Heal the Heartache of Divorce

For anyone who has suffered through divorce and would like to heal through their faith, I highly recommend Rose Sweet’s A Woman’s Guide to Healing the Heartbreak of Divorce. I think it would be applicable to men, too. Though the book holds much more wisdom, here are some excerpts from the ends of the first few chapters where the author asks,

“What does our fear say?” and, “What does our faith say?”

On this solemn Good Friday, day of Jesus’ passion, remember Joy is coming!

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)

These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (1 Peter 1:7 NLT)

Fair Fighting

During this week of our Lord’s passion to redeem our weaknesses and faults, I thought it might be fitting to offer some insights about fair fighting. Read through these and, with your spouse, choose what your disagreement rules will be. Or write your own!

Fight like the world’s happiest couples from The Exceptional 7 Percent by Gregory K. Popcak:

• The argument must move things along to a mutually satisfying solution. Unhealthy if it never resolves anything.
• There are certain lines the couple simply doesn’t cross no matter how heated their discussion gets. Disallow anything that makes one defensive or quickly escalates the argument.
• Maintain your own dignity. No matter how crazy you think your spouse is acting, you must be able to be proud of your own conduct at the end of the day.
• In the couple’s overall relationship, there is a five to one ratio of positivity to negativity. You must be five times more complimentary than critical.
• Is this an argument worth having? Know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. Is it about something that will stop you fulfilling your values, ideals, or goals?
• Begin with the end in mind. What do I need to know from my spouse to feel better about this problem? What do I think needs to happen so we can avoid this in the future? What changes will I have to make to solve this problem?
• Take time outs to cool down if necessary. If you start to think your spouse is the problem, take a break to think more lovingly.
• When things heat up, practice “red hot loving” by doing something loving for your mate—a touch, compliment, or service that reminds you both you are partners in problem solving.
• Look for the positive intention behind your spouse’s negative behavior and work with spouse to find more respectful alternatives to meet needs.
• Never show contempt whether gesture or words. This always escalates the disagreement. One of the worst acts of contempt is threatening divorce. It undermines your spouse’s ability to trust you, damages the security of your relationship, and offends the dignity of your marriage.
• Don’t nag. Solve! Set a deadline for something to get done and if it doesn’t, call for help to get it done or do it yourself as an act of love. Your spouse’s help is a gift that should be freely given but, like any gift, you have no right to demand it.
• Don’t parent each other. Never deny what your spouse wants to do, but freely negotiate the how and when.
• L.O.V.E. Look for the positive intention. Omit contempt. Verify what was meant. Encourage each other throughout the conflict.

Judith Viorst suggests rules of engagement for fighting in Grown-Up Marriage: What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know About Being Married:

• Never irretrievably lose it. Refrain from physical violence, intimidation, or coercion, as well as remembering words can damage the heart and soul. All of us have the capacity to choose to exert some restraint, to choose to control ourselves.
• Keep in mind that we probably won’t always feel the way we currently feel.
• Accept responsibility when we’re responsible.
• Don’t practice psychiatry on our spouse without a license. Or even if we do, in fact, have a license.
• If possible, try to laugh.
• Don’t wait too long before saying what is bothering us to avoid getting meaner as our grievances are bottled up.
• Know in advance what you want from the fight. “I’m upset; here’s why I’m upset; here’s what I want.”
• No fair reproaching our spouse with, “If you really loved me…”
• Stick to the point and stick to the present. Don’t draw on the past and on every other grievance you’ve ever had.
• Never attack an Achilles heel. We know each other’s most sensitive vulnerabilities. Attacking them may be forgiven but probably not forgotten.
• Don’t overstate your injuries.
• Don’t overstate your threats. Ultimatums might backfire.
• Don’t cite authority, “everybody says,” or the latest magazine article.
• Don’t just talk; we have to listen, too.
• Respect the feelings as well as the facts.
• Sometimes simply agree to disagree.
• When finished fighting, don’t continue to snipe.
• Compromise rather than going for a win. How can we win if the person we love the most loses?

Let’s review John Gottman and Nan Silver’s recommendations from Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: and How You Can Make Yours Last:

• At a most basic level, we all want love and respect in a relationship.
• Complaints are specific and about one behavior. They can enhance a relationship if spouses are open to growth.
• Criticism, on the other hand, attacks the person.
• Contempt attacks the person with an intent to hurt.
• Defensiveness, or the poor-me stance, relinquishes our ability to accept the challenge of self improvement for the sake of the ones we love.
• De-escalate a disagreement by reaffirming your admiration for your spouse, interjecting healthy humor, touching affectionately, stepping back to make a comment about your current feelings, or trying to look at things from your spouse’s point of view.
• When we want to turn our backs (stonewall) is when we must keep turning back toward each other.

And from the greatest Source, two Bible verses to ponder:

• Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you? (1 Corinthians 7:16 NLT)
• These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (1 Peter 1:7 NLT)

Throughout Lent we strive to improve ourselves. May we also improve our relationships so our example brings grace to all who know us.

PS – On Friday I will offer an additional post particularly for those who have suffered the heartbreak of divorce.

How can our marriages become exceptional?

In this week’s book, The Exceptional Seven Percent: Nine Secrets of the World’s Happiest Couples by Gregory K. Popcak, MSW, the author discusses a continuum of marriage types from weakest to strongest.

