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Read Part 2
By Diane Marshall
The 20th century, the most violent in human history, has ended. As we live into the 21st century, we need to remember that God calls us to be peacemakers. We don't have to be professionals to help others resolve conflicts and build bridges towards peace. Helping others resolve conflicts with themselves, with their partners, with children, with parents, with colleagues, with neighbours, requires patience, compassion, faith, and often tough love. As we ourselves lay down our 'swords' and turn anger, mistrust, and strife into the 'ploughshares' (Micah 4:3; Isaiah 2:4)
of mutual understanding and co-operation, we feel the potential of transformation and hope.
For many people, profound reconciliation becomes possible; for others, a mediated resolution provides a way forward. The day-to-day ways in which we help children be friends, reduce sibling rivalry, work cooperatively in our workplaces, and seek deeper understanding with partners and friends who have wounded us, stretch us all to grow in our understanding of the psalmist's vision of a time in which justice and peace shall embrace. (Psalm 85:10)
Although we cannot realize this vision completely (that is ultimately God's work), we can achieve substantial healing in ways that are compatible with it.
Marriage breakdown
Couples enter into family or marital therapy with a wide array of issues. There may be conflicts with parents or grandparents from a family of origin. There may be conflicts with children or between members of the couple themselves, or conflicts related to the waged work that one or the other engages in. No couple exists as an isolated unit, and a trained marriage and family therapist will seek to explore the relationships and connections that form the landscape of the couple's life.
Many couples seek help because one or both are in emotional distress. This can involve such things as a vocational transition or job loss, a health crisis (for example, diagnosis of cancer or infertility), problems with aging parents or the death of a parent, persistent rage and violence, alcohol or drug abuse, an affair (sexual and/or emotional), or problems with children from a former marriage.
Sometimes it involves positive life changes which are also stressful, such as a geographical or vocational move, the birth of a child (with the resulting sleep deprivation and other adjustments), children leaving home (or returning), or the marriage of an adult child. Occasionally couples have to face life events which are traumatic because they are unexpected , such as the disappearance or death of a child, the birth of a seriously disabled child, a serious car accident, bankruptcy, or the diagnosis of chronic disease (for example, diabetes or multiple sclerosis).
Many churches provide a real sense of community at times like these. However, a crisis in the couple's normal support system (for example, a schism in their church or the divorce of close friends) may also be a source of distress that can send couples into therapy.
Cumulative stress
No single life cycle event may require the help of a therapist, but if, in combination with other events, there is cumulative stress, then the couple's relationship may be in need of professional support. For example, if a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time as her children begin to leave home and her aging parents need help to face moving into a retirement residence, she may find herself overwhelmed and depressed. Her husband may need help to learn how to show more empathy and practical support towards her at such a time, and a therapist may provide additional emotional support and skills training for both members of the couple.
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Infidelity
Many couples seek counselling because of infidelity of one or both partners. Infidelity breaks a sacred bond, a bond based on an exclusive commitment to another to love and care for the other. Marriage relies on a culture of fidelity, but we live in a consumer culture which exalts personal choice and contingency. Thus, the marriage covenant too easily becomes a contract which can be easily cancelled. Couples who make a sacred bond often need help and support to maintain their covenant, and courage and the power of forgiveness to rebuild when that covenant has been broken by infidelity.
Buildup of stressors
Many couples seem to manage life just fine until there is a buildup of stressors when crisis, loss, or stress of other kinds trigger withdrawing, abusive or acting out behaviors and the couple loses touch with one another. Others, plagued by responsibilities or issues they brought into the marriage (e.g. a history of childhood abuse, children from a previous marriage, poor anger management skills, patterns of chronic workaholism, etc.) may never learn the skills necessary to cope with managing stress or money or conflict, or to make cooperative decisions. Some couples become shipwrecked on the shoals of different philosophies of relationship fidelity or the meaning of commitment. Whatever the origins, dysfunctional patterns can develop and, in spite of a couple's faith, their emotional and relational dance lacks the necessary choreography to meet the challenges of life together. Ê
A scenario:
A couple called my colleague, Joan, a family mediator, asking for help to end their marriage and protect their children. Both people of faith, they had three children, ages 4, 6, and 8. Each partner had sought personal counselling, but the husband's chronic workaholic patterns and heavy drinking continued to create much distress in the couple's relationship, and in his parenting of their children. In spite of efforts to change these patterns, the husband finally realized that he didn't want to give the time needed to repair the marriage. However, he was determined to be as good a parent as possible. After speaking with his minister, he was persuaded to seek a less adversarial approach to his wife in terminating the marriage, and he phoned and made arrangements for both of them to see a family mediator.
Adversarial legal justice may be useful in some situations, but not when dealing with failed intimate relationships.
When children are involved, the adversarial approach encourages every one to think in terms of good and bad people, heroes and villains - not useful categories for either parents or children, who, like all of us, represent a complex mix of motives and behaviors, both positive and negative, conscious and unconscious. Successful mediation saves time and money, and makes it easier for separated couples to co-parent and to talk with each other civilly.
For further reference:
Books for children:
When Mom & Dad Divorce: A Kid's Resource. Emily Menendez-Aponte, & illustrated by R.W. Alley; Abbey Press, Indiana, 1999
Diane Marshall, M.Ed., RMFT works with the Institute of Family Living (IFL), Toronto, and is a regular contributor to canadianchristianity.com. This article is based on her book: Healing Families - courage and faith in challenging times.
http://www.ifl.on.ca/
http://www.anglicanbookcentre.com
June 14/2007
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I tried to address this by making specific reference in the article to "persistent rage and violence" (under the heading "Marriage Breakdown"); and also "abusive or acting out behaviours" (under the heading "Buildup of Stressors"). Absolutely, domestic violence is a causal factor in marriage breakdown.