Happiness, too, is often an act of will

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Bruce Allen

My friends and I have been doing a terrible job keeping up with this blog this summer. No excuses. As fall approaches, we hope to revive this site and bring some new energy to our ministry and our marriages.

Recently, our community was shaken by a murder-suicide that took the daughter of one of our most prominent and generous families. Events like this, which drastically change the trajectories of numerous lives are, mercifully, pretty rare. I pray virtually every day that God’s will for me and my family does not include a tragedy like this. For the grieving family, most of what follows will seem like empty words; their solace will come from God and leaning into one another. For others, I hope you can find some useful ideas below.

As we have pointed out numerous times on this site, love is an action, not a feeling. Feelings come and go, while the actions of our wills are up to us; we are in control of our wills. Thus, we have the ability to be in control of our relationships. Much the same can be said for happiness. We have the ability to create our own happiness. Heck, there are even exercises we can do to upgrade our own happiness.

In her book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, author Sonja Lyubomirsky takes a clinical approach to examining the subject of happiness. This study is briefly summarized in one of my favorite blogs, The Generous Husband. As blogger Paul Byerly observes, this is an important subject, as happy, effective, successful people have better marriages.

Like Fine Wine…

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Bruce Allen

…marriage often improves over time. Through the marriage enrichment ministry at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, we meet lots of couples, some who have been married for five months, others for five decades. The couples whose relationships have survived and thrived over 30 and 40 years often find themselves living in a sweet spot in their conjoined lives. This would include Nancy and me as we head into our 39th year together.

Here’s a nice little article from Huff Post entitled “7 Signs Your Long-Term Marriage Is Even Stronger Now Than It Was On Your Honeymoon.” Sit down with your spouse, grab a couple of beverages and go through the list, see how many are true for you. And don’t miss the slide show at the bottom in which readers share their secrets to long, happy marriages. The old adage that “keeping score raises the score” may be true for selling life insurance, but it is definitely NOT true when it comes to marriage.

If you’ve only been married for a few years, or even a few months, relax. Read some John Gottman. Buy the book “Crucial Conversations.” Take on Art and Laraine Bennett. Contrary to popular belief, there are a few good instruction manuals out there for being happily married. As we’ve said here before, successful marriage is not about finding the right person. It’s about being the right person.

Happy Easter, everyone.

A New Twist on Spring Cleaning

Posted on April 15, 2014 by joeindy

By Joe McGonigal

I am definitely ready to walk outside without layers of coats and sweaters! But with the change in season comes the dreaded…spring cleaning.

Instead of figuring out how to dodge my upcoming “chores” I thought I would give some thought to sprucing up my relationship with Denise! Check out this article in All Pro Dad…maybe your success with this list could eliminate some entries on your “honey-do” list!

Hurt people hurt people.

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Bruce Allen

Alcoholics Anonymous

Thanks to Fr. Emmerich Vogt and his 12 step ministries for the inspiration behind this post.

As humans, we are wounded by living in a broken, fallen world, surrounded by a culture that seems to celebrate failure, death, violence and decadence. Similarly, as humans, we seek out other humans as our life partners, and they, too, are wounded by the same fallen world. Despite our best efforts, we often hurt one another. Fr. Vogt speaks about spiritual healing, sharing lessons learned through years of service to a variety of 12 step programs and hundreds of participants. He has developed an entire ministry around the divine inspiration built into these 12 steps. Listening to him this past weekend, it occurred to me that the 12 steps can be easily applied to our marriages. With apologies to the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, I will paraphrase the steps themselves, in order to highlight their relevance to our marriages.

1. I am powerless in the battle against sin; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. This does not refer to the petty squabbles that all of us experience with our spouses, but to the body blows, the haymakers, the capital sins of infidelity, masturbation, porn addiction, gambling and drug and alcohol addictions that have the potential to ruin relationships. Not all of us suffer these afflictions, but those of us that do are largely helpless to fight them by ourselves.

2. Belief that a greater power can restore us. This is the first step addicts must take in order to begin the healing process, and is thus one of the most difficult. It is a necessary, but not sufficient, belief. If we are suffering in our marriages, we are called to find the strength to first believe that we can be saved, that our relationship is not doomed. In one of Jewel’s early songs, she spoke about all of us having “addictions to feed.” As spouses, we are all addicted to something; we must embrace this belief in order to begin the healing process.

