By Matt Vossler
"I'll tell you the secret as to why couples get
divorced....selfishness" -- Brother King
Introduction
A recent news story suggests that wives who speak their minds to their husbands,
tend to live longer on average, and it sites specifically that they are less
likely to die from heart disease or strokes. This makes sense to me, because my
intuitive sense tells me that it is better to let out frustration and anger than
to keep it bottled up.
So how can you have peace in the home, if wives are confronting husbands, every
time they have a beef with them? The answer, I believe, is that it varies with
each home. What I mean is that there is not a one size fits all kind of answer.
Each couple has a different way of relating to one another, and if you add
children into the mix, their is going to be a fairly unique set of relational
dynamics.
This is why I think that self-help books, that claim they have the answer to all
your problems, more often than not, fail. Many people go from one book to
another, and one seminar to another, even to the point of getting hooked. This
is not to say that the self-help industry is all bad, or does little good. What
I am getting at here, is that each of us, need to examine our lives and our
activities with a critical eye. What you read, and what you hear, needs to be
filtered through your own set of criteria, based on your particular experience
and situation.
This brings me back to confrontations between husbands and wives. I sometimes
feel a little guilty when I have an argument with my wife in front of the
children. It helps me to realize that this is normal and even healthy, up to a
point. I feel that as long as each party is "playing fair," i.e. not using
physical violence, or threatening it, and not, for example, going so far at to
threaten divorce as a routine way to manipulate the other, then it probably
falls into the range of healthy bonding patterns.
Of course, I cannot categorize every example of relational discourse into what
is healthy and what is not. Ergo, my earlier mention of using your own critical
thinking process; each of us has a brain for a reason, no? I will share
something that has helped me as a husband and father, especially early on. It is
the idea that I came up with, that there comes a point when one is trying too
hard. As many have observed, children usually end up O.K., often in spite of
difficult circumstances.
Another important factor that I have found in marriages that work, is good
communication. Men seem to be less inclined to talk to their wives, and another
common complaint from wives are that their husbands don't listen to them. I
think that this is a plague! We, both men and women, need to listen more, and do
a better job at it. I'd like to point out here, that men often want to fix any
problem that their wives share with them. They think, well if I fix it, then it
will go away and everyone will be happy...got to fix it and fix it fast. Some
women do this too. An example is that of a husband who complains about his job,
and the wife feels so much anxiety about this, that she urges him to find
another job right away. She is really trying to relieve her own anxiety and
isn't even aware that she is doing this.
Another funny thing is that in many cases, both husbands and wives think that
the other party doesn't appreciate what they go through. Often men think that
their wives have the "easy part," and the wives think that the men have it
easier. Or the man thinks that his wife doesn't understand what he goes through
from day to day, and vice versa. Who is right? It doesn't really matter who is
right. The point is, there is a lack of connection, of appreciation. This kind
of envy and self-pity leads to blaming, and that only puts up walls and destroys
intimacy.
I almost want to recommend to couples, myself included, to do an exercise with
each other. That is to each spend a week "shadowing" their spouse. To follow
them all day (keeping out of the way) for a week. Then the next week, the other
will do the same. I bet there would be quite a few surprises for both of them.
Finding Peace
So how does one find peace in the home, when spouses and children are constantly
demanding of you, society offers little help, and you have your own unresolved
issues stretching back to your childhood?
At the risk of appearing to cop-out, I will begin with the cliché that peace (in
the family) begins in your own heart. The pathways to peace are many. Some
people find it in nature, some with religion, some with meditation, some with
social connection, some with counseling, some by reading or traveling or
exercising, and some with a combination of these and many other venues. Even
life itself may find a way to make you slow down, unfortunately this is too
often through a disease or some other catastrophe.
Conclusion
Our world currently works against the family...pervasive drugs, violence on
television, real violence, porn on the Internet, a media machine that makes us
feel bad if we don't have the perfect body or life, corporations that ask, "what
have you done for me lately. It seems, that the battle is so up-hill, that we
don't stand a chance. We give up, and live a life of reaction, rather than
taking control of our thoughts, emotions and actions.
But when a father is at peace, he is accepting of his children, and wife. He has
confidence in them and their ability to find their own way. This kind of
acceptance and faith, permeates the family and comes back to him. It becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy. I urge you to do what ever you can to get to this
place. Read books, go to self-help groups, visualize what a life like this could
be like, keep trying different approaches until you strike gold. It will be
worth it, believe me! If one family can do this, others can too.
Remember the barrier of the one minute mile? When it was finally broken, the
flood gates were open, and many other athletes began to run it also. Some
families are doing this already, it can be done. It may take you years, or you
may be there already. If so, congratulations, spread the "word." "Home Grown
Peace." Pass it on!