By John A. Huffman Jr.
Senior Pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA.
During my ministry at First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, I was writing a book on family relations. I was doing a chapter a week in sermonic form. I remember saying, “Good sex begins at 6, not at 10.” I received a letter from a little old lady in shaky, scrawly handwriting saying, “Reverend Huffman, we have enough trouble with our children these days, much less to have you getting in the pulpit and saying they should start having sex as early as six or ten.” I forgot to say, “O’clock.”
You know what I mean. It’s important for the woman to realize her husband’s not some sex-crazed animal because, on most occasions, he’s more easily aroused and able to function. It’s important for every husband to realize that delicate emotional construct of his wife and the importance of tenderness, understanding, listening to her talk about her day, and expressions of appreciation to reassure her she is not just a sexual object.
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I realize the delicate nature of even mentioning these types of things in a sermon. At the same time, this is the world in which we live. We’re hiding our heads in the sand if we do not address these matters in a straightforward way.
Lesson 5: We tend to marry that disowned part of our self.
In a way, I’m surprised that Anne did not mention this as one of her lessons learned.
Remember in the old days when you would hear someone say, “Opposites attract”? You don’t hear that much anymore. That’s not perceived as the correct psychological way to express it. What I’m told by Anne is that there’s a better way, psychologically, to express this.
She and her colleagues tell me that we tend to be intuitively drawn to a life partner who is strong in areas in which we are weak. We instinctively seek out someone who possesses that disowned part of our self. We so often see the extrovert who marries the introvert, or the left-brain-oriented person who is drawn to one who is more right-brain-oriented. We see the person who is very good with mechanical skills who may be drawn toward someone with more artistic aptitudes, or the very objective thinker drawn to one who is more subjective and intuitive in processing ideas and relationships.
Anne spoke very honestly and with great emotion about the death of our daughter, Suzanne. What happened in those many months leading up to her death and then following her death was most revealing to me of how Anne and I are simply wired quite differently. I’m not now talking about the differences between a man and a woman, although, there may be some of those dynamics operative. I’m talking about even how we read the Bible and how we process spiritual insights into life.