3. Deciding to turn one’s life over to the will of God. Probably very few of you reading this have not, in some way, already done this. It is God’s will that we live together in harmony; if it weren’t, we wouldn’t stand a chance. Surrendering to the will of God follows accepting the belief that He can restore us.

4. Taking a fearless moral inventory. If we are going to succeed as a couple, each of us must take responsibility for our own shortcomings. Playing the blame game is a guaranteed path to failure. We must focus on what we refer to as “I” problems, not “you” problems. In the immortal words of Pogo, “we have met the enemy, and he is us.” As couples, I believe that, having taken this painful inventory, we must consider sharing it with our spouses. Or at least as much of it as we can, without hurting our partner. As Father observes, “Honesty without gentleness is brutality.” See #5.

5. Confessing our sins/faults/shortcomings to ourselves, to God, and to one other person–our spouse. Confession is itself a sacrament, and acknowledging our sins one of the basic elements of the Mass. By speaking these words out loud, we take away one of the hiding places most of us use to avoid dealing with our sins–not talking about them. If we are to seek true health, we cannot ignore our illnesses, any of them. We must bring them out into the light of day, before God and our spouses. This one strikes me as another of the more difficult steps in the process.

6. We resolve that we are ready to have God remove the madness from our wounded selves. We must acknowledge that we cannot fix our addictions alone, and we cannot expect our spouses to fix us, either. We need to pray to God, in his mercy, to send The Holy Spirit to give us the strength to choose the narrow gate, to take the first steps toward becoming whole, and healed, capable of loving ourselves and worthy of the love of our spouses. In short, we must first pray, in order to prepare ourselves to be healed.

7. Humbly ask God to remove my defects. One of the characteristics I’ve noticed in the people I’ve come to know and love at OLMC is a deep-seated humility, the constant refusal to take credit for all of the good they do, and their habit of always giving credit to God. My own personal motto, which I do not practice nearly enough, is “Be humble or get humbled.” We must be willing to knock on the door, God’s door, but we must do it in a spirit of humility, seeking his mercy rather than justice. This is true with our spouses as well, for as spouses we all need to give and seek forgiveness.

8. List everyone we’ve harmed, and be willing to make amends with them all. At the top of the list, right behind God, should be our spouses, for they live in our presence daily, and are most likely to have been hurt by our sinfulness. There is undoubtedly a long list of people behind them. It is an inescapable truth that our sinfulness hurts God, and that our spouses bear the brunt of our addictions and faults in the world. For you, there may be a lengthy list of folks behind the first two, but it is important to start at the top. For me, the next five names on the list are my children and my parents, for all of them have undoubtedly suffered at my hands, in my thoughts and in my words.

9. Apologize to everyone you’ve harmed, except when to do so will injure them. For the living people on your list, including your spouse, this is rather straightforward, but must be approached in an almost spiritual sincerity. As for God and the deceased persons on your list, it is only through prayer that you will be able to communicate your regret and apology. Doing so, whether speaking to the living or praying to those others, is a cleansing act, one which should not be dreaded, but rather embraced. How can we not feel better after having sincerely apologized to those people we’ve hurt? As a young man, I went to my parents house one day and apologized for every single word that had come out of my mouth for the previous four years. The three of us shared a toast–several in fact–in celebration of how good we all felt afterwards. That was over 40 years ago, and I remember it as if it was yesterday.

10. Commit to a daily examination of conscience. If we are committed to living in the moment–give us this day our daily bread–we should regularly ask ourselves, “How did I do today?” Some days will be better than others. The point is that healing is a process, not a silver bullet, and we must commit to examining our conscience every day. As addicts, we are capable of falling off our own particular wagon on any given day, and it is alleged to take 21 days to form new habits. If we are to be healed, there can be no place to run to, no place to hide. Examine your actions, words and thoughts every day. If possible, share this process with your spouse; you can help keep each other on track. After all, in marriage we are not called to achieve Heaven for ourselves, but to help our spouses find their way to Heaven.

11. Pray and meditate to increase contact with God. This, again, is a daily activity, as befits human nature. Most of us don’t suddenly fall off a wagon we’ve been on for months or years; typically, we gradually backslide into our old ways. This, I believe, is true for people such as myself with food issues. I need to weigh myself every day in order to avoid waking up one day six months from now and being at the weight I was when I started taking better care of myself. For others–especially those with alcohol and drug addictions–the world can tilt off its axis almost without warning. In either case, by increasing our contact with God we are in a better position to enlist his help. For those of us who find prayer difficult, saying the words of The Serenity Prayer is a fine place to start.

