Читать книгу Born-Again Marriage - Dr. Bonnie Psy.D. Libhart - Страница 4

At KAIT-TV, where I hosted a daily television talk show for years, many companies would send me samples of their new products, hoping that after I'd tried them, I'd tell about them on the air.

I didn't care for many of these, but when one of the cosmetics companies came out with a new line, I thought, "Ah-ha! I’ll try this one."

As I was smearing the heavy gook all over my face one night, my little one who was watching asked in his high-pitched voice, “What're you doing that for, mom?"

Breathlessly and enthusiastically, while continuing to read their enclosed ad, I announced, "Oh! This is going to make me beautiful!"

He watched. . .not taking his eyes off my face for the next thirty minutes. When I wiped the facial treatment off, his bottom lip quivered as he said sadly, "It didn't work, did it, Mom?"

Many things we try in life are just like my facial masque-they just don't work as well as we would like. But marriage doesn't have to be one of those things. It doesn't have to be hit-or-miss: it can -- and will -- work when we decide that is IS going to work.

Just a few years ago, after two marriages, one divorce, and an audition for the second, I felt like an authority on failure. I didn't know a marriage could be born-again. But that's exactly what happened to mine, and I'd like to tell you how.

Born and raised in Paragould, Arkansas, I eloped at the age of sixteen with a basketball player who drove a convertible. But marriage was not what I had expected and thirty months later I had a child and a divorce, but not much more maturity. I blamed "them"- parents, society, my husband -- for my marriage failure.

After modeling for a while in New York, I was forced, due to lack of money, to move back to the South to be near my parents so they could keep my child. Then, despite their objections and my own guilt feelings, I entered a career in radio, fulfilling a childhood dream. With a sultry voice and the introduction, "You're listening to WHER-Radio, the nation's only all-girl station," I was on the air.

In the evenings I taught dancing, and waltzing around the dance studio I met HIM. He was just the kind of man girls dream about-- Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome!

His parents and the Marines had done a great job making him one of "the few good men." He had all the right credentials: He was a charter member of his hometown Jaycees, a Pennsylvania State University graduate and lover of the finer things. He was as beautiful inside as outside, and since he seemed so perfect, I expected him to perfect me. I thought he could settle me down.

The storm began brewing from the beginning. The Marine Corps didn't pay a Corporal scads of money, and we had $1,000 worth of dancing lessons to pay for--thanks to easy credit. Starting married life with a 3 year old child left us little time to get acquainted, and I had a difficult time putting it all together after my "tossed salad" life style. It was almost more than an engineer (by profession), Marine (by training), and German (by birth) could take.

"If you'd put things back after you get them out, you'd know where they are the next time you need them."

"If you'd not take everything so seriously, you'd be more fun."

He saw in me an easygoing manner, and I saw in him the ability to organize--areas in which we each wanted to grow. Years later our daughter was to write an English theme entitled “Opposites Do Attract," but at that time we were too miserable to allow that attraction to surface.

While Tony was in the Marine Corps, we moved around a lot, and I always worked at the local radio or TV station. I should have been happy, but I was depressed, miserable, and angry.

I had expected marriage to cure all my problems, but it only magnified them with angry flashes of "lightning" brilliance.

The tornado inside of me carried over into my job. I didn't really want to work away from home, but when I stayed home I was bored and had no money to call "my own." Besides, the prestige of my own radio or TV show fed my ego.

We sought happiness outside of marriage--in our social life, in our possessions, our children; the empty happiness which comes from seeing how many times you can get your picture in the paper through position, power, and prestige.

But the nagging emptiness inside of me remained. It argued with its unknown tormentor.

"Get your life straightened out.”

"But we go to church all the time," my threatened conscience would reply.

I taught Sunday school, Tony was a trustee on the building committee and served as church treasurer, and we both helped with Vacation Bible School. Even the minister joked about the death of some of his members-- "They starved to death," he would say, "from attending all of the meetings!" With the whirl of activities and the meaningless round of social events, church had become just like any of the other clubs we belonged to.

We studied on Sunday that "God is love" and "love is giving," yet I was only interested in "getting."

Now I’m supposed to adapt myself to my husband. But how could I, a former board member of the Women's Political Caucus, accept that?

Meanwhile, I had finally become an expert at something--I could criticize.

In public I was vivacious, outgoing, the public relations director for the human race. But at home I brightened up the room when I walked out. And when I was being mean, I couldn't allow my husband to be the nice person he really was. My attitude toward Tony and our marriage had changed him from a warm, loving individual to an old grouch. But I felt justified because he seemed to be so cold to me. (I would lie on my side of the bed at night, hoping he would make the "first move." Wasn't the husband supposed to be the aggressor?)

The cavity of emptiness inside me was getting huge. It wasn't that we didn't talk. I complained that he didn't. He said he would talk more, but he hated to interrupt!

The downward spiral continued until Tony moved out, and I filed for a divorce.

For two weeks during that time I sat in a stupor. It occurred to me the way things were going I could go from divorce to divorce to divorce. In fact, at our wedding my uncle had said, "We'll have this to go through again." Would we?

