CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• Feature Article - "The Forgiving Spirit"
  by Norman Bales
• Spirit: Skills and Perspectives for Intimate Relationships in Truth
  "You Have to Believe it Matters"
  by Mikal Frazier, LMFT, LPC
• Perceptions - "Would Roses Cost a Lot?"
  by Morris Thurman

Significant events taking place in the course of living define our lives. Death is such a defining event. The death of loved ones impacts us greatly. A loved one's death has an enormous influence on the future course of our lives and shapes family relationship patterns for years to come. As I prepare these thoughts, I have just returned from Clyde, Texas, my hometown. I went there to help conduct the funeral service for Charles Bales, a cousin who was more than a cousin. His father and my father were identical twin brothers. Charles was the closest thing to a brother I've ever had.

I want to share a couple of things about his life. Had Charles lived two more days, he would have been 62 years old. I knew him throughout his entire life. Charles suffered from several chronic, debilitating diseases over a number of years. Ten years ago, his health problems forced him into early retirement. He had a much-reduced quality of life after that. That's not to say that his life in the last ten years was wasted. He gave much as a husband, father and grandfather and through it all he faced his health problems with enormous courage and good humor. He and his beloved wife, Mary were married forty years. Charles proposed to her on the first date. As a family minister, that's a big time "no no." Had they come to me, I would have said, "you need to get to know one another better." But they grew up with the belief that you get married for life. They remained devoted to one another throughout all those years. I'm sure they repeated the words "for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health" when they were married. They couldn't have possibly known how severely those promises would be tested in the intervening years, but they remained loyal to their commitments. I told Mary, "Not one woman in a thousand would do what you have done." She was placed with the enormous burden of caring for a chronically ill husband and maintaining a household at the same time. Her response was, "It never occurred to me to do anything else." In a day and age where marriages end over trifles, we need to hear such stories. I appreciate the opportunity to share this one with you.

In last week's "Perceptions" section, we ran an article by the late Batsell Barrett Baxter on "Forgiveness." Dr. Baxter suggested that there's a link between a person's willingness to forgive and one's physical health. The research he referenced is a little bit dated, but this week's feature article deals with some recent studies. The conclusion is the same.

We feel most blessed to have Mikal Frazier, a licensed professional counselor, to serve as a regular contributor to our newsletter. Mikal has started a new series on skills and perceptions of intimacy. We are happy to feature her second article today. She talks about attitudes toward divorce. Her thoughts reminded me again of my cousin, Charles and his wife Mary. Yes, I do believe they made a reckless decision when they decided to get married on the first date, but they made a far more important decision before they ever met. They decided that a commitment to marry would be a commitment for a lifetime. We need a revival of that spirit. Mikal shows us why that's a good decision.

Norman

The Forgiving Spirit

The Coalition for Marriage and Family Education

The costs for all of those involved include decreased work productivity, mental and physical difficulties, suicide, substance abuse and an increased likelihood of divorce in the children of divorced parents and also the non-divorced parents.

There is no good news about the effects of divorce. Perhaps you saw the headlines as did I which read, "The cycle of divorce is abating." This misrepresentation of the facts comes from a study by Nicholas Wolfinger of the University of Utah who compares the divorce rates of adult children whose parents divorced with the divorce rates of adult children whose parents never divorced. The Wolfinger study finds that the divorce rates of the children of never-divorced parents are catching up with the divorce rates of the children of divorced parents. Therefore, because this gap is closing somewhat, a misleading liberty has been taken to indicate this is good news for children of divorce. Norval Glenn of the University of Texas and David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values effectively refute this conclusion. As Glenn and Blankenhorn report, the fact is that in the early 1970's, 35% of the children of divorced parents were also divorced and by the early 1990's, 45% of the children of divorced parents were divorced. In this same time period the divorce rate for the children of never-divorced parents grew from 18% to 35%. There is no good news here for either group, nor for any of us. As Glenn and Blankenhorn conclude, "Everyone's marriage is made weaker."

A connection has been found between divorce and illness. The president of the National Institute of Healthcare Research, David Larson argues, "being divorced and a nonsmoker is only slightly less dangerous than smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day and staying married. Every type of terminal cancer strikes divorced individuals of either sex, both white and non-white, more frequently than it does married people."

Disturbing news continues to pour in about the pain suffered by children of divorce. Judith Wallerstein, internationally renowned for her longitudinal studies on the effects of divorce on children, is about to release a 25-year follow-up. In this work she studied young adults who had experienced the divorce of their parents 25 years earlier. These young people were between 2 1/2 and 6 years old at the time their parents divorced and Wallerstein's findings state that these young people have "a far greater need for family structure" and are "far less able to comfort themselves or seek help elsewhere" than their parents or older siblings.

The conclusion has to be that divorce is too costly for all of us. To make a choice to end a marriage has ramifications which remain beyond our wildest imaginations.

Morris Thurman wrote a touching story based on an event in the life of Henry Penn, the man who originated the slogan, "Say it with flowers." The story illustrates the remarkable privilege of sharing. If you can read this message on a computer, you have been blessed far beyond many of the people who populate this earth. Some would say that we have an obligation to give something back. Thurman thought it went beyond obligation. He saw it as a privilege. You can read about it

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

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