12. Practice these principals in everything we do. One of my best friends, who used to have issues around alcohol, once told me that the difference between drunks and alcoholics is that alcoholics go to meetings. Practicing these techniques in our marriages does not require us to commit to any kind of formal 12 step program. But it does require us to thoughtfully approach each other in humility, with forgiveness in our hearts, in as honest a manner as possible. We must be convinced that we ourselves are, in most cases, the problem, and we must share this spirit. With God’s grace, we will find happiness and peace in our marriages, create loving homes for our children, and model the behaviors that will, in turn, make them good parents to their own kids someday.

If Momma Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Bruce Allen

One of the old jokes Nancy and I have woven into our relationship goes like this, as I tell it. “When we were first married, I decided that I would make all the big decisions and that Nancy could make all the small decisions. Luckily for us, in over 38 years of marriage, there haven’t been any big decisions…” At the heart of this laugher is the concept of influence, the extent to which spouses allow their mate to shape their thinking and actions. And according to the Gottmans, couples who share influence with one another are more likely to have lasting, fruitful and rewarding marriages than those who don’t.
In the 21st century, it is amazing to me that we still see and hear vestiges of 19th century thinking on this subject, marriages in which the husband assumes the role of the dominant decision-maker, with the wife taking the inferior position of having to defer to his judgment (or lack thereof) and live with decisions he makes almost entirely on his own. Less common, I suspect, are marriages in which the wife makes most of the decisions, and the husband meekly accepts orders and direction from her. These types of relationships lack equilibrium and are, hence, less stable than relationships in which influence is mutually observed and decisions are shared. Personally, I’m not sure I would be happy in either extreme, as I don’t like the feeling of being directed or pushed around, but also lack confidence in my ability to make important decisions on my own. One of the qualities that attracted me to Nancy in the very beginning was her assertiveness, the clear understanding that I would not be piloting this relationship entirely by myself.

How does your own relationship stack up in this area? The following 20 true/false questions were developed by The Gottman Institute in order to help couples assess the extent to which they allow their spouses to influence them. Perhaps you and your spouse feel you liberally allow one another to influence the thinking and actions of the other. If you’d like to test that theory, cut and paste the following questions into a Word document, print it twice, sit down together, answer the questions, and compare your answers.

1. I am really interested in my partner’s opinions on our basic issues. T F
2. I usually learn a lot from my partner even when we disagree. T F
3. I want my partner to feel that what he or she says really counts with me. T F
4. I generally want my partner to feel influential in this marriage. T F
5. I can listen to my partner, but only up to a point. T F
6. My partner has a lot of basic common sense. T F
7. I try to communicate respect even during our disagreements. T F
8. If I keep trying to convince my partner, I will eventually win out. T F
9. I don’t reject my partner’s opinions out of hand. T F
10. My partner is not rational enough to take seriously when we discuss our issues. T F
11. I believe in lots of give and take in our discussions. T F
12. I am very persuasive and usually can win arguments with my partner. T F
13. I feel I have an important say when we make decisions. T F
14. My partner usually has good ideas. T F
15. My partner is basically a great help as a problem solver. T F
16. I try to listen respectfully, even when I disagree. T F
17. My ideas for solutions are usually much better than my partner’s. T F
18 I can usually find something to agree with in my partner’s positions. T F
19. My partner is usually too emotional. T F
20. I am the one who needs to make the major decisions in this relationship. T F

An excellent metric for your ability to influence one another follows: If answering these questions and discussing your responses leads to an argument, you may need to work on this aspect of your relationship. If answering these questions and discussing your responses leads to sex, you’re probably doing okay.

Temperament and personality types will enter into this process. For Nancy and me, in that we have significantly different preferences when it comes to Myers-Briggs typing, it is generally helpful when we sit down together to iron out disagreements. As Gottman points out, the process of reaching external conflict resolution often relies on one’s ability to reach internal conflict resolution first, by learning to accept influence from one’s partner. Early in relationships, this can be a challenge, as most of us enter marriage having relied almost exclusively on our own judgment for some period of time. Overcoming disagreements requires us first to acknowledge that our partner’s point of view, though different from ours, may, in fact, be as valid, or even more valid, than our own. Over time, and with practice, couples in successful relationships can learn how to navigate such differences with relative ease.

