Facing the Reality of Fantasy

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta in May 2005.

We are living in an age where the ability to escape from reality is only the click of a button away. We can have instant access to all sorts of fantasy – television, movies, computer games, internet chat rooms or pornography – just to name a few. Instead of facing the present circumstances of the life we are in, we can essentially live another life. I would like to pose the idea that I think a large part of being mentally and emotionally healthy is to live in reality. I also think that God calls us to this – to live in truth, or reality.

I would like to clarify that I’m all for recreation and relaxation. This too is something God calls us to do – to rest from work. Also, I believe God placed in us a need for stories. It is part of who we are. A large part of the Bible consists of stories. So not all escape into movies, TV, books, or games is bad. But the questions to ask ourselves are these: Are we doing what we’re doing to relax, or are we trying to calm anxiety or replace loneliness? And what do our real life relationships look like?

While not all forms of fantasy are wrong, depending on our motivation, I do think that any escape to internet pornography is wrong. In case parents do not know, the largest consumers of internet pornography are children ages 11-17. Usually behind pornographers is organized crime, and they are being extremely aggressive in going after our children because they want customers for life. In addition, so many men are addicted to internet pornography that it has become one of the leading causes of divorce today. Women too view pornography and evidence has begun to show that women’s brains are actually being rewired so they are becoming more sexually aggressive and more responsive to visual stimulation by sexual images than in times past. Even so, both men and women become involved in chat rooms and many a marriage has been destroyed by an online relationship.

One danger of the addiction of pornography is that it produces a release of endorphins in the brain. This is like a drug released in our body vs. a foreign substance, like marijuana or heroin, which has to be introduced. The effect feels so good that the person cannot stop. Later a person usually experiences enormous guilt and shame and possibly depression. Yet the person trapped in pornography has a continual desire for more and gets trapped in a cycle. Unlike other abusive substances, pornography has the three A’s: it is Accessible, Anonymous, and Affordable. For anyone trapped in internet pornography, intervention is absolutely necessary. The prognosis for change is 100%, but the key factor is whether the person wants to become pure or not. But the way to getting well is by bringing it to light. The person must have accountability to another person or a group. And internet filters must be in place.

The antidotes to fantasy are fellowship and facing our pain. Anyone who is escaping to a fantasy life or fantasy relationship is probably lacking intimacy in their real relationships. All of us have an inborn desire to be loved, understood, and affirmed. Fantasy relationships can only satisfy these deep desires momentarily. And in the deepest recesses of our heart is a void that only God can fill. I love what G. K. Chesterton says, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” I would say that is true for anyone clicking onto internet porn sites as well.

I would challenge you to face the reality of fantasy and its destructiveness to marriages and families. I would ask that you become involved with real people and real life circumstances and responsibilities, rather than seeking time alone with a machine. But be warned, real love is messy and relationships take work. But they are much more satisfying. Indeed, we were made for relationship.

Advice to Couples Planning to Wed

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta's Wedding Issue in 2005.

As a marriage counselor I have noticed how much time and attention have been devoted to the preparations for the wedding but how little have been devoted to the preparation for the marriage itself. In fact, the wedding plans can seem to take on a life of their own and the couple can easily lose perspective of their future relationship.

Recent statistics show that marital satisfaction begins to drop in the first 4 years of marriage and by the end of 5 years of marriage, 19% of couples will be divorced. One survey found that 40% of newlyweds found marriage harder than they had expected and also felt that their partner had become more critical after marriage. It is becoming more and more evident that couples not only need pre-marital preparation but an on-going support system to make marriage work. (Prepare-Enrich, 2003)

One reason for some post-marital distress is the marriage myth that you can take all positive things from your family of origin and leave behind all the negative things and in effect have a fresh start. Wrong! In actuality, you bring it all into the marriage. In fact, the sources of much of the conflict or unhappiness are what I call pre-morbid factors, such as crises, poor relationships, and unresolved conflicts from the past. Another reason for distress is that the rose colored glasses come off that have filtered in the positive things about the other person and filtered out the negative things. When these glasses come off, the true person emerges, warts and all. Sometimes this is immediately, even on the honeymoon, or in the few months that follow. This is even true of live-in couples, who think they have gotten to know each other well, but they have just postponed this process of letting their guard down completely because the uncertainty of the commitment. An additional reason for distress following marriage is the myth that another person can make you whole. Unless a person is happy being single, it is unlikely he or she will be happy being married. The best thing a person can do to prepare for marriage is to become an emotionally healthy individual.

