Startling Insight into the Healing Powers of Marriage

by
Mark E. Smith, LCSW

Prologue
I have been writing about marital issues since I put my first brochure
together back in 1989. Many of my marital articles have the very
same theme. Im sort of a one note chump. I only know one thing and
I only have one skill. The skill I have is that, if need be, I can abrasively share this concept until most people get it. The thing I know
is the topic of my third E-Book. The book is a collection of 14 articles
that I have written over the years for our newsletter The Networker. All 14 articles are about the same topic. I attempted to
cutely and cleverly re-package each one to cover the same material in
a hopefully fresh and unique perspective. Those of you who know me
know that the one thing I know is that you marry your issues, that
there are no victims in marriage and that marital pain is all good. In
fact marital pain is a gift! Before every chapter I am adding a few
new paragraphs about that particular article, when it was written,
what inspired it and what clean and fresh angle it can bring to your
developing insight on the topic. The chapters areMe and My Sparrow, Marriage Actually is..Purgatory, Your Marriage is Supposed
to be Miserable!, Marriage Isnt What You Think It Is, Illusions In
Marriage, The Divorce Destroyer, The Mind Blowing Actual Purpose
Of Marriage, Victims No Longer!, Marital Wounds, Your Marital
Problems Are A GIFT, Can This Marriage Be Saved?, Learn From
The Pain Of Your Marriage, Rebuilding After An Affair and Let Us
Rock Your Marriage to Its Core!. Each of these articles are my babies
and I know that each of them will speak to you in different ways.
Our whole practice is based on this one amazing concept. If you read
this book with an open mind you will grasp what I believe to be an
immutable law of nature. It will explain a lot of things for you. It
can integrate your life as a whole, connecting your childhood experi-

ences with your relationship history and your adult life as a whole.
The concept in this book is not a nice little insight that can move you
a bit this week as you read the book. It is a grand and sweeping
paradigm that will re-define for you the nature of love, marriage, divorce, remarriage, dating, forgiveness, marital responsibility, and
many more concepts.
No one ever, ever, EVER married the wrong person. There are no
mistakes in marriage. There are no 'we were so young so it doesn't
count marriages. You fall in love with exactly the right person for a
reason and that reason is nature's way of forcing you to finally face
off with your issues. This I will prove to you if you come to this book
with an open mind.

Chapter One - Illusions in Marriage

This is my oldest article. I wrote it in the spring of 1990. We typeset it on a type writer as we
didn't have a computer yet. There was no quick and easy downloading of google images. I
bought an expensive and quite cheesy book of clip art to illustrate the article. The article did
speak to the young message of our then two person marriage counseling practice. I had lost
this article. It was locked away in a drawer. We are just now putting it online. We have
shaken the dust and the mold off of it and I believe that it can still speak to people as effectively as it did 20 years ago.

Websters New Collegiate Dictionary defines the word illusion as a

perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause
misinterpretation of its actual nature. In other words, what you see
is not always what you get. I cannot tell you how many times during
marital therapy sessions with couples in crisis, that one or both of the
spouses has bemoaned their perception that their mate has changed
for the worse. During their courtship, she perceived him as nurturing, sensitive, giving, and talkative. But, all of a sudden, after two
years of marriage, she realizes that he has become distant, withholding, and resentful of her demands for attention. As they were falling
in love he perceived her as sweet, responsible, and spunky in her own
cute way. Now, as he wakes up and smells the coffee, he is beginning
to see her in an altogether different lightas aggressive, controlling,
and domineering.
Frequently, intense power struggles take place as each disillusioned
spouse strives to change their partner back into the person they
thought they married. Perhaps I should have entitled this article
Misperceptions in Courtship rather than Illusions in Marriage.
The cause of such misunderstandings has much more to do with the
inherent blindness of love than it does with any deliberate misrepresentations on the part of the loved one. The goal of marital therapy is
to take the blinders off. This article will discuss some invaluable conceptual tools which help couples gain accurate, reality-baded perceptions both of themselves, and of each other.

I do not allow couples to argue unproductively in my sessions. They

can do that at home for free. Therapy begins with a temporary truce.
Rather than forging right into the emotionally charged issues at
hand, several sessions are spent gathering family background information through the use of a family map. I cant help a couple unless
I understand them, and I cant understand them unless I know about
their familiestheir parents, grandparents, siblings, and children.
At this point in the therapy, I share a very powerful concept with the
couple, which, if grasped, completely changes how they perceive
themselves, as well as how they perceive each other. This, in turn,
dramatically alters the nature of their communication patterns. The
concept, called projective identification by family therapists, is best
explained in simple terms. You have heard the saying, he looks at
the world through rose colored glasses.
Well, I like to tell my clients that they look
at the world through glasses tinted with
their familys own particular perceptions
of realityhow relationships work, religion, education, child-rearing, etc. In effect, Suzi, who grew up as a member of
the Jones family, has Jones colored
glasses. Whereas Tom, who grew up in the
Davis family, was issued a pair of Davis colored glasses to view the
world through. Perceptions can seem so realbut they arent real,
they are tinted, and distorted by unresolved emotional issues, and by
the unique emotional and cultural climate of the family we were
raised in.
Actually, in some ways I dont feel as if love is blind at all. On a conscious level, certainly it is. However, I do not feel as if relationship
contracts are primarily negotiated on a conscious level. The reason
so many relationship patterns repeat themselves from one generation

to the next, is that on an unconscious level we select partners who will

help us replay the themes of our childhood. Consciously, a daughter
of an alcoholic abhors the thought of marrying an alcoholicbut
many, in not a majority, do. A man who quietly resented his domineering mother replays his childhood issues by playing the role of a
passive-aggressive, hen-pecked husband of a domineering wife. A
woman whose emotional needs were ignored and left unmet in childhood, though she hoped for a thought she was marrying a nurturing,
sensitive, giving man, discovers to her dismay, that she went out and
selected a husband who is just like her parentsemotionally distant
and withholding.
If a couple can understand that there arent any good guys or bad
guys, that in fact they have been misperceiving each other due to the
blindspots they inherited by growing up in their particular families,
and that in fact they selected each other for specific unconscious reasons that have to do with childhood issues, needs, and expectations,
then they are ready for an adventure of leaning, growing, and changing. Such objective couples are a joy to
work with. There are still misperceptions, illusions,
and conflicts; however, with the therapist acting as an
interpreter, the couple learns how to understand the
language of their spouses family issues. Given
time, and a lot of hard work, the misperceptions and illusions become
fewer and fewer, and what is left are two healthier, more insightful,
and most importantly, much more real individuals who have the tools
to negotiate their relationship in a productive and loving manner.

