Harold Arnold: Your Relationship Rocks Coach!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Can you fix your family? (Harold’s response)

Who hasn't tried to "fix" their family? Most of us grow up in homes where we learn to adjust to the wackiness or in some cases dysfunction that is our family. We learn to navigate mom's quirks and dad's temper. We deftly tolerate sister's narcissism and Uncle Ralph's biting sarcasm. It is all part of being family. In many ways (sometimes to a fault), it feels normal.

I remember my first time back home after leaving for college. While I was away I noticed differences in how other children interacted with their parents. I saw up-close how other husbands and wives interacted. When I returned home for the first time, my "normal" family functioning seemed "wrong". So, I took it upon myself to "fix it."

I figured it I just told my parents a thing or two about parenting and husband-wife interaction that everything would be fine. The Arnold home would be transformed. You know where I'm going with this don't, you? 

Not only did my words fall on deaf ears. But, I was reprimanded for acting like I knew something. In retrospect, I probably deserved it. Out of the naivete of my youth, I thought that behavioral change was really just about having someone point out the problem to be corrected. I thought that my "inspired words" could fix years of dysfunctional interaction.

We all wish for a fix--at least of others. We usually can't see the fix that we need ourselves. The moral of the story here is that we can't make anyone change. All we can do is change ourselves. Someone aptly coined the phrase "be the change you seek." If we each take that to heart we can fix our family by fixing ourselves. 

Monday, December 28, 2009

Can you fix your family?

Previous episode

After Celia changed Christmas plans on her mother, Mom tried to play the helpless card. This typically would cause Celia to feel guilt, and it did this time, too, but she held her boundary.  She called her sister Catherine to try to get her on her side about coming up to Canton for Rob’s grandma’s birthday party.  But Catherine was no help, because she had made other plans for Saturday, “assuming you and Rob would be here for Mom.” 

Current episode

The party for Rob’s grandmother was in full swing – or at least in as full swing as a party for a ninety-year-old was likely to get.  Rob’s mother and her relatives had done a lovely job decorating the meeting room at the assisted-living facility where she lived.   Long tables were spread with photos and mementos, including letters.  She was a walking history of twentieth-century America:  helping to organize soup kitchens with her church during the Depression, working with the USO during World War II, and marrying her sweetheart, Rob’s grandfather, right after he returned home from the war.  They started their family while he went to college on the GI Bill, living alternately with one set or another of their parents until he graduated.  Then, they moved to their own tract home in Cleveland, where she had raised her family and then lived as a widow for almost twenty years before moving to this residential facility. 

Celia met many in Rob’s extended family who had not been invited to their very small wedding.  They were for the most part welcoming to Celia, with the exception of one aunt who attempted a snide comment about not being invited to their wedding, but Rob’s mother deftly parried that drama.  Celia loved learning about Rob by learning about his family.  Celia’s own family was small and distant, both physically and emotionally.  To witness a family so stable through the generations as Rob’s seemed to be was a revelation for Celia.  So this was what normal looked like.  It was something to aspire to for the family she and Rob would one day have together. 

But Celia could not help wonder what her mother was doing right now.   Mom had refused to drive to Cleveland for the party, blaming that on the fact that Catherine was not available to come with her.  Celia had struggled all week, trying to distinguish feeling guilty that she had caused her mother’s situation from feeling sad that her mother was in the situation.

This effort had its complications this week, though.  It had been a strange conversation with Catherine.  Catherine had implied that since Celia was now married, it was time for her to take on more of the emotional burden of Mom, “since I have been doing it for a few years now.”  Catherine had begun internet dating, and she was unavailable today because she was spending the day with someone she had met and liked. 

But Celia did not buy that this meant it was her job to take care of her mother, who was not even fifty years old yet.  Celia began to grasp that her job with her mother was to empower her to take charge of her own life, NOT to either fix it for her or protect her from it.  This was the only way she and Rob would ever be free to grow their own family into one that, someday, might actually have its own party like this one. 

Celia decided to call her mother right now and walked into the lobby to do so. 

What happens next?

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Negotiating through the Family Pull (Harold’s response)

Healthy marriage requires boundaries. This includes personal boundaries that must guard the identity that God gives each person. But, it also includes boundaries around the married couple--protecting against outside intrusions that are unsafe for the marriage. There are unsafe people, places, things, and even ideas that are enemies of your marriage. Sometimes, these unsafe people are ones that we hold dear. 

Don't get me wrong. This isn't the time necessarily to excommunicate yourself from your loved ones. But, it is important to understand when you must draw a proverbial "line in the sand" for how much you allow people who aren't safe for your marriage to influence it.