I like to recommend pre-marital counseling at least six months prior to the wedding. This way the relationship of the couple can be explored without the competing pressure of the wedding plans. Also, if a couple discover that they need to break or postpone the engagement, they usually have not made such extensive plans that they find it almost impossible to back out of them. A good pre-marital counselor will usually explore the couple’s goals and expectations of the marriage, their families of origin and how they plan to blend them, their personality and gender differences, their communication skills and ability to resolve conflict, and their financial plans and how they view money. Even with good pre-marital counseling, the most important benefit is that they have someone to whom they can return if they encounter difficulty a few months or years into the marriage. The expectations of marriage rarely match the reality of what is actually experienced. So if you do not have pre-marital counseling, do get counseling after the marriage if you encounter problems – the earlier the better. If problems are allowed to fester, they can become worse as time goes on with the couple becoming polarized in seemingly entrenched stances.

So much of what we see and hear about marriage these days is negative. It seems the “for better or for worse” takes on the “for worse” part. But the “for better” part can be a wonderful relationship that can provide our most basic need of a loving attachment to another human being. The commitment aspect of marriage underlies this secure attachment. The sexual aspect of marriage sets it apart from other relationships and can be a continual source of pleasure and a way of connecting for years to come. And the intimacy aspect of marriage can be that of soul mates who know and are known by each other. This is where communication skills are so important. Some couples are so afraid of conflict, especially if it was not modeled properly in their families, that they avoid it at all costs. But conflict handled in the right way can actually increase intimacy.

It was once thought that the ability to resolve conflict was the best predictor of marital satisfaction. But the most recent research indicates the best predecitors to be the wife’s ability to be soothing and have a “softened start-up” when approaching her husband and the husband’s being able to tolerate and respond to his wife’s negative emotion. (Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, July 2003) It is vital that couples stay emotionally engaged and actively responding to one another. It seems the age old biblical principles still work – “wives, respect your husbands” (translated, do not nag or attempt to control them) and “husbands, understand your wives” (translated, listen to them, do not withdraw from them or just try to fix their problem).

In conclusion, couples who are planning to marry, please work on the relationship. A good relationship will not just magically happen. Think of being married as becoming a team together, with each fitting their plans to one another. If each selfishly lives their own life without regard to how it effects the other, they miss out on the marvelous support and comfort that marriage can provide.

(Note: If you cannot obtain adequate pre-marital counseling, I recommend you do some reading on the subject. Some books I would recommend are Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, and Fighting for Your Marriage, by Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg.)

What Is Your Parenting Style?

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta in March 2005.

There are basically three types of parenting styles – permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative. Depending on which one a parent may practice may have a significant outcome on their child’s character development. As I will explain, the permissive parent and the authoritarian parent both get out of balance – the permissive parent in love and the authoritarian parent in rules, whereas the authoritative parent strikes the right balance between the two.

Permissiveness is a style of parenting which does not impose age appropriate limits on a child’s behavior. It is usually rooted in the parent’s inability to tolerate their child’s anger or unhappiness. One root of the problem is the parent’s need for a child’s closeness or affection to meet their own unmet needs. The child is unwittingly used to bring warmth and love to the parent. This is the reverse of what parenting should be: the parent should give love and affection to the child with no return expectations. Making the child responsible for the parent’s happiness is a huge responsibility. The child will do it because children come into this world hungry for relationship.

Another underlying reason for permissiveness is the parent’s over-identification with the child’s pain, fear or loneliness because they confuse their own painful feelings with their child’s. For example, a mother who was abandoned emotionally as a child might interpret her child’s protest at leaving on a date night with her husband as abandoning her child. The difference is – her child has not been abandoned but is doing what children are supposed to do – protest if they don’t like something. Regardless of the source of the problem, the permissive parent has trouble saying no to their child’s protests or steps in to rescue them from suffering. These parents think love means rotating their lives around their children. Like helicopters, they hover over their children and rescue them whenever trouble arises. While these parents think they are easing their children’s paths to adulthood, these children are usually unequipped for life.

The other unbalanced style of parenting is authoritarianism. These parents are like drill sergeants. They also love their children and are determined to show it by disciplining them. Their words are filled with anger, put downs, commands, and I-told-you-so’s. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times!” or “Shut up and go to your room!” they may bark. The underlying message they send their kids is that they’re dumb and cannot think for themselves. When small children rebel, drill sergeant parents can quash a rebellion with a stern order or punishment. But when adolescents rebel, parental orders become unenforceable. Anytime a parent explodes in anger when a child does something wrong (e.g, loses book, makes a bad grade), the child learns their behavior makes an adult mad. The child gets angry in return, rather than learning from the experience. These children do not learn to think and are as dependent on their parents as the helicopter kids.