Chapter Two - Marriage Actually is.....Purgatory

Purgatory is a great metaphor for marriage as you will see. My vision of marriage is NOT
fantastically romantic but it is accurate. If you have been married very long you know that
marriage can be an extremely painful and unhappy place to be. I like the article because it
speaks of God being the Master Mind behind the central purpose of marriage rather than
Mother Nature. I don't believe that there is a ton of out-and-out bliss in healthy and mature
relationships. There is a safe, calm, solid, unselfish, abiding love that is all about partnership and equality. So I guess that is the slice of heaven that we all can work towards.

I know what you are thinking -- that wacky therapist has gone too far
this time in his effort to come up with a catchy little title to his article.
Marriage is purgatory??? That doesn't exactly sound very romantic,
does it? Well, let me explain. Although my particular theological persuasion does not in any way embrace the concept of an actual spiritual destination called purgatory, my understanding of this belief is
that it is basically an unhappy place where flawed souls go to pay for
their sins and to work towards perhaps someday getting through the
pearly gates where joy, intimacy, acceptance and love abide. There
you have it; that is exactly what marriage is. Let me break this down
for you piece by piece.
#1 It is basically a painful, unhappy place. Building a truly happy
and mature marriage is difficult and painstaking work. Most couples
experience a blissful, love-filled initial stage of their relationship that
I call the "enmeshment" stage. There are few fights, if any, the sexual chemistry is hot and is very easy to
maintain, and even people who were
never previously given to deep emotional sharing sessions all of a sudden
are intimacy all-pros with their newfound soul mates.

The problem with the enmeshment stage is that it never, I mean

never, ever lasts. Time, professional demands, mortgage payments,
diapers that need changing, grass that needs cutting, homework that
needs monitoring, aging, bald heads and expanded waist or hip sizes
have a way of eating away at love's zealous first bloom. My now exwife and I used to say the following words as we exhaustedly face
task after family task, "It sure takes a lot of work to maintain a family." More damaging to a marriage's romantic lifeblood even than all
the many pressures of life is the inability to have good, clean, intense,
and robust and sometimes ugly fights which eventually result in adjusted attitudes, improved communication and warm fuzzy reconnections followed by spirited lovemaking sessions. At my recent 25th
high school reunion I was sitting at a table where several of the men
were lamenting our downtrodden economy's effect on their businesses. To that I responded, not intending to sound grandiose, that
the business of marital therapy was absolutely booming and was, as
far as I could tell, completely recession proof. The bliss just does not
last. After anywhere from 1 to 7 years of marriage, the majority of
couples are struggling with unmet expectations, major unresolved
conflicts, hurt feelings and an ominous, growing sense of distance in
the relationship.
#2 Purgatory is a place where flawed souls go to pay for their sins.
Our theoretical approach here at Family Tree is based on an Old Testament scripture that reads, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited
upon the children, and the children's children, even to the third and
fourth generation." Very few people grow up in exceptionally
healthy families. People have issues! Anyone who has ever been in a
relationship has been in therapy, even if they have never considered
darkening the door of a therapist's office. Marriage is a place that we
all go to work on our issues-to fight our demons, to face the combined
effect of the sins of our forefathers on our imperfect personalities.
Family Tree's most central and most important tenant is that marriage has been designed by God to give us an opportunity to heal the

wounds that came as a result of our childhood experiences. God designed us to be strongly attracted only to individuals who, unbeknownst to us, basically represent the best and very worst qualities of
our parents.
Marriage is the best and most common battlefield in which most people have an opportunity to finally come to grips with their issues with
their parents. A woman who grew up with a distant workaholic father
will struggle to have a voice with her now workaholic husband. A
man with disconnected, distant and under-nurturing parents will
naturally be highly attracted to the mysterious,
quiet and intriguingly distant new woman at
work. Then he will work hard at attempting to
connect with her -- at finally gaining attention,
praise, acceptance and nurturing from an individual who is supposed to love him, as his parents were supposed to love him. Marriage is
the perfect place for flawed souls to pay for
their sins, or to work at resolving the emotional baggage that comes
with being a product of their particular normal American dysfunctional family.
#3 Marriage is the natural place to work towards perhaps someday
getting through the pearly gates (of relational heaven) where joy, intimacy, acceptance and love abide. That is what
marriage is; it is an opportunity to resolve past issues, forge a new and healthier self and then finally consistently taste the fruits of a solid interdependent marriage-deep intimacy, true acceptance
even with the damning evidence of all of your
many imperfections, a deep and lifelong love and a
quiet and sustaining joy over the richness and
many blessings that life offers us all. Unfortunately, for most people,
marriage also represents a very real opportunity to sink into relation-

ship hell, which is filled with bitterness, hate, divorce, lawyers, broken hearts, rage, addiction, betrayal and the like. A marriage is an
opportunity to go either way-either through hard work, being proactive, insight, therapy, faith and forbearance to scale the heights of a
true and mature lifelong partnership and love affair or through a
lack of insight into one's own issues, a
victim mentality, a lack of commitment, an avoidance of therapy, and a
lack of faith, descending into the pits
of bitter, cold, emotionally cut off relational hell. The choice is yours.
Most people can't do this work without an expert guide to help them
along the journey.

Chapter Three - Your Marriage is Supposed to be Miserable!

The title to this article was supposed to reach out and smack you in the head. It is true but it
always shocks couples when I explain it. I believe that this is my newest article, written in
2010. The look on the faces of the couple that I see are just classic when I explain this
truth. Their marriage is fine. It is doing what it was designed to do - make them both friggin miserable. It usually isn't a relief though. They want it fixed and now! This is powerful
stuff.

You read correctly! If you have been married more than 7 years and
you have not done some major league marital therapy as of yet then
your immense marital unhappiness is right on track where it is supposed to be. Are you surprised at that? If
you are then you do not understand the
nature and the purpose of marriage.
Your marriage is actually operating perfectly well, just as it was designed to do.
The under lying nature of your marital
unhappiness goes much deeper than the
dynamics between you and the person
you said I do two years ago. The problem my dear friendis you.
I cant judge you for your not fully
grasping the nature of marriage. Who of us actually knew ourselves
and truly and deeply knew our spouses when we made those vows
that fateful day? And who of us had a skilled and knowledgeable
therapist plumbing the dysfunctional potential of our fresh and innocent union? Hear this; sorry for raising my voice but I want for you
to get it THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE IS TO REINACT THE
MOST PAINFUL ASPECTS OF YOUR CHILDHOOD WITH SOMEONE STANDING IN THE PLACE OF THE PERSON(S) WHO HURT
YOU THE MOST. That is why you arent happily married. You werent healthily and happily enough raised. Please take that truth to the
bank it is pure gold.

