Now About This Sex Thing…

by Neale Walsch

Dear Neale:
I love the CwG books. They have arrived at a critical time in my life. Everyone should read them and get whatever they can out of them. However, the sex part disturbed me. If my interpretation of God’s words (in CwG) about relationships is true, then have we no need for marriage? After all, when the relationship no longer reflects the true statement of who I am, is it time to move on? Moreover, with this celebration of life through sexual energy, surely we will be having extramarital affairs? How does this work? I am saddened by this thought that marriage is no longer needed. Then why would we have children? How do we raise them in the warmth of a family?
    Sherli, Ca.

Sherli,
   I don’t believe that Conversations with God suggests, or even infers, that we have no further need for marriage. CwG says that every decision, every choice, every thought, word and action is an opportunity to consciously create, and a statement of, Who We Really Are.

We are recreating ourselves anew in every single moment of now. You interpret CwG to be saying that “when the relationship no longer reflects the true statement of who I am, it is time to move on,” yet what is threatening or feels “wrong,” about that? If your relationship no longer reflects who you really are, is it not time to at least question what you are doing there? Is it your understanding that life requires you to stay married, even if the marriage is killing you? Even if the marriage is causing you to give up your very self, and your highest ideas about who you really are?

Nobody is saying anything here about leaving a marriage willy-nilly, casually, at the drop of a hat. We are talking about relationships that are in so much trouble that one person or the other has completely lost touch with their sense of themselves. They have surrendered so much to the relationship, and to keeping it together (often, just as you suggest they should, “for the kids”), that they have surrendered their soul. That is, their deepest experience of themselves. They no longer laugh, they no longer hope, they no longer dream. They live lives of quiet desperation, meeting their commitments, fulfilling their obligations, but never, ever, find happiness.

It is surprising how many people think that this is what life requires of us. This is what we are supposed to do. For these people, Conversations with God upsets the apple cart, because it tosses out all of the assumptions, chief among them, the assumption that God demands this of us.

You talk about raising children in the warmth of a family, but have you ever talked to a child who has been raised in a family where there was no warmth? This produces children who have no warmth. And that produces more children with no warmth, and more dysfunction in marriage, because this is what has been modeled to them as the way things are supposed to be done.
I promise you this. The sins of the father will be visited upon the son, even unto the seventh generation.

That is to say, Sherli, deeply dysfunctional marriages produce dysfunctional children, who produce dysfunctional marriages, which produce dysfunctional children, who produce more dysfunctional marriages and more dysfunctional children. You don’t think this is true? You think I am exaggerating? Look around you, my dear friend. Just open your eyes and look around you.

However, none of this is an argument for simply getting up and running every time one’s marriage isn’t going well. That is not what we are talking about here. But we are talking about being open enough to acknowledge the possibility that sometimes staying in a marriage may be more damaging (to yourself and your children) than leaving it.

As for the open and free celebration of sexual energy leading to affairs, that will only happen if breaking your agreements with your spouse, and having a secret liaison which you know would deeply wound your spouse, is a reflection of Who You Really Are and who you choose to be. If, on the other hand, it is not, then the free and wonderful celebration of your sexual energy will not automatically equate to having affairs, though it might equate to having quite a bit of sex with your spouse!