Posted on

Books in 2012: Are You Waiting for ‘The One’?

I’d kind of like to invite Margaret and Dwight Peterson to dinner at my house. We’ll have chicken parm, play a little Jenga and when the opp arises, I’ll thank them sincerely for their book.

Are You Waiting for “The One”? Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage is the ninth book I’ve read in full in 2012. It is a refreshingly realistic exploration of friendship, love, sex, marriage and family that challenges the status quo set by the world (which, as the Petersons point out, is often unwittingly perpetuated by Christians).

In many Christian books as in many Christian churches, important stuff like sex and gender and dating is broached only superficially. What those Christian books and those Christian churches don’t get is that it does serious damage to consider topics taboo that ought to — nay, must — be discussed deeply. The Petersons get it. And that is rare, and therefore, delightful.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

On hooking up:

“It is difficult to believe, however, that the hookup culture is anything but bad for anyone, male or female. The more casual sexual behavior becomes, the less it serves to deepen existing intimacy and the more it becomes a substitute for and even an impediment to intimacy.” -page 14

On real love: 

“Real love grows through use. You do not have to worry that if you spread it around, you will run out. Nor do you have to worry that if you enter into an intimate friendship with someone whom you do not end up marrying, that person will abscond with part of your heart and there will be less of you than there was before. If you hope to marry someone and do not, of course you will be disappointed. But a great deal of the pain of heartbreak comes not from disappointment in love, but because partners have not, in fact, treated one another lovingly. If you and your friend really do love each other, and really do treat each other well, you will grow in and through the relationship, whether or not it moves toward marriage.” -page 27-28

“Real love develops into deep, meaningful intensity. It does not start with it. The time to look for sparks to fly is after you know one another well enough actually to mean something to one another.” -page 27

On conflict, mutual submission and gender:

“Conflict avoidance is not conflict resolution, however much we might like it to be.” -page 81

“Mutuality takes time. It takes effort. It takes a willingness to talk with one another and listen to one another, for long enough that it can become clear what the issues are, what the feelings and desires of both spouses are, and what some possible plans of action might be. Headship as decision making, by contrast, can seem quick and easy and far less personally demanding. Husband and wife don’t really even have to work together: he just does his job and decides, she does her job and goes along, and they’re done. And that is exactly the problem. They haven’t actually dealt with their differences; they’ve just done an end run around them. They are no more united when they are done than they were when they began. There has got to be a better way.” -pages 94-95

“But before we talk about what a better way might be, we have to tell one more unpleasant truth about the control-and-acquiescence model of male-female relationships. Defining male headship as control and female submission as acquiescence is not just misguided; it is dangerous. By idealizing rigidly defined gender roles, assigning power in relationships disproportionately to men, and encouraging both men and women to see this as spiritually appropriate and desirable, a theological ideology for abuse in intimate relationships is set in place.” -page 95

On communicating via social media:

“Self-revelatory statements are made in isolation, and often to the world in general rather than to anyone in particular. They in turn are read by recipients who are busy with many other things or who may simply happen to be trolling the web for status updates. The result is less an electronic equivalent of conversation, and more a combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism.” -page 114

On sex:

“One of the first things to be said about sex is that it is okay not to know everything. Our culture glorifies sexual prowess—many people simply assume that sexual experience and personal maturity go together, and that anyone who is virginal or otherwise inexperienced is for that reason a mere child. … In reality, experience and maturity are not the same thing. It is possible to have a great deal of sexual experience and to be a thoroughly immature person, and possible likewise to have little or no experience of sexual relationship and yet to be secure and well grounded in one’s own masculinity or femininity.” -page 137

“The foundations for a positive marital sexual relationship begin to be built long before the wedding night. If you and your partner are cultivating an intimate friendship in which you can enjoy one another playfully, talk with one another openly, work on shared projects cooperatively, problem-solve constructively, and relax together trustingly, you are well on your way to building a relationship in which sex can play a positive and intimate part.” -page 144

On contraception:

“On its invention fifty years ago, the birth-control pill was hailed as a great advance over barrier methods, precisely because a woman did not have to negotiate its use with a sexual partner. Now the sense is that a once-a-day pill is too much trouble; people need ‘fool-proof contraceptives that require almost no thought or action.’ The obvious problem with this is that where contraception is foolproof and thoughtless, sex will be too. Is that really what any of us wants? Is that really compatible with Christian notions of what sex and marriage and human life itself are really all about?” -page 164

 

[callout]Click here for more information about (or to order) Are You Waiting For “The One?”. [/callout]

Posted on

The new normal: births outside marriage — Part 2 of 2

In yesterday’s post, I wrote some commentary on a recent New York Times article. The story cited a study that says a baby’s birth to an unwed mom “used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.”

