Great Relationships

What makes a great marriage relationship?

Absence of anger?
No arguments?
Lots of sex?
Lots of money?
Both working?
Only one working?
Kids?
No kids?
Great mother in law?
No mother in law?
Women submit to husbands?
Men an women are equal?
Both are Christians?
Commitment to stay together?
Prayers?
Church attendance?

What think ye? Well, IMO, some of these things do actually tend to facilitate a good to great marriage relationship, but only if they actually bring love to one or both members of the marriage. Yes, it is love applied in the nine aspects listed in Galatians 5:22 ff that really make a difference and keep the couple and the family functional.

It needs to be known, however, that love and anger; love and conflict; love and differences are not mutually exclusive. Almost every couple has conflict. Almost every couple has angry exchanges. Almost every couple has communication breakdowns, problem solving difficulties and failure to and manage conflict .

It isn't their perfection that keeps a couple together in a great marriage, it is what that couple does when imperfection, conflict and anger occur. In other words, "How do they deal with differences, disagreements and emotional explosions.

You may ask, "What are the options? I can only think of one option. Scream at him while he runs and cusses at me. Are there other options?"

Yes, there are but they may need to be learned as married adults.

See our web page for information.

Family Health and Family Stress

The divorce rate of parents who have a child with a serious, chronic special need is thought to be about 85%. The divorce rate of all couples is way too high but still much lower than the 85% mentioned for parents with a sick child. What are we to think when we see these stats?

Write and tell me what you think about this data.

Why do so many parents with sick kids get divorced?

What would you suggest we do to reduce this terrible pattern?

Increasing Family Dysfunction in America

As a Family Therapist I read research and news from other therapists and experts about the state of families in the USA. Frankly, many of the writers are deeply concerned about what they see as the fast growing decrease in the health of family relationships. We see at a remarkable and serious downturn in the ability of families and the institutions that impact families to deal with the natural, normal stresses of life.

In 1940 the American divorce rate was some 16% and now it is above 50% for a three fold or 300% increase. We know that in some instances people stayed together despite serious and unhealthy relationships but even it we doubled the percent of marriages that failed in 1940 we will still be shocked by how high the numbers are today.

Every marriage has ups and downs. They always have had highs and lows and they always will. However, one of the most important ways to discern the overall health of a society is how well they deal with tough times. A 50% divorce rate indicates that our society is in trouble; deep, deep trouble.

One of the most insightful lessons I ever learned about family life was to assess how well the entire family unit is functioning from generation to generation. Some of that health or un-health is based on the individual psychological functioning of each family member. However, when we look at how well a family deals with transitions from developmental stage to the next stage we get a new insights about the causes and cures of dysfunction.

Most of my Doctoral education in Counseling focused on the individuals inner life as the cause and cure of problems and successes. Over the years parents have brought their kids to me and said, "Fix this kid. I can't do anything with him or her". For a long time I would try to fix the kid as if he were the only one involved in the problem. Now I look at this kid's "problems" as indicative of the way the entire family relates to each other from generation to generation.

That does not mean that the kid is innocent. He is part of the problem and part of the solution if we will just listen to the reasons he/she is acting the way that troubles mom and dad.

Sometimes it is the only way the child can ask for help for mom and dad.

Sometimes it is the only way mom and dad will actually communicate with each other.

Sometimes the kid's issues are lengthening shadows of parental secrets and the need to confess to each other.

Sometimes it is the best way for a kid to obey the Bible's command to "Honor your father and mother so you days will be long and prosperous on the earth."

One thing is for sure about parenting. It is extremely difficult today in light of the downward spiral of the society. Recently a six year old boy was expelled from grade school because he made a hat like his dads for a school project. On the hat he made and place a tiny rifle just like the one on his dad's hat. But because the school has what they call, "A Zero Tolerance Policy" about guns in school, they had to expel the child.

As a society we are increasingly growing in our promotion of unthinking policies. This policy is so stupid, ignorant and ridiculous that no one with a brain of a marsh mellow would adopt it in the first place and certainly no one with the ability to reason rationally would implement it in this instance. This is only one small example of how unthinking and reactive our society is getting. And, it is occurring even in the halls of education by teachers and administrators. Any leader that does such an automatic, reptilian thing as this needs to be fired immediately.

