Tag Archive - Marriage-Family

Two Relational Caveats on the Use of Technology in Creating Intimacy

December 3, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 2 Comments

I wanted to share this Ted talk with you (HT: Marc Payan), How the Internet enables intimacy by Stefana Broadbent. The description of her talk is:

We worry that IM, texting, Facebook are spoiling human intimacy, but Stefana Broadbent’s research shows how communication tech is capable of cultivating deeper relationships, bringing love across barriers like distance and workplace rules

In light of my post yesterday, Can You Be “Fully Present” Relationally If You Are Tweeting In Your Wedding, Church Service and Marital Intereactions, I wanted to present this side of the coin.

I do believe that technology can enable relational intimacy (you can read my thoughts on “ambient intimacy” and “ambient awareness”.

CAVEAT #1: I think the distinction that she is making and what others are saying is that technology can enable intimacy when people are not physically present, but harm/prohibit intimacy when people are physically present. There are exceptions for sure.

In my own experience, the reading of my wife’s tweets throughout the day when I’m not able to be physically present with her or talk to her on the phone can create a relational intimacy. But when I get home to her, and continue to tweet when she is actually there in my presence, it can create a barrier. It may seem subtle at first, but can have lasting ramifications on how we interact relationally with one another–or more important, how the other person perceives the interaction. Does that mean we never tweet around each other…no. But it does mean we have set boundaries around our technological use in order that our relationship has primacy over it.

CAVEAT #2: It does not matter what you think/how you perceive the use of technology relationally, but more importantly how your partner perceives it. For example: a husband may think twittering is fine while out at dinner with his wife, but if his wife does not feel the same way, then it is a violation of their relational interactions. Out of respect and submission to one another, we must seek not just what we want, but what our partner in our relationship desires as well.

Check out the video:

What are your thoughts on the use of technology to enable intimacy? How can technology benefit intimacy? How can it inhibit intimacy?

Is Facebook Making Your Marriage Vulnerable?

September 28, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 13 Comments

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[image by hikingartist]


Chatter Magazine which is the great print/online monthly magazine for Irving Bible Church dedicated their October issue to technology. There are some really great articles in there like John Dyer’s Stop Bringing Your Bible to Church!

My contribution was on the issue of technology and marriage, more specifically, Is Facebook Making Your Marriage Vulnerable? In the article I address what seems to be a growing trend of people reconnecting/connecting through Facebook, and starting friendships with those people, which eventually lead to an affair in their marriage. Some of the evidence is anecdotal, some of it through stories from friends, but one can see the growing evidence in the daily news.

In the article I focus on the Identity, Boundaries and Accountability as three areas that are helpful if you are married and on Facebook….or if you just want to have healthy relational interactions on Facebook period.

If you don’t already know this, I’m a huge fan of Facebook, but here are some things I suggest in the article.

Here are just a few tips I have found helpful in my own marriage and counseling practice:

* Set parameters around how much time you are online each day. For example, no Internet after 9 p.m.

* Share passwords with your spouse. Let your spouse check your accounts on occasion for accountability and vice versa, not because you don’t trust each other, but for an added measure of protection.

* Do not engage in intimate online conversation with someone who is not your spouse. For example, are you sharing details about your marriage with someone online who is not your spouse?

* Set appropriate privacy filters/details on social media. For example, have you set parameters for your iPhone and YouTube, which are huge avenues of pornography for many?

* Be a part of an offline accountability group/small group.

* Use online accountability tools. For example, subscribe to an online service such as Covenant Eyes (www.covenanteyes.com), which keeps track of all your web usage and e-mails a report to your accountability partners each week.

You can read the entire article here.

Let me know what you think. And if you have any helpful suggestions, or if you want to share what you and your spouse do, that would be great.

Wanting Your Help for My Therapy Private Practice

June 12, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 6 Comments

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[image by D'Arcy Norman]

I don’t know if I have shared much of my journey over the last year or so with many of you, so I thought I would take just a couple of minutes to do so. Most of you know me from either this blog, or from the ministry world where I was a college pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles from 2001-2008. And of course, we have probably connected at Twitter, Facebook, or some other social networking site or conference. If I don’t know you in person yet, I hope to meet you sometime.