I don’t doubt the study’s results are legit. (In fact, I’m responsible for putting birth announcements in the newspaper for the county in which I work, and at least in that neck of the woods, babies with unwed parents far outnumber babies whose parents are married.) I don’t disagree that lots of people opt not to get married after conceiving a child or after giving birth. But, as I pointed out in Part 1, the story about this unintentionally implied that marriage and “a piece of paper” are one and the same when, in fact, they are not. Marriage is a miracle that helps us “to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving,*”

Which is awesome.

But as awesome as that is, few people our age are interested in it. Few currently-married couples exemplify it. And so I was compelled to ask a question:

Why?

Unfortunately, I can’t answer that. For one, I don’t know (at least not with any kind of exactness), and for two, I do know the answer is so complex that I couldn’t do it justice if I tried. What I can do is list some factors that, in my opinion, contribute to why few people our age are interested in marriage, and why few married couples exemplify what marriage actually is.

1. People don’t know what marriage actually is.

Refer to Part 1.

2. People don’t think enough (some can’t, some won’t).

Part of the story says the following:

A woman, “27, was in an on-and-off relationship with a clerk at Sears a few years ago when she found herself pregnant. A former nursing student who now tends bar, (she) said her boyfriend was so dependent that she had to buy his cigarettes. Marrying him never entered her mind. ‘It was like living with another kid,’ she said.“

Another part says this:

“In Lorain as elsewhere, explanations for marital decline start with home economics: men are worth less than they used to be. Among men with some college but no degrees, earnings have fallen 8 percent in the past 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the earnings of their female counterparts have risen by 8 percent.”

The point the story makes is that these women aren’t marrying the fathers of their children because to do so would be financially irresponsible and/or of no financial benefit. But if our focus is on deciding not to marry a man because marrying him is of no financial benefit, we miss a deeper point. The young woman in the story wouldn’t dare marry a man-child who can’t afford his own cigarettes, which is good, and I commend her, because she shouldn’t. But, then, I’m left wondering: if a dependent guy isn’t good enough to marry, why is he good enough to date? Why is he good enough to make a baby with? This points to the deeper point:

There are so many questions to ask before we promise exclusivity to someone and before we make babies with him or her — questions that few are asking.

Questions like is this person emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially fit to be my spouse? Would he or she make a good parent? Do I want kids to turn out like this person? Am I emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially fit to be a spouse? Would I make a good parent? Do I want kids to turn out like me?

We need to think about our answers to these questions, which implies we have to answer them. I think lots of humans are so generally horrified that the answer to any of them will be no that we neither ask nor answer them. But know that if an answer is no, it does not not mean it has to be no forever. It means somebody has some work to do — some growing to do. And that’s ok, and always will be.

Lots of other humans do think about their answers to the questions, but their thoughts backfire because they are are under the impression that if an answer is no, the act of entering into a marriage — or even just moving in together — will transform the non-marriageable half of the couple into a marriageable one. But that’s not how it works.

From the article:

“Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages. In a summary of research, Pamela Smock and Fiona Rose Greenland, both of the University of Michigan, reported that two-thirds of couples living together split up by the time their child turned 10.”

This is because when a relationship isn’t working, doing something that complicates it never makes it work. We’re better off taking something out of the equation (such as one of the people, or sex) and seeing what happens.

Which brings us to a third factor that contributes to why few people our age are interested in marriage, and why few married couples exemplify what marriage actually is.

3. People treat the sacred (sex, in this case) like it isn’t.

In our culture, you hit a certain age and the assumption is that if you’re dating someone, you’re having sex with them. And in an overwhelming majority of cases, that’s a safe assumption. It’s the norm. Which is one of several reasons we know what the norm isn’t: treating sex like it’s sacred.