In this specific episode, Celia is acutely aware that a boundary is necessary. And, I applaud her for refusing to be drawn into her mother's issue. It is a move that is likely important for future decisions as well.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Negotiating through the Family Pull (Joanne’s response)

I wrote last week about the family pull.  The family pull is harder to resist when you are in the middle of it, as Celia is right now.  Our family crazy is the air we breathe:  we get so used to it we don't even know it's there.  Celia is using a ton of emotional energy right now to identify and break the gravitational hold her mother has used since the divorce to keep Celia close.  Mom has her own work to do right now, obviously.  She welcomed Rob into the family, but it is more complicated than gaining a son-in-law to be the man in the family.  Celia can facilitate the process by staying out of it, for now.  Sometimes we have to speak our truth and back off, letting the consequences unfold.  It's never pleasant in the short term, especially around the holidays, but it allows long term growth and change to happen.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Negotiating through the Family Pull

Previous episode

Rob suggested to Celia that they invite her mother and sister Catherine to Cleveland to attend his grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party on the 26^th.  He and Celia both hope this will mitigate any negative reaction when Celia told her mother that they won’t be spending Christmas in Canton with her after all, which Celia had promised without first checking with Rob. 

Current episode

Mom was silent on the other end of the phone.  Celia, sitting at the kitchen table, winced and dropped her head into her hands.  “Mom?” she said.  Was her mother really stunned or was this a ploy to make Celia jump in and fix the situation? 

Celia hated that she was reneging on her promise to her mother.  But she remained silent, refusing to fall into the old pattern of fixing it.  Hadn’t the party invite been the fixing, anyway?

“Oh, Celia,” Mom said, sighing.  “But I have gifts for you and Rob.  I already bought a turkey for Christmas Day.  And where are we supposed to stay in Cleveland?”

“Well, you don’t need to stay anywhere in Cleveland,” Celia said. “It’s only an hour away.”  Mom was silent again, playing the helpless card.  “And you can give us gifts anytime.  We have one for you, too.”  They did not really have gifts yet but they did intend to get them. 

“What about the turkey?” Mom said.

Celia exhaled.  She had provided entirely acceptable solutions to two of three contrived obstacles.  There was a time when she might have panicked right now and jumped in with that solution, too.  “Roast it anyway,” she would have said.  “You can eat the leftovers for days and then Catherine can make soup from it.  You can freeze the soup.”  Then she would have promised to forward a good turkey soup recipe.  But Celia was tired of fixing things for her mother.

“Mom, I think you can figure out what to do with the turkey.  It’s just a turkey.”

There was silence again on the other end of the phone.  I could just say goodbye and hang up if I wanted to right now, she thought.  That seemed rude, but Mom did not seem to be getting the hang of her end of changing the rules. 

“Mom.  I’m very sorry I’m changing the plans, but I think Rob made a great suggestion.   The party for his grandmother will be wonderful, and we’ll get to hang out all we want.  Rob’s parents would love to have you.”  Celia felt like she had done her best, although she realized she was sweating. 

“So this is the way it’s going to be with you married, Celia?  It’s all about Rob’s family now, isn’t it?  I’ll talk to Catherine and get back to you about the party.”  With that, Mom hung up.  Celia exhaled again. 

What does Celia do next?

Friday, December 18, 2009

Conflict Resolution Starts With An “I” (Joanne’s response)

Harold has identified what Rob and Celia are doing right in their relationship.  I will therefore highlight the other half of Celia's growth edge right now -- being married to Rob while still being her mother's daughter.  As we have noted here before, leaving home and cleaving to one's partner are not only about first hiring a moving van and then having sex.  These are emotional as well as physical tasks, and they are therefore ongoing, not fully accomplished just because "I do" has been spoken.  For Celia to leave well, she will learn to balance her role in her family of origin with her role as Rob's wife.  "Resist the family pull," we say in the field of family therapy.  Our birth families' pull on us is powerful; maturity requires that we acknowledge and make conscious choices about how to respond.  

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Conflict resolution starts with an “I” (Harold’s response)

Every marriage have conflict--at least hopefully. Why hope for conflict? Simple. It means that each of you have an opinion. It means that you are being true to yourself. It suggests that you are expressing that which God has invested in you. Since no two people are alike, no two people can be in agreement about everything--hence conflict. The point here is that conflict offers the potential for a great good because it allows two people who respect one another's viewpoint to arrive at a conclusion or decision that is better than either of their individual ones.

The key to a successful marriage is healthy conflict resolution. And, the key to healthy conflict resolution is being introspective. Typically, one wants to see the flaws in the argument of the spouse rather than looking at one's own idiosyncrasies.

Kudos to Celia in this week's episode. She is doing exactly the right thing. Although there are some emotional strings getting tugged, she has looked at the situation with as much objectivity as she can muster. Then, she went to Rob to admit her own shortcoming. If all of us married couples could do this we could cut the divorce rate in half almost instantaneously.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Conflict resolution starts with an “I”

Previous episode

Rob and Celia are having their first home-from-the-honeymoon disagreement over whose family they will spend Christmas with, after Celia made promises to her mother before consulting Rob. 