The preferred style of parenting – the authoritative style – strikes the right balance by giving the child the understanding he or she needs while at the same time enforcing the limit. This type of parent can tolerate their child’s protests without reacting emotionally themselves. They stay calm and contain their child’s protests by offering empathy. Empathy is the ability to “feel with” or identify their child’s emotions, validating that it is all right their child expresses anger or fear or pain. Yet the parent stays calm, sets the limit and offers a choice to the child. This is the right kind of love because it fills up a child inside and meets their relational needs. Yet it also teaches their child about reality. For example, a parent may say to a toddler who tries to hit them with a ball, “People are not for hitting. You may hit the tree, or I will play catch with you.” The emotions are removed while the child is forced to think. Or a parent might say to a teen who fails a test, “I’m so sorry. I hate it when I do badly myself. What are you going to do about it?” This again forces the child to think and solve his own problem.

The authoritative parent stays calm but firm. The child learns to grieve their loss and move on. They learn the valuable lesson they cannot make reality change, but at the same time they are satisfied with their parent’s loving understanding. This style of parenting teaches toleration of frustration and is a valuable way to instill character in a child.

The State of Marriage

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta in January 2005.

Since this is the month in which the President delivers his “State of the Union” address, I thought I would speak to what I view as the “state of marriage.” I was concerned a few months ago when the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, of which I am a member, sent out a survey to ask the members’ opinion about whether we should take a stance to maintain the definition of marriage as an exclusive union between a man and a woman or rather expand it to include same sex couples. I replied that I preferred to keep marriage as an exclusive union between a man and a woman and listed several reasons, including that marriage has provided the basic structure for society in all cultures since the beginning of civilization and that it also promotes the best growth and development of children in my opinion.

I was encouraged following the general elections in November that so many people overwhelmingly agreed that marriage should remain as a union between a man and a woman only. Yet while I am hopeful that marriage will remain as an institution in our nation, I am discouraged as a marriage counselor about the current condition of marriage in general. Couples therapy is the most difficult type of therapy I do because many couples tend to be so conflictual and in such emotional pain by the time they come to therapy that they tend to be irreconcilable. I even know colleagues who now refuse to see married couples due to the difficulty of this type of therapy. Yet because of the importance of retaining marriage as a vital structure of society, I will plod on – for now at least.

I will agree that in past centuries many couples stayed together out of necessity and socio-economic pressures, albeit many of these unions were not happy ones. The 20^th century opened the way for many unhappy couples, especially women, to have the freedom not to live in physically or emotionally abusive homes nor tolerate adulterous situations. Yet we may have taken this freedom too far with 50% of our marriages ending in divorce. Sadly this statistic is the same for Christians as well as non-Christians. I believe that most people take their vows seriously when they say “for better or worse,” yet when “the worse” comes they seem unable to stay in the marriage. Or if they do stay married, they find other ways “to stick it out,” including having affairs or a series of married relationships that start out with high hopes which later are dashed. Or two people stay in a long-term relationship by living separate but parallel lives under the same roof. Or some opt out of marriage altogether and just decide to live alone for the rest of their lives. These to me are all poor options and do not fulfill what I see as God’s original plan for marriage, which is the coming together of a male and female in an exclusive one flesh union in which they are intimately connected physically, emotionally and spiritually.

I would urge couples to assess their marriages, whatever stage of life they are in. No age group is invulnerable to divorce anymore. A huge mistake many couples make is to neglect their relationship due to busyness in their lives. They seem to be on track for living separate lives and do not learn to communicate with each other on a meaningful level nor resolve conflict in a satisfactory way. One of the partners then suddenly wakes up one day and gets mad that he or she is not experiencing the type of relationship desired yet has not made a committed effort to do their part to invest in the marriage along the way. Newlywed couples especially now seem to find marriage harder than they expected. It is becoming more and more evident that couples not only need pre-marital preparation but an on-going support system and good models to make marriage work.

While we may have preserved marriage as an institution for now, we as a nation need to individually address our own marriages in order to preserve marriage for future generations. If your marriage is not a mutually satisfying and supportive relationship, I encourage you to get help – read some books, attend a marriage conference, find a more mature couple to mentor you, or seek a marriage counselor. I challenge you: what is the “state of your marriage”?