Last year, my wife, daughter and decided to move from Los Angeles to Dallas for several reasons. One, to be closer to family. Two, cost of living. Three, new opportunities, especially vocationally. For me that meant a big career change from college pastor to marriage and family therapist. You see, four years into my role as college pastor I began to realize that my seminary training (M.Div) didn’t quite equip me for the huge number of issues my students would face, and how I might walk alongside of them. So I decided to go back to seminary and do a graduate degree in marriage and family therapy. That was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Continue Reading…

Suburban Spirituality: Contemplating Through a Move

May 13, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology with 8 Comments

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[image by jdnx]

Transitions
I decided I wanted to write something a little more personal over the next few weeks…something that has been on my heart, raised questions, and has me awake at night…sometimes.

For those of you who don’t know, my wife, baby daughter and I have been living in Dallas since August of 2008. We moved here from Los Angeles, and have been excited about this phase of our journey. But there are lots of adjustments as one would expect.

Where to live? Career changes? New friends? New church? Etc? It all becomes pretty tiresome and weary. My wife and I talked the other day about how we haven’t had much constants in our marriage life. It’s been crazy busy with graduate school early on, new baby, moving, new jobs, etc.

Where to Live in DFW Metroplex?
And now we are in the midst of a new decision. Where to live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex?

That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. Because where we plant down roots can/will have strong influence about what our life looks like in some way. The friends we make. What my new private practice will look like. Settling down in a church. Whether my wife needs to continue working or not. Spirituality.

The Article That I Keep Thinking About
And as we contemplate this decision I can not but keep hearkening back to an article written by David Goetz for Christianity Today…way back in July of 2003. The article is Suburban Spirituality: “The land of SUVs and soccer leagues tends to weather the soul in peculiar ways, but it doesn’t have to”.

If you have not read this article…you must!

I’m going to be playing off this article for the next few weeks, and focusing on various topics and questions that have been raised for me:

  1. What does it mean to be a good steward financially?
  2. What does it mean to be content with where you live?
  3. How do we faithfully live out where God has placed us?
  4. What does it mean to be planted in a church community and not shop around?
  5. What does it mean to not be judgmental towards suburbanites or urbanites?
  6. What happens in our thinking from being single, to marriage, to having kids, as far as influencing where and how we want to live?
  7. What can we live modestly/frugally, wherever we live?
  8. How can we be creative with our finances in helping support others?

I have other questions, but let me just stop there for now.  These questions will in fact take on new life and new forms as I write, but I just wanted to give you some food for thought. And I’m lining up some guest bloggers who have written passionately on some of these things.

There are many factors and life experiences that have shaped me into who I am, and as I wrestle through this move, my desire is that I continually strive to be more faithful to who God desires me to be and how he wants me to live.

Four Areas Church Employees Need to Rethink: Part 2–Volunteer Expectations

May 1, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology with 16 Comments

Let me say that the reason that I am bringing these four areas to your attention is not because I’ve done well as a church employee in these areas…but rather, these are areas that I’ve failed in, struggled with, and have had to crash and burn a lot to come to this place of rethinking them.

So I began with meetings on Wednesday.

Today…

VOLUNTEER EXPECTATIONS
Nothing has bothered me more recently than this issue. I think that for the most part, our expectation of volunteers is often unhealthy, and puts them in places of ministry and service without a clear boundary.

Let me keep is short and simple. By this, I mean that we just often ask of our volunteers too much, without taking into consideration the rest of their lives. We assume that they eat, think and breathe church as much as we do, but I have found that is not true. Volunteers actually have a home, family and life outside of church, with lots of other responsibilities. While often our entire job is up at church, thinking of needs we have for volunteers, without much consideration of what is demanded.

When I was single I knew less of what family life required. When I was married I started to gain a better perspective. But when we had a baby, wow, I had a whole new appreciation for the demands of family life, and the necessity to help set clear and appropriate expectations of our volunteers, without asking them to sacrifice their families on the altar of ministry…which unfortunately many of us church employees do. Continue Reading…

Step Into Your Anxiety If You Want To Grow

February 23, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 1 Comment

21dpppnebcl_sl500_aa160_Recently I have been listening to the audio version of the David Snarch’s book Passionate Marriage: Sex, Love, and Intimacy in Emotionally-Committed Relationships.

One of the things that he says in the lecture is (and I’m restating in my own words):

That in order for a person to grow, they must step into their anxiety.  That it is in confronting our anxiety, rather than seeking comfort and security that we achieve growth as a person.

Last week I asked the question, “What Keeps You Centered?”, wondering what it is that helps keep you grounded/centered/balanced when dealing with anxiety…knowing that we all deal with anxiety and stress in our lives.