Your childhood is the very foundation of you and all that you are.
Your flawed parents were no doubt wonderful people, but dont kid
yourself, they had more issues than a barrel
full of monkeys. While they did their best to
love you and give you a stable childhood they
came short, way short of all that you needed.
So you were wounded. And then you thankfully developed some pretty sturdy psychological defenses whose purpose was to protect you
from truths and pain at your very core. So you
left home full of hope and love and you landed
at the altar like we all doin a deaf, dumb, blind and relational inexperienced condition. But trust me; you were standing at the scene of
the crime with the right conspirator. Your internal radar system drew
you to the perfect person for you to marry. No one ever, ever married
the wrong person. Your beloveds role was to blissfully skate by with
you for 5 to 7 years of early love bonding or enmeshment and then
to eventually and imperceptivity show their true colors to you. This is
what love and marriage is. Once the enmeshment is over you wake up
one day and realize that your jerk of a husband is actually a dead
ringer for your controlling and critical mother or that your betraying
wife is a Ground Hog Day
rehash of the father who
abandoned the family when
you were 4, or that your know
it all alcoholic boyfriend is a
carbon copy of your know it
all workaholic father. And 10,
15 or 20 years in without therapy you expect to be happily
married? No. Not in the
cards.

Marital issues are an opportunity for you to look at you and to examine your flaws and wounds. It is not a place to point the finger. Divorce really isnt a good option at all. Mainly because you are guaranteed to marry the same person all over again the second time
around. Theyll just with a different name and a different face and a
whole lot of messy baggage for all concerned. Face your pain. Embrace your pain. Normalize it. It is normal as breathing. But you cannot figure this out for yourself. If you could have you would have by
now. One of you needs to realize that there is a serious condition that
needs attention and seek the proper help. By proper help I mean
ONLY a therapist who ties your
childhood wounding to your current
state of marital unhappiness and
who fosters a community of Recovery for both of you in a safe and directive environment where truths
about both of you are boldly and
cuttingly named and owned. It isnt
about fixing the marriage. It is
about fixing two broken wounded
people who have been trying like hell to push each other to the very
end of themselves. It is time.

Chapter Four - Surprise...Marriage Isn't What You Think It Is

Okay, the title is really dopey, I know. There is another article later that discusses my love of
weddings. We have such sweeping and lofty goals for marriage that we can never, ever even
come close to living up to. Consider this article a "Consumer's Reports type of assessment
on the product called marriage". The wider your eyes are opened the better.

I love attending weddings. The beautiful music, the innocence, the joy
and the unbridled faith in eternal love never cease to make me shed a
few tears. The message is almost always given that marriage is THE
source for such priceless goodies as unconditional love, bliss, happiness, fulfillment, joy and a
life blessed by God. In the
weddings that I attend the
stars of the show are usually
in their early 20's. Bless their
hearts; they have no idea #1
who they are, #2 who their
beloved is or #3 what in the
world they are committing to.
I can't help it though it still
makes me cry.
During these lovely services I frequently day dream about the young
couple asking me, as the renowned expert on marriage to the microphone to say a few uplifting and pithy statements about the blessed
institution of marriage. The bride and groom swell with anticipation
as I clear my throat and direct the following statements in their direction "You have no idea what you are about to get yourself into. Marriage is not at all what it has been painted as in this wonderful service
today. In fact, marriage in reality is ultimately the following - a reenactment of the most painful experiences of your childhood, a Trojan
horse, a seemingly cruel cosmic double cross and the great un-masker
of your unresolved childhood issues, an opportunity to heal deep
emotional wounds, and just plain brutally hard work. In my day-

dream after an awkward moment of silence, at this point the bride

breaks into uncontrollable tears.
#1 Marriage is a reenactment of the most painful experiences of your
childhood, absolutely positively, amen. Everyone all of us sustains
some woundedness during our childhood experiences, be they abuse,
abandonment or run of the mill mild dysfunctions. We naturally develop highly effective psychological defense mechanisms which help
us to cope, keep us from seeing who we really are and help us to avoid
feeling the emotional pain of our childhood wounds. However, the
wicked truth about love is that we are instinctively attracted to a hidden version of our parents' worst qualities so that we are forced to
work on our stuff. THAT is the meaning of love and marriage.
#2 Marriage is a Trojan horse - When we fall in love
we fall under the powerful grip of what we therapists call 'enmeshment'. Enmeshment is blind,
heartfelt, head- over-heels intoxicating passion.
However, lurking un-noticed on their insides are the
very dangerous and hurtful traits of our parents.
#3 Marriage is a seemingly cruel cosmic double
cross - I've heard some awful stories. I have talked
with people who were devastated, shocked and completely un-done after their perfect spouse abandoned and betrayed
them by finally showing their true colors. This is where the truth
about what marriage is can be so incredibly helpful. I help these
wounded souls proactively embrace their relationship's lessons. It is
about them. I teach them that relationships are all good and all fair.
We get what we need. We can learn and grow from our relationship
pain or we can become bitter, cynical, jaded and miserable.
#4 Marriage is the great un-masker of our unresolved childhood issues - The trip to the therapist's office usually coincides with an un-

masking of the marriage's real nature. A scary burst of rage that explodes out of a seemingly gentle
young husband or an intercepted email from what he thought was his
happy and forever faithful young
wife's new lover. In this work couples face both the loss of innocence
in their relationship as well as the
beginning of real growth and communication.
#5 Marriage is an opportunity to heal deep emotional wounds and it
is just plain brutally hard work - Marital pain is an opportunity to
work as hard as you have ever worked on anything. If your spouse
breaks your heart it doesn't mean that they are the wrong person for
you " it means that they are the perfect person for you.

Chapter Five - The Healing Of A Marriage

This story is a story that has been replayed millions of times in our culture - at least the beginning and unraveling of the marriage part. It is amazing how disillusionment can set in
as powerfully as the early over idealization. Mike and Sue aren't just one couple that I
worked with, but rather a combination of many couples I've worked with through the years.

