a mysterious, grand and is illogical.  It is seen as an overpowering visitation upon two people by forces outside of themselves.


Marriage Encompasses All Family Relationships


Other cultures maintain that love is not born, but built and depends on the sacrifice, commitment and faithfulness of the couple involved.

Marital love, in these views, has a strong moral component.

It is believed that if a husband and wife maintain their moral and religious beliefs that they will naturally grow together in love.

The Jewish and Hindu faiths are strong on this point.

They advocate that love is built in an arranged marriage through the husband and wife’s virtues.

Modern marital therapists such as Stephen Wolin recommend that society take a second look at arranged marriages.  Wolin believes that the process of building love into a marriage is needed in order to improve people’s chances at marital satisfaction.

His research shows that in resilient marriages, a strong spiritual element is always presence in successful marriages.

Sometimes, a couple may play the role of the following to his or her spouse at any given time:

Wife
Mother
Elder Sister
Younger Sister
Daughter
Husband
Father
Elder Brother
Younger Brother
Son


The Bible describes the perfect wife in Proverbs as a woman of virtue.

Such a perfect wife is trustworthy, benevolent, diligent, prudent and charitable.  She will be kind, well spoken and is beloved by both her children and husband.

A husband’s good stature is due to his wife’s good offices.  She becomes the reward and treasure of her man.

It is the fear of the Lord that keeps good marriages intact in fear that they will stray from His paths.

Buddhist scriptures also describe the good wife of virtue as her husbands “mother, a sister, a companion and a servant” (Anguttara Nikayaiv.91)

The Hindu author Ved Mehta points out, it is also the husband’s duty to earn his wife’s respect through his sacrifice and good character.

Virtues of character attract God and His love to a marriage.

“A noble man and woman are necessary for the sake of making a noble couple. We need a noble couple in order to achieve God’s noble love.”

Reverend Sun Myung Moon




Psychological research backs up the view that having virtue or good character is the bedrock of happy marriages.

A marital expert, Judith Wallerstein, agrees about virtue in happy marriages:

“For everyone, happiness in marriage meant feeling respected and cherished . . . Based on integrity. A partner was admired and loved for his or her honesty, compassion, generosity of spirit, decency, loyalty to the family, and fairness . . . . The value these couples place on the partner’s moral qualities . . . helps explain why many divorcing people speak so vehemently of losing respect for their former partners.”


Another highly respected marital theorist and therapist, Blaine Fowers, has said, “As I
have observed many different couples, I have become convinced that strong marriages are built on the virtues or character strengths of the spouses. In other words, the best way to have a good marriage is to be a good person.”

People who have failed in marriage were asked on a relationship website what they would have done to make their marriage better.  People named improved traits of character:

“I would not have been unfaithful,” said one. “I would be more patient, loving and forgiving,” said another. Yet another said,  “I would make more effort to be affectionate, supportive, loving, cheerful, and a better friend.”

Godly persons make good marriages

Ephesians shows that the love in a Christian marriage is described in terms of virtue of character is likened to the love of Christ for the church (5.25)

This love is a giving love, it is sacrificial that resembles the love of Jesus.

Author Michael G. Lawler characterizes Christian marital love: “It is a love that seeks to give way to the other whenever possible.”

Lawler continues to say that in Christian marriages, both are bound as servants to one another just as Christ served the people.

He says, “Marital love exists only inchoately on the wedding day . . . marital love, as mutual giving way, as mutual service, as mutual fidelity . . . is not a given in a Christian marriage but a task to be undertaken.”

Because traditional Christian values leads to successful marriages, theologian Stanley Hauerwas warns that Christians must not yield to the popular cultural non-moralistic notion that emotions and feelings are the measure of a marriage.

“What the church cares about,” he says, is not love per se, but “whether you are a person capable of sustaining the kind of fidelity that makes love, even in marriage, a possibility.”

Hauerwas underlines that the early church did not have an illusion about ‘love’ creating or legitimizing marriages.

They assumed that those entering marriage would develop the character strengths or virtues necessary for a loving marriage through following the traditions of the church faithfully.

Hauerwas notes the ongoing nature of virtue development: “I do not pretend that any of us ever have a character sufficient for marriage when we enter a marriage, but I am contending that at least some beginning has to have been made if we are to have the ability to grow into the kind of person capable of being called to undertake . . . the vocation of marriage.”

