The following is a testimony of rebirth in our Blessing.
Peter and Danielle Nagle, Alaska
Our marriage up until 4 months ago was a sham. A respectful but dysfunctional Blessing that in no way resembled normalcy let alone God's ideal.
Although we were both desperately unfulfilled, we resigned ourselves to the idea that Father had been a bit ambitious in matching an insensitive Brit' to a somewhat sensitive French Swiss. A couple of decades of struggle and constant misunderstanding of each other seemed to prove that some Blessings are duty based, or even obligation based, rather than being founded on love.
Sex was infrequent and the last one and a half years it was absent. Even touching was out. This left me enormously frustrated and angry. Although we had five sons and both of us were faithful members doing our best to raise children in our tradition.
We both knew, however, that we were frauds. My wife was terribly hurt and let down by this insensitive gorilla of a goon she had for a husband. Most years I had forgotten her birthday and anniversary. This left my wife feeling emotionally malnourished. We both spoke to each other in a way that anticipated a less than positive response.
I was too ashamed to tell friends and especially church members that I was a celibate monk made to sleep, not with my wife, but in a cabin in the garden.
Four months ago my wife could go on like this no longer. She asked me to move out. I was destroyed and profoundly shocked. Instantly I knew we had come clean and get help by telling whomever that we were a mess.
I called the Blessed Family Department and Jim Stephens talked to both of us on the phone for half an hour.
His advice was simple. Start by reviewing the DVD "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage" by Mark Gungor. I was so desperate that I pleaded with my wife to jump on a plane the next day and fly to Los Angeles and attend the seminar in person. After some conceding and due caution my wife decided to accompany her nearly estranged husband to LA.
The seminar was nothing like I had expected. The guy was ten times funnier than Robin Williams and more profound than Plato. We both laughed and cried as we recognized each other depicted in non-judgmental scenarios. I had never heard a better expose of true Principled life. I had no idea how I hurt my wife and she too expressed her sorrow as we pledged to operate on a few simple but life changing principles of give and take.
"Any man can marry any woman," Gungor said, as Father too has said. It is a question of doing the right maintenance on a marriage, not necessarily about marrying the "right person".
We were both profoundly born again. That evening I took my wife to dinner and treated her sweetly as any princess would deserve. That evening, she lured me to a plush hotel and we made love not for 2 minutes, but nearly an hour. We stayed in LA a few more days and like newlyweds scoped out various hotels. Slow love making on king-sized beds with a woman I was getting to know a new.
Since then we have been on fire sexually. We are now students of the conjugal realm as, according to the Pledge, we should be. I have been showering my wife with surprise gifts and symbols of romantic frolic so much so that other men are challenged by my being such a good husband. When I tell them that 4 months ago I was in the proverbial dog house they are all ears.
Needless to say I am grateful. As for the "Laugh Your Way" DVD series it is the best explanation of our teaching I have ever seen. It rescued two hard headed souls from their own doom. We tell everyone we meet about it and I am working on a Principled rendition of this Godly material. In my mind this material is a gift that comes on the merit of the age. It's ours.
Here in Alaska, we have had fifteen couples review the DVD's. Amazingly men think it is produced especially for men and women think it to be largely from a woman's point of view.