This is an excerpt from Melody Beatie’s book “The Language of Letting Go”:
Substance over Form
I’m learning that for a variety of reasons, I’ve spent much of my life focusing on form rather than substance. My focus has been on having my hair done perfectly, wearing the right clothes, having my car always neat and clean, living in the right place, furnishing it with the right furniture, working at the right job, and having the right friends and partners. Form, rather than substance, has controlled my behavior in many areas of my life. Now, I’m finally getting to the truth. It’ substance that counts.
-Anonymous
There is nothing wrong in wanting to look our best. Whether we are striving to create a self, a relationship, or a life, we need to have some solid ideas about what we want that to look like.
Form gives us a place to begin. But for many of us, form has been a substitute for substance. We may have focused on form to compensate for feeling afraid or feeling inferior. We may have focused on form because we didn’t know how to focus on substance.
Form is the outline: substance is what fills it in. We fell in the outline of ourselves by being authentic: we fill in the outline of our life by showing up for life and participating to the best of our ability.
Now, in recovery, we’re learning to pay attention to how things work and feel, not just to what they look like.
Today, I can focus on substance in my life. I will concentrate on the substance of my relationships, rather than what they look like. I will focus on the real workings of my life, instead of the trappings.
It’s a “communication issue” or “a failure to set boundaries.” Maybe you’ve thought your partner has a bad temper or a problem with anger management. Perhaps you think that you are doing something wrong or that there is something wrong with you. In our society, we aren’t very good at talking about abuse, so women are often left wondering.
Add in time for religious activities, home repair, not to mention keeping up with the cooking, cleaning, laundry, bill-paying, personal hygiene, shopping and the list goes on….not to mention sleep, recreation, hobbies. Carving out time for the two of you can feel like one more obligation to fulfill.
Think of reconnecting the same way you save money: pay yourself first. Carve out time for your relationship and spent that time together even if it means cheating other aspects of your life. Put a date night on the calendar and attach a serious penalty for breaking it. Don’t wait until you have time for each other: take time for each other and make other things wait! 
Controlling behavior also can be compensation for a time or situation when the partner had no control such as growing up, a stressful job, or a former relationship. Living without personal control can increase the motivation to seize control whenever possible.
As soon as you catch yourself trying to control your partner, stop and apologize: ”There, I did it again, I’m sorry”. It’s also a good idea to tell them what you are sorry for so they know you “got it”.
They prevent us from being in harmony with the world. Resentments are hardened chunks of anger. They loosen up and dissolve with forgiveness and letting go.
reached out to me for sex and I turned my back, pushed you away, or made lame excuses to avoid any romantic or sexual time together? How about if I went day after day ignoring your sexual needs?
them anymore.
commitment to be available as a sexual/ sensual/ intimate partner whenever either of you has the desire.
stranger mean more to you than your own family? You have ruined all our lives just to follow your feelings and please yourself.
Most people, however, don’t decide- they slide into an affair. Conscious thought doesn’t enter into the picture. An innocent acquaintance gradually becomes more intimate until it’s the primary source of pleasure. An innocent acquaintance gradually becomes more intimate until it’s the primary source of pleasure. The affair begins with two people sharing information or an activity; they bond around personal contact and mutual experiences. With little or no conscious thought, they cross the line into infatuation. Once the affair relationship start to provide a sensual or sexual high, then it’s “game over.” You are now under the influence of infatuation, one of the strongest forces found in nature. Infatuation sets up an insatiable craving for more contact that’s practically impossible to resist.
These can also be addressed in psychotherapy with a professional who is familiar with guiding you through to build trust, safety and a positive connection.
As strange as it sounds, criticism has a positive purpose: it’s an attempt to evoke a change in the relationship. Complaint, comparison, and blame are ways of letting you know something needs to shift: but even though it is aimed toward a solution, criticism often becomes the problem.
end by trying harder and apologizing. Others defend by withdrawing, getting angry, or loosing hope. When criticized, your psyche switches into a defensive mode, and while this protection is in place, connection with your partner is broken. With repeated criticism you’ll eventually associate your partner with pain, not pleasure, leaving you no choice but to tune out and disconnect. If and when this happens, the distance between you will widen at an alarming rate.
You can transform criticism by stating the underlying desire. Be clever, not critical. You can eliminate the need for criticism altogether by catching your partner in the act of doing something right – even a seemingly mundane thing – and acknowledging it.
It’s not inappropriate to ask what is most pleasurable or most exciting for married couples, but meaningful lovemaking is so much more than creating greater sexual arousal and climaxes. In my view, “healthy” protects happy pleasure it doesn’t threaten it.
When sex becomes the relationship it’s like trying to support a fifty story hotel on a foundation made of toothpicks. You build a healthy sexual relationship by building a healthy marriage on all levels: emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and relationally. As Dr. Harry Schaumberg so ably puts it, “To be spiritually mature, you must be sexually mature; to be sexually mature, you must be spiritually mature. And I’d say that to be spiritually mature, and sexually mature, you need to be relationally mature. In other words, a mature marriage is a three legged stool of spiritual, relational, and sexual maturity.”
pain’; media portrayal of ‘S and M’ roles often involves humorous exaggeration. Grim reality exists that we in our cultural denial attempt to avoid and deflect with humor. For many, the combination of pain and sex is as repugnant as violence.”
expression of your faith), as a person who is cherished and loved. In unhealthy sexuality, the sexual experience leaves you feeling empty, alienated, almost like you’re role-playing or an object.