Mike and Sue fell madly in love during their college years. Sue was
very attracted to Mike's confident, strong, and sensitive nature, and
Mike loved Sue's sweet, easy-going, and giving personality. It seemed
to be a match made in heaven. The early years of marriage were easy,
fun, and connected. Mike finished in graduate degree in engineering
and accepted a lucrative position with a fortune 500 company. Mike
had been extremely poor as a child, and he was hungry, focused, and
highly driven to be as successful as possible.
As the years went by, Sue's complete focus became the home and the
kids (there were three now). In the first 10 years of his career, Mike
had accepted four promotions, which had also meant four longdistance relocations. Recently a company on the East Coast had purchased Mike's company, and he was under a tremendous amount of
pressure dealing with a massive downsizing of his department. His
weekly work schedule, which had always been intense, had ballooned
to 70+ hours a week. It had been years since he felt like he had time
to work out, and he was beginning to put
on quite a bit of weight, especially around
his waist.
Sue was feeling absolutely overwhelmed at
home with kids' homework, discipline issues, soccer, and a house that never seemed
close to being clean. A thick emotional wall
had developed between Sue and Bill. In
the early years they made love at least 3 or

4 times a week, but lately the frequency had been reduced to about
once every other month. Sue was extremely lonely and depressed.
This isn't what she had imagined family life to be like. It felt like she
was a single mother. When Mike was home he was grouchy, exhausted, abusive, and pretty well useless when it came to helping with
the kids or the house. When Sue would bring the issues up, Mike
would instantly become defensive and angry. He was sick and tired of
being criticized for, in his mind, was simply the need to work hard to
provide for his family. It seemed like neither of them was able to truly
hear and empathize with the other. Sue felt a very deep, seething anger towards Mike. It felt to her if he had actually chosen to abandon
both her and the kids. She did not want to divorce because of the
kids, and her strong faith, but her marriage was completely barren
and miserable.
Mike felt pressure from all sides it seemed like everybody was angry
and disappointed with him. Since Sue never seemed interested in sex,
Mike rationalized that getting involved with Internet pornography
was a harmless substitute. This became a very addictive habit. It got
to where Mike needed to log on to a porn site several times a day. Sue
was absolutely furious when she discovered what Mike had been doing on the Internet. After talking it over with her minister, Sue decided to give marriage counseling a try before proceeding with a divorce.
Like a lot of men, Mike seemed mighty nervous upon
his initial visit to my office. He was sure that marriage
counseling was a mechanism that Sue would use to
punish, and blame him. I began the session by allowing
both Mike and Sue to share their perception of the
marital issues. With a great deal of emotion, Sue
poured out a litany of Mike's numerous sins as he sank
deeper and deeper into my couch. From Mike's perspective the problems centered around Sue's not being supportive re-

garding his stress level at work, refusing sex, and just generally being
angry and critical all the time.
Having explained the need to shift the focus off of the current conflicts and onto their life histories, I began with Sue. As we got into
Sue's story, the room somehow changed. Instead of being a tense,
conflict-filled situation, the mood became one of vulnerability and
openness. I asked Sue what her father was like when she was a little
girl. Sue began to quietly weep. Sue's father had been a traveling
salesman whose territory included the entire Midwest. He was frequently on the road from Monday through Friday, and when he was
home she described him as being short tempered, controlling, and
critical. Sue had always had a tremendous hunger in her heart for
her father's love and attention. She told herself that she would never
marry a man like her father. During their courtship and the early
years of marriage, Mike had seemed to be the very antithesis of her
father. He was tender, and intimate, and nurturing. Sue was so
happy during those years. At this point, however, it almost felt as if
Mike had deceived her into marrying him he had majorly over promised and under delivered for too many years now. In recent weeks,
Sue became aware of a very deep rage towards Mike. She was actually beginning to hate the man she had once adored. As she sat before
me, I knew that she had very little faith that her marriage could be
salvaged. I also knew that was going to change very soon.
Mike's father had been an alcoholic who had raged and beaten
Mike's mother. He completely abandoned
the family when Mike was 10. Although
Mike's mother did her best, she struggled
to provide for Mike and his little brother
with her waitressing jobs. Mike became
the man of the house. Mike swore to himself that he would never rage, abandon his
family, or, most importantly, EVER,

EVER be poor again. The twin "barking dogs" of fear, and never
feeling quite good enough constantly nipped at his heals. Mike was
not a bad guy he was actually a very good man just trying to do his
best given the tools that he was given. Mike seemed quite irritated
and embarrassed when a few tears trickled down his face as he spoke
about his lonely, impoverished childhood. As we ended the second
session I prepared Mike and Sue for what was coming their way the
next time we met. I told them to come with open hearts and minds,
and if they did, that the feedback session could very well prove to be
the most important 1-hour of their lives. I told them that feedback
was not for the faint of heart, that it was psychological surgery with
no anesthesia provided. I could tell that Sue's hope level had risen a
bit as we scheduled our crucial next meeting.
When Mike and Sue arriving at my office on feedback day they were
both extremely nervous. Their hearts seemed wide open as I launched
into my presentation. I focused on Sue, whose sense of victimization
was threatening the existence of the marriage, that God had developed a very wonderful and a very terrible mechanism for healing our
unresolved childhood issues. It is called marriage. Anyone who has
ever been married has been in therapy, even if they have never darkened the door of a therapist's office. I explained that we are all
equipped with an infallible radar system that causes us to be attracted to exactly the perfect person for us to marry. We pick a person who will love us with the same type and quality of love that our
parents loved us with.
Sue grew up being abandoned by her critical, raging, workaholic father. She then was drawn to Mike because she sensed, on a purely unconscious level, that he was, in fact, a carbon copy of her dad. That is
what we all do. We can't heal if we are hiding behind a whole battery
of psychological defenses. Our spouse's job is to break us down and
cause us pain, and Mike was doing a fine job of this with Sue. One
picture I give new clients is this" Imagine yourself at the front of the

church being introduced by your minister as the newly

married Mr. and Mrs. so and so. After smiling initially
as you walk down the aisle, you go into shock when
your new husband slips off a mask like Tom Cruise in
Mission Impossible 2 and it is your father (or your
mother) standing there. Mike's unconscious agenda
was common for a well-defended male " he was attracted consciously to a sweet, non-critical gal who
adored him and gave him 90% of the power in the relationship who would eventually become disillusioned, critical and ultimately abandon him just the way his father did.

Chapter Six - Divorce Destroyer

If every couple in America understood the concepts in this point deeply and fully, the divorce
rate would be cut in half (at least). Divorces aren't caused by the awful things that people
do. They are caused when one or both parties believe that they have been the victim of the
other person in the marriage. There has never been a victim in a marriage. We all marry
exactly who we need to marry. It is all fair and it is all good all the time.