How Close is Too Close?

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta in December 2004.

You may be wondering to what type of closeness I am referring. Specifically, it is closeness in relationships, especially in families. In other words, can you possibly love someone too much? I say you can. I would like to explain this because it is one of the main problems that I see in families who present for counseling. Often the parents bring a child or teenager who is having trouble fitting in at school or is unhappy. Of course, there are other reasons for these symptoms, such as trauma or abuse or illness. But generally, if these problems are not present, I begin to suspect what is called enmeshment – a therapeutic term for “too close” relationships.

The problem of enmeshment is difficult to explain because a parent is usually defensive of their close relationship with their child. And enmeshed systems appear so great because they offer a heightened sense of mutual support. Parents are loving and considerate. They spend a lot of time with their children and do a lot for them. However, children enmeshed with their parents can become dependent. The children become less comfortable by themselves and may have trouble relating to people outside the family. A test often comes when the child attempts to leave home to go to college and cannot adjust well. The opposite of enmeshment is disengagement, in which families are too independent and are not available to each other for warmth, affection and nurture. These families foster independent children but the children often lack the support and guidance they need. As you can perhaps guess, the balance lies somewhere between these two scenarios.

In enmeshed families, boundaries are diffuse and family members overreact and become intrusively involved with one another. The emotional world of one person becomes tied to the emotional world of the other. That is, your child’s bad day becomes your bad day, rather than your empathizing with your child about their feelings and helping them deal with them. Or worse, your child feels responsible for your feelings and for making you happy.

Enmeshed parents create difficulties by hindering the development of more mature forms of behavior in their children and by interfering with their abilities to solve their own problems. An example would be a father who jumps in to settle minor arguments between his two sons so the children won’t learn to fight their own battles. And a frequently encountered problem in the middle class family is the enmeshed mother/disengaged father, in which a mother’s closeness to her children substitutes for closeness in the marriage.

Ideally when children enter the family, the spouse subsystem should have a boundary that separates it from the children. A clear boundary enables the children to interact with their parents but excludes them from some activities. Parents and children can eat together, play together, and share much of each others’ lives. But the more that husband and wife are sustained as a loving couple, they are enhanced as parents. They need some time alone to talk, to go to dinner together, to fight, and to make love. Unhappily the demands of small children make it hard for parents to maintain a boundary around their relationship. And unfortunately, in our child-centered culture, the boundary separating parents and children is often extremely diffuse.

I encourage you to examine the nature of your family’s relationships. In a two-parent family, examine if there is time to cultivate the marriage as well as spend time with the children. In a divorced family, parents need to be extremely careful they do not depend on the children to meet their emotional needs. Watch for signs in your children of their not getting along with their peers or becoming depressed. Be aware that if you offer too much attention to your children that you may not be allowing them the room they need to become independent, even though this seems to be such a loving to do.

Maintaining Balance in a Busy Life

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta in November 2004.

Stress is unavoidable in our busy lives these days. But how much stress is too much?

Stress is a problem for several reasons. Emotionally it can lead to anxiety and depression. Physically it can lead to illness and pain, such as headaches, ulcers, and heart disease. It is estimated that 70% of all doctor’s visits are for physical or emotional problems that are stress related.

First of all, how do we define stress? Until 1950, stress was a physics term defined as “the load that is exerted on a physical structure, such as a bridge or cross beam.” But Hans Selye borrowed the term to use in psychology describing stress as “the load or tension exerted on individuals, which might alter an individual’s ability to respond or react normally.” Practically speaking, stress is being stretched beyond your limits and finding you cannot cope with your demands; it is overextending yourself without adequate time for recovery; or it is believing you can do more than your human form can take.

There are two types of stress – positive and negative. Positive stress can cause us to move forward and accomplish goals as a result of the force exerted, whereas negative stress manifests in adverse effects. It is very subjective – what is negative stress for one person may be a positive exhilaration for another.

No matter the source of stress – positive or negative – the body reacts in a similar fashion, preparing for emergency by sending out chemicals for “fight” or “flight.” The adrenal glands produce these chemicals, or hormones. First is the alarm reaction, brought about by hormone adrenaline. Next is the vigilance reaction, preparing the body to face the stressful event for the long haul, brought about by the hormone cortisol. Physiologically, the body responds with rapid breathing, sugars are released from fats into the blood stream for quick energy, blood pressure rises, acid is increased in the stomach, and you experience difficulty sleeping. But what happens if your body prepares for battle and there is none – that is, not one that is socially acceptable? Then you “freeze” with all those hormones floating around prepared for action.