How can parents rear peaceful, responsible and non reactive kids in such a climate? The only hope for parents is to build strong relationships with each other and our extended family members. Grandparents are very important to generational health as are uncles and aunts, friends and church members.

First, parents must work hard to heal all wounds from past generations. Forgive all hurts and sins of parents, grandparents, and siblings.

Second, get in a harmonious relationship with your spouse, even if you are divorced. (Divorce is easy but separation is impossible. Marriages last forever no matter what the court says.)

Third, develop healthy friendships for yourself as a support system. Fourth, get involved in a good, relational church.

We cannot outsource parenting.

Healing Marriages

A school in Moscow with kids trying on gas masks



A recent article in the New York Times shows the devastating effect of dysfunctional families in Russia. There are more orphans in Russia today than there were immediately after WWII when Russia lost 25 million people!!!

we have been working in Russia since the beginning of perestroika. My first trip was in 1991 but we got going a few years later after Dr. Galina came here and learned our methods of equipping lay and professionals how to "Heal the broken hearted and set the captives free."

We focus a great deal on breaking the bondage of addiction in Russia as well as the other nations where we minister. However, Russia has the most addicted population I have ever seen so we must do everything we can to raise up Pastors and Christian Lay people to minister to those in need of sobriety.

But sobriety is not enough. Couples must learn how to live together in harmony and parents must learn how to love their children and discipline them well. Almost every family has an addict in it so divorce, abortion and domestic abuse are rampant. And, the professional Pastors, Psychologists and Social workers have almost NO real skills to bring healing through Jesus Christ.

The result? Abandoned babies. Precious babies. Lovey babies. We help workers in orphanages learn the skills of loving and healing those abandoned babies. But the most important things we do are healing the parents. healing the marriages. healing the addicts so there are no abandoned babies.

Will you help us? Pray for us? Support us?

Sweeten Life Systems

New Post about Tiger

Go to my other blog for information about Tiger and Elin. Who is guilty?

Marriage for Thanksgiving

Today is November 21, 2009 and it is 48 years after Karen Judy Mayer and I said, "I do!" Karen and I had known each other for a few months when we decided to marry. It is popular for counselors and "experts" to insist that people date for a long time and really get to know each other before tying the knot. In fact, some even suggest that living together for a year or so before marriage will really cement things. The research data indicates otherwise. People who live together "without benefit of clergy" are most likely to divorce and more likely to find that they are really incompatible.

Karen and I were incompatible but we have lived together very successfully for 48 years. I am a man and she is a woman. That alone sets up enough incompatibilities to make divorce certain if other factors were not also available. Add to the male/female thing our differences in Temperament, (I am an ENTP and she is an ISFP), our family backgrounds, (She was reared by a single mother with one sister and I have two brothers and no sisters). But we had a very important commonality: Christ and Christian values.

Karen and I were married on the Thanksgiving holiday because I was a teacher. So, we always celebrate our anniversary with great thanks to God. Today we were able to be with daughter Julia's kids, Jacob 14 and Lily 7. It was a blast. And, HH Gregg delivered a new refrigerator to the lower level of our house as my anniversary present. (This allows our son Tim and family to come home for special occasions and stay with us. In other words, family makes it all worthwhile.

Karen and I also had a tendency to laugh a lot and have lot of fun. This and a deep attraction to each other overcame a lot of differences. Vivie Le difference!

Predictions of Today's Marriages

This photo is of one famous man's wife and mistress.

July 22, 2009

Today's marriages as predicted 40 years ago
The wedding season is upon us. It runs from spring to late autumn. It's anybody's guess how many weddings occurred just this last weekend.
Today's weddings occur in a sociological atmosphere quite different from that of a couple's parents and grandparents.
The current atmosphere we've collectively spawned over the years is no friend of the newly married, or long-married for that matter. Didn't we ever see where we were going?

Someone did.

