It’s really embarrassing. My stomach seems to gurgle every time we try to make love. I mean, it’s loud. He never says anything about it, but you never hear that in the movies.
WIFE
At first I thought it was coming from her vagina, this strange rumbling sound. I think it’s her stomach, though. She is just in lousy shape, and she eats about four Ding Dongs or King Kongs or some junk food before bed every night. What does she expect?
HUSBAND
HETEROSTASIS:
LACK OF INTEGRATION OF
HEALTH RULES INTO
MARITAL LIFE. SEPARATE
HEALTH FOCUS AND HEALTH
BEHAVIORS
TENDING TOWARD TENDING TOWARD
HOMEOSTASIS HETEROSTASIS
In terms of overall health, the rules are simple. Be moderate in caloric intake and exercise, reduce fats, minimize red meats, avoid smoking and alcohol, and learn to cope better with stress. In spite of all the research on health, these rules have long been known and many of us do our best to practice them. In your marriage, do both of you work together to integrate good health practices (homeostasis)? Or do you work separately if at all on the physical health of your marriage (heterostasis)?
The husband in our couple was a jogger and a softball player, and “demanded” that his wife buy and prepare health food. The wife had little time or made little time to attend to her own health, and was left making beds and cleaning up after dinner while her husband ran miles listening to his portable tape player.
The husband was trim, tan, firm, and energetic. My clerical staff was taken with his robust appearance, describing him as “a real hunk.” The wife looked drawn and tired, and often brought sewing or other family-related work to the clinic waiting room. When I asked about her schoolwork, she said, “I get up at about five A.M. on weekends when it’s quiet. I try to get it done then.”
The wife complained of her own lack of sexual stamina. “I get tired easily. I’m fat, too, and I hate it, but I just cannot lose it for long. During intercourse, it almost scares me how hard he does it to me.”
The husband reported, “She is so fat, so soft, so flabby. She’s like a soft doll. If I am a sexual athlete, then she is Howard Cosell.”
This couple, as many of the others in this report, failed to practice a system of wellness. Few wellness programs attend sufficiently to the system side of things. Doctors see individuals, not couples, for physical exams, and our wellness models are individuals, not marriages.
Super wellness depends upon a system wellness, a view that two people and their children are one, not parts. Too much homeostasis in the system, too much “oneness” can result in neglect of the individual health needs of each spouse, but a lack of homeostasis, of unit wellness, results in disease for both spouses, and no amount of solo jogging will chase down total wellness.
*34\97\8*