I was reminded of the mother who was watching the school drill team perform when she said, "Look, everyone is out of step but my son!" I felt like that son.... except that when everyone was out of step but me, I began to wonder about ME! My first marriage ended and the second one was dying because I couldn't cope with the problems, situations, challenges, and obstacles. That day when I looked at myself in the mirror I knew I was in the eye of the tornado. I was in a trance while the debris of my life swirled around me.

I had expected Tony to give me all I wanted, to be my one, sure, straight path to happiness. But did I have a choice? I wondered, "Is there an alternative to this cycle of excited love, disappointment, anger, disgust, apathy, divorce?" I pondered the question many times.

I asked myself and God, "Why did I get married?"

Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever wondered why you got married? Was it a search for love, romance, or sex? Or was it because of restrictions, school, poverty, pregnancy, or rebellion? Was it because everyone else was getting married, or was it truly love? Was it politically or socially advantageous to marry, or was it an escape from home life because parents were:

*Alcoholics

*Against marriage

*Against you (you thought)

Or you were:

*Raised in an orphanage

*Raised by grandparents

*Raised by step-parents

*Raised by neighbors

Are we blaming someone else for our marriage failure? Who wins the Blame Blotter of the year award? Does the need to change start with "them" or with us?

Do you wonder how you got to where you are now? How could you have dated, dreamed of, and maybe had children by that two-headed gargoyle you're tied to now?

In management courses at McClennan Community College I taught my Analysis-Action system for problem solving. It works in a marriage situation just as well as it does in solving business-related problems.

In the following text begins the Analysis-Action section for this first chapter. It contains forms which make it simple to analyze (examine and think out) where you've come from, where you are now, and where you're going with different areas of your life that affect you and your marriage. This How-To procedure gives you a blueprint for exploring your career, your pocketbook, your possessions, your children and your marriage. You may begin by analyzing your marriage.

I call the Analysis-Action (A-A) the Chrysalis stage; i.e., the "stage of Change."

The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary defines "Chrysalis," in addition to being the capsule-enclosed pupa from which a butterfly develops, as "anything in an undeveloped or transitory stage." The World Book Encyclopedia says, "It's a stage of development or change.

In order to change, we use a technique which companies use in decision-making and problem solving, a technique I taught in college management courses and with Executive Development Systems. You can use this system as " individual,” because being a human being is a business similar to any business up and down the street.

You have certain assets:

1. Knowledge - this encompasses all of the training, ability, and education you bring to this point.

2. Vitality - your stamina and liveliness where you can "get going" in your daily living.

3. Laughter - you have a sense of humor to cope with daily challenges.

4. Time - not the number of hours in a day, but the way you take those hours and use them for you!

5. Imagination - your creative, innovative flair and talents that anticipate your situations, opportunities, and challenges and how they will work out for you.

6. Persistence - the capability to keep on keeping on.

And then the one thing that makes us unique as humans, our Creator gives us the power to:

7. Choose - we may choose how we spend our time, talent, and energy. These decision-making and problem- solving techniques follow.

ANALYSIS-ACTION

Part One

1. Recognize you have a problem (you may want to drop the word “problem” from your vocabulary…make it situation, opportunity, challenge, etc.)

2. State the problem:

3. Define it more specifically (our marriage isn’t so great; we take each other for granted, etc.)

4. List all possible solutions (spend 10 minutes.)

5. Pick the best solution.

6. Set up your number one priority and move forward.

Yes, it is scary, BUT YOU CAN DO IT. You’ll be given a chance to make a promise to yourself starting today.

ANALYSIS-ACTION

Part Two

Chrysalis Stage

Her Analysis

MARRIAGE

Negative	Positive
1.Flirts with other women	2.Brings home check
3.Doesn’t laugh or have fun with me	4.Works hard

(Now list your own analysis of your marriage. Use more sheets if necessary, and see how good it feels to have it out in the open.)

1.	1.
2.	2.
3	3.
4.	4.
5.	5.
6.	6.
7.	7.

ANALYSIS-ACTION

Part Two

Chrysalis Stage

His Analysis

MARRIAGE

Negative	Positive
1.Doesn’t keep house as neat as Mom did	2.Is slender
3.Cooks the same things all the time	4.Is intelligent

(Now list your own analysis of your marriage. Use more sheets if necessary, and see how good it feels to have it out in the open.)

1.	1.
2.	2.
3	3.
4.	4.
5.	5.
6.	6.
7.	7.

Your evaluation will be your own and not for anyone else to evaluate or judge because you were not born into this world to live up to my expectations, or someone else’s. Nor was I born into this world to live up to your expectations. But we each are placed on this earth and given life for a specific purpose. Each of us was given talents by our Creator. He gave them to us to develop and through development to bless others. That’s our reason for being, and you and I are the only ones who can accomplish our particular tasks, achieve our God-given goals. Today you are exchanging a day of your life for what you are exchanging a moment of your life by reading them.

How do you start working toward solutions of your own? Decide what you can do today.

Set this into a promise to yourself: