“My son and his wife seem to be really struggling with their relationship. They have only been married 7 years. I have tried to help by suggesting they each don’t work so much and that they don’t spend so much time on their phones and take little walks together. They sometimes go separate ways for weekends and holidays. They have never said there is a problem. I offered to dog-sit while they go out and spend time together. I don’t know what else to suggest. Please help.”
There is no doubt you are well intentioned and desire what is best for your son and his wife. I suggest you make clear to them how much you care and then trust them to find their unique path as husband and wife (or not).
It is not that I do not share your hope that your son and his wife’s marriage survives and thrives – but they may well be already thriving.
The issues you identify (if they are issues) are seldom solved by walks together or more time spent away from work and more time together. Something deeper is revealed in their behaviors that must be addressed – if these are problems to the couple.
Your son and his wife may be happy with things to remain just as they are.
The world is broken: may I do my part and in my sphere of influence offer my contribution, be it large or small, to participate in its healing.
The world is exciting: may I participate in what it offers by engaging in community events and by serving others.
People are lonely and I too am often lonely: may I do my part and reach out to others and be a good listener.
People are usually fabulous, hilarious, creative: may I embrace some of the many opportunities that come my way to meet new people.
People are struggling in all manner of ways: may I do my part, large or small, and be generous and in creative and helpful ways, ease the burdens others have to bear.
Possibilities are endless: may I have an eye for new ways to do “old” things and see potential others are yet to consider.
People can be hard and ruthless and unforgiving – may I be gentle-hearted and kind, equipped, ready and able to offer appropriate grace.
Families reveal strengths and faultlines, unity and divisions, humility and arrogance, during periods of change and challenge.
All families are tested from time to time as people grow, struggle, succeed, fail, and recover.
Births and naming of babies; deaths and funerals; adoptions; engagements and weddings; divorces, addictions and recovery from addictions, will put test to immediate and extended families and reveal their resourcefulness and metal.
Life changing events test and expose family metal – what the family is “made of.”
Family metal is strengthened when individuals take care of themselves within the family, no matter what the family may be facing.
You demonstrate your metal when you speak up for yourself and are clear about who you are and what you want.
You show your strength and your integrity when you dismiss rumors and call rumors what they are even if rumors come from the mouths of those whom you most love.
You add to the family strength when you listen to all sources of division without siding with any.
You demonstrate your integrity when you learn to move from reactivity and knee-jerk flare ups to thoughtful and caring responses.
You become a source of healing and transformation when you take care of yourself even in the midst of family stress and trauma.
Do you remember your wedding vows and have you ever gone back and read them again?
Having declared your intent at your wedding, the officiant probably said something like this — I’ll use Janet and George for ease in the hopes you’ll do the obvious and replace them with your own names:
“Janet and George since it is your intention to marry, please join your right hands, and with your promises bind yourselves to each other as husband and wife:
Please repeat after me….
I, George, take you, Janet, to be my wife; and I promise, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.
Janet, will you repeat these vows after me:
I, Janet, take you, George, to be my husband; and I promise, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.”
This many years later, be it 2 or 20 or 60 years later, how are you doing when it comes to keeping those sacred vows?
If your story is beautiful and brave or sad and brutal, or a mix of all….
Please let me know. I want to hear from you.
A couple said these vows with me this past weekend.
Writing, thinking, talking about our mother, Mavis Iona Smith, has never been easy.
I keep meeting unfinished business.
We confront each other occasionally – in casual social interactions when I regard, with an air of flippancy, a matter Mother would have offered serious consideration, or when I cook the “wrong” way.
It is among several of my chief regrets that I discovered, when it was too late, the importance of a man knowing his mother.
I hear Mom’s voice now and then.
Mom had a beautiful singing voice and would fill the house when mother sang.
“Just like Virginia Lee,” dad would say, “your mother sings just as beautifully. Listen, you can hardly tell the difference.”
Virginia Lee was one of South Africa’s top selling vocalists.
Sometimes my mother’s voice addresses me from some galaxy within my psyche. I usually smile and, despite her protestations, proceed however I choose. I get a perfected frown when I am tempted to bend the rules, stretch the truth.
I have seen Mother cast affirming smiles when I allow fairness, compassion, kindness and mercy to prevail.
I am regularly reminded that the umbilical cord is infinitely elastic; the woman who bore me, no matter how independent I appear to be, forever influences me, sometimes tugging a little, urging me toward what is right, good, merciful and honest.
(If the above is “bulky” in the reading it’s perhaps because dad permitted no pronouns when referring to one’s mother).
Richard McChurch was very aware that God’s a communicating God. The still small voice or the thunderous call, and anything in between, (whichever God might choose to use at a given time) was not something to which he often laid claim. When Richard felt God had spoken to him, he was always particular about inserting the words “I believe God spoke to me.” This not only gave him room to be wrong but also the appearance of humility.