In 1970 an interesting book, "Future Shock," was written by Alvin Toffler. He was a sociology professor at Cornell University who conducted research into future value systems.

From this research he predicted what our culture could expect in the fast-arriving future and how it would affect our lives. He showed how we were fast forming a "throw-away" society.

This, in turn, would lead us to adopt a concept of transience, a new "temporariness" in everyday life as well as a mood of impermanence. This Age of Transience would soon affect our relationship with people, but also our attitude toward things, places, ideas, as well as toward institutions and organizations.

He wrote, "The people of the future will live in a condition of 'high transience' - a condition in which the duration of relationships is cut short ... things, places, people, ideas, and organizational structures will all get 'used up' more quickly." Permanent commitment to anything would become passé.

Before most of last week's brides and grooms were even born, Toffler predicted that success in the marriage of the future would come to be determined by the degree to which matched development actually occurs between spouses.

Love would be determined by the degree of shared growth, not necessarily by the giving of self.

Yet, he goes on to say, "The mathematical odds are heavily stacked against any couple achieving this ideal of parallel growth. The odds plummet when the rate of change in a society accelerates, as it is now doing. In a fast-moving society in which ... the family is again and again torn loose from home and community, in which individuals move further from their parents, further from the religion of origin, and further from traditional values, it is almost miraculous if two people develop at anything like comparable rates."

Dire words!

And now, almost 40 years later, our own observations bear him out. Human relationships have become more transient and the development of genuine love more tenuous. Love is now sought in serial marriages or clandestine affairs.

In 1970 Toffler claimed that in the future those who marry will have an average of three marriages in their lifetime: the first for the expression of sexuality; the second for procreating children; and the third for companionship.

"There will be some," he predicted, "who, through luck, interpersonal skill and high intelligence, will find it possible to make long-lasting monogamous marriages work. Some will succeed in marrying for life and finding durable love and affection. But the others will fail to make even sequential marriages endure for long."

My dear brides and grooms, isn't it remarkably sad that what was predicted 39 years ago has now become true?

May your marriage be counter-culture, your commitment permanent, your love enduring. And may your children find in your relationship an inspiration for their own.

Father Lou Guntzelman is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Reach him at columns@communitypress.com or contact him directly at P.O. Box 428541, Cincinnati, OH 45242. Please include a mailing address or fax number if you wish for him to respond.

Multiple Sperm Donors-No Daddy

Abstract:

The claim that multiple partner fertility may pose a risk of adverse outcomes for children has not been tested. We test this argument using a sample of 4,027 resident fathers and children from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey by examining the pathways through which fathers' multipartnered fertility is associated with children's externalizing behaviors and physical health status at 36 months.

Path analyses indicate that multiple partner fertility exerted both a significant direct and indirect effect through paternal depression to influence children's externalizing behaviors. Fathers' multiple partner fertility also exerted a significant indirect effect through one mediator—father involvement—to influence children's physical health.

This evidence suggests that the disruptions brought about by multipartnered fertility are important for understanding child well-being.

The Pain in Single Parenting

The Wall Street Journal has another great article on the importance of strong marriages.

Sara McLanahan at Princeton University and her colleagues have found that boys who are raised by single mothers are twice as likely to end up in prison by age 32, that girls who are born outside of marriage are three times as likely to have a teenage pregnancy, and that teens born outside of marriage are about twice as likely to drop out of high school, compared with their peers who are raised in intact, married families.

Moreover, we should take cold comfort from the fact that many of these nonmarital births are, in Ms. Henriquez's words, to "women [who] may be living with a partner." It is true that most of the recent growth in nonmarital childbearing has been driven by births to cohabiting couples. But cohabiting couples are notoriously unstable, in large part because their relationships are not anchored by the legal, social and moral commitments associated with marriage. One study by Pamela Smock at the University of Michigan and Wendy Manning at Bowling Green State University found that 50% of children born to cohabiting parents saw their parents part by age 5, compared with only 15% of children born to married parents.