Deadly Marriages:

In Chaotic marriages, both husband and wife are bent on self-destruction in an attempt to escape, either from their past or from the world as it is.

In Codependent marriages, one is bent on self destruction and the other is determined to save the partner.

 If either of these two deadly marriages lead the couple to learn to demand basic safety and financial security from their lives and relationships, they can grow to become more functional but will focus on survival rather than love as in the following group:

Shipwrecked marriages are all about staying afloat. They may be

Materialistic, where they value financial security above all else. In these the husband is often neglectful or controlling while the wife is dependent.

Or Safety marriages, where the wife with a traumatic past chooses a nice, quiet man to avoid conflict and pursue a stress-free life.

Or Rescue marriages where both spouses fled traumatic childhoods. They are happy to have survived, and don’t ask for more.

If they do learn to expect more from life,

find meaningful roles or work,

learn to meet their own needs, rather than rely on spouse,

learn to relate to their mate,

AND challenge their addiction to comfort in the relationship, they may move to:

Conventional Marriages which are built to support and maintain a couple’s place in world. In a conventional marriage:

• Both spouses are relatively sure of their own ability to provide for at least basic needs.
• Both have found personally meaningful work or social roles to play.
• Both have at least a casual identification with or membership in some significant “values group,” for example churches or organizations. They use their membership to sharpen their self concept and clarify the values that are   important to them.
• Both have negotiated at least the most basic communication differences between men and women.
• Here  love is warm and comfortable but the number one threat is growing apart. Other problems include domestic scorekeeping (whose turn it is to do what and how much is fair) and marital chicken (you change first). Most marriages in this category are moderately stable and moderately satisfying. With work, they can become:

Exceptional Marriages

These marriages make up only 7 % of first time married couples and 7% of remarried couples. The first stage is:

Partnership Marriages which are primarily concerned with pursuing and increasing personal competence. This pursuit allows:

• Egalitarianism. No job is off limits for either spouse. A 100/100 partnership keeps them from 50/50 mentality.
• True intimacy, because no matter how much they give to the marriage they know they will not be taken for granted. They see each other as their best hope for becoming the people they want to be by the end of their lives, by helping each other grow in identity strength and move toward actualization of their shared spiritual values, moral ideals and emotional goals.
• Rapport and negotiation. The intense interest in and sharing each other’s worlds tend to remove the last barriers to communication.

To move up, partnership marriages must develop a truly spiritual sexuality and exhibit a willingness to make financial sacrifices, setting serious limits on anything that distracts them from actualizing their value system. Then they may find themselves part of a

Spiritual Peer Marriage whose marital theme is the pursuit of intimacy, simplification, and actualization. These couples are a joyful, living breathing example of their particular value system. These couples hold common traits:

• Simplification – they are off the fast track, having discovered deeper values.
• Competence – both husband and wife are competent at all aspects of family life
• Egalitarianism over equality – they know they are equal, they don’t have to prove it. In a “dance of competence,” they desire to never take other for granted so they accomplish what needs to be done without worrying about whose responsibility a task is.
• Each other’s best friends, they have virtually no secrets from each other, and have achieved a level of spiritual sexuality that is truly enviable.
• As in Maslow’s definition of self actualized – They are accepting of themselves and others, are at peace when life becomes unpredictable, are spontaneous and creative, have a good sense of humor, value their privacy, can take care of themselves, are capable of deeply intimate relationships, and have an open, positive attitude about life.

How can our marriages become exceptional?

1. Design a marital imperative – an internalized set of values, ideals, and goals which must guide and clarify every action and decision of your life. Then every interaction—pleasant or unpleasant—between you and your spouse becomes another opportunity to pursue those very principles and qualities you hold most dear.

Work to improve in the areas exceptional couples excel in:

2. Exceptional Fidelity, the promise to “forsake all others,” includes all those friendships, family-of-origin commitments, career opportunities, and community involvements that do not serve to increase either the physical and mental health of each spouse or the intimacy of the marriage.

3. Exceptional Love is a calling. They do loving things for their mate every day, whether or not they feel like it and whether or not their mate “deserves” it.

4. Exceptional Mutual service is valued more than “fairness” or sharply defined roles and responsibilities. Each actively looks for opportunities to serve and nurture their mate, creating a dance of competence that enables chores and other domestic responsibilities to be passed back and forth gracefully, and accomplished efficiently.

5. Exceptional Rapport becomes the result of overcoming both their basic gender and personality differences, allowing them to achieve an enviable level of understanding and in their relationships.

6. Exceptional Negotiation – All needs are respected and met—even when a partner’s need is not completely understood. That your need will be met is never called into question; the only topic of debate is, “What is the most efficient, respectful means by which your need can be met?”

7. Exceptional Gratitude – Every service—no matter how common or simple—is viewed as an active expression of love to be noted and appreciated.

8. Exceptional Joy – An ability to play and be joyful together. They look for new interests to share and work to share in the interests they already have. They make time to be together, work at being present to each other, and actively seek ways to ease each other’s burdens.

9. Exceptional Sexuality – They view sex as something they are. For them, lovemaking is not an activity or a performance; it is a total self-gift, a symbol and expression of all that is good about themselves and their relationship. It is a spiritually active way to connect with the Divine.

What more could we want than to connect with the Divine through our marriage? May your marriage continue to grow and bring you closer to God.

