| Rhett Smith:. Transitioning Life's Journey – Reflections on Writing, Therapy, and Faith | Tag Archive

Tag Archive - family

Steve Jobs, John Wesley, and How Pursuing Opportunities Often Come at Great Cost to Our Personal and Family Lives

October 10, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

The annals of history are filled with people who have done great things (inventions, writings, art, building, etc.) at great cost to their personal and family life.

So it was not a surprise when I read Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson say the following:

Mr Jobs then explained why, despite his famous reclusiveness, he had decided to co-operate with a biographer…

“I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr Isaacson recalled Mr Jobs saying, in a posthumous tribute the biographer wrote for Time magazine. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”

I was really struck by that statement “I wanted my kids to know me.”

You and I may never invent something like the iPhone, but everyday we are given the choice to pursue opportunities that pull us farther away from our kids and spouse…family — or to say no to opportunities that pull us away from them. And instead make decisions that enrich our families and the lives of our kids.

I wrote this post not as a moral indictment on what choices we make in regards to how we choose to live our family lives…but more so that we understand there is often great cost to our families when we pursue certain endeavors.

Often these choices get even more murky coming in the form of ministry as well. It’s not hard to find historical records and stories of great men and women of God who have left a huge mark on Christianity with their writings and ministries, but who have left a wake of destruction in their personal and family lives.

For example, I remember hearing in my Church history class of the bad marriage and family life of the famous cleric and theologian John Wesley. We can thank him for the legacy he has left, but there was a personal and family cost to getting there.

Are you willing to sacrifice your personal and family life for your pursuits?

People can still pursue opportunities of great cost, and follow God at great cost…without destroying their families in the process. Perhaps we need to pay attention to, and become better at discerning which opportunities allow us to continue to foster our marriages and families in the process, and which ones could be lethal to them.

Don’t Place Your Anxiety on Your Kids

April 19, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 5 Comments

A few weeks ago I taught a parenting class at Highland Park Presbyterian Church where I made the claim that many of the anxieties that children experience are due to issues within the family and marital unit at large, rather than just in the individual kid.

This isn’t just my own belief, but something I learned in graduate school as I studied Murray Bowen and his ideas around the Nuclear Family Emotional System. In the Nuclear Family Emotional System one of the relationship patterns are “impairment of one or more children.” When this pattern is in work it looks something like this:

The spouses focus their anxieties on one or more of their children. They worry excessively and usually have an idealized or negative view of the child. The more the parents focus on the child the more the child focuses on them. He is more reactive than his siblings to the attitudes, needs, and expectations of the parents. The process undercuts the child’s differentiation from the family and makes him vulnerable to act out or internalize family tensions. The child’s anxiety can impair his school performance, social relationships, and even his health.

This is not just a graduate school theory with no application in the “real world”, but is something I see everyday in my work with families and in my teaching. I would say that probably 8 out of 10 adolescents who are brought in to see me by a parent to “fix” or help them “work through their issues” are usually just the symptom bearers of the anxiety that is present in the marital unit or in the larger family system. It just so happens that one way a couple deals with their own anxieties is to place it upon a child (most of the time unconsciously) within the family by focusing all their attention on that child and the various things they are dealing with. Focusing on children is one way that couples in an unhappy marriage manage the anxiety that exists between them.

Here is a good example of a case study taken from Michael White and David Epston’s book, Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends.

“John and Wendy made an appointment with the intention of addressing concerns that they had about their son’s ‘irresponsibility.’ Joe, 16 years of age, had, somewhat reluctantly, conformed to their wishes for him to accompany them. However, he did not agree that his parents had good reason to be concerned about him. In fact, Wendy and John’s decision to make the appointment had confirmed for him what he believed to be the problem all along — his parents’ excessive ‘nagging’ and ‘hassling’ of him.

