Tag Archive - divorce

Facebook Isn’t the Problem…But Maybe Your Marriage Is

November 18, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 10 Comments

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[image (47/365) :: Saga]

Triangling Facebook Into the Marital Unit
Often I find myself working with a kid in therapy whose parents have brought him/her in because of the problems they are creating in the family. In therapy/counseling terms that kid has become the identified patient. In short, the identified patient is:

The family member in whom the family’s symptom has emerged or is most obvious.

But often it doesn’t take long to realize that the problem really isn’t the kid, but rather the kid is just “acting out” because of what is going on in the family–the kid is carrying/becomes the carrier of the family problem. The scapegoat. This isn’t usually intentional, and is often done at an unconscious level in order to place blame on one member of the family in order to relieve anxiety in the other members–such as the marital unit. This is often why triangles are formed–in order to relieve the anxiety between two people.

BUT, I don’t think Facebook is really the problem. Rather, it’s just an easy scapegoat. Can it contribute to the problem? Yes. Can it be a catalyst in unhealthy marriage relationships? Certainly. But to blame Facebook would be to remove ourselves from the relational responsibility we have. And what about all the great things Facebook can accomplish–ways that it can enhance marriage relationships (I will talk about that later this week).

Non-Technological Neutrality, Marriage Relationships and Facebook
I’m definitely not a technological expert, but I have been learning a lot from John Dyer and others in this area. One of the things I have learned the most about is the non-neutral nature of technology which John speaks about quite a bit and in which I write about more recently in the post, Is Your Addiction to Technology Transforming Your Life. For example, I write:

At the ECHO conference John had a seminar titled Using Technology without Technology Using You. John’s main premise was that technology is not neutral. It can be both good and bad. But ultimately the use of technology is not neutral in that it transforms the user in some way. John gave the example of working with a shovel (a primitive technological tool). The shovel can be put to good use (church planting, building a home, etc.) and it can be put to bad use (killing someone, burying the body, etc.). But in either case it transforms the user in the form of blisters/calluses on the hand. The same is true of technology, whether you use it for good or bad, it still transforms you in some way when you use it.

So the question we all need to ask ourselves is, how is the technology and the tools we are using transforms us? And how does our use of technology transform those we relate to?

This is how I have come to understand the role of technology in my life.

Facebook is not the problem, but if we think that our use of Facebook isn’t transforming our marriage relationships in some way–then I think we are mistaken. Continue Reading…

Book Recommendation: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

July 9, 2009 in Marriage-Family with 2 Comments

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“Perhaps the biggest myth of all is that communication–and more specifically, learning to resolve your conflicts–is the royal road to romance and an enduring, happy marriage. Whatever a marriage therapist’s theoretical orientation, whether you opt for short-term therapy, long-term therapy, or a three-minute radio consultation with your local Frasier, the message you’ll get is pretty uniform: Learn to communicate better. The sweeping popularity of this approach is easy to understand. When most couples find themselves in a conflict (whether it gets played out as a short spat, an all-out screaming match, or stony silence), they each gird themselves to win the fight. They become so focused on how hurt they feel, on proving that they’re right and their spouse is wrong, or on keeping up a cold shoulder, that the lines of communication between the two may be overcome by static or shut down altogether. So it seems to make sense that calmly and lovely listening to each other’s perspective would lead couples to find compromise solutions and regain their marital composure….the problem is that it doesn’t work.” (pp. 8-10)

During this blogging series I want to continue to point out different books that could be helpful for you on the topic of marriage. One of the books that is quite popular and you see talked about a lot is The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver. Gottman is probably most well known for ability to predict divorce with 91 percent accuracy by watching/listening to couples interact for less than five minutes.  He is also quite well known for his Four Horsemen that he points to as warning signs when they work their way into a marriage (Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, Stonewalling).

In the book Gottman talks about the principles that do make marriage work, and the warning signs that couples must watch out for. His seven principles are:

  1. Enhance Your Love Maps
  2. Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration
  3. Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away
  4. Let Your Partner Influence You
  5. The Two Kinds of Marital Conflict
  6. Solve Your Solvable Problems
  7. Overcome Gridlock
  8. Create Shared Meaning

I like Gottman’s book, and he has some great, tangible exercises (lots and lots of them) for couples to use to help them work through the seven principles.  When it comes to books on marriage, this is one of the more easily read and accessible books for those who haven’t done too much study on the topic. There are lots of other books I like on marriage (which I will also recommend later), but this is just one of them that I have found to be helpful for many couples.

Have you read this book before? Was it helpful? Why or why not?

Are You Afraid of Marriage?

July 8, 2009 in Marriage-Family with 1 Comment

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[image by makelessnoise]


Yesterday I posted about therapist David Schnarch’s view that marriages (committed relationships) are “people growing machines.” But for us to grow in a committed relationship obviously takes a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice. It’s not unusual to work with couples who are shocked by the amount of work a marriage does take, and soon begin to wonder if the sacrifice has been worth it. In fact, I think every relationship asks these questions at times, but some continue to go on and thrive, while others shut down and lead towards separation, divorce, or just two people living separate lives under the same household.

There has been a slew of articles and news stories recently on the state of marriage today, and I still remember sitting in my first graduate course in marriage and family therapy as the professor talked about the “state of marriage today.” Obviously we all come from various backgrounds and different experiences when it comes to the issue of marriage, whether it be our parents, or our own. These experiences often color our view of how we perceive marriage and whether or not we want it for ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago the Today Show had a segment on On Marriage: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off. You can see the video below:

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And then just this week, TIME Magazine’s cover story is, “Is There Hope for the American Marriage?” In the article, the author states:

In the past 40 years, the face of the American family has changed profoundly. As sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin observes in a landmark new book called The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today, what is significant about contemporary American families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of “frequent marriage, frequent divorce” and the high number of “short-term co-habiting relationships.” Taken together, these forces “create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country.”

An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault. It is buffeted by affairs and ennui, subject to the eternal American hope for greater happiness, for changing the hand you dealt yourself. Getting married for life, having children and raising them with your partner — this is still the way most Americans are conducting adult life, but the numbers who are moving in a different direction continue to rise.

Lots of thoughts have been running through my head after reading through the articles and watching the videos this week.

There are lots of questions I want to ask. But I’ve started to wonder if people are afraid of marriage because of the large amount of failure they have seen around them when it comes to marriage. Maybe your own parent’s were divorced, or live in a marriage that you hope to never live in yourself. Or maybe your best friend from college is married and is miserable. Or maybe you have already been married, and are now divorced. Lots of scenarios.

Are you afraid of marriage?

Do you want to be married? Why or why not?