But a different question is:

Do you step into your anxiety?

Do you try things that stir up your anxiety in order for you to grow?

Or do you seek comfort and security, rather than risk the realities of facing your anxiety?

Share:

  1. Share a time when you stepped into your anxiety, knowing it was an opportunity for growth?
  2. What were you feeling and thinking at the time?
  3. Did you see it as an opportunity for growth, or just something you know you should do?

Though Snarch is looking at stepping into one’s anxiety in the context of marriage, sex and family, it can be said that for any of us to grow we must do the same.

There is more to be said on this issue and where Snarch is going with this topic, but for now, I will leave it at this.

Affirmation: One of Technology’s Negative Effects on Your Marriage and Family

February 10, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 21 Comments

jleMcLuhan and Twitter via John Dyer
This is a post I have had in the making for a while, but when I read John Dyer’s post Tools for Tech Thinking: McLuhan on Twitter, and well, he unknowingly gave me some inspiration to post some of my thoughts on this issue.

Read John’s post for some context, but essentially Marshall McLuhan in his seminal work The Medium is the Message poses four questions about media/technology:

  1. What does it (the medium or technology extend)?
  2. What does it make obsolete?
  3. What is retrieved?
  4. “What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?

John does a great job of summarizing what these four things are, but for this post I’m concerned about question four, “What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?” John explicates the question in this way:

What does Twitter reverse into if it is over-extended?

This is McLuhan’s “negative” question where he gives examples like the ability to project one’s voice is lost if the microphone is overused and the ability to walk long distances is lost when one relies on vehicles.

  • Twitter can connect physically distant individuals, but when overused it can also isolate a person from those who are physically near (like spouses) reversing into a state of more disconnectedness.
  • Twitter can also reverse into a level of shallowness, because communication is limited to 140 characters.
  • Twitter can also reverse into a mess of noise and distraction since so many voices are speaking  at the same time.

Technology and Affirmation
Most of us may not realize it, but technology is often a major source of affirmation for us in our lives. John is speaking of Twitter, but Twitter is not the only culprit. Name it: Facebook, blogs, mommy forums, fantasy leagues, chat, MySpace, email, Blackberry’s i-Phones, etc, etc.

We go to these sites and belong to these online communities because in some shape, form or fashion we are affirmed in them. People accept us, care for us, are there for us. It soon becomes an instant source of affirmation.

Continue Reading…

Searching for Intimacy Online and with Social Media Tools

November 3, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 9 Comments

Looking to Connect
It is no surprise to any of us that people are looking online to connect with others, and that in the process a certain level of intimate needs are met. Whether it’s a chat group, dating service, blog or class reunion site, people are finding connection.

The questions for you…the question for me…the question for us is: Are we getting our needs for intimacy online, rather than in the relationships that we are a part of (i.e. family, spouse, friends, etc.)? Do we spend more time feeding the relationships we are a part of in person, or the ones online?

I have the tendency to ramble (can be a gift, but often a curse), so let me break it down very simply.

When our need for intimacy and connection are not being met in our relationships, we often turn towards the place (most often another person; addiction; work, etc.) where we can connect, find intimacy. Ultimately, we not only want intimacy (and when I talk about intimacy, I am not speaking just sexually, but in general), but we want to feel valued for who we are, what we have to say, and what we have to offer. If then, the relationships we are in do not provide a place where we feel safe, valued, affirmed, loved….where we don’t connect and have a level of intimacy….WELL, then we often turn to other things.

Instant Affirmation
That’s what makes the internet, online communities and social media tools so powerful and addicting. Unlike the reality of a face to face relationship, online communities can often provide instant affirmation, and access to connection, and a certain level of intimacy that sometimes is harder to achieve when you are dealing with another person, in the flesh. Online we can be anyone we want to be…we can present ourselves in any shape, size or manner. It is easy to be liked, and if someone doesn’t like us, or affirm us, well then we can just remove them from our community or shut down communication. That is much more difficult to do in person.

What I’m trying to communicate is much more complex than what I can, or am wanting to achieve in this post. But I do want you…I do want me…I do want us to be more AWARE of this issue.

Let me give you a prime example. Let’s say you are a blogger (and most of us are) and you have developed an online following that is pretty affirming. They like what you write, they leave comments, your traffic is a boost to your ego. Well, because of that affirmation you turn to that channel to find that connection. And if you aren’t careful, you stop paying as much attention to your relationships (family, spouse, children, friends, etc.). You have this online community that is affirming and an instant connection…so when family life isn’t as quick to affirm or provide connection, it becomes an easy shift to start paying more attention to the online world.