Psychologist Erik Erikson agrees with this religious view defining marital intimacy as, “ “the capacity to commit oneself to . . . partnership and to develop the ethical strength to abide by such commitments even though they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises.”

The Mormon faith and the Unificiation Church both recommend members to have a mission service prior to engagement or marriage.

There are three reasons: by serving others, sacrificing selfish means for other’s sakes, giving up entertainment and comforts and dedicate to the commandment to love God

Through this time period, the youth develop such a strong good character or virtues that will stand them in good stead when they embark into marriage which is spiritually demanding.

Theravada Buddhists in Thailand require a six month period of monastic life prior to marriage as well. This time for missions and service helps the young people make a good start at developing good virtues that are necessary to succeed in married life.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Qualities of True Love in Marriage

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on love and marriage.

The Joy of Marriage

We need marriage because it is the true way to develop our love . . . . Our entire life  should be centered on true love. We should be born in true love; we should grow in true love; we should live centered on true love, and we should return to true love when we die. The way of truelove is life for the sake of others. This is the purpose of a holy marriage.

—Hak Ja Han Moon

There was a very popular book a few decades ago called, "The Joy of Sex".  At that time, society was still phasing through the tenants of the 1960s sexual revolution, where people were still discovering different relationship styles and sex outside of marriage as acceptable.

God built marriage to help each member grow toward perfection of heart through their other-centered love.

Marriage lifts each individual spiritually and physically to the the spouse’s realm of heart.  Marriage also brings the individuals in a marriage closer to God.

In this realm, the couple has the potential to grow to resemble God’s heart and love and extend this love to the world around them.

There is no relationship outside marriage that has the potential for oneness, thus it is the one relationship that demands for surrender of the self.

Therefore, through this sacrifice, marriage promotes true love which at its base is living for the sake of the other.  As marital expert Judith Wallerstein said, “A marriage that commands loyalty . . .requires each partner to relinquish self-centeredness.“

Marshall Fightlin, a Catholic psychologist, asserts that it is the husband’s daily task to fight the impulses to act like a single man and to concern himself with his other half - his wife.

The blessings of marriage appear only when there is renunciation of the self in favor of the other.

The word ‘renunciation’ is familiar to those of any faith, because many worldly things must be renounced in order to embrace God wholly.  Marriage is part of this process.

Marriage is the renunciation of all other romantic and sexual relationships other than with the spouse.
This means that a person’s habit and attitudes that may hinder the couple’s life together must be denied.

It is a paradox that this denial of the self in favor of the other person actually enriches and enhances the self.

Through this, joy and excitement of life is increased.

Theologian Karl Barth says, “It is always in relationship to their opposite that man and woman are what they are in themselves.”

People become whole through marriage.


The God-Centered Marriage

Marriage also brings a couple closer to God.

The rabbis taught that a union of one flesh between a man and a woman is the only full representation of the image of God.

God exists in a community of three persons, so a solitary, isolated human being without a counterpart is necessarily incomplete.

Mrs. Moon says, “We marry in order to resemble God.

God is a being of dual characteristics which are completely harmonized as One. These characteristics manifest into our world as man and woman.

At the proper time, a man and woman are like a seed which will unite to become one.

Thus, a husband and wife together return to God.  Marriage resembles God because it embodies the universal attraction of yin and yang, positive and negative and masculine and feminine.

A woman represents the feminine aspects of the universe, and a man represents the masculine aspects. 

A man and woman yearn to unite.

One’s spouse is a gateway to the opposite half of the universe.  Therefore, the spouse has a value that is equivalent to half of the universe and is indispensable to intimately understanding the total nature of God.

Marriage is an important pivotal point in the journey toward God.  Mrs. Moon, Reverend Moon’s wife, states that if we take a path other than true love in marriage, then we adversely affect the path of our eternal life.

In the process of salvation, a holy marriage centered upon God and true love is instrumental.  This is why a godly marriage is the central part of Reverend and Mrs. Moon’s ministry.  Marriage is so significant both temporal and eternal.

They call a God-centered marriage, “The Blessing” which is a sacrament that symbolically cuts their satanic past and engrafts them to a bright future with God.

The Blessing is not just for the couple themselves, it is very significant to save their ancestral lineage, their descendants and the role they play in human society.

The ‘Blessing’ of marriage connects a couple to the body of humanity.

This makes the Blessing a highly responsible venture to partake.