Blessings on your week!

Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It.

We’re going to shift gears a bit this week. Maybe you’ve tried to get your spouse to read a relationship book, an article, or even these posts and have met with resistance. Maybe each time you get excited about improving some aspect of your marriage your “other half” maintains things are just fine the way they are.

For many spouses, your desire to make your relationship better implies it isn’t good enough now, which further implies failure. Patricia Love and Steven Stosny tackle this challenge in their book, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It.

 Points from the blurb of the book:

• “Love is not about better communication. It’s about connection.”
• “You’ll never get a closer relationship with your man by talking to him like you talk to your girlfriends.”
• “Male emotions are like women’s sexuality: you can’t be too direct too quickly.”
• “There are 4 ways to connect with a man: touch, activity, sex, routine.
• “When men feel connected, they talk more.”

The authors find that talking about feelings and intimate issues doesn’t come naturally to most men. Instead, it heightens their anxieties and can cause them to withdraw. If you find this to be the case in your marriage, the authors have many suggestions to help.

They acknowledge that women bring one set of fears to their relationships, typically fear of isolation, harm, or deprivation. So we talk in order to reconnect and soothe away our fears.

But men tend to bring their own fears to the table, including a hidden sense of shame, inadequacy, and failure. And when women try to talk their way into connection by expressing their vulnerabilities, the men feel that they have failed the women for not protecting them from their fears. Typically men respond to this sense of failure by withdrawing, in order to escape the fears. As the men withdraw, the women feel disconnected and push to reconnect with words. Then the men withdraw more.

So we tend to exacerbate each other’s fears, rather than reassure each other.

Among the worst things a woman can do to a man is to criticize him—or behave in a way that can be construed as critical, even if not intended.

Among the worst things a man can do to a woman is to leave her feeling alone, whether concretely—alone at home or alone in bed—or abstractly—alone outside his depression or alone with her dreams or fears.

If we are left wallowing in our fears, we become vulnerable to infidelity. When we become infatuated with someone, chemical changes in our bodies make men feel more confident and women feel more connected. Simultaneously, our sense of shame decreases, which can lead us into poor decisions. Be forewarned, allowing private or secret time with someone who sparks our infatuation will permit the chemistry to lead to an affair.

Instead, Stosny and Love encourage us all to decide what our core values are and then to enhance them by

• improving a little bit in that area,
• appreciating our partner,
• connecting by genuinely caring about our partner’s emotional state,
• and protecting our beloved—
  • helping a husband relieve his dread of failure as a provider, lover, protector and father and
  • helping a wife relieve her fear of isolation, deprivation, and harm.

If you are a woman who is feeling resentful, angry, anxious, or afraid and your partner is not helping, he is trying to avoid feeling shame. Your anxiety increases his sense of inadequacy or failure. Use a physical gesture, a touch, to show that you’re with your husband. Be available to do something he’s good at. This replaces his sense of failure with competence. Honor a man’s need for routine and by doing so, help him feel loved and connected. He doesn’t know how to say it, so he tries to show you that you are what gives meaning to his life. Remember, your words can destroy him.

If you are a man who is feeling resentful, angry, sulky or withdrawn and your wife is not helping, she is feeling anxious. Your irritation increases her fear. Instead, be there, in her emotion, with her. Don’t try to fix her problems. Incorporate small gestures of connection like hugs or kisses or focused attention to her into your daily routine.

The authors say the bottom line is to think connection, rather than communication. We must protect each other from our respective vulnerabilities to fear and shame.

Both men and women must replace resentment with compassion. We need binocular vision – to see every upsetting time from both our and our partner’s point of view. Then we must respond to the anxiety, rather than the situation content.

Ask yourself, how do I make it hard for my spouse to give me what I want? (How do I increase my beloved’s fears?) How could I make it easier?

Generally, the authors say we must “step into the puddle.” Tune into the emotional state of the other. Imagine it. Try to feel it. It will be uncomfortable, but don’t respond with defensiveness.

Approach rather than either avoiding or attacking.

Here are a few concrete suggestions they offer:

1. Fix your partner firmly in your heart 4 times a day – upon waking, before leaving home, returning, and before sleep.
2. Hug 6 times for at least 6 seconds per day. This is said to increase serotonin (a calming neurotransmitter).
3. Hold positive thoughts about your relationship for 10 seconds as often as possible.
4. Make a contract to hand out love with compassion and generosity.
5. When you make a mistake, recognize it, feel remorse for it, and repair it.
6. Finally, a nightly embrace – “allow the warmth of the embrace to wash out every sliver of fear and shame.”

And so doing, create love beyond words.

Sacred Marriage Cont’d

What did you think of Gary Thomas’ idea that God designed marriage to make us holy even more than to make us happy?