And as both parents and scholars know, such instability is hard on young children. Not surprisingly, a growing body of research on cohabitation and child well-being indicates that kids who spend time in cohabiting unions are significantly more likely to experience emotional problems, school failure and physical and sexual abuse than children in intact, married homes -- in part because they are much more likely to be exposed to a revolving series of romantic partners, usually unrelated adult males, who do not have their best interests at heart.

For decades I have tried to teach people how to resolve the issues that lead to divorce. We have saved thousands of marriages from destruction. In a few weeks I will release a DVD that outlines the facts about the ways to prevent divorce and produce strong marriages.

Pray for us.

Gary Sweeten

Liberating Poor People

Poverty is not the problem, poor people are the problem. I grew up poor and my battle to be well off was mainly with myself, not someone else.

First, I had to be changed on the inside. I was similar to many of my adolescent friends in that I was crazy about the things that kept me poor. Sex, alcohol, fast cars and running around like a Tom Cat. I was not interested in books, classes and paying attention, let alone hard work. I always laughed at the joke that I had an allergy problem. I was allergic to hard work.

But God intervened and knocked me off the horse I was riding furiously toward Sodom and Gomorrah and got my attention. He said loudly and directly, "Choose this day whom you will serve." The only possible answer had to be, "You Lord, have the answers to life."

Shortly afterward God had an even bigger surprise for me by telling me to quit my factory job at Dowzer Electric where I repaired transformers so I could sign up to attend college. Wow! that was a shocker.

So, the two keys to leaving poverty were a changed life and attendance at college. I stopped drinking and carousing and did very well in college. I learned that I had some ability to think, do my lessons and enjoy a clean and sober life. After those insights financial health was easy.

There is no mystery to wealth. Self discipline, hard work, education and saving your money. Simple but not easy in this super heated environment of addictive buying.

I do believe that knowing Jesus brings to most an abundant life of health, wealth and wisdom. But not by helping them reap without sowing or winning the lottery. Life within limits and without the pretensions of ego and anyone can become well off.

I had the advantage of two great parents and some wonderful grand parents who helped me, taught me and trained me to treat others well while working hard and investing in good things. The great barrier to wealth and health is a single parent home. Men acting like Tom Cats and impregnating women with no intention of caring for their offspring. These men ought to be roundly condemned not supported by public figures.

Marriage of one man to one woman for one life is the healthiest norm there is for a good life. It is not something that requires brilliance or luck. Just a godly change and self discipline.

Gary Sweeten
www.sweetenlife.com

Marital Stress Kills

An article recently published on the BBC Website says that:

Women are more likely than men to suffer damage to their health from being in a strained marriage, research suggests.

Men may be so out of touch with themselves and the state of their marriage that they don't get as stressed.

Maybe this is why over 90% of the people looking for help in mmarriage and family life are women.

Go to LifeWay Counseling Centers to save your marriage and save yourself.

I Calls Them The Way I Sees Them

Six Men From Hindustan saw the same elephant but experienced it very differently.

This is an old saw that I heard growing up. However, the power and truth of its sentiment did not sink in until I began to study interpersonal communication and how differences in "The ways we sees them" cause so much conflict.



For example, the inability to resolve differences in a marriage is the greatest cause of divorce, abuse and dissatisfaction. We often hear that the number one cause of divorce is money, sex, in laws and religion. During this season we might also add politics. But, those are simply some of the issues over which we fail to find a peaceful way to deal with differences.



I am not careful with money and my wife is very careful. That can be a good thing if we understand how to balance each other out. However, it can be bad, very bad with those who attack each other over how money is spent. She says I am reckless and irresponsible and I accuse her of being a tightwad just like my mother. Those attacks are what causes the trouble, not the spending habits.



I could say to my wife, "Karen, I really appreciate your ability to save money. You help me a lot." This avoids Attacks and inserts Attending instead. Attending to one another builds up the Emotional Bank Account that we can draw from at other times when we are feeling scratchy.



Why Attack The Ones We Love?



II COR 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.



The enemy of our souls goes all out to get us to misunderstand and misperceive what others are saying and meaning. Even when we try to be accurate, loving and gracious we are misunderstood. This leads us to feel hurt, shamed and disrespected.