Sex is not kept sacred when it’s something we do with every person we date. It’s not kept sacred when we participate in it selfishly. It is not sacred when we decide to have sex because we believe we can’t not have sex.

“It’s impossible to wait” is a lie. Humans, in my opinion and experience, are stronger than that — we can control our appetites. A couple of my favorite quotes about this are as follows:

“Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains healthy discretion.*”

and

“The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.*”

There are far fewer people who believe that than who simultaneously a) believe marriage is a piece of paper, and b) are currently unfit for a piece-of-paper-marriage, let alone for a real one, who c) are so unwilling or unable to acknowledge that they are currently (and probably temporarily!) unfit for marriage that they d) date while they e) are completely convinced they cannot date without having sex.

And that, over time, combined with a lot of other factors, results in new normals like the one in the article.

– – – –

To read Part 1 of this post, click here.

To read the New York Times story in full, click here.

*This quote comes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Posted on

The new normal: births outside marriage — Part 1 of 2

In a New York Times article from Friday, a study the writer cited says a baby’s birth to an unwed mom “used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.”

The story is well written and worth the read. But what it points out is not so much “study reveals a new relationship trend” as much as “study reveals that what most people think is marriage is still not actually marriage.”

The story says:

“Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.” 

and

“One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.”

and

“Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage.”

and

“Over the past generation, Lorain lost most of two steel mills, a shipyard and a Ford factory, diminishing the supply of jobs that let blue-collar workers raise middle-class families. More women went to work, making marriage less of a financial necessity for them. Living together became routine, and single motherhood lost the stigma that once sent couples rushing to the altar. Women here often describe marriage as a sign of having arrived rather than a way to get there.“

I understand these points.

Marriage does have economic and social rewards. Most women do find men whose paychecks can pay bills to be more marriageable than men whose paychecks can’t. Many women who work don’t need a husband to pay for her stuff. A stigma once did (and sometimes still does) send couples to the altar with haste and without much thought. But these are just words that distract us from what we really ought to discuss.

The story goes on…

“‘Women used to rely on men, but we don’t need to anymore,’ said Teresa Fragoso, 25, a single mother in Lorain. ‘We support ourselves. We support our kids.’

a) This says marriage is about money. (i.e., “I don’t need a husband because I can support myself and my kid.”)

“Fifty years ago, researchers have found, as many as a third of American marriages were precipitated by a pregnancy, with couples marrying to maintain respectability. Ms. Strader’s mother was among them.”

b) This says marriage is about image. And this still says that when a couple today rushes into marriage because they’ve found out they’re pregnant. (i.e., “We’ll be treated better if it looks like we didn’t get pregnant before we tied the knot.”)

“Even as many Americans withdraw from marriage, researchers say, they expect more from it: emotional fulfillment as opposed merely to practical support. ‘Family life is no longer about playing the social role of father or husband or wife, it’s more about individual satisfaction and self-development,’ said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.”

c) This says marriage is about self. (i.e., “Marrying this man/woman will complete me!”)

And then, like in the story, people — among them, ones who live like they believe a, b and c are true — say…

“‘I’d like to do it, but I just don’t see it happening right now,’ … ‘Most of my friends say (marriage is) just a piece of paper, and it doesn’t work out anyway.'”

When the goal of a wedding revolves around money, image or self, I don’t blame women or men for a second for not wanting that stuff. I don’t want that stuff, either.

That stuff is a sheet of paper.

That stuff is not marriage.

Marriage is the miracle in which two become one. (Note: It is not 1/2 + 1/2 = 1, but 1 + 1 = 1. A spouse cannot and will not complete you, nor should he or she be expected to.) It is the mutual gift of self, given in love, which is patient and kind, neither boastful nor proud nor rude. It doesn’t demand its own way or act pissed off about and/or keep track of it every time it doesn’t get its way. It stands for justice and truth, it doesn’t give up or lose faith and it sticks around, with hope, regardless of circumstances*.

Marriage helps us “to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving,**”

Which is awesome.

So why, then, are few folks our age interested in it? And why do so few married couples reveal this in their relationships? I’m of the opinion that it’s pretty complex.

Check back tomorrow for part 2.

– – – –

To read the New York Times story in full, click here.

*Within reason. If, for instance, you live with an abusive spouse, hope won’t cut it. Your spouse needs help, and you need a safety plan. Click here for more information.