There’s more intriguing wisdom in his book Sacred Marriage. As a husband, Gary speaks from his own perspective about the care of wives. Of course, all he says can encourage wives to treat husbands as treasures, too. He writes:

• “My wife was created by God himself! How dare I dishonor her? In fact, shouldn’t it even give me pause before I reach out to touch her? She is the Creator’s daughter, after all!”
• “The biggest challenge for me in upholding my spiritual obligation to honor my wife is that I get busy and sidetracked. I don’t mean to dishonor her; I just absentmindedly neglect to actively honor her.” Quoting Betsy and Gary Ricucci, “Honor isn’t passive, it’s active. […] Honor not expressed is not honor.”
• “Quoting Dr. John Barger:  ‘[When women] love, they love quietly; they speak, as it were, in whispers, and we have to listen carefully, attentively.’ Isn’t God also this way? Doesn’t he intervene in most of our lives in whispers, which we miss if we fail to recollect ourselves and pay careful attention—if we do not constantly strive to hear those whispers of divine love? The virtues necessary in truly loving a woman and having that love returned—the virtues of listening, patience, humility, service, and faithful love—are the very virtues necessary for us to love God and to feel his love returned.”
• “In his audiotape series According to Plan, C.J. Mahaney pleads with men to recover [a] sense of sacrifice. He points out that sacrifice isn’t sacrifice unless it costs us something, and then he leaves a challenging question hanging in the air: ‘Gentlemen, what are we doing each day for our wives that involves sacrifice? What are you doing each day for your wife that is costing you something?’”

The author also shares a thought aimed primarily at women who have allowed this appearance-focused society to damage their self-esteem:

• “Continuing to give your body to your spouse even when you believe it constitutes “damaged goods” can be tremendously rewarding spiritually. It engenders humility, service, and an other-centered focus, as well as hammering home a very powerful spiritual principle: Give what you have.”

He speaks to all of us about creativity:

• “You were made by God to create. If you don’t create in a thoughtful and worshipful manner—whether preparing meals, decorating a home, achieving a vocational dream, responsibly raising children—you will feel less than human because you are in fact acting in a sub-human mode.[…]The creation, of course, must have a proper focus—namely, the glory of God.”
• “When this sense of creation is lost, marriage loses some of its spiritual transcendence. […] If we don’t nurture a godly sense of creativity, we will experience an emptiness that we may perversely and wrongly blame on our marriage. The emptiness comes not from our marriage, however, but from the fact that we’re not engaged in our marriage. We’re not using this powerful relationship in order to create something.”

And he continues his thoughts on creativity to include the creation of family:

• “As people created in the image of God, we have a responsibility to create. […] Creating a family is the closest we get to sharing the image of God.”
• “Building a family together isn’t a side avocation. It takes enormous energy, concentration, and self-denial.”
• Quoting Jerry Jenkins, “Tell your [marital] story. Tell it to your kids, your friends, your brothers and sisters, but especially to each other. The more your story is implanted in your brain, the more it serves as a hedge against the myriad forces that seek to destroy your marriage. Make your story so familiar that it becomes part of the fabric of your being. It should become a legend that is shared through the generations as you grow a family tree that defies all odds and boasts marriage after marriage of stability, strength, and longevity.”
• Quoting Evelyn & James Whitehead: “In our marriage we tell the next generation what sex and marriage and fidelity look like to Christians. We are prophets, for better and for worse, of the future of Christian marriage.”

Then he extends the idea of family and asks us to be of service to the world because, “When marriage becomes our primary pursuit, our delight in the relationship will be crippled by fear, possessiveness, and self-centeredness.”

• “But a man and woman dedicated to seeing each other grow in their maturity in Christ; who raise children who know and honor the Lord; who engage in business that supports God’s work on earth and is carried out in the context of relationships and good stewardship of both time and money—these Christians are participating in the creativity that gives a spiritually healthy soul immeasurable joy, purpose, and fulfillment.”
• “I will be most fulfilled as a Christian when I use everything I have—including my  money and time—as a way to serve others, with my spouse getting first priority (after God).”
• Quoting Evelyn & James Whitehead, “Christianity has long called us to this truth: Marriage must be about more than itself because love that does not serve life will die.”
• “We allow marriage to point beyond itself when we accept two central missions: becoming the people God created us to be, and doing the work God has given us to do. If we embrace—not just accept, but actively embrace—these two missions, we will have a full life, a rich life, a meaningful life, and a successful life. The irony is, we will probably also have a happy marriage, but that will come as a blessed by-product of putting everything else in order.”

Holy, then happy.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying studying Sacred Marriage, by Gary Thomas. He asks, as the theme of his book, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” Such a different perspective on marriage than our society holds today, and sadly, than many of us expected when we exchanged vows.

Gary Thomas says, “The real transforming work of marriage is the twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week commitment. This is the crucible that grinds and shapes us into the character of Jesus Christ. […] Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value.”

He continues, “The first purpose of marriage—beyond happiness, sexual expression, the bearing of children, companionship, mutual care and provision, or anything else—is to please God. The challenge, of course, is that it is utterly selfless living; rather than asking, “What will make me happy?” we are told that we must ask, “What will make God happy?”

The simple truth is no marriage, or any relationship, can always make us happy. We are imperfect people who make mistakes and those mistakes often wound the people closest to us. When our loved ones hurt us, we must learn to forgive in order for the relationship to survive. When we hurt our beloved, we must learn to ask forgiveness. In this give and take, marriage stretches us and teaches us to be better people. If we do our work well, holier
people.

As the author says, “Marriage virtually forces us into the intense act of reconciliation.” And so we become examples, though imperfect, of God’s constant forgiveness and effort at reconciliation.