It is a marriage that is far removed from the being solely for the couple’s pleasure and goes beyond just their children.

The Blessing echoes and takes to greater heights sentiments
about marriage such as author Jo McGowan’s:

To marry, to celebrate a love and a commitment publicly . . . is to say that the meaning of one’s life can only be found in the context of a community. It is to acknowledge one’s part in the human family, to recognize that one’s life is more than one’s own, that one’s actions affect more than oneself. It is to proclaim that marriage is more than a private affair between one woman and one man . . . . [It is] to be part of the human community, to start building the kingdom of God here on earth.




In order for marriage to play such a role in society and building the Kingdom of God, Reverend Moon holds Blessing ceremonies gathering thousands of couple.  These consists of newly married and those rededicating their marriages in front of God with a new, higher-standard devotion to God.

He believes marriage is not for oneself and spouse alone, but also for God and humanity.

Love that Partakes of Divinity

Author Antoine’s de Saint-Exupery’s ideal agrees, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.“

This is where the idea of the trinity and community within marriage become most apparent.

When husband and wife unite in a Blessed marriage, consciously centered upon God, they form a trinity. 

Through giving and receiving between God, husband and wife, the flow of love is perpetuated.

Then the couple radiates benevolence to their children, friends, acquaintances and community.

Catholicism has a similar program, “Marriage Encounter” which also sees the true love of a couple that is centered upon God as a way to salvation for the community.

Psychologist Erich Fromm authenticates this kind of love when he described that true love affects how a person relates to the world. “If I truly love one person, I love all persons, I love the world.”

One husband described such a marriage as touching the “love that includes everything and everybody, the love that’s universal . . . everything that is good about connectedness and caring for others.”

Through martial life, men and women are able to experience all the possible family relationships between them.

At times a husband may be a friend to his wife or like a brother or uncle, also a father and son.

A woman may sometimes be her husband’s sister, mother, daughter, or grandmother.

Love of husband and wife, or conjugal love, encompasses the constellation of relationship with others.  This love helps couples understand various aspects of the heart of God.

A couple’s love and oneness becomes substantially and eternally embodied in the creation of a child. 

God creates by reuniting elements of masculine and feminine into one and creating a new being from this unity.

In this way, we can say that marriage leads to a family which is a complete reflection of God in all His glory.

Marriage and family are the embodiment and full representation of the image of God.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Most Successful Marriages Center on God

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on love, and marriage.

Children Need God, Too

Growth in the Child’s Sphere

God created the family as a school of love to naturally influence people to be other-centered and pull them away from their self-centerdness.

Each person is required to give up more and more the love of just self and give more to others in order to experience fulfillment.

The family school of love works step by step naturally to pull people out of self-centeredness into other-centeredness. This process begins in the child's realm.

A child learns to obey and control impulses, including the aggressive ones, out of love for their parents and a strong desire for their approval.

The child learns to take care of things, clean up, prevent messes, do their homework, and respect others and property.

As Fraiberg writes, “There are obligations in love even for little children. Love is a given, but it also

earned. At every step of the way in development, a child is obliged to give up territories of his self-love in order to earn parental love and approval.”

To relate well with his or her parents, children need to relate well and kindly to siblings and playmates.

A child learns that his good relationship with his parents depends in part how well he or she treats his or her brothers or sisters, classmates, and friends.

As they grow, the 'horizontal' relationship to their parents takes on a life and significance of its own, even though they are never fully separated in a relationship from them.

Adolescent Children

As children try to define their identities and emotional boundaries as they grow to adolescence, the relationship to please their parents may become stormy and difficult.

Influences outside the family hold sway as adolescence forge relationships to the larger society and world.

As their family's moorings loosen, children may become emotionally tossed around, and experience great highs and lows.

It is important for parents to continue to nourish and assert this main bond of parent/child and the values it represents and recognize the growing importance of their peers and their child's independent identities.

Parents should do this to the sacrifice of their child's peer's influence and some of their child's decision-making power. In order for them to continue to growing in the child's realm of heart this is necessary.

“Our son was succeeding academically and socially in public school,” recounts Mona, a mother of three. “It was the social success that worried us! He’s sweet and smart and a good athlete, and girls called him, asked him for dates, and to go steady with them.

“Our son knew our standard on early dating, and he tried hard to withstand the peer pressure, but it was definitely confusing for him during this vulnerable time of his life.

