CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• PRESCRIPTION FOR A HEALTHY MARRIAGE # 12
  Preventive Maintenance
  (part two - "Building a Healthy Relationship")
• Counseling the Troubled Marriage
  by Monroe Hawley

This issue was prepared several days ahead of time because of schedule surgery. I'm not exactly sure whether I'll be able to respond immediately, but Ann and Vic should be able to answer any questions that might come up.

This week's guest article is written by Monroe Hawley. Monroe and his wife Julia are some of my favorite people. I still regard him as a mentor. When I have a really tough question, Monroe gets a call. He has been a preacher of the gospel for more than fifty years. He and Julia own Hawley Publications, a publisher of some of the finest Bible correspondence courses available in the English language. He serves as an elder at the Southside Church of Christ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He's a first rate scholar and an outstanding historian. Monroe's observations on counseling are not "off-the- cuff" opinions.

His conclusions have been reached after decades of practical experience. Their son, Dr. Dale Hawley, is a professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at North Dakota State University. They have two others sons and a daughter. Wayne preached for a church in suburban Chicago for 17 years and is now active in ministry with the church in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. Their other son, Glen, is the pulpit minister for the Southside church. Their daughter, Glenda Giemzo is an active church worker at Southside where her husband is a deacon. Monroe speaks not only from a wealth of practical experience, but he and Julia have proven themselves to be outstanding family role models.

Norman

Prescription for a Healthy Marriage # 12

Preventive Maintenance

By Norman and Ann Bales

Just as a smooth running engine requires constant attention to things like oil changes, lubrication, spark plugs, belts and hoses, so a marriage requires constant attention to relationship building. You wouldn't expect all the original parts to last for the life of a car and you shouldn't expect a marriage to grow if you never give any attention beyond the "parts" that were in place when it started. Friendship, communication and romance are three of the "parts" that need considerable refurbishing.

Friendship

You're my bread, when I'm hungry,
You're my shelter from troubled winds,
You're my anchor, in life's ocean
But most of all you're my best friend.

Who is your best friend? If you are married, the answer should be your spouse. Friendship comes from intimacy. Intimacy develops over a period of time by working through repeated disappointments, and sharing hurts and pain. We are all capable of intimacy, but not without effort. Developing a friendship is never easy but it is surely worth every effort you have to put forth.

Howard and Charlotte Clinebell in their book, The Intimate Marriage said,

"There is in the heart of every human being, a powerful longing for a relationship with at least one other person." Marriage provides the greatest opportunity for that special relationship with another person. Let us suggest some ways we can build intimacy in marriage.

WAYS TO CULTIVATE INTIMACY (FRIENDSHIP)

1. Talk about affection.
2. Express appreciation often.
3. Perform unselfish deeds. (Help with the dishes, get your mate a cup of coffee, do the laundry, run errands).
4. Cultivate good night rituals (a back rub, good night kiss, telephoning when out of town, special vocabulary, special music, prayer together).
5. Risk greater openness. Make yourself vulnerable. Be real.
6. Give the other person space.
7. Be adventuresome. Do something a little bit crazy sometimes. A surprise that's a little out of character.

Lois Wyse captured the essence of friendship in marriage when she wrote,

Someone asked me
To name the time
Our friendship stopped
And love began

Oh my darling
This is the secret
Our friendship
Never stopped

Communication

When you're marriage is messed up, communication is shut down. When we went into marriage counseling, the therapist handed us a drinking straw. He said, "I want you to imagine this drinking straw is a huge sewer pipe and it' s clogged up. Things are never going to be right until you attack it with a Roto Rooter. Your marriage is messed up because communication is not flowing through the pipe. He recommended attaching the drinking straw to the bathroom mirror as a reminder to keep our communication flowing.

To get the Roto-Rooter through your communication pipe, you may need to start out at a very basic level. How much do you actually know about your spouse?

NORMAN COMMENTS

"I was pretty inattentive in the first sixteen years of our marriage, but there were times when I did attempt to be thoughtful, to do nice things. I finally got to the point where I would buy her a Valentine's Day present. I figured most women like flowers. On Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, I would buy her a corsage of carnations. She always thanked me. We had been married for years before I found out that she didn't care much for carnations, but she really loves yellow roses and orchids. What was wrong? I didn't ask `What's your favorite flower?' She dropped plenty of hints about `yellow roses' and `orchids,' but I didn't get the message.