A few points about reconciliation from the book:

• “Husbands, you are married to a fallen woman in a broken world. Wives, you are married to a sinful man in a sinful world. It is guaranteed that your spouse will sin against you, disappoint you, and have physical limitations that will frustrate and sadden you. […] If we view the marriage relationship as an opportunity to excel in love, it doesn’t matter how difficult the person is whom we are called to love; it doesn’t matter if that love is ever returned. We can still excel at love. We can still say, ‘Like it or not, I’m going to love you like nobody ever has.’”
• “Whenever marital dissatisfaction rears its head in my marriage—as it does in virtually every marriage—I simply check my focus. The times that I am happiest and most fulfilled in my marriage are the times when I am intent on drawing meaning and fulfillment from becoming a better husband rather than from  emanding a “better” wife. […] Yes we need a changed partner, but the partner that needs to change is not our spouse, it’s us!”
• “I don’t know how you can be unsatisfied maritally, and then offer yourself to God to bring about change in your life and suddenly find yourself more than satisfied with the same spouse. I don’t know why this works, only that it does work.”
• “Use the revelation of your sin as a means to grow in the foundational Christian virtue of humility, leading you to confession and renouncement. Then go the next step and adopt the positive virtue that corresponds to the sin you are renouncing. If you’ve used women in the past, practice serving your wife. If you’ve been quick to ridicule your husband, practice giving him encouragement and  praise.”
• “Marriage is a long walk. We can start out a little slowly, even occasionally lose our way, and still salvage a most meaningful journey.”

The author talks about once backpacking with friends and coming to a swift creek they needed to cross. One friend gave him advice: “Whatever you do, if you fall, fall forward.” He believes the same advice applies wisely to our marriages. Yes, we’ll inevitably make mistakes and fall. Let’s just be sure we fall forward, toward our spouse.

We all know those moments when we would feel justified to cross our arms, stomp, and turn our backs on our spouse. Or angry in bed, we want to roll over and face away. Those are the most important (and hardest) times to turn towards our spouse with love. We must make our challenges draw us closer together rather than tear us apart. We must fall forward into each other’s arms. Forward into each others’ hearts.

Gary writes:

• “Falls are inevitable. We can’t control that, but we can control the direction in which we fall—toward or away from our spouse.”
• “I believe one of marriage’s primary purposes is to teach us how to forgive. This spiritual discipline provides us with the power we need to keep falling forward in the context of a sinful world.”
• “It took years for me to understand I have a Christian obligation to continually move toward my wife. I thought that as long as I didn’t attack my wife or say cruel things to her, I was a “nice” husband, but the opposite of biblical live isn’t hate, it’s apathy. To stop moving toward our spouse is to stop loving him or her. It’s holding back from the very purpose of marriage.”
• “What do we do when our spouse doesn’t want us to fall forward—when in fact, our spouse is pushing us away? The Bible provides clear guidance. The father let the prodigal son go, but love demanded that the father always be ready with open arms to “fall forward” should the son ever return (see Luke 15:11-32).”

I pray for blessings on your week. May you show your love for God by loving your spouse well. One last piece of advice from the book before I end:

• “But if you truly want to love God, look right now at the ring on your left hand, commit yourself to exploring anew what that ring represents, and love passionately, crazily, enduringly the fleshly person who put it there. It just may be one of the most spiritual things you can do.”

Welcome back to 4 Minutes 4 Marriage!

Welcome to newcomers, and welcome back to those of you who’ve followed previous Lenten posts for growth.

I’ll share wisdom over the next 6 weeks about relationships from professional counselors and authors. I’m in the process of culling information from several well-regarded relationship books. In years past we’ve reviewed such authors as John Gottman (Why Marriages Succeed or Fail), David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage), Gary Chapman (5 Love Languages), Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn (For Men/Women Only), and even Dr. Phil McGraw (Relationship Rescue). For a refresher, or if you want to see previous posts, choose the “Marriage” link under 4 Minutes 4 Growth in the right hand column.

But I also believe some of our greatest wisdom comes from our elders. In “Ask Amy” on Valentine’s Day in The Oregonian, Amy Dickinson quotes Cornell University’s Legacy Project, which collected advice from over 1200 Americans, most 70 or older.

Here are the top 5 tips these “Wisest Americans” offer for a long and happy marriage:

1. Similarity in core values is the key to a happy marriage.
2. Friendship is as important as romantic love: Heart-thumping passion has to undergo a metamorphosis in lifelong relationships.
3. Don’t keep score: Don’t take the attitude that marriage must always be a 50-50 proposition; you can’t get out exactly what you put in. The key to success is having both partners try to give more than they get out of the relationship.
4. Talk to each other: Marriage to the strong, silent type can be deadly to a relationship. Long-term married partners are talkers (at least to one another, and about things that count). (Betty here: In a future post we’ll talk about dealing with partners who don’t want to talk about the relationship.)
5. Commit to marriage itself, not just to your partner. Make a commitment to the institution of marriage and take it seriously. Seeing the marriage as bigger than the immediate needs of each partner helps people work together to overcome inevitable rough patches.

Though my grandmother wasn’t part of the Legacy Project, her counsel still echoes in my mind. She used to say about children—but the words hold true about spouses—“When they are the hardest to love is when they need your love the most.”

Valentine’s Day made me particularly grateful to be married to a kind and considerate man who continues to earn the title of best friend. He will joke about “I suppose I have to buy you a gift and write something on a card,” but what I especially appreciate is not what he gets me, but that he “gets me,” at least most of the time. We’ve grown through almost 34 years of marriage, and we still have moments when we misunderstand, miscommunicate, and just plain mistake what the other wants/says/means. But we keep trying and learning and growing, because we are committed to marriage in general and our marriage in particular.