Current episode

Celia, her head buried under her pillow, heard Rob leave the room.  She was angry – at herself, mostly, but she felt petulant, like a tantrum was coming on.  Why couldn’t Rob just give in and let her have it her way? 

She pulled off the pillow and sat up, listening to Rob opening the refrigerator in the kitchen.  She could not just have it her way, she thought, because she was married now.  Somehow she and Rob were going to have to find a way to strike a balance that felt fair to both of them.  Sometimes Rob would get his way, sometimes Celia would get hers.  Perhaps they could figure out what win-win looked like more often than not so that married life surpassed kids on the playground fighting over whose turn it was.

But a comfortable average, calculated over decades, was a useful theoretical construct that did not bring much to bear on this moment, today, when Rob and Celia each wanted their way.   Rob had been correct, she conceded, in making an assumption that what fair would look like here would be for them to be with Rob’s family, since they had indeed been with Celia’s mother and sister Catherine last year.   And a grandmother’s birthday party – you’re only ninety once, after all. 

And, to be completely honest with herself, Mom’s depression and its cycles would be with her, Celia, always, unless Mom could figure out how to actually do something about it herself.  But in the greater scheme of things, an emotionally unstable mother and a birthday party seemed comparatively black and white in terms of importance, and this was an angle she could parry as she and Rob talked. 

Celia threw off the covers and found her bathrobe on the floor next to the bed.  But it would be an intellectually cheap angle, she knew, because it wasn’t that clear-cut at all.  Just because Rob married a woman with a depressed mother did not mean Rob’s life, nor hers as his wife, could revolve around it. 

She was going to have to tell her mother that she had blown it by making a promise she couldn’t keep without being unfair to Rob.  Celia felt a wave of nausea as she thought about it.  It’s not that Mom would get mad – actually Celia wished she would, more often – but she would moan and carp and Celia would as a result feel guilty. 

Celia walked into the kitchen where Rob was standing at the counter pouring milk on cereal.  She hugged him from behind.

“I blew it,” she said.  “I shouldn’t have made plans without talking to you first.” 

With her head leaning on Rob’s back, she felt him nod his head.   She wished he would say something, but he did not.  He seemed to think this ball was still in her court. 

Maybe it was.  “So I’m going to call Mom and tell her we can’t be there for Christmas.  I can tell her I did not know about this party.”

Rob finally spoke.  “Well, I have an idea about that.  Canton and Cleveland aren’t that far apart.”

What does Rob suggest?

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Bare ass-umptions (Harold’s response)

Assumptions ruin marriages. They start early (as in the case of Rob and Celia). But, they can last for the duration of the marriage--often a shortened marriage because of them. Assumptions are bad because they are discounting. In other words, I discount the fact that my spouse has an opinion. In some cases discounting is done innocently. In these instances, one spouse is just caught up in his or her own head and forgets that there is another opinion to be considered. In other cases the discounting is done intentionally--disrespecting and uncaring as to the value that one's spouse can bring to the situation. 

Obviously the intentional neglect is worse than that which is unintentional. But, the bottom line is that your marriage suffers regardless of which type of assumptions you make. The solution, of course, is to consider one another wherever possible. By doing so, you make a statement of respect. And, you demonstrate the meaning of partnership--we're in this thing together.

Though Celia appears to realize her own mistaken assumptions, here is an opportunity for Rob to enrich the relationship by showing grace and redeeming her rather than throwing it back in her face. Let's see which he chooses.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Bare ass-umptions (Joanne’s response)

Celia has blown it and she seems to know it.  Of the three choices made available to Rob via the omniscient creators of this blog, will any of them de-esccalate the situation?  One choice, in which Rob swears back at Celia, probably won't help, because he suspects she is angry at herself.  Celia doesn't need Rob coming down hard on her when she is already being hard on herself.  Another choice, to get back in bed with Celia, may help as it makes it clear that Celia is more important than the disagreement, but only if Celia is willing.  If she is feeling defensive, this move may cause her to react or overreact. The remaining choice, in which Rob rolls his eyes and goes to the kitchen, has its merits within the relationship potentially, if Celia needs a few minutes to herself.  But the eye-rolling?  Depends on what it means.  Is Rob feeling contempt for Celia right now?  If this is the case, he needs to talk it out now, because contempt is toxic to marriages.  But I am a believer in couples occasionally taking a time out -- as long as they reconnect shortly thereafter.  It would be preferable if Rob were to say to Celia, "I'm going to get breakfast.  We can talk when you come out."  But even Rob and Celia make the occasional misstep, so there isn't a best choice here.  I am curious to see what our voters decide this week!