Adrenaline and cortisol may be called “sad messengers” because they send signals to our brain that make us depressed, anxious, sleepless, or fatigued. They rush in like fighter pilots to defend us, for which we should be grateful should real fear or terror strike. Yet in our fast paced lives, we experience stress by living too hurried and hassled and overextended.

Stress also depletes our natural brain tranquilizers, which include serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline, and GABA. These could be called our “happy messengers.” When the sad messengers overtake us, we must have some recovery time to build back up the happy ones. Stress is only positive when it is shortlived. Prolonged stress is never good. By paying attention to your shift in mood, you can discover how much stress you can tolerate.

Be warned, if you are an adrenaline junkie and thrive on the excitement of the fast paced life, you are at risk for developing physical and emotional disorders. The difference between now and 100 years ago is they had lots of recovery time from stress built into the natural life cycle. They traveled on camels or horseback, they had to gather and prepare food, and they had to sleep when it got dark. In our urbanized and industrialized culture, we think we can sustain compulsive activity, but we pay a price if we don’t pace ourselves. If you want to preserve your sanity and achieve a healthy life, you have to make some choices to live a balanced life. Also, remember to help your children do the same. The antidote to stress is tranquility, achieving a balance that is calming, peaceful and serene. So be sure to counterbalance the stress in your life with healing recovery time.

Navigating the Family Cycle

Note: This article was first published in Life in the Delta in October 2004.

The family life cycle has been categorized by family therapists as the normative stages through which most families pass. These stages bring inevitable changes which often involve grief and loss. Yet how well a family navigates through these sometimes stormy waters of life may be a sign of their flexibility. And usually, given time and the family’s resources and coping skills, the changes are accommodated with new adaptive growth responses. In fact, the ability to change is a sign of good mental health.

It is good to be aware, however, that families are their most vulnerable during the transition times. Some of the normative stages of family development with their tasks and vulnerabilities include the following:

1. Between families: the unattached young adult. Young adults must differentiate from their family of origin, establish their own personal system of values and beliefs, develop intimate peer relationships, and choose and establish a career. If they remain overly dependent on their parents, they may have difficulty with this stage.

2. The joining of families through marriage: the new couple. The newly married couple must form a marital unit and realign with their families of origin. This process tends to result in difficulties and differences being ignored, usually due to the covering over by romantic feelings, only to resurface later. Also, couples may marry in order to escape problems in their original families, only to bring them to the new system.

3. The family with young children. The family who has children, by choice or not, must make space for the children and take on new responsible parental roles, often in already busy lives. As the social lives of children expand, the family must be prepared for contact with other families.

4. The family with adolescents. This stage usually brings a jolt to families who like the sometimes comfortable and more carefree prior stage. Parents must permit the adolescent to move in and out of the family system and must allow more freedom along with increasing responsibility. This stage and the next require the couple to reinvest in one another and may be a time of increased vulnerability to extramarital affairs and divorce.

5. Launching children and moving on. The marital couple must renegotiate their relationship and develop an adult-to-adult relationship with their children. This is a time of rapidly changing roles, as children may marry and themselves become parents. Also, there may be a accumulation of unresolved issues from the previous stages that now may lead to divorce, a sense of overwhelming loss (empty nest syndrome) and general disintegration of health. Some families embrace their new freedoms and opportunities. Others experience only transient disruptions. And a few develop symptoms in an unconscious effort to cling to the last child. This phase is also a time in which many couples must deal with aging or dying grandparents and parents.

6. The family in later life. This is the stage in which couples provide support for the middle generation; face retirement; deal with the loss of spouse, siblings, and peers; and prepare for their own deaths.

The above stages are classified as normative events. Paranormative events are those which occur frequently but not universally, to which families must also adapt and change. Examples include miscarriage, infertility, marital separation, divorce, illness, disability, relocation of households, and changes in socioeconomic status. When these events occur close together, a family can experience what is called “cluster stress” and be especially vulnerable. I encourage people to assess where they are in their life cycle as well as any paranormative events that are adding stress in order to be prepared and to seek outside help if they feel overwhelmed. Remember, the stormy waters of transition are inevitable but you can choose whether you take the course of growth or that of dysfunction.