OK, maybe the title of this article is a little bit dramatic sounding,
but I really wanted to get the attention of those of you whose marriages are teetering on the brink of divorce or those of you who know
couples in dire straits. Through my 23 years as a therapist, I have
come across a profound truth which has saved literally hundreds of
marriages. With every couple that I work with, my goal is the same:
to get this truth deeply embedded into the heart, mind and soul of
both the husband and the wife. As I introduce this topic during the
initial feedback session with new couples, I frequently say that it is by
far the most profound concept that I will ever have to offer them. I
encourage you to come to this information with an open mind;
frankly, it will probably sound like "psychobabble" at first, but I can
assure that it is about as far from meaningless and powerless psychobabble as possible. The purpose of this article is to give hope where
there currently is none. This article won't fix your marriage, but it
can point you in the right direction. You will need a lot of help from a
skilled and caring therapist in order to repair your marriage.
With all that fanfare, here goes. There are absolutely, positively no
victims in marriage-ever. That is a shocking statement to the ears of
the spouse who comes to therapy because they feel extremely victimized by their partner's infidelity, neglect, abuse, rage, abandonment,
responsibilities, etc. Surely I'm not saying that spouses who have
been cheated on or raged upon have not been victimized? Actually
that is exactly what I am saying; and what is more, if you have an
open mind, I think that I can prove it to you. I will take it one step

further; the most appropriate and proactive response from an individual who feels victimized by their spouse's behavior is actually to
be sincerely thankful for the opportunities for deep, life-changing
growth that the spouse has provided. Not quite there yet? Let me explain further. It will make a world of sense to you very soon. If you
get it, it very well could change everything; it could turn a negative, bitter,
powerless, miserable situation into a
positive, team-building, marriagehealing project that could ultimately
yield the fruit of a happy and fulfilling
marriage to the very person you have
been seeing as such a stinker. Does that
sound too good to be true? I have seen
it happen many, many times with people who are probably no different than
you are.
Here's the thing; there are no victims
in marriage because you not only chose
your spouse, you actually knew exactly who they were and what they
were all about before you married them. We are all equipped with an
unconscious and infallible radar system that causes us to be attracted
to absolutely the perfect person in the entire world for us to marry.
The reason we are attracted to them is that, unknown to us, they possess the combined worst attributes of our parents. They are qualified
because they are uniquely wired psychologically to be able to hurt us
the most deeply, the most effectively, and the most completely. In fact,
that is their mission, to hurt and challenge us to our very cores. For
those of you who haven't tossed the article yet, hang in there; I will
piece this together soon.
Nature heals itself. When trees are damaged, the bark begins a natural healing process that saves the life of the tree. If you were to cut

your finger, immediately red blood platelets arrive on the scene, begin to coagulate the blood, and the healing process begins. In several
weeks the cut is gone. Doctors do not heal the body; the body heals itself. Doctors only help the body to best do its healing work. It is the
same thing with our hearts, if our hearts get cut when we are children
(and I believe that that happens to all of us to one degree or another).
What was your childhood like? Were there any of the following: parents, who were either overly critical, or controlling, or addictive, or
oblivious, or workaholic, or full of rage, or not there for you for whatever reason? You are completely
normal if that was your experience.
A child whose heart is cut and
hurting will naturally erect thick
psychological walls as a coping
mechanism. That cut cannot be
healed until their psychological defense mechanisms come crumbling
down. Many times this doesn't happen until about age 30 or later
with the help of the pain of relationships. I believe that God has created a very wonderful and terrible system for reaching our walled off
hearts; it is called marriage.
Basically, we are attracted to people who fit a certain psychological
profile; they are the physical incarnation of our unresolved issues
with our parents, people who are all about giving us the very same
type and quality of love that we received as children. I like to give this
picture . . . you are at the altar and the minister says, "I present to
you Mr. and Mrs. Mike Jones" and as you gaze into your beloved's
face, they pull off a mask like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and
it is your father (or the parent who caused you the most pain) standing there. That is what we all do. The mating process is driven by an
instinctive drive on our part to both connect with and heal our core
childhood scars. You say that you don't have any childhood issues or
scars? Yes you do, or your marriage would not be in shambles at this

point.
Does my theory sound like a stretch? Remember I said that I would
prove it to you? Here we go. Take a sheet of paper and write down
the first ten or so descriptive words each that come to your mind
about your father, your mother, any step-parent, any long-term serious dating relationship, previous spouses, and your current spouse.
This will only work if you are able to be open and honest with yourself. Many times people tend to over idealize their parents out of a
sense of loyalty. We certainly aren't into blaming parents, but it will
be very important to name the truth about what your childhood experience was really like. Now, compare your lists. Isn't that a kicker?
Most people are too close to their situations to ever see it before they
see it in black and white. That controlling, critical, irresponsible, raging husband has actually just been standing in for your father of the
very same qualities. It is almost as if you handed your husband a
script and asked him to play the role; he could do it very easily because that was who he was anyway. If you didn't pick this spouse who
hurt you in this way, you most certainly would have selected someone
just like him or her. Be careful in discarding this spouse. If you don't
fix your issues, you will pick the same person all over again; they'll
just have a different name and a different face. They are actually neither here nor there in the equation.
If you had some pain in your childhood (like most people do), the last
thing that you would consciously do is select someone who clearly
had the very same qualities which were so hurtful to you as a child.
However, when we first meet our spouses, we are intrigued with them
and attracted to them in very powerful ways. We let them in through
the walls of our hearts not knowing that inside them are some very
powerful destructive forces which are tailor-made to humble and
break us down. Look at your list again. That is not a coincidence.
That is an immutable law of nature at work, potentially for our own
good and benefit. They might look like your enemy, but your

"offending" spouse is actually your best

friend. They are in your life to help you to
grow and heal and mature. With help you can
learn to embrace the healing and the lessons
that your "teacher/spouse" has for you.
If people knew about this life-changing truth,
the divorce rate would be drastically reduced
immediately. Your spouse has not done a thing
to you that you did not sign on for and cooperate with. Nobody made you select that individual and put him or her solely in charge of loving you. Of all the men or women on the
planet, you picked them. That was your choice. It was the radar system in your heart. Nobody ever married the wrong person. That is a
phrase used by irresponsible and unenlightened individuals looking
to run away from messes that they themselves have made. We create
and design our lives and our marriages. We are not duped. In our
hearts we know exactly what we are bargaining for.
I am not suggesting that couples stay together just to grow older and
more miserable with each other every year (as many of our parents
did). If both you and your spouse can make the needed changes (with
the help of a skilled therapist) there is no one on the planet with
whom you will be happier than with your current spouse. You had
chemistry with them, you have history with them, you have children
with them, and they are not your problem; your problem is deep inside your heart where it has always been and where it will remain if
you select the divorce route. It took the power of a real relationship in
real life with your spouse to wake you up emotionally to the point
that you are ready to do something drastic. Do something drastic
then; visit a therapist instead of a lawyer. The lawyer or a new lover
might seem like your friend because they can get you out of your
painful circumstances, but they are actually your enemies masquer-

ading as your friends who are unwittingly keeping

you from having to face yourself and your issues.
This concept truly does destroy divorces. If you get
this concept, and if your spouse is able and willing to
work on the marriage as most people are, a divorce is
no longer needed. It would serve no useful purpose
whatsoever. I encourage you to look at your spouse in
a different and a more redemptive manner. God gave
them to you not to hurt you, but to heal you. I hope that you have the
courage to embrace the lessons that your teacher/spouse and God
have for you.