But, I am a believer? How can this happen? Read II COR a little farther down the way. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.



"Be patient; God is not finished with me yet!"



I am filled with the Holy Spirit but the vessel that carries that Holiness around is fallen and dirty. (The image is actually that of a latrine or chamber pot. My clay pot is really a very lowly thing.) Why? To show the greatness and holiness of God's Spirit.



Gary Sweeten
http://www.sweetenlife.com/

Preaching Today

I had the privilege of speaking today at Horizon Community Church. I spoke at the 10:30 service that is focused on those Seeking a better understanding of God in a practical sense.

The series is taken from The God Father trilogy and contrasts the rules, roles and relationships contained in that film series with what God The Father has to say about His family in the Bible. My topic was, "The Hidden Rules of Family Life" and it was a ball. I did a short introduction about genograms and family maps and told stories about the way God treats us versus that which happens in the God Father.

If you want to hear my talk and others click on The Horizon Community Church link next to this post.

The Pastor is Chad Hovind and he is doing a series of sermon/teachings on some very provocative topics at the 9:15 service. He just finished a very interesting series on The Song of Solomon and was able to do a lot on God's approach to marital intimacy. This is one series that I never heard in my Baptist Sunday school.

The awful costs of family disintegration

The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed ChildbearingFirst-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All Fifty States
Report from: Institute for American Values * Institute for Marriage and Public Policy * Georgia Family Council * Families Northwest
Ohio Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives [fbciohio@governor.ohio.gov]

Why should legislators and policymakers care about marriage? Public debate on marriage in this country has focused on the “social costs” of family fragmentation (that is, divorce and unwed childbearing), and research suggests that these are indeed extensive. But marriage is more than a moral or social institution; it is also an economic one, a generator of social and human capital, especially when it comes to children.

In this study, we adopt the simplifying and extremely cautious assumption that all of the taxpayer costs of divorce and unmarried childbearing stem from the effects that family fragmentation has on poverty, a causal mechanism that is well-accepted and has been reasonably well-quantified in the literature.

Based on the methodology, we estimate that family fragmentation costs U.S. tax-payers at least $112 billion each and every year, or more than $1 trillion each decade.
These costs arise from increased taxpayer expenditures for antipoverty, criminal justice, and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals who, as adults, earn less because of reduced opportunities as a result of having been more likely to grow up in poverty.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Even very small increases in stable marriage rates as a result of government programs or community efforts to strengthen marriage would result in very large savings for taxpayers. If the federal marriage initiative, for example, succeeds in reducing family fragmentation by just 1 percent, U.S. taxpayers will save an estimated $1.1 billion each and every year.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The crisis of family destruction is upon us. If every church in America adopted a small program to support marriages, we could help break the cycle of poverty and increase giving to our own churches.

Want to learn how to decrease family break ups? Contact me at gary@sweetenlife.com

Christians Fare Better than Non-Believers

Despite what we may read in the papers about the glaring dysfunctions of some very high profile Christians, there are many health and welfare benefits of living a Christian lifef or a couple and their offspring . Folks who profess to be Christians but do not attend services regularly or practice a Christian life style may even be less healthy than those who have no faith.

Where can a couple turn to find assistance for their marital problems? Does God and His church care for the couples who are in conflict and pain? And, if so can they do anything about it? The answers are all a resounding, YES!

God loves distressed people and calls us to help people with marital difficulties. Research conclusively shows the value of faith in the development of healthy family life. Christians fondly discuss family values but we what about the value of a Christian family? Some important statistics are seemingly secret in evangelism and church-growth.

David Larson, M.D. did research for years on the benefits and pitfalls of faith and family life. He concluded that:

· Religious commitment is associated with positive mental, emotional and relational benefits about 80% of the time.

· Church attend are four times less likely to commit suicide. Church attendance predicts suicide risks more accurately than any other factor.

· Patients with strong religious commitment were less depressed and recovered more quickly from hip replacement surgery.