One day he had a very unsettling experience. It was as if everything he had ever believed about hearing God’s voice was turned upside down.
“What do you really want, Richard?” God asked when Richard was very earnestly praying about a few major decisions.
The question was posed long and hard. It lodged somewhere deep in Richard. There were no voices, no unusual feelings. This was a “matter-of-fact God” meeting him, as if face-to-face. There was no mistaking who it was as far as Richard was concerned.
“Go on, figure it out Richard. What do you really want?” he felt God say.
It was, pondered Richard, as if God was playfully saying, “Stop asking me what I want for you. I know what I want for you. I am God. I am not at all confused about what I want for you. What I require is that you get the courage to determine what you want for you. Do this, Richard, and we can do business.”
Richard was nervous. In his silent negotiations, random and scary thoughts began darting across his mind. It was very disconcerting.
Richard was full of questions“What if I want to break up my family, hurt someone? Steal something?” he questioned God.
“Is that what you really want? You want to go around hurting people? Do you really want to take what is not yours? Do you think damaging others is what you were cut out for?”
“No Lord.”
“Then quit the games, Richard.”
He felt God’s persistent voice welling up inside him.
“I am asking you to evaluate, for yourself, how you would most like to use your many talents. Take stock of the time you have left, the opportunities that come your way. You keep saying I will grant you ‘the desires of your heart’ Richard. But you know what? You wouldn’t recognize them if they jumped out at you from behind a bush. I am asking you to take the responsibility for your life. What inspires you, Richard? Develop a blueprint, Richard. Discover and know yourself, Richard. Present ME with a plan instead of continually asking me for my plan. Find my plan buried like treasure, in your strongest desires and longings. Grow up, in other words!”
Richard was shocked to hear God speak in this manner. He had always been taught that God had a plan for his life and for many years he had waited “in faith” for that plan to unfold. Now, it sounded, yes, it sounded as if God expected him to actually do something!
“That’s the problem!” God interrupted his confusion, “you want to give me the responsibility for your life when I want you to be responsible for your own life. You think my will is something deep and mysterious. It’s not. In fact my will for you is that you discover and do what you really want! Just make sure it is what you really want.”
Richard thought long and hard. He realized, to his horror that he really did not like his career. He’d chosen it purely for money and status. He realized that even his sports interests were built around promoting his career. He sat in stunned silence. Richard realized that if he honestly answered the question he was in trouble.
“What I really want to do God, is so far from what I am doing that it will take a miracle from you to turn it around,” he said in desperation.
A parent of one of my son’s peers asked my son, then about 11, if I was a “helicopter” parent.
For the uninitiated, this is a somewhat playful but can be demeaning term teachers may use for the “over-parenting” types teachers must often engage.
It’s the hyper-vigilant, ever anxious, overly child-focussed parent whose entire life appears to hub around a child or children. It is the parent who is focussed almost solely on the child’s moods, grades, levels of content or discontent. It is the parent who sees parenting as a 24/7/365 forever-calling, and who, with the advent of a child or children, finally has something for which to live.
“No, he’s more like a submarine,” he replied.
This response entertained me. It revealed an uncanny understanding of how I usually operate. This compliment still enriches me even though my parenting has ended. (I am still their dad but my sons are launched).
When facing a challenge or an issue, I tend to circle the area, often undetected. I watch. I assess, get counsel.
Then, I act.
It may take a while.
What some may perceive as inaction — is not.
The submarine is scouting the territory, testing the tides, weighing options.
The sub is seeking objectivity, assessing an approach, trying to love, and timing the potential, if necessary, of one. or even several, strikes.
I am repeatedly reminded that everyone you and I meet, and everyone you and I already know, is capable of goodness and kindness —- I believe it comes with our humanity — and is living a story worth hearing. It’s amplified for me when I’m traveling.
A woman from Ukraine cut my hair this morning in a Prague barbershop. I wish I could have spoken her language and spent an hour in a coffee shop listening to her. Her kindness, her artist’s approach to my limited amounts of hair (lacking in potential to warrant her advanced skills) reached something in me.
It was much more than a haircut.
The Russian Uber driver who drove me home from dinner last evening made me wish I spoke Russian. The photographs of his wife and children mounted on his dashboard gave hint that he is far from his family. I would have loved the opportunity to hear more about his life. He treated me with kindness and got quite a kick out of seeing a photograph of my sons as I exited his vehicle.
It was much more than a safe ride to the hotel.
The woman who checked me into an earlier flight than the one I was supposed to take to my Czech Republic destination was thrilled to tell me in broken English that she too is a Smith. The delight in her eyes when expressing that there indeed was a seat for me on an earlier flight revealed genuine joy.
Her zeal meant much more to me than an earlier than scheduled arrival.
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