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Dear love,

I am writing again this time a letter of thoughts on Islam marriage, intimacy, love, and sexuality. I think many Muslim marriages suffer from the intimacy that traditional western relationships allow one to develop. I often wonder due the benefits out weigh the cost. One can’t pull intimacy of can on the day of marriage, I have seen dozens of Muslim marriage fail due to lack of intimacy. I find the relationship outlines in the Sunna out of place because intimacy has more to do with shared moments than sexual interactions. Intimate feelings may be connected or confused with sexual arousal. Intimacy is linked with feelings of closeness, safety, trust and transparency among partners in a collaborative relationship.

For intimacy to be sustainable and nourishing it also requires trust, transparency and rituals of connection. This can’t take place by separating the sexes.  Muslim marriages fail for a host of reasons but I would say this rank up there in the top five. The couple isn’t able to develop the foundation and intimacy it takes to withstand the first year of marriage, which is often the hardest one. Intimacy requires empathy - the ability to stand in the other's shoes you can do that with some one you barely know!

As I travel the Muslim world I have come to see the different degrees that cultures intrepid the Sunna, it is surprising. I have found Muslims don’t know themselves or god as well as they claim.  I have studied Islam in about 5 different Muslim populated and feel sad because the lack of trust people have in their ability to know their own limits of sexual tension Intimacy requires identity development. You have to know yourself and your inner self in order to share your self with another. Knowing yourself makes it possible to stand for yourself in an intimate relationship without taking over the other or losing yourself to the other. This ability to be separate and together in an intimate relationship and being okay with that is called self-differentiation. Lacking the ability to differentiate one self from the other is a form of symbiosis. Everyone is so scared my virgin daughter is going to go fuck the bad Englishman or western man. Men are

The vast majority of man would fuck your virgin daughter if given the opportunity which makes it harder for me to say I am starting to agree with some  of you progressives call oppression or separation of woman. Even when I know this is a leading cause of marriages breaking a part, finding the virgin, pious Muslim bride doesn’t help when she can’t or refuses to trust you.  I know its possible to have a sexual partner without having an intimate relationship, or even an acquaintanceship with that person; I also know its possible to have Intellectual intimacy, familiarity with a woman’s culture and interests without wanting to fuck her but time together always leads to this at least in my case. Relationships that frequently satisfy the desire for intimacy lead to more secure attachments between partners. Relationships that rarely satisfy the desire for intimacy lead to less secure attachments between partners. The lack of intimacy is due to a lack of love and romance between the two indavails. So often man and woman marry they do so without illusions of love and romance. They act within a framework of concern for the reproduction of bloodlines according to financial, professional, and sometimes political interests, but how sad for them. This is the sort of thing many cultures says that Islam preaches and it does. So I find myself wanting freer romantic relationships in the umma yet not wanting the shit that grows from these type of relationships, broke homes, fatherless children to name a few. The cultural traditions of marriage and betrothal are the most basic customs in conflict with romance. I ask myself is it unislamic it marry for love? To develop a relationship with a woman is the question?  Romance can also be tragic in its conflict with society. Even the romantic limitations of marriage are many. I have known some that prefers death to being married to someone they have to grow to love. Holding hands or walking hand in hand.

   Private conversations (including distant ones over phone or internet)   Kissing and hugging Dancing   Eating together   Physical intimacy all things unislamic yet I rather take the chance and doing them then marry someone who can’t stand being married to me.  

So I ask you dear love what should I do?  How am I able to ensure my marriage want ending like so many I have seen do to lack of intimacy and love when I do get married? Is it wrong to want to have a monogamous sexual relationship without marriage in Islam?