I suspect this is not always true with couples whose Myers-Briggs profiles are more similar. In such marriages, it seems to me that significant disagreements may be more rare, but may be harder to resolve since each spouse approaches decision-making in a similar way. In these instances, it may be that the best outcome the couple can hope for is to agree to disagree, a sub-optimal solution which, over time, may evolve into a “we just don’t seem to agree about anything” position that could require professional counseling.

One of the most mis-applied verses in scripture is found in Ephesians 5:22-24, which is often used to suggest that women must be submissive to their husbands. But by reading through verse 33, it becomes clear that God expects equality in our marriages. Husbands, if you wish to justify 19th century thinking by applying only the first three verses from this passage, you are likely to end up with an unhappy wife. And, as the old saying goes, if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

There’s No Pill for Boring

Posted on November 30, 2013 by Bruce Allen

If you were to organize a game of Family Feud with married couples under the age of 30–dividing the teams into husbands versus wives–and the question was, “Which aspect of your relationship do you most fear losing in the next 30 years?”, topping the list for the men would probably be some version of “losing my world-class sexual virility.” Even those of us who consider ourselves to be merely average lovers might put this response in the top three, alongside “no longer being able to support my family” and perhaps “having to become the primary caregiver for our kids/her mom/anyone, really.” Of course, I have no clear idea as to the answers that might top the ladies’ list, which would require more insight into the female psyche than I’ve ever possessed.

Anyway, the fear of no longer being able to satisfy our wives sexually is, I think, fairly universal among husbands. Evidence for this comes in the sheer volume of ads featured on ESPN-type sports channels and NFL games for drugs that treated the dreaded “E.D.” and which, by most accounts, adequately address the problem for many, if not most guys. (These ads do not, of course, suggest that, at age 60, our wives may not want us to be Hugh Jackman in the marital bed, instead preferring more of a Michael Buble-type of experience.) The point here is that, for us husbands and our primary concern growing older–THERE’S A PILL FOR THAT!

For young married couples with children, what few private conversations we’re able to share probably center around the kids, our jobs and the news of the day delivered by our TV sets–sports, a murder somewhere, bad weather, etc. In the evening, once the kids are safely in their beds, we sit down in front of the TV, suck up a little screen, and then head up to bed, preparing to do battle with the world again the next day. Published data suggests that married couples with children spend, on average, something like seven minutes a day actually talking with one another. I suspect that many of these conversational snippets include one or both spouses punching away on a smartphone.

My wife Nancy shared an observation with me years ago that stuck in my head. She said that the only difference between a person today and that person a year from now is the places he (or she) has been, the people he’s met, and the books he’s read. For many parents with busy kids, travel opportunities are often limited, our circles of friends include mostly other parents, and we rarely have time to luxuriate with a good book for a few hours. Over time, these problems change, but don’t go away. Our children and their schedules continue to dominate our non-work time, even after they leave for college or elsewhere, our circles of friends tend to shrink as people move or get divorced, and the amount of free time available to us never seems to grow. If we’re fortunate enough to advance in our careers, work increasingly intrudes on both our family and free time.

As the expression goes, life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans. Suddenly we’re in our fifties, empty-nesters, with fewer friends than we used to have. Our careers may be winding down, or perhaps we’ve been displaced from once lofty jobs and have joined the legions of post-50 workers facing unemployment, or under-employment, in which the job satisfaction quotient is drastically reduced, along with the space in our consciousness formerly occupied by work.

As couples, the question, suddenly, is, “What are we going to talk about together?” If you track divorce statistics, you see the predictable spike around the so-called “seven year itch”, but then observe another one that jumps up around year 30. It is this second one that we must prepare for, as it is avoidable and at least as destructive as the early one. It is the one that would leave us facing the rest of our lives alone, damaged by the loss of three decades of our personal life story, contemplating the brutal prospect of re-entering the “dating game” and its attendant impossibilities. As Catholics, it is also one bereft of the possibility of a second marriage, one which is even more likely to fail than was the first.