· Religious commitment is negatively correlated with teen substance abuse. Religious people drink less and abuse alcohol less. The only exceptions are teens from homes where religion is talked but not walked. When hypocrisy rules alcohol consumption rises.

· Church attendees have less sex out of wedlock.

· Teens from homes where a parent is unavailable during the day are more likely to have sex. However, even these teens have less sex outside of marriage if they attend church.

· Church going couples experience divorce about 18% of the time while nonbelievers do so at twice (36%) that rate.

· Couples who are committed to Christ have greater life satisfaction, greater marital satisfaction and greater sexual satisfaction.

Perhaps we need to advertise these benefits to the world as a way of showing that not following God actually has many profound implications for our children. We need to count the cost of sleeping in on Sunday mornings. Parents spend a lot of money to try to get the best in educational and psychological benefits for their children when simply taking them to church has a much greater benefit than other supposedly positive experiences.

Is Divorce Necessary?

Over the last thirty years or so I have been involved in preparing couples for marriage, teaching couples how to strengthen their marriages, counseling couples who are unhappy in their marriage or doing my best to get couples reconciled. I know from experience and research on the topic that keeping couples, and therefore parents, together has many positive payoffs for all concerned. They are

1. Physically healthier
2. Produce healthier kids physically, mentally, emotionally and relationally
3. Economically healthier

But I have sometimes failed in my efforts. The couples I mentored, married, counseled and trained were unable or unwilling to do the hard work necessary to save their marriage. In the vast majority of cases people who seek help from Pastors, Counselors and Relationship Experts learn how to successfully hurdle the challenges of intimacy and have a long term caring relationship.

There are several scenarios that make a long term relationship difficult and Pre-marital preparation, counseling and retreats less effective. It is very possible to survive any of these problems but a couple needs to get help asap.

1. An inability to resolve differences without Criticism and Contempt. Personal emotional attacks may look like fun on TV shows like Jerry Springer but they are deadly in real life.

2. Physical abuse. Growing out of Criticism and Contempt anger that gets physical is often a deal breaker for couples. It is also illegal, immoral sinful and destructive to the children as well as the adults.

3. Adultery. Sex is easy, open and common now and to even use the A word may seem old fashioned. As one guy said to a student group in the Seventies at U.C., "Sex is as natural as breathing so why do we place such restrictions on sex?" Here we are thirty years later acting as though we are just breathing some fresh air with no consequences but it is still devastating to the people and the relationship.

4. Sexual Disorders and/or Mental and Personality Disorders that keep one partner unable to act responsibly. One man I know was not only had a severe same sex addiction, he was Narcissistic and had no ability to empathize with his wife, children or family. He was deeply hurt when his lover died of AIDS and his wife did not show enough "Understanding about his grief".

5. Addiction to drugs and alcohol are also deeply disturbing and may make a marriage so dysfunctional that it is impossible to maintain.

Church attendance is one of the best ways to prevent divorce and insure healthy relationships as well as promote healthy kids. It is often said that the Christian divorce rate is as high as the non-Christian. I disagree with that statistic. The real issue is Christians who attend church. The high attenders have a significantly lower divorce rate.

One way to lower the divorce rate is to actively train children youth and adults how to prevent these toxic threats to marriage and family life. Teach Communication skills, anger management, conflict management, how to keep love alive and ways to heal addictions.

Big houses do not make loving, healthy families nor do big church houses make healthy churches. the trend today is for young families to build huge houses and take on financial loads that increase stress and may cause family fights. Functional family life is not related to the size of the building but to the size of the soul.

The church is doing the same by building huge cathedrals that are devoid of a heart and soul. We need to have human healing centers not more inhuman buildings with no well planned ways to train people how to relate healthily. People carry dysfunction or dysfunction inside themselves regardless of their surroundings.

Let me say loudly and clearly that we do not need more bricks and mortar to put in more "Agencies" to help poor people, poorly performing marriages or poorly reared children. I have helped plan and build churches that needed to expand and I will continue to do so. However, we must always plan with the end in mind and the end is always to build better relationships with God, self and others. Give me an old warehouse filled with God's love rather than a beautiful church house with a mob of unskilled leaders and followers.