The danger in all this is that it’s really a bind. People often seek affirmation from the online world life when their home/work life isn’t so great. And other times, just spending so much time online without any boundaries can lead to neglect of our in person relationships. And when they get difficult, it’s just easier to stay online.

Be Aware
As someone who is engaged in the world of social media, therapy and ministry I would just say for you to be aware…to take stock, assess a few things.  Ask some questions.

  • How much time am I spending online a day?  What does my time online take away from?
  • What kind of social activities or relationships am I getting involved in?  Something as innocent as searching for, befriending and communicating with old friends online may be an attempt to fill some need for connection you aren’t getting at home.
  • Are your in person relationships being neglected in favor of your online ones?
  • Are you getting your needs met for connection, affirmation, love, acceptance, intimacy, etc. online?
  • If you and your spouse/significant other aren’t connecting, are you taking the time to talk to each other about it, or do you withdraw and seek it somewhere else..in this case online?
  • At the end of the week (outside of your required online time needed for your job), when you tally up your time online in your freetime vs. the time you spend with your family, spouse, children, etc….which ends up being more?  Why do you think that is?
  • Does your online life affirming you in ways that you aren’t getting from your in person relationships?  Or has your time online taken you away from developing and working on those relationships in person, therefore they aren’t as fulfilling as the ones online?
  • Do you belong to an accountability group that not only keeps you accountable for other parts of your life, but your online life as well.


Resources
I want to just suggest and point out a couple of resources.  Some of these are more aimed towards the sexual intimacy that many seek for online, but I suggest them to you to just point out the larger issue…and that is this:  That our online behavior affects our relationships, and sometimes online community is easier than our in person relationships, just reinforcing our desire for quick affirmation that we seek online.  And now, many professional and lay communities are really starting to acknowledge how our technological lives impact not only us, but those we are in relationship with.

Just check out the current issue of the AAMFT Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. By browsing a list of some of the articles you can see the growing concern of how our online worlds, technological lives are impacting our relationships.

Cybersex and the E-teen: What Marriage and Family Therapists Should Know

Technology, Relationships, and Problems: A Research Synthesis

Emotional and Sexual Infidelity Offline and in Cyberspace
Cybersex: The Impact of a Contemporary Problem on the Practices of Marriage and Family Therapists

Therapists’ Assessment and Treatment of Internet Infidelity Cases
Assisting A Concerned Person to Motivate Someone Experiencing Cybersex Into Treatment : Application of Invitational Intervention: The ARISE Model to Cybersex

Also, check out the book, In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free from Complusive Online Sexual Behavior.

Plug….United Nerd LifeGroup
This is just one place where I’m learning a lot about the balance between living online, yet setting healthy boundaries in my online space, especially in regards to my family, relationships, work, etc. Join us tomorrow night for a great conversation at Tony Steward leads us in the below discussion.

When: 9:00–10:00PM Central Time

Where: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tonystewards-show

Topic: We are heading into week 4 of our 6 week study on getting UnPlugged as we are all online and into technology. This week we are going to be talking about having healthy intimacy in our lives and relationships. There is nothing like the distraction of technology and information overload to kill our opportunities for intimacy.

Join the Facebook Group, United Nerd LifeGroup

The Making of the Postmodern Family

June 23, 2008 in Marriage-Family with 3 Comments

My great friend and former co-worker RO Smith always “complements” me for being a co-nurterer of my daughter along with my wife. RO will make comments about us as a typical “postmodern family”, defying traditional and stereotypical role playing of the sexes in our marriage and family structure. I take all that with a great complement as RO intends it to be. Traditional or non-traditional, we have had to adjust to each other’s vaules, roles and expectations, as well as what it is like to live in the high cost of living state of California. Which makes life interesting in a dual-income, one baby family.

As I enter my second week as a full-time stay at home dad I want to post a couple of blog entries that RO wrote a while back at Collection of Crumbs on The State of the Postmodern Family.

The two posts are, The State of the Postmodern Family (Part 1), and (Part 2).

A lot of RO’s thoughts and research are derived from the Family Ministry Class at Fuller taught by Dr. Chap Clark. Check out the post and see what you think about the values, roles and expectations that RO talks about.

I’m curious to hear what you think.
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