One of my unpublished novels, called “When the Vow Breaks,” tells of wounds that are inflicted on the innocent when people don’t honor and keep the vows they proclaimed on their wedding day. It exemplifies in story form what I firmly believe: Our marriage vows need tending every single day. It’s in the small acts of love and respect that we strengthen our commitment, and sadly, in the small acts of disrespect and selfishness that we chip away at our relationship. Those times we fail to honor our spouses we inflict harm, not only on each other, but on our children, our extended families, our friends, and anyone who is looking for examples of strong, loving commitment.

Conversely, we may never know the positive influence we have on people as we demonstrate our love and respect for our partner in what may seem to us like insignificant ways. Each marriage is important to countless people. We have a responsibility—not only to our spouse but to society—to make our marriage as strong and healthy and happy as we can.

On our wedding day, we promised to continue to love, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” We may have romantically imagined ourselves nursing a loved one back to health or accepting lean financial times. But that worse/poorer/sickness challenge also applies when our spouses irritate us, continue to be messy, act unreasonable, wallow in a rotten mood, or simply make mistakes.

Let’s recommit to our wedding vows, and our spouse, today and every day.

To whet your appetite for a future post, here are a few quotes from Judith Viorst’s book, Grown-Up Marriage: What We Know, Wish We Had Known, and Still Need to Know About Being Married. She has more to say about our marriage promise, and the  commitment to that promise that we need to honor daily:

• Eternal vigilance is the price of a good marriage. Pay attention. Never stop paying attention. Take care of your marriage.
• Quoting Mrs. Antrobus in Thorton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, “I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage…. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them—it was that promise.”
• The promise we make to each other is that we’ll protect and preserve our marriage, that we’ll feed and watch over our marriage, that we’ll defend it against attacks—even our own. The promise we make to each other, and to ourselves,
  is that our marriage will endure.
• Quoting Michael Vincent Miller in Intimate Terrorism, “After all, don’t husbands and wives have to go to heroic lengths to make a marriage work these days? Perhaps marriage in the modern world, with all its restless energy, its labyrinths of complex meanings to negotiate, its ordeals and setback to overcome, could be our next arena for heroic deeds.”

Didn’t you want to be a hero or heroine when you were little? We can be—to our spouse and all the people who see us as examples.

Consider yourself sent forth on a quest!

4 Minutes 4 Marriage – Freely, Fully, Faithfully, Fruitfully

Good Friday has arrived, which means I’ve written 5 premarriage posts and 6 marriage posts during Lent. Yet, when Fr. Mike asked on Sunday at Mass what marriage advice my spouse and I had to offer as we celebrated 30 years, I went completely blank. (Husband came up with, “Don’t go to bed angry,” and saved the moment.)

So, to redeem myself, I’m going to offer some of my favorite tidbits:

• Like the song says, Turn Back to Me, with All Your Heart. When I most want to turn away is when it’s the hardest but most important to turn toward my husband and reconnect.
• That goes along with what someone said who shared our anniversary date. He and his wife promised to, Love each other when most unlovable.
• Always treat your spouse with respect, whether in person or when talking about him or her.
• Express gratitude for every service your spouse does for you, from a meal made to a day spent at work.
• In general, put your spouse first, ahead of any other person. Though occasionally your children’s needs must come first, a strong marriage is one of your greatest gifts to them. Set aside time alone together—a few (4?) minutes each day, one evening a week, and a weekend a couple of times each year.
• Pray together. Studies show couples who regularly pray and attend Church together have a much lower rate of divorce. Inviting the Holy Spirit into your marriage brings graces that reinforce your commitment to everlasting love.
• Play together. Find ways to keep laughter in your relationship. Not by teasing, of course.

I’ve been thinking about the Church’s view on marriage as it is illuminated by annulment (Decree of Nullity) proceedings. In order to determine whether a marriage was, in fact, a sacramental covenant that is indissoluble, the Church looks for four elements to be present at the time of the wedding. The Church asks whether both parties promised themselves:

• Freely – Were both members of the couple free to make a lifetime vow? Were they mature enough, mentally stable enough, and not encumbered by any situation that made marriage seem to be the only option?
• Fully – Was either party holding back some truth from the other? Were they ready and willing to accept each other as they were, without any conditions?
• Faithfully – Did they intend to remain faithful to each other alone, for life?
• Fruitfully – Was their love open to sharing with others, particularly children?

If these four elements were not present, the Church may find that a marriage, though legal (and thus recognizing any children as legitimate) may not have been a valid sacramental marriage.

It stands to reason that if we want our marriages to be lifelong, indissoluble, we should work to turn to each other every day and offer our love:

• Freely – Do I work to keep other commitments from coming between me and my spouse? Do I attempt to grow in my maturity and emotional strength in order to bring my best to my marriage?
• Fully – Do I keep part of myself protected from my spouse, or do I make an effort to grow in intimacy and trust?
• Faithfully – Do I guard myself from temptation? Do I keep our marital challenges private and discuss them only with my spouse or with a trained professional? Do my actions assure my spouse that he or she is now and will always be my one and only?
• Fruitfully – We recognize love by the fruit that it bears. What sacrifices can I make to show my love? How can I turn away from selfishness and be open to the good of others? Am I parenting my children as fully as I can, teaching them spiritually, morally, and intellectually?