Chapter Seven - The Mind Blowing Actual Purpose Of Marriage

During a particularly difficult time in my life last year I finished this article just before attending a writing conference. At the conference I met a woman from a publisher. After
hearing some of my really sad and really bad poetry she asked me if I had anything else. After I gave her this article she published it on ChristianityToday.com. I even made fifty bucks
from the deal. This article probably captures the essence of this book more so than any of
the others.

I was invited to another wonderful wedding recently. My handsome

young nephew had a smile that could have lit up the universe as his
gorgeous blond bride was making her way down the aisle to join him
in the bonds of matrimony. He was marrying the woman of his
dreams and it was all good. The problem was, like all young kids on
their glorious wedding days my man didnt really know who he was
marrying. If he did, he would have
quietly slipped out the back of the
church before he uttered those fateful
words I do. I dont know his beautiful new bride but my comments are in
no way a slight on her character. I am
sure she is a very fine young woman
who loves her new husband with a
pure and sincere heart. But I know
who she isshe actually represents the
worst personal characteristics of my
nephews parents miraculously and
cleverly disguised in an appealing and lovely package this I guarantee you. It was as if a lethal buzz saw was headed down the aisle for a
meeting with my handsome nephew and he could not have been more
cluelessly happy to embrace it. There was no fear or awareness of the
danger he was in. My friends this is what marriage is for ALL of
us.

The purpose of marriage is PAIN! Not a very romantic notion I

know. Let me explain. The truth is that we all have experienced some
childhood wounding. This world of ours is an extremely flawed place
and we all get our fair share of emotional bumps and bruises when
we are tiny, unprotected and vulnerable. If you do not know this
about yourself then you really do not know who you are or where you
came from. Thankfully, complex hurting little human beings then
have fortresses of powerful psychological defenses rise up to provide
integrity, protection and safety. We learn to rationalize, cope, act out,
devalue, intellectualize, idealize, deny, undo, disassociate, minimize,
displace, project, repress, regress and otherwise numb all the bad
stuff out. The purpose of our psychological defenses get us the heck
out of childhood in one functioning piece with the misguided impression that we are all grown up now and were free to go live our lives
without any significant impact from dad, mom, and the rest of that
bunch. I wish that were true.
The truth is that our particular family dysfunction conspires to form
and twist us into who we uniquely are both good and bad. It actually determines who you are attracted to. Whatever wounding you
are repressing from childhood develops and morphs into your love
life type. I wish it wasnt true but it is. Nature would very much like
for each of us to heal our deepest emotional wounds. We are pretty
much stuck liking who we like. We are intensely attracted only to lovers who are hidden versions of dad and moms worst and
most hurtful traits. We all have 100% unfailing radar systems that draw us the people who are so wrong for us that they are
right for us. It is natures way. It is the true
meaning of love. It is why the bad boys get
the hot girls.
I was being a bit facetious when I said that my nephew would slip out

of the back of the church if he knew the true meaning of the love that
drew him to his bride. Like the rest of us, once he got a dose of the
magic and energy of genuine early love, nothing could keep him away
from his special girl. Love and marriage are worth the pain and they
are worth the tremendous risks. Marriage is all about opportunities
for healing, growth, depth, insight, forgiveness, maturity, and recovery. Sadly, if you do not understand that the pain of love and marriage is all about YOU and your childhood and not about your beloved then you probably will miss out on the incredible opportunities
for growth, lessons and healing that love offers. No matter how your
spouse hurts you it is ultimately about you and it is all good. There
never has been, nor will there ever be, a victim in love and marriage.
My prayer for my nephew and his bride is a life-long fulfilling relationship that enriches everyone their lives touch. There will be ruthlessly tough times though. I hope that there will be a great deal of
time spent on a therapists couch someday they will absolutely need
it. You will need it as well. It is normal to have a really dysfunctional
family and to ultimately have extremely serious marital problems. It
is all about embracing the work, embracing the pain and finding out
what is laying deep in your
gut when you embrace the
cutting of the buzz saw. The
hundreds of couples that I
have worked with over the
past 22 years who have gotten
this concept have proactively
healed, thrived and blossomed into healthier and happier people. Not all of their
marriages could be salvaged
but the vast majority of them were not only salvaged, they were rebuilt from the ground up into something truly solid and wonderfully
special. The divorce rate for those who didnt get the mind blowing

secret purpose of marriage was astronomical. What is worse, they left

their marriages bitter, clueless, jaded and full of anger to take out on
the next hidden version of their unresolved issues that their unerring
radars drew into their lives. This is not a small truth, it is not psychobabble, and it is not something that only applies to some people. This
is about you. It applies to you if you are headed to the alter for the
first time as a 24 year old, it applies to you if you are in your early
40s and you are desperately lonely and unhappy in your marriage
and it applies to you if you are still looking for the good stuff in love
in your 60s. It is Natures way of healing us. It is Gods way of healing us. Marriage and relationships truly are all good. I encourage
squeezing every ounce of insight, healing and growth out of the pain
and difficulties that the gift of your particular dysfunctional relationship graces you with.

Chapter Eight - Victims No Longer!

I wrote this article about 20 years ago. It is a classic. I use some excellent imagery in the
article that doesn't appear anywhere else on our website. It is the longest article in the book.
It preaches our core message with a strong voice.