Now, I'm much more open to her messages. Ann has a friend who operates a floral business. Her name is `Miss Betty.' One day `Miss Betty' called me up and said, `Have you picked out flowers for Mother's Day.' I said, `Well no, I hadn't.' After all why should I? We still had two or three days left. You never want to get in a hurry about stuff like that. She said, `Well I know exactly what she wants. She was in my shop last week and she just fell in love with this arrangement.' I said, `Betty, deliver it to the house on Saturday.' Do you think I made points when she opened the door for the deliveryman? Does the sun come up in the morning? I think she knew Betty was going to call. She also knew the message would make a much bigger impression on me if it came from Betty."

We need to keep those communication pipes open. We need to find imaginative ways to do it and if we'll do that we've got a chance to keep romance alive or we can even resurrect romance when we've killed it. But we need to think through this whole subject of romance.

Romance

Before you send a tar and feather brigade to attack us for criticizing love, let us quickly say that we are not disparaging love in the Biblical sense. Ephesians 5:28 declares that "husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies." The scriptures also talk about training "...the younger women to love their husbands and children" (Titus 2:4). In those verses love means to seek the welfare and best interests of the person being loved. That's not what it means in the "love and marriage" song.

"Love and Marriage" promotes romance - the flutter in the stomach that a person feels upon being smitten by the charms of another. Somehow we have bought into the notion that marriage cannot exist without romantic attraction. Of course, we have forgotten the fact that parents throughout most of human history arranged marriages.

Romance can be extremely intense for a little while, but it always subsides. Norman tells the story that when he was in the seventh grade, He fell in love for the very first time. Maryleen, a little blond headed, blue eyed girl, sat in the seat just ahead of him. He thought she was the prettiest thing that ever walked. He daydreamed about Maryleen instead of working on his homework. One day, he wrote these words in his notebook, "Maryleen, I love you." One of his mischievous classmates saw it, snatched the note away and gave it to Maryleen. To his great surprise the feeling was mutual.

For the next month, Maryleen and Norman were inseparable. They were so devoted to each other that they paid little attention to anything else in the world. From their standpoint, the experience was exhilarating; everybody else thought it was sickening.

Then Norman's parents pulled a dirty trick. They moved to another community and he no longer saw Maryleen at school every day. They wrote letters for about a month and then Maryleen disappeared from his life forever. Romantic love is that way. It waxes and wanes because it is built solely on fluctuating feelings.

Marriage is based on commitment not romance. The only kind of love that will survive the years is one that consistently and sacrificially acts in the best interest of one's spouse. When somebody comes to us and says, "I don't love my wife anymore," or "I don't love my husband anymore, we want to tell them, "Then why are you sitting here talking with us? Go home and love your spouse."

Romance will not always be there at peak levels, so how do we maintain our commitments when warm and tender feelings are not present in our hearts? We have to maintain thought control. That will be the subject of our next section, so be sure and "tune in" next week.

Next Week: Thought Control

The phone rang. A total stranger informed me that his wife was divorcing him. "Would you please talk to her?" he begged. I knew her, but didn't even know they were married. I was hardly in a position to approach her unbidden. I suggested they needed counseling and I would be glad to help if she would agree in advance. Without the cooperation of both mates no marriage can be saved.

Our disruptive society is wrecking more and more marriages. Some of these involve Christians. We can lament the forces that cause this to happen, but how much better to reclaim a marriage that is teetering on the edge. Some observations are in order:

Many marriages cannot be saved without the counseling of someone else. Both partners are too emotionally involved, and perhaps too inexperienced to solve the problems.

Most people wait until the ship is ready to sink before calling for help. While the marriage may yet be saved, it is easier at an earlier stage of difficulty.

The wife is more likely to seek assistance. Perhaps she has more to lose if the marriage breaks up. Perhaps it is the "male ego" that is unwilling to seek help.

Both must be willing to accept help. Almost invariably there is fault on both sides. You don't solve the problem by saying, "Please talk to him (or her)."

A counselor should be chosen in whom both have confidence, or at least, who both believe to be impartial.

To solve most troubled marriages there must be a spiritual solution. Even with Christians it is often true that one or both are not trying to solve the problems in Christ's way.

Failure to solve the problem may cause one or both to turn away from Christ. Is it worth jeopardizing your soul not to seek a solution?

Given enough counseling and time, most marriages can be saved if (a) both give it their best, and (b) a Christian solution is applied.

If you have questions about marriage and family relationships, you can "ASK THE COUNSELOR." Address your questions to Mikal Frazier. Her address is mikalfraz@aol.com

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org