This post is our final one for this Lent. Like last year, I am making it shorter than usual in order to give you time to write a short note to your spouse that begins, “I love you because…” Then slip it inside an Easter card or Easter basket.

No groaning allowed. We all need to count our blessings from time to time, and your spouse is one of your best!

 I’d love to hear from you about how you’ve applied any of the ideas, or how I could improve these posts for next year (even if you say you hate homework).

 May your Easter Season and your relationship be blessed!

 Betty Arrigotti

4 Minutes 4 Marriage – Relationship Myths

How are we doing? Can’t believe another week has flown by? Maybe you still haven’t read the last 4m4m post so you groaned when you saw this one? That’s ok. But your beloved is worth 4 minutes, right?

 Sometimes we have expectations of our relationships that are unrealistic, but since we don’t examine them, we don’t realize our mistakes.

Here are 10 myths that Dr. Phil McGraw writes about in Relationship Rescue,

1. A great relationship depends on a great meeting of the minds. Men and women are too different to truly understand each other. Let’s accept our differences as enrichment, rather than making them sources of conflict.
2. A great relationship demands a great romance. Being in love is not like first falling in love. Emotions move in time from exciting to deep and secure.
3. A great relationship requires great problem solving. All relationships will have long term issues that will continue to be disagreed about. Let’s place the relationship above the conflict. Agree to disagree. Achieve closure on the emotions, even if we can’t find closure on the issue.
4. A great relationship requires common interests that bond us together forever. It’s not what we do, it’s how we do it. If forcing ourselves into common activities creates tension, don’t do it. Let’s enjoy what we naturally have in common.
5. A great relationship is a peaceful one. Arguing is neither good nor bad. If done in a healthy way, it can release tension and resolve problems, building a trust that we can disagree and still be close. Suppression of conflict can be destructive if it keeps issues from getting resolved. The key is to get emotional closure at the end of a disagreement so that; even if the problem isn’t solved, both find their minds and hearts in balance.
6. A great relationship lets us vent all our feelings. Many relationships are destroyed because one person could not forgive what the other said or did in anger.
7. A great relationship has nothing to do with sex. Sex provides an important time-out from life’s stress and adds closeness that is extremely important. If our sexual relationship is good, it registers about 10% on the importance scale. However, if we don’t have a good sexual relationship, it registers about 90% on the scale, taking on gigantic focus of the relationship.
8. A great relationship cannot survive a flawed partner. As long as the quirks or nuances are not abusive or blatantly destructive, we can learn to live with them.
9. There is a right way and a wrong way to make our relationship great. What is important is what works for the couple. This also holds true for how our beloved shows us love. It might not be the way we would choose, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
10.   Our relationship can become great only when we get our partner straightened out. We are jointly accountable for the current state of our relationship. Instead of waiting for our partner to change, we can and will serve ourselves much better by looking at ourselves instead of our partners.

 And speaking of looking at ourselves, Dr. Phil discusses some “bad spirits” that are destructive to our relationships and which we can change. We need to know our self-defeating nature so intimately that if it appears, we’ll be able to spot it and stop it immediately.

1. We’re scorekeepers. Partners cooperate, not compete. Focus on what we can give, not on what we are owed. Solid relationships are built on sacrifice and caring, not power and control.
2. We’re fault finders. If we’re criticizing, we’re not praising. And if we’re criticizing, we are not connecting. We are driving our partners away.
3. We think it’s our way or the highway. Our intolerance of our partner’s initiatives or ideas puts our own ego above the welfare of the relationship.
4. We turn into attack dogs. We start out discussing an issue and end up ripping into our partner with a personal attack.
5. We are passive war mongers. We thwart our partner by constantly doing that which we deny we are doing or the exact opposite of what we say we are doing. Our passively aggressiveness is designed to control, but insidiously and underhandedly.
6. We resort to smoke and mirrors. What is real never gets voiced, and what gets voiced isn’t real. The result is utter emotional confusion.
7. We will not forgive. When we choose to bear anger at our partner, we build a wall around ourselves.  Negativity begins to dominate our life. But by forgiving our partner, we can release ourselves.
8. We are bottomless pits. We are so needy that we consistently undermine our chances of success. Our partner is frustrated by never seeming to be able to “fill us up,” and never knows a fully functioning peaceful relationship.
9. We’re too comfortable. We don’t challenge ourselves; we don’t strive for any kind of excellence. It takes risk to keep a relationship improving.
10. We’ve given up. Often seen in an abusive relationship, this learned helplessness kills our spirit.

We’re not perfect people, so no relationship is perfect. But marriage makes us uncomfortable enough to encourage us to grow. We want to keep getting better, being more loving, and growing closer—for ourselves, for our partners, for our marriage, and for our families.

 Blessings on your relationship!

Betty Arrigotti

 To read more about it: McGraw, Dr. Phil (2000). Relationship Rescue: A Seven Step Strategy for Reconnecting with Your Partner. Hyperion.