In our culture, I believe that there exists a very common misperception about individuals who seek help in therapy. Many times they are
seen as weak, whining, blame
-shifting, ungrateful people
who get "relief" from some
of their misery by dumping
their load of venomous anger
about their spouse, parents,
children, boss, etc. at their
therapist's office. Actually, it
has been my experience that
this is how many people do
begin their first session. They
are hurting, and they believe and feel as if they have been victimized
by someone or several someone's in their adult lives. However, at
Family Tree Counseling Associates they soon discover that they are in
fact not victims, but rather that their own unhealthy choices, and
their inability to set boundaries have caused the very situation that is
causing them pain.
This perspective-that we do not believe in victims-strikes at the very
heart of our therapeutic philosophy here at Family Tree Counseling
Associates. I would like to share with you why we take this stance,
and why we believe that this perspective is so vital to anyone who
really wants to improve his life.
There is a story that illustrates this concept really well. A man was
hiking in the mountains when he came across a frozen snake. The
man felt sorry for the snake and he decided to try to save the snake's

life by warming him by a fire. Sure enough, after several minutes, the
snake began to thaw out, and he was OK. The snake then crawled
over to the man and promptly bit him. Since the snake was poisonous, the man knew that he was going to die.
He said, "Mr. Snake, that hardly seems fair. I
saved your life and now you have killed
me." Then the snake said, "Well mister,
that is just what snakes do. It is our nature.
Why did you pick me up?" Like the hiker,
it is our decisions to invite or to allow the unhealthy and unsafe behaviors of others into
our lives that result in our feelings of victimization.
We believe that for many people, no doubt,
most of us, that there was a time when we
were truly victimized-in childhood. Children
are so innocent and so powerless. If they are subjected to abuse or neglect, they cannot help but grow up and carry those wounds into their
adult relationships. And by abuse and neglect I don't necessarily
mean alcoholism or sexual abuse, or parental abandonment, as
prevalent as those issues are. Most of our work here centers around
some of the more subtle forms of parental abuse and neglect: the
workaholic, emotionally unavailable father; the emotionally needy,
overly controlling mother; the rigid, shaming, authoritarian addictively religious family; or the passive, materialistic parents who were
unable to set effective disciplinarian boundaries for their children,
e tc .
Our focus is on healing these childhood wounds. For most people that
process begins when the protective psychological walls that they have
built in order to better survive the pain of their childhood are broken
down by some painful situation in an adult relationship. Many times
that is the point at which they seek therapy.

That brings us to a very important point. Psychological healing is not

unlike physical healing. When you cut
your finger, nature begins its healing work
immediately by sending white blood cells
to the scene. Nature is also constantly at
work to help us heal our unresolved psychological issues. To help us unearth unhealed wounds from our childhood, we unconsciously are attracted to and choose to
bring into our lives, individuals who have
many of the very same unhealthy qualities
that our parents did. Think about it. We
seek them out in order to help us to finish
our emotional business from childhood.
So, an overly controlling, raging spouse can be seen as a therapeutic
growth opportunity rather than as "the bad guy" by someone who
grew up in an authoritarian, angry home. The way we re-create our
childhood issues in our adult relationships is almost like "dj vu"feeling like I've already done this once before. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines "dj vu" as "already seen," and as
"something overly or unpleasantly familiar." That is exactly what we
discover when we put the pieces of an individual's family history together as we study their family trees during assessment.
It is almost spooky, how many issues get repeated from one generation to the next. In explaining this somewhat irrational phenomenon,
Hemfelt, Minirith and Meier wrote that "We all possess a primal
need to recreate the familiar, the original family situation, even if the
familiar, the situation, is destructive and painful." Recovery is
about finishing our business with previous generations, so that their
influences deep within us do not continue to haunt us by causing unhealthy, addictive relationships and behavior in our adult lives.

This process of realization, of discovering the true roots of their problems, of experiencing deep and powerful insights into themselves and
their families of origin is basically making an ideological shift from
seeing oneself as a victim, and moving to a position of selfresponsibility and recovery. I tell my clients
that if I am feeling victimized I go stand in
front of a mirror and ask myself what I did or
didn't do that allowed this situation to occur.
This awareness is life changing. Suddenly, I am
in control and no one has the power to victimize me. Victims do sound whiny. They tend to
want to ventilate their hurt and anger at or on
third parties as a way of "getting things off
their chests." Many times they come across as
persecuting and bitter.
It isn't clients in recovery therapy who sound
and act like victims. They don't ventilate their hurt and anger to
third parties. They assertively set boundaries with whoever has the
misfortune of attempting to violate them. They don't sit around and
whine and shift the blame. They take the responsibility for their lives
with positive, affirming attitudes towards others, and they don't run
from and bury the painful childhood issues which for most people are
actually unknowingly dictating their lives. They courageously face
themselves and their childhood pain,
which results in them gaining healthier, more manageable lives.
Far from being victims, during their
sessions, these psychologically open individuals have the refreshing innocence of real, precious, healing children as they wipe the tears from
their eyes from week to week. They have the guts to re-experience the

childhood pain that is still searing their insides.

They assertively name what happened to them in childhood as they
confront (but not attack) their parents. They then work through their
pain and anger, they forgive their parents, and then they move on
with their lives with much less baggage to dump on their own kids.
Many times, though, new referrals aren't prepared to face their own
issues. Their psychological walls are too thick. They are too shamebased and defensive. And many of them are too locked into positions
of victims vs. persecutors, stuck on blaming their spouse/children/
bosses, etc., to really look at themselves.
It is sad to sit and watch such individuals engage in mortal combat
with the world, as they stay locked in their prison of victimization.
Unfortunately, we, or anyone else for that matter, can't really be of
much help with people who aren't quite ready to give up their roles as
victims in order to embrace self-responsibility. Until they understand
their own responsibility in making the choices they have made that
have directly resulted in their current problems, these unhappy people will drag their bitterness's, their blame shifting, and their victim's
spirit around like a huge anchor-an anchor that slows down their
abilities to learn from their mistakes and get on with their lives.
An autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson describes
perfectly what I have been trying to share . . .
1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost . . . I am hopeless.

It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in . . . It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my responsibility.

I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
5) I walk down another street.
Recovery and self-responsibility started in the third chapter. I hope
that this article will help you to gain insights into yourself as you confront whatever deep holes you have in your sidewalks.

Chapter Nine - Marital Wounds

This article is a little brutal. It talks about how much hurt is frequently done in marriage.
Marriage is not a safe place. It is a scary place. It is a place that offers tremendous opportunities for healing and growth.

Marriages can be brutally hurtful and emotionally bloody places to

be. They have the ability to unearth our deepest pain-rage, abandonment, betrayal, depression, tears that won't stop, hatred, reactivity,
defensiveness, saying horrible things that you don't really mean, feeling unheard, hopelessness and that awful crackling tension in the air.
As a therapist I have been witness to a lot of ugly marital warfare:
slamming of doors, calling of names, saying demeaning things, attacking, meanness and the like. If you are currently in such a marriage or if you were in one, I want to help you to make some sense of
it all.
The Purpose of Marriage . . . somewhere along the line someone put
it in our heads that the purpose of marriage
was to provide unconditional love, happiness, nurturing, safety and a little heaven on
earth. That is absolutely, positively not even
remotely the purpose of marriage. I can just
hear those of you who are still in the honeymoon/enmeshment stage say "Hey, Mr.
Smarty-pants therapist, we actually do have
heaven on earth in our marriage."
I believe you, but give it some time. In seven to ten years (a lot sooner
for most), you'll be whistling a different tune, my friend. The purpose
of marriage, get this, is in fact to hurt us! You read that right. As children we all sustained some emotional wounds along the way, some
more than others. It might be a parent, who died early, or a divorce,