**This quote comes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Posted on

The 5 Love Languages

There are a lot of impassioned speeches I’d shout to the general public, given an opportunity and a megaphone.

One of them is about relationships.
“Love,” I’d say, “if we love like Jesus loves, is unconditional. It is patient,” I’d say, “and kind.” And I’d quote the rest of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. “And in our culture,” I’d add, “we suck at it.“
Because we are egocentric.
We are egotistical.
We don’t think (or pray) before we act or speak.
Our attitudes imply “I’ll love you if…” and we are unaware (or unwilling to admit) that our love is conditional (and therefore, that it isn’t love).
In an ideal world, if a man or a woman saw some of this in him or herself, the awareness of it would compel him or her to change his or her thoughts and modify his or her behaviors until he or she becomes a better love-er. Only we aren’t in an ideal world, so rarely does a guy or girl see it. And if one sees it, rare is it that he or she sees that something is wrong with it. And the result is dysfunction. 
Dysfunction, however, is not an experience saved solely for the people who have tied the knot for the wrong reasons. Dysfunction is also a result of human nature (and it is multiplied when humans interact). It is a reality that can (and will) encroach on any relationship — even the ones rooted in real love — because even when we really do love, we are still human.
Still egocentric.
Still egotistical.
You catch my drift.
But in his book The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman — a pastor, therapist and author — says that despite our human nature, we can love for real, and if we already do love, we can love better. You know what I love?
His book! I read it last weekend.
Chapman’s theory goes a little like this: There are five love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. A love language is what a person uses to express love. A person also feels loved when somebody else uses his or her love language. So let’s say Joe’s primary love language is receiving gifts (and let’s also say he has never read any of Chapman’s books). Whenever his wife gives Joe a gift, he feels loved by her. And Joe most often expresses his love for his wife by giving her gifts.
Which is awesome — except, because Joe (like all humans) is egocentric, what may not dawn on him is that his wife’s love language might not also be receiving gifts. And so while he implies “I love you!” with a gift, she does not infer “He loves me!” when she gets a gift. She certainly will appreciate receiving gifts from her husband, but her need to feel love coming from him probably won’t be fulfilled. In order for that need to be fulfilled, she needs for Joe to speak her love language.
“The important thing,” Chapman wrote on page 15 of the book, “is to speak the love language of your spouse.” And “Seldom,” he says, “do a husband and wife have the same love language.” 
I think at the core of Chapman’s theory (these will be my words, not his) is the idea that love requires communication. It’s typical, for instance, for someone to expect his or her significant other to do XYZ without ever telling him or her that XYZ is what he or she needs (and it is typical, therefore, for him or her to take it personally when his or her significant other doesn’t deliver it). My hunch is that the desire to get what we need (or want) from a spouse, if and only if we can get it without asking, is directly related to how valued instant gratification is in our culture. 
In a culture that values instant gratification, we don’t want to work. We believe a relationship should flourish independent of work. We believe a relationship is most worth our time when it is with someone for whom doing what we would like to see them doing is always… instinctual (which never actually happens). 
But back to the book.
On page 32, Chapman points out that when a couple “falls out of love” (that is, the warm and fuzzies aren’t so constant), either “they withdraw, separate, divorce and set off in search of a new in-love experience, or they begin the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria of the in-love obsession.” 
He goes on to prove that learning to love without the euphoria is not only possible, but worth it. Click here to learn more about the book and click here to learn your love language. Read on for some of my favorite quotes:
“Some couples believe that the end of the in-love experience means they have only two options: resign themselves to a life of misery with their spouse, or jump ship and try again. Our generation has opted for the latter, whereas an earlier generation often chose the former. Before we automatically conclude that we have made the better choice, perhaps we should examine the data. … Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was — a temporary emotional high — and now pursue ‘real love’ with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. … Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct.” -pages 32 and 33
“The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.” -page 39
“A key ingredient in giving your spouse quality time is giving them focused attention, especially in this era of many distractions … A wife who is texting while her husband tries to talk to her is not giving him quality time, because he does not have her full attention.” -page 59
“Sometimes body language speaks one message while words speak another. Ask for clarification to make sure you know what she is really thinking and feeling.” -page 63
“Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally.” -page 100
“You see, when an action doesn’t come naturally to you, it is a greater expression of love.” -page 139
“Love … creates a climate of security in which we can seek answers to those things that bother us… (A) couple can discuss differences without condemnation. Conflicts can be resolved. Two people who are different can learn to live together in harmony.” -page 144
Posted on

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

I still stand by what I said during my first semester of grad school:

Everybody should take one good counseling class — something basic, like Foundations of Mental Health Counseling or something practical, like Dynamics of Marriage and Family Therapy.