4 Minutes 4 Marriage – Sex and Fitness

Next week, we’ll be starting Dr. Phil’s Relationship Rescue, but before we leave the Feldhahns’ books, I’d like to list a few more of their findings:

• With sex, her “no” doesn’t mean you.  Many women don’t have the same need to pursue sex as much as men do. (Though 1 in 4 marriages see the woman wanting more sex than the man.) They do care about sex, enjoy sex, and want to have a great sexual relationship with their man. Women’s lower level of desire for sex usually has nothing to do with their man’s desirability.
  • She has a lower level of sexually assertive hormones which means less craving for sex, less likelihood to initiate, more susceptibility to distractions, yet most women would change all this if they could. Don’t take “not tonight” personally. Use it as a learning tool to understand why.
  • She needs more warm up time than men. Either she needs to take it slowly, or needs some anticipation time. Women want to be romantically pursued.
  • Men’s bodies (no matter how great) do not turn on her body. Her mind may notice and find her husband attractive, but her body won’t, at least until sexually involved. However, lack of grooming can turn her off. (Showered? -check. Teeth brushed? – check.)
  • For her, sex starts in her heart. Her body’s response is tied to how she feels emotionally about her husband at the moment. Great sex starts with a man helping his wife feel happy and close to him outside the bedroom. Hug her sometimes just to hug her. Or share housework so she isn’t so tired.
  • She wants pleasure as much as he does, and if it isn’t happening, she may be reluctant. Women often would prefer to protect their husband from feeling inadequate and so don’t express their dissatisfaction, at the expense of the possibility of working together to solve this problem.
  • When in doubt, ask questions. What do you like? What don’t you like? How can we improve?

• Sex unlocks a man’s emotions. A woman’s sexual desire for her husband profoundly affects his sense of well-being and confidence in all areas of his life.
  • Men believe that the women who love them don’t seem to realize that wanting more sex than they are getting is a crisis—not for the man, but for the relationship.
  • Sex fills a powerful emotional need. At a most basic level men want to be wanted.
  • Fulfilling sex makes him feel loved and desired. It salves his loneliness and infuses him with confidence.
  • A “no” to a man feels like a rejection. He wants to feel irresistible to his wife. A continued lack of desire on a woman’s part can lead him to depression.
  • A woman can enhance her relationship if she leaves her husband in no doubt that she loves to love him.
  • Make sex a priority. If you need professional help, get it. Talk to your spouse. Even though this is a sensitive subject, it’s critical.

• Women need to feel beautiful in their husband’s eyes.
  • The little girl inside each woman needs to know her husband thinks she is pretty and he only has eyes for her. “You look fine,” isn’t good enough. She needs to be beautiful to him. He has a great ability to build her up in this area, or tear her down. She needs to hear it, and hear it often.
  • A husband is his wife’s mirror. He can reflect back to her what she needs to hear. If he doesn’t, she is vulnerable to both her inner questions and the external pressure from an intimidating world.
  • In our culture women are not being protected emotionally, but rather, humiliated for their lack of perfect looks. A husband who can reflect to her how lovely he thinks she is proves the best antidote to her own critique of her personal flaws and society’s external pressure. Give her specific, honest compliments.  Say it sincerely; say it immediately when you see her.
  • If a man is his wife’s mirror, he becomes a shattering hammer if he looks elsewhere. If she sees his glance linger over a beautiful women, she ceases to feel special. She feels like she can never be what he really wants.
  • Pornography sends the same message. Wives are injured when husbands look elsewhere for a thrill that they vowed to look for only in her.

• Men need to feel that their wife makes an effort at her appearance for his sake. (But they REALLY don’t want to talk about dissatisfaction with their wife’s appearance. DON’T ask your husband. We women know deep down if we’ve become complacent.)
  • A husband who sees that his wife is striving to look good for him feels that his wife cares about him.
  • What’s on the outside matters to him. Men desperately want women to know this, but because they know how fragile women are about their appearance, they feel absolutely unable to tell them.
  • This is not to say they need wives to be supermodels. And they certainly don’t want women to go to unhealthy extremes of eating disorders. Men are focusing here on weight, fitness, and appearance issues that women can healthfully do something about. Almost every man cares if his wife is out of shape and isn’t making a true effort to change.
  • When women take care of themselves, men feel loved. When they don’t, men feel unvalued and unhappy. Men want and need to feel proud of their wife.
  •  Perfection isn’t the goal. He’s as pleased by your effort as you are by his less-than-perfect attempts at romance.
  • Again, Shaunti stresses you shouldn’t panic your husband by asking him about this. He doesn’t want to make you cry. If you are not realistically happy with your overall appearance and fitness level, assume he’s not either. (Betty, here—I am a little uncomfortable ever giving advice NOT to talk to each other, but my husband agrees with the author.)
  • Good news. Husbands are likely to be very willing to help! That may mean financially, or by taking care of the children while you take care of you.

The above topics are some of the hardest subjects for men and women to talk about with their spouses. However, at the end of the surveys the Feldhahns asked, “What is the one thing that you wish your spouse knew, but you feel you can’t explain?” By far the top response was:

How deep their love and respect is.

Here’s your chance. Go tell him or her.

I’m going to.

Betty Arrigotti

TO READ MORE (Note: These are also available on CD which make them easy to listen to during a commute.):

Feldhahn, Shaunti (2004). For Women Only: What you need to know about the inner lives of men, Multnomah Books.

Feldhahn, Shaunti & Jeff (2006). For Men Only: A straightforward guide to the inner lives of women. Multnomah Books.