“When we told him we were enrolling him in a religious school where students’ families and the faculty shared our values, he was upset at first. But soon he underwent a transformation.

“He became more and more responsible and, in this supportive environment, his faith grew and grew. I thank God, for many reasons, that we as parents made that tough decision.”

One pastor, Dave, is in favor of parents taking a strong stand when their children may not be going in the right direction. “Taking a kid out of school and finding him a new one, grounding him or doing whatever else you need to do to pull him up short—that might look like shutting him down,” he says.

“But in fact, it’s giving him the possibility of a whole new life. In almost every case I’ve seen where the parents took a strong stand, it worked.”

Dave also commented that children will sense their parents deep love for them with such actions and respond with gratitude.

This is an illustration of the two points of the child's realm of heart shown during adolescence: First, it demonstrates that the relationship with parents is the primary one superseding. 

Also, directing relationships with peers and this vertical relationship with parents and their parents' values are crucially important to their growth.

Second, it shows that adolescence is a time when the young people mind questions everything and needs to be directed toward God.

When we look at adolescence from a spiritual point of view, there is more than the child forming a separate identity from one's parents in psychological terms. It involves expanding the sphere of children's love to include the ultimate Parent, God.

The fulfillment of the child’s realm of heart is to relate to God with filial piety.

This truly means to respond to God with love, faith and obedience like that of a loving, trusting, responsible child.

“We never know the love of the parent 'till we become parents ourselves.”

Henry Ward Beecher made this observation which highlights how filial love of a child evolves through growing and facing the responsibilities that come with being an adult.

A new understanding and sympathy for parent's roles come as sons and daughters become a spouse, a parent, the breadwinner, a middle-aged caretaker of others and a responsible community member.

As sons and daughters rise to the more advanced realms of heart, spousal and parental realms, they grow to appreciate those who had these responsibilities before which they now face.

When children expand to a higher level of heart, they will appreciate through understand and service to their parents.

The long accumulation of a child’s debt to his or her parents begins to be repaid with gratitude.

There may be the time when the child grows up and becomes his or her own parents caretaker.

Some parents become a child again and lean heavily on their sons and daughter's strength. At these times, they assume the parental role toward his or her own parents. 

 Changing their diapers, paying old debts, settling the family estate and becoming the patriarch or matriarch of the family while urging their parents to take a rest.

When parents become elderly, the child's world/realm of heart comes full circle.

As one woman said: 

"As a young Catholic I was inspired by the saints. I had always wanted to do things like work with Mother Teresa in India, but most of my life has not been so glamorous. After college I became a teacher in an elementary school. 

"And then my mother had a stroke and I had to drop out of teaching and help her for two years; bathe her, care for her bedsores, cook, pay the bills, run the house. At times I wanted to complete these responsibilities and get back to my spiritual life. Then one morning it dawned on me—I  was doing the work of Mother Teresa, and I was doing it in my own home.

A child's love which is mature may involve taking up tasks to fulfill their parent's unrealized dreams.

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowsky, who created the portraits on Mt. Rushmore, accepted a commission in 1947 offered by Lakota chief Standing Bear to carve a massive tribute to the great Native American chief Crazy Horse out of a mountain in South Dakota.

Knowing how much the project meant to the Native Americans who had had their sacred Black Hills violated by the Mt. Rushmore project, he determined not only to do a bust, but to do a full figure of a man on horseback.

This bust was going to be ten times larger than his Mt. Rushmore project. He dedicated decades to the project, but left it unfinished after he died in 1982.

His children comforted him before his death and committed to bring his dream project to completion.

This is an example of children's love by becoming a person who makes his or her parents proud.

Confucius said, “True filial piety consists in successfully carrying out the unfinished work of our forefathers and transmitting their achievements to posterity.”

This was echoed by Thomas Macaulay, Western poet, when he wrote:

“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?”

The person the child becomes as an adult is a gift laid at the altar of his or her parents’ love.

A child's mature heart is reflected in his or her relationship with God.

“There is a common saying, 'What you are is a gift from God. What you become is your gift to Him.”

When we return appreciation and devotion to God for all He has done for us throughout our life and history this reflects His nature. 

 It also makes His dreams, concerns and tasks our own which are hallmarks of filial piety and a true child's heart toward our ultimate Parent.

Return for Tomorrow's Post:

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on family and love.