But in case everyone isn’t granted that opportunity, I feel compelled occasionally to share some of what somebody would get out of a good counseling class. Something like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — not the ones you read about in the book of Revelation, but the ones that marriage researcher and therapist John Gottman points out as predictors of divorce.

According to my Dynamics of Marriage and Family textbook (1), “it is not the exchange of anger that predicts divorce, but rather four forms of negativity that Gottman calls ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.'”

As a result of Gottman’s study, he can predict with lots of accuracy whether a couple will divorce based on their use of the “four horsemen” in their interactions. What are the horsemen? Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.

Criticism is an attack on a person’s character. The focus is on the spouse instead of on the spouse’s disagreeable behavior. So, let’s say a husband routinely doesn’t warn his wife that he’ll be home late from work. If she responds with criticism, she’ll probably say something like the following: “I cannot believe you didn’t call me again. I am pretty sure there is something seriously wrong with you.” or “You are so frustrating! If you were a responsible adult, you would have told me in advance you’d be home late.”

Defensiveness is “warding off a perceived attack,” according to one great summary of the four horsemen (2). This spouse tends to make excuses for his or her behavior, or to respond to complaints with complaints of his or her own. So after the wife from our scenario says, “I am pretty sure there is something seriously wrong with you,” the defensive husband might say something like, “Yeah? Well, I think there’s something wrong with you because you used all the hot water this morning, again, and I had to take a cold shower.”

Contempt is name calling, eye rolling, insulting, hostility, hurtful sarcasm, harsh tones of voice. It’s ultimately emotional or psychological abuse. Pretty self explanatory.

Stonewalling is emotional withdrawal. It can look like the silent treatment, one word responses or physically leaving the room rather than responding to your spouse. So if after the wife from our scenario criticizes her husband for not telling her he’d be home late from work, he crosses his arms and sits silently or only says, “Yep.” and nothing more, he’s stonewalling.

I’d venture to say that for most humans, not doing these things is easier said than done. But I think we are all ahead when we are a) aware of them and b) aware that their presence plays a big role in a couple’s inability to work through conflict. I also have a hunch that the horsemen show up in an emotions/behaviors cycle that — though seemingly endless — can be broken if a couple commits to breaking it.

So, for instance…

1. Husband works late every night and never calls to warn his wife about it (husband’s behavior). So…

2. Wife feels neglected (wife’s emotion). So…

3. Wife yells at (criticizes) husband when he gets home (wife’s behavior). So…

4. Husband feels attacked, and therefore disrespected by and angry at his wife, and therefore doesn’t much like to be at home (husband’s emotion).

So…

1. Husband works late every night and never calls to warn his wife about it (husband’s behavior).

You see where this is headed.

And where the cycle actually starts is moot. (It doesn’t matter if the chicken or the egg came first.) What’s important is that a couple a) becomes aware that what they always do isn’t working and that b) the awareness of that propels them into doing something different. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

So maybe, to start, the husband changes things up by calling his wife mid-day to warn her he’ll be home late again tonight. Or — better yet — he arranges to be home at a decent hour. So rather than feeling neglected, his wife feels informed, or loved, or like she’s important to him. And when they see each other at home for the first time since morning, because of what she feels, she greets him with a kiss instead of with criticism, and maybe tells him she appreciates that he called or came home early. And — naturally — her husband feels respected (or, at least not disrespected) or loved and discovers that being at home isn’t so bad after all.

This, of course, is also always easier said than done. But it is doable. And according to Gottman, the need to do it isn’t necessarily bad.

In a study he did with Krokoff in 1989, he concluded that “while conflict engagement (that is, direct, if angry, expressions of dissatisfaction) between partners might cause marital distress in the short run, such confrontation is likely to lead to long-term improvement in marital satisfaction by forcing couples, together, to examine areas of disagreement. (1)”

– – – –

1. From this book.

2. From this summary.