The challenge, and the opportunity, is to remain interesting to each other. To take advantage of the occasional stolen minutes or hours while we’re young to go to a museum or gallery, meet some new people through, say, volunteer work or a parish ministry, and to read books. Reading books is, by far, the easiest, as Kindles and books-on-CD offer opportunities to turn dead time spent waiting in airports, driving our cars, or waiting in our cars for soccer practice to end into time spent staying relevant and interesting. What we see, where we go, and what we read is not nearly as important as the seeing, the going and the reading itself.

The momentary discussions about our kids, our jobs and the news du jour will, over time, give way to expanses of time together. When that time comes, it is important that we have things to talk about. As we mature, we owe it to our spouses, even if we can’t stay physically buff and movie star-gorgeous, to remain interesting, aware of the things each other takes pleasure in, and capable of conducting a coherent personal conversation. Otherwise, we are at risk for becoming incurably, terminally dull. And there’s no pill for boring.

“You’re So Predictable”

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Bruce Allen

Many of us have heard this charge leveled by one spouse toward another, whether in a movie, on TV, or perhaps in our own homes. It reflects one of John Gottman’s Four Horsemen–contempt. By being predictable, it is implied that we are also dull, boring, uninteresting and non-spontaneous. It is generally not a compliment. Scripture and The Catechism touch this issue over and over again.

Cat. 214. God, “He who is,” revealed himself to Israel as the one “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” These two terms express summarily the riches of the divine name. In all his works God displays not only his kindness, goodness, grace, and steadfast love, but also his trustworthiness, constancy, faithfulness, and truth.

My sense is that this particular flavor of contempt emanates from one of two likely sources. The first is what I think of as “children of chaos.” Kids raised in an unstable family situation, where there is drama, abuse, violence or other negative environmental factors, often grow up to be adults who crave chaos. If there is not drama in their family, they will seek opportunities to create it. If things are peaceful and calm, they will find a reason to cause disruption. If everything is running smoothly, they will throw a wrench into the works. We all seek that to which we became accustomed as kids, and this is no exception. Woe be to the woman married to one of these men.

Micah 7:18. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.

Another source of such disdain, as I see it, is the ennui of the young and privileged. Kids who grew up with money, who spent winter breaks skiing in Vail, or went on European cruises in the summer, often grow up to be adults with what I think of as a low “coefficient of boredom.” They often find themselves at loose ends, put off by routine, and constantly in search of something fun or expensive or unexpected to get their engines revving. Predictability probably ranks just below “cheap” on their list of cardinal sins. Woe be to the man married to one of these women.

Romans 2:4. Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Having grown up in neither of these environments, and having sought and found a woman from a family similar to mine, I feel blessed to be exempt from this particular criticism. Not that I’m immune from criticism, most of it richly deserved. As mature adults, I think we have grown to equate predictable with dependable. Just the other night Nancy and I were sitting together when, unprompted by anything, she said, “I love coming home to you in the evening.” My work schedule allows me to get home in mid-afternoon, and she knows that by the time she rolls in at 6:30 or so I’ll have the kitchen squared away, dinner on the stove, and a cold glass of chardonnay awaiting her. We generally sit together for half an hour and share what our days were like. Having thus disposed of any negative residue from our workdays, we can sit down to dinner together, and then do whatever wants or needs doing in the evening.

Cat 1804. Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.

It strikes me as logical that boredom with one’s spouse can easily lead one to look for greener pastures, for the excitement and newness that can accompany marital infidelity. Though such adventures are generally short-lived, they may afford the stimulation the pulse-pounding taste of forbidden fruit, what Eric Clapton once referred to as the “dull surprise” missing in some people’s lives. Regrettably, this newness probably wears off rather quickly, leading either to a series of such affairs or resignation to a life of perceived drudgery.

Cat 2365. Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one’s given word. God is faithful. The Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and woman to enter into Christ’s fidelity for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they bear witness to this mystery before the world.

Once again, we are reminded that our efforts in this regard should not be to FIND the right person, but to BE the right person. To be grateful for the truth in Nancy’s observation that “for every Jack there is a Jill.” To count among our blessings the stability of our relationships, and the firm platform it provides our children as they are formed into adults. In sales, one of the most powerful statements we can make to a customer is, “You can depend on me to do what I say I’m going to do.” In marriage, God’s grace is found in the spouse who is dependable, faithful, and happy to serve our needs For those of us who ended up with that person, we should thank God every day. For those of us who have not yet become that person, we should pray for the grace and fortitude to persist, to reach the point in our relationships where “You’re so predictable” is praise of the highest order.

Eph 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

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