or addictions, or an overly critical parent, or even something that

happened outside the family. Fortunately we came equipped with the
ability to protect, defend and bury those wounds so that we could
cope, grow up and then get the heck out of Dodge. When we hit our
late teens/early twenties we are idealistic and arrogant enough to believe that by physically leaving the premises, we have raised ourselves
above whatever particular dysfunction our families foisted upon us. I
believe that it is God's desire to heal those deep wounds in our hearts.
However, as long as our defenses are covering them up, no healing
can take place. So, God places before us these wonderfully appealing,
attractive and nearly perfect new love objects, we open up the walls
of our emotional forts and then once safely inside, enemies of our
worst nightmares emerge, crawl out of this vessel and start wreaking
havoc. There you go, right from the pen of a leading professional-that
is love and marriage. That is why marriage is so painful; it is a can
opener that cuts through our protective shells only to reveal ancient
weaknesses, vulnerability and pain.
I think that the term "wound" can denote a sense of having been victimized in some way by the "wounder." When couples come into my
office, at least one (and many times both) of them invariably feels victimized by the other person. They present the problem as there being
a victim and a bad guy. However, I have learned that there is never,
ever a victim in marriage and that there aren't bad guys either. The
terms I prefer to use for our marital protagonist are teacher, healer
and best friend. When the marriage is seen in the light of the
normal unconscious reenacting of
unresolved childhood issues indirectly with the spouse standing in
for the parents like an actor in a
play, it all begins to make sense.
This person isn't the devil him- or

herself. They are whom I needed to pick to help me grow and heal.
They aren't doing me wrong; they're just being the person that they
always have been in their heart of hearts. They are doing me a favor.
I should sincerely be thankful. The problem is not my spouse. The
problem is my unresolved childhood pain. The marriage is just a
symptom. When that light goes on for a couple, it changes everything.
They are no longer enemies lashing out at each other; they become
therapy buddies who support and encourage growth in the other person. Victimy pain is the worst kind of pain. If fate or some evil person
just deliberately hurts you as an innocent victim, there is powerlessness and an anger to it that is overwhelming. However, if we are
"eating our own cooking," then we can proactively grow and learn
something about ourselves. It hurts, yes, but it is a positive because
we are correcting something that we know that we have brought on
ourselves; it is completely fair and it makes sense in the moral universe. That is my point; all marital wounds are our responsibilities.
Our marital misery is not about our spouse; it is all about our unresolved childhood issues. That is good news, because that is the one
thing that we have the power to fix and control.
I want to share a beautiful example of how this shift in thinking is
currently being played out in the therapy of a couple that I am working with. We'll call them Lenny and Becky.
When they first came in, Becky acted sort of
like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Her head didn't twist all the way around and she didn't
spew pea soup, but it was close to that. She was
filled with so much anger, reactivity and hurt.
At times it felt like her head was going to explode as she hurled accusations at Lenny.
Lenny frequently raged himself and it was so intense that it even intimidated me and I never get intimidated.
Lenny and Becky have come a long, long way. In a recent session as

Lenny was feeling scared, vulnerable and sad as he talked about a

marital wound that Becky had inflicted, rather than feeling shamed
or attacked and then getting defensive and reactive as she previously
always did, Becky tenderly encouraged Lenny to do his work. I got a
picture in my mind of a caring and nurturing mother reaching for
the hand of a scared, sweet and hurting little boy as he thought about
daring to walk into a daunting, dark and ominous forest. She knew
that it wasn't about her. She knew that she had nothing to be
ashamed of. She knew that while she was fully accountable for her
hurtful actions, ultimately Lenny would need to work through his
deep woundedness that her actions conjured up from his childhood.
There was nothing adversarial about it at all. It was an honor to be
there witnessing it. It was so wonderfully different from the bloody
and vicious attacks that they were previously capable of. That is what
a marriage where both parties are working on their stuff should look
like-facing the deep and painful issues with love and encouragement.
They are learning from and healing their wounds. Their partner
has become an ally. They are actually getting nurturing, healthy,
quality love from the hurtful
bearer of the same psychological
DNA as the original hurtful objects-the parents. It really was
beautiful to behold.
Learn from your marital wounds. They are there to teach, instruct
and heal you. Stay in the box. Don't run away. If you do, know this,
there are more Trojan Horses out there to get you. The next guy
won't be a prince, trust me; he'll ultimately have the worst traits of
your daddy and mommy just like husband #1 does. Stick with husband #1 and both of you roll up your sleeves and get to work proactively learning what you can learn from your marital wounds. We can
help you to do this.

Chapter Ten - Can This Marriage Be Saved?

We cover the main principles in this article with every client who walks in our doors. When
someone asks me "what is your success rate?" I kindly share with them that that is a really
stupid question. We don't have a success rate. We deliver our same tried and true message
with every couple we work with. If progress is made depends not on us but with our clients.
If they are both highly motivated, teachable, in a moderate amount of pain, able to trust and
be trustworthy over a 2 to 3 year program of hard work in therapy, then we are able to accomplish amazing things. Progress is all about the hearts of the clients.

It seems as if I have heard that question a million times, as I sat

across from desperate couples during their initial session. The prospect of divorce is terrifying for most people. However, there seems to
come a point where one's unhappiness becomes weightier than even
the fear of divorce. That is the point at which I usually end up meeting with these couples. They are making what feels like to them to be
a last ditch effort to salvage their marriage. Not that they usually believe in the therapeutic process, as of yet-it is basically a complete
shot in the dark, a way to maybe avoid falling into the abyss of emotional, social, and financial ruin. An old battlefield axiom states that
there are no atheists in foxholes. Impending doom has a way of making believers of us all. So, in front of me I frequently see a couple of
veterans of marital warfare, complete with fresh wounds, as well as
old battle scars. They have come in an attempt to build on their newfound and extremely shaky faith in the saving power of marital therapy. The answer that I frequently give to their desperate question is
usually quite conditional, due to the fact that the effectiveness of
marital therapy actually has more to do with the clients than it does
with the power of the process, or the talent of the therapist. Has your
marriage ever been in desperate straits? Is it there now? In this article I will attempt to describe seven vital building materials, which are
essential in order to not only salvage a marriage, but also to rebuild it
into something solid, intimate, joyful, life lasting, and wonderful.

The first building material required

in rebuilding a marriage is motivation. Change is difficult, and gut
wrenching at times. Are you willing
to pay the price of messiness, and
feeling out of control, and digging
deep