[AFPhys]

Anybody who is willing to open their eyes has first knowledge of these situations. Hopefully, it is by observing someone else, but for far to many of us it is personal knowledge. Many marriages are a result of not being able to leave a sexual relationship behind, having once been drawn into it. Many relationships crash against the shoals of the knowledge of the selfish way each person has been using the other. In addition, such a relationship is often unable or proves unwilling to take advantage of broadening experiences that would, in a different course of events, have been natural - such as taking walks, movies, talking, games, going out to meet the other's friends, etc.

Sex is the most destructive force in a relationship, unless and until there is an honest commitment to remain together for the rest of life. At that time, the same destructiveness can, and should, become a cement that helps bind you together despite the natural things that occur which would tend to pull you apart.

[johnmark7]

You make excellent points but even a chaste young couple in the throes of first love infatuation very often make very poor decisions regarding compatibility. That said, adding sex makes it very hard to separate them from bad choices.

Even religious people have no notion of the holiness of sexual intercourse between a husband and wife. Self-sterilization has a dramatic effect on turning sex into pleasure seeking rather than a true union of souls.

Of course, not many people, religious or not, prior to birth control had much of a spiritual sense about love making, but even so, I think something ineffable has been lost with our modern sterile sex.