Attempting to sidestep this unproductive dispute over how the problem was to be defined, I asked John and Wendy what they thought might happen if things did not change. In response, they talked at some length about how anxious they felt about the likely quality of Joe’s future. I then asked how this anxiety was organizing them around Joe’s life. It was encouraging them to watch over him more closely and, in various other ways, had them centering their lives around Joe’s. ‘What effect was this anxiety having on Joe’s life?”
Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends by Michael White and David Epston.

When parents begin to take responsibility for their own anxieties, it is amazing to see how the anxiety that is often manifested in a child soon begins to disappear.

Note to Men: It’s About Being Intentional

January 17, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology with 8 Comments

I’m not sure why I wanted to write about this topic now. Because in reality, I have been thinking about it for a long time.

Maybe it’s because I work with a lot of men. And maybe because a lot of the men I work with (both in counseling and in ministry) struggle between two opposites. They often wrestle with being passive or being aggressive (angry).

It’s hard to not notice that there has been lots of talk about passive men over the last two decades. I’m not sure where it all began. But in the early 90′s up till now there have been movements and cultural icons of what being a man is about.

Perhaps the more recent images of manliness began with the Promise Keepers’ Movement and Robert Bly’s book, Iron John: A Book about Men –both appearing in 1990.

It really seemed to pick up steam in 2001 with the publication of Wild at Heart.

One thing I do know for sure, lots of men were left with the idea that they needed to head out into the wilderness, brandish their swords, and go to battle. Anything but living out the image of Braveheart (1996) or Gladiator (2000) resulted in not being a man.

I’m obviously overstating the case, but if you attended any Christian conferences, retreats, speaking engagements in the 1990′s and 2000′s it was hard to avoid references to both of those iconic images of men portrayed in those movies. I probably made some of the references myself.

It often felt like pastors, writers, bloggers, and just about everyone else piled on the topic, encouraging men to be more, well, more like men.

And honestly, there is lots of analysis, and lots of direction I could go, but I want to keep it simple.

I have found that being a man is about being intentional (characterized by conscious design or purpose). Too many think that the opposite of being a “passive” or “nice” guy means becoming aggressive or angry.

It’s not. It’s about living a life with intention.

Being intentional in your marriage.

Being intentional with your kids.

Being intentional in your vocation.

Being intentional with your friendships.

Being intentional about your faith.

Men who are intentional seem to be men in other people’s eyes. In the eyes of their wives, kids, friends, c0-workers, etc.

By the way. I have been to two Promise Keepers. I have read Wild at Heart. I love both Braveheart and Gladiator. And they have all been super influential and helpful in my life. But thankfully I don’t have to brandish a sword to be a man, but instead can be a man by living a life of intentionality.

Sabbath Keeping versus Margin Keeping: Practices We Must Foster

December 15, 2010 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

Exchanges between friends on Twitter often raise some great questions.

On November 24 Tyler Braun posted the following:

Challenging post from @MarkBatterson on maintaining margin: http://bit.ly/gMJmjP // I lose it far too often.

My reply to Tyler was:

@tylerbraun almost everyone who ends up in therapy with me has no margin…it’s a consistent theme and issue that affects EVERYTHING!

And my good friend from the church I grew up in Phoenix with, Anna Broadway, replied with:

@tylerbraun @rhetter How would ya’ll say margin in his/your use compares to rest/sabbath? Is sabbath practice a means of protecting margin?

So how does margin compare to Sabbath? And is keeping a Sabbath a way of protecting margin? Those are great questions.

I talk quite frequently in my work with families in both the counseling and church ministry setting about the topic of margin in their lives. I talk about creating “white space” on the calendar, where there is nothing scheduled. It is protected time for families and members of the family to just be…to rest…or to participate in something that hasn’t already been planned. It’s a time to be free of “should”, “have to”, “tasks”, and to simply rest. It’s a great time of connection in families, as they are free to be creative, and do things that aren’t demanded of them.

Margin, “white space”, boundaries…whatever term you use, it is essentially the same. It’s the act of creating space that is free of busyness and activities.

I see this task of creating space and margin as being very different from Sabbath.

