Summary: Sometimes it is just too scary to let someone else make the decisions. Other times the fear of losing someone is so powerful we won’t even let ourselves get close to them. These sound rather extreme, but are more common in marriages than we might think. Let’s take a look at what triggers these fears.<br> <br><br> Again, we want to acknowledge the research and wisdom of Dr. Weeks and Dr. Treat in examining these fears of intimacy. To recap from <a title="OYF009: Stop Hiding From Your Spouse! Fears of Intimacy (Part 1 of 3)" href="/oyf009-stop-hiding-spouse-fear-of-intimacy-part-1-3/">Part 1</a> and <a title="OYF010: Stop Hiding From Your Spouse! Fears of Intimacy (Part 2 of 3)" href="/oyf010-stop-hiding-spouse-fears-intimacy-part-2-3/">Part 2</a>, fear is present in all of our lives to varying degrees and comes with many, many faces. How should we deal with fear? Acknowledge it, name it, and talk to your spouse about it. Always move towards it, not away from it, and you will disempower fear!<br> Fear #5: Fear of Losing Control or Being Controlled<br> Weeks and Treat state, that “Healthy relationships are based on mutual control. Partners share the power and control in the relationship.” That is our baseline and our assumption here, that there is some give and take to the control in the marriage. We see the balance in the Bible verse that precedes the classic text about marriage in Ephesians 5: “Submit yourselves to one another”.<br> Submission is not something to brow-beat your spouse with – it is something to be mutually given in a marriage!<br> Alright, back to the Fear of Control after a little side rant there…