Genesis 2:3: Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Sabbath keeping is something that I believe we as Christians should want to do. It is a day where we rest in the work that God has already done. It is a laying down of our wants, abilities and demands, and to be content in what God has already accomplished in our lives. It’s a discipline of saying I don’t have to produce, or do something in order to be right before God. It’s an act of being versus doing. This is reflected in the New Testament, especially at Jesus’ baptism in Mark 1:9-11, where Jesus identity is in his being in relationship with his Father, and not in his doing.

Creating margin, “white space”, boundaries, I view as something that we do on top of Sabbath keeping. It is built in times that are focused on rest, and allowing the creativity in a family/ourselves to come to fruition. Many families/individuals over-schedule their lives with busyness and activities like sports and hobbies because they have somewhere lost the ability to just be with one another outside of having to always do things with one another. There is a distinction there, though subtle, can have huge impacts on our relationships with one another.

I believe we protect the Sabbath because that is something we do to foster our relationship with God, and to state that we are dependent upon him, rather than ourselves.

I believe we protect margin, “white space”, and boundaries in our lives because that is something we do to foster our relationship not only with ourselves, but with those we live, work, and play with.

When an individual, or family loses the ability to foster a Sabbath, or create margin in their lives, I know that there are usually deeper things at work. Often individuals and families are afraid to just be by themselves, or with another, without something planned to do. That fear and hesitation points to the very need to create that space and practice a Sabbath.

Any thoughts that you all have on Sabbath, margin, creating “white space”, etc.? I would love to hear them.

Chad and Sarah Markley Interview #1: Their Story

March 2, 2010 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 6 Comments

There are people online that I have never met in person, but that I feel like I know them. And those people I one day look forward to meeting in person. Just two of those people are Chad and Sarah Markley.

I randomly came across Chad online one day because we were following each other on Twitter and we shared some mutual friends that I have actually met in person (one of those being Rich Kirkpatrick). And then separately, I came across Sarah’s writing because of a tweet by Anne Jackson mentioning her. I’ve been a fan of Sarah’s blog ever since. In fact, my wife and I have often talked about Sarah’s writings, and things we have learned about marriage and relationships from them.

One of the things that has drawn me to Chad and Sarah Markley is their story–and not only their story–but their authenticity and vulnerability in which it is told. Sarah sums it up in these three short sentences on her blog:

I cheated on my husband nine years ago. I was lost and without hope. But God rescued me, my husband forgave me, and I am living a new life.

It’s an amazing story full of pain, sadness, forgiveness, hope and redemption. A story of two remarkable people that were held together and strengthened by a loving God.

It is because of their story that I wanted to interview them. It’s a story that I hear over and over again in my work as a marriage and family therapist and pastor. And in talking with them, I hope that their story can enlighten your own, and possibly help bring about hope and healing where it is needed. As well as helping couples read the warning signs in their own marriage.

This is Part 1 of 3.

How did you come to the decision that you wanted your story to be more visible and available for others to read and hear about?

Sarah: I knew that I’d be sharing my story eventually by writing a book and initially I thought I owed it to my blog readers to share with them first what God had done in my life before I become ultra-public by trying to get a book published. I had no idea that this story would attract so many new readers to my blog and reach out to a generation of women (and men) who have been hurt by infidelity.

Now we, as a couple, feel as if it is a calling to share our story with others

What were some of the lack of boundaries in your own marriage? Have you changed any boundaries in that setting? Can you give us any examples?

Sarah: We used to meet members of the opposite sex for lunch or at the gym. In fact, we used to do things alone with opposite gendered friends all the time: long phone conversations and emails. We didn’t really see anything wrong with it because we used each other for our measures of morality. If what I was doing wasn’t bothering my husband than it was okay for me to do. I wasn’t using God to determine if what I was doing was right or wrong. Our boundaries have changed immensely since my confession 6 years ago. (Sarah has written more on this topic here).

Chad: We make it a point to remind each other we are the others “number one”, especially in public. I need Sarah to know she is my only girl, but I also need others to understand she is my “number one” and vice versa.

What are some early warning signs of an emotional affair that you think many people overlook?

Sarah: Simply giving away too much of yourself. Sharing intimate thoughts, dreams or concerns in the name of “friendship” with someone of the opposite sex who is not your spouse is treading on dangerous ground. When you find yourself thinking about someone else, watching for them, dressing for them, finding excuses to talk to them – those are also bad signs.

Chad: I agree with Sarah. Things begin to get sideways when we get tired of working through things with our spouse and begin to look for “easier” outlets for our emotional, and eventually, and physical needs

What role, if any, do you think pornography played in your decision to have an affair?

Sarah: Pornography created an unattainable and unrealistic view of sex in my mind. I began to desire things that were outside of the realm of what intimacy in marriage should be. It became something that I needed (whether actually viewing it or thinking about it) to become aroused. So when I found myself in an inappropriate emotional relationship with another man, the sexual aspect of it just seemed less “sinful” because I was already fantasizing regularly in my mind.

Chad: I pulled Porn into our marriage to try and “liven” it up. It had been part of my personal sexual journey since 2nd grade and had poisoned my view and expectation of sex to a significant degree. When I introduced it into our marriage I subsequently brought that same level of unrealistic expectation into the marriage bed. The outcome was tragic and I believe was instrumental in opening doors that may have never been opened otherwise.

Stay tuned for Part 2…

Revisiting Facebook’s Effect on Marriage and Relationships

November 17, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

[image by soundlessfall]

Earlier this summer I was contacted by Irving Bible Church in Las Colinas, TX to write an article on technology for their monthly magazine. After talking with the editor at length we eventually agreed upon a topic that we thought would be of importance to the readers — We came up with Is Facebook Making Your Marriage Vulnerable for the October 2009 issue of Chattermag.

I thought/think is a very important topic, and will only continue to grow, but I have been amazed at how this topic has been at the heart of many conversations that I have been a part of (unbeknownst to them that I even wrote this article). I have had several more friends convey stories to me about how their friends actions on Facebook were the cause of the demise of a marriage.

I even received a call from a local TV producer who is working on a story about this topic. In our conversation we talked about the growing concern over this topic, but the difficulty in pinning down what the real issue is. And with these incidents being so early in a new trend (i.e. social networking’s effect on marriage/relationships) it is hard, if not impossible to get people to step forward and discuss the situation.

So I figured that over the course of the next week I’m going to post several times on this issue, looking at what is going on, and what lies behind this issue.

But for today, I wanted to repost my article and get any feedback from you on the issue.

Is Facebook Making Your Marriage Vulnerable?
In the spring of 2005, I found myself in an endless battle with my college students (whom I was pastoring) over the issue of MySpace. Should our college ministry have, or not have a MySpace group? I had questioned the wisdom of it for a long time since I was not happy with much of the salacious content on the site, and I knew I would have little control over it. I finally gave in and was quite pleased that a week later new students showed up to our Wednesday night worship because they had found us on MySpace. But I soon realized how much I had to learn when the fall semester rolled around and my college leaders had gone ahead and created a Facebook group without my knowledge. It was then I decided that the best position for a pastor to take was to be involved with his/her online community. At least then I might have some influence.

That was my big concern 5 years ago. But like most of you, I have since adopted online social media—so much so that it has just become a way of life. I spend time daily writing on my blog, communicating with others on Twitter, updating my resume on LinkedIn, as well as checking out the latest photos and stories from old and new friends on Facebook. And that’s just a few of the hundreds of social media sites vying for my daily attention. But as time passes, I have fewer questions about whether I should or should not be active in these online spaces, but rather, questions about the boundaries I need to establish for them.

Recently, a couple of friends and I were lamenting about two of our friends’ marriages that had ended in divorce. One partner in each of the marriages fostered online connections on Facebook, which eventually led to full-blown affairs. One affair began when a partner reconnected with an old high school friend; the other affair began when one spouse initiated an online connection after meeting a person earlier that week at an event. What had begun as a simple hello on Facebook left in its wake two shattered marriages—devastated spouses and angry children. If you think this is out of the ordinary, just Google the words “Facebook” and “affairs” to find the growing amount of literature on this topic (for instance: here). Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise since most of the Facebook rumors tout that it was created to make it easier for college students to “hook up.” I buy into the theory that technology in our lives is not neutral (as my good friend and technologist John Dyer has helped me better understand). Rather, when we use technology, it will affect us in some way. And as married couples, we have to ask ourselves how the current social media is influencing us. Continue Reading…

Improve Your Marriage During Tough Economic Times

July 17, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 0 Comments

[image by Stewart]

I came across this post the other day, 15 Ideas To Improve Love And Marriage During Tough Economic Times.

The post is actually great advice for anytime, not just hard economic times. Tess Marshall says:

80% of the people who have lost jobs are men. We live in a society where men are expected to play the role of economic provider. When men lose their jobs they lose their status as a provider and often feel like failures.

Many wives have become the sole provider in relationships, often feeling totally responsible and pressured to bring home more income.

Children who normally have excess now need to adjust to having less. Parents feel guilty for not being able to provide like they have in the past.

Our economy offers us an opportunity to grow, become stronger, and keep our marriage happy, healthy and intact.

Continue reading to check out the 15 helpful tips that she discusses.

Do you have any other tips that you would suggest?

Book Recommendation: The Mystery of Marriage

July 16, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 0 Comments

The Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle is a book that I read probably back in 1999, or 2000, after I was required to do a book report for one of my family counseling classes in seminary. This book was one of a handful of books recommended by my professor, and at the time I thought, well, I’m interested in marriage, at least at some point in my life, so I might as well start reading now.

What attracted me initially to the book was the title. It wasn’t a self-help style book, or here is “seven steps to a great marriage”, or the “ten things you better do before you say I do, or else your marriage is doomed”…type of book. Instead it was simple:

The Mystery of Marriage

I liked that, because for all I knew from experience at the time was that women were definitely a mystery at times, as men could be as well, and if God could bring two people together in marriage, it was definitely a mystery that could not be reduced to simple steps. It was also a miracle, hence why Mike Mason meditates on it. Meditation conjures up the idea of something that takes patience, work, concentration, etc…you don’t think of ten easy steps, or eight sure fail rules, when the word meditation is in the mix.

And his table of contents was very different than any table of contents I have ever read concerning books on marriage. Short. Simple. Mysterious. Here is the table of contents.

Foreword
Preface
Prologue
Otherness
Love
Intimacy
Vows
Sex
Submission
Death
Epilogue
The Lover’s Hermitage

I think this is the best book of all the books I have read on this topic. It is beautifully written, and Mason does a great job of exploring difficult themes in marriage, while maintaining a sense of mystery, and not talking things to death, or laying them out in steps. So if you aren’t into easy steps, this is a great book for you.

And for those of you who are single, or who think they are light years away from marriage, I found this book to be a great prepping tool before marriage. Mason gives great insight into the single mind, and the struggle one has, and the desire one has to be single, yet also to be married. It is a great read.

Have you read this book before? What did you think of it?

Two Questions I Have For You About Being Married

July 15, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 1 Comment

There are two questions that I often think about in terms of marriage, and it’s these two same questions that I often like to ask couples…so I am going to pose them to you. Here they are:

What is the most rewarding thing about being married?

What is the most difficult thing about being married?

6 Marriage Books That I Highly Recommend

July 14, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 7 Comments

There are lots of good books on marriage, but I want to mention just six of them here that I highly recommend. And in recommending them, let me just give one brief statement of why I like them.

As For Me and My House: Crafting Your Marriage to Last by Walter Wangerin Jr.

I love Wangerin’s approach in talking about marriage here. He doesn’t write about steps to follow, but really approaches the topic from a real narrative standpoint, sharing story after story that the reader can enter into and relate to about marriage.

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Sue Johnson

Johnson is the pioneer of “emotionally focused (couple’s) therapy. And this is an important book on this topic that is very accessible for couple’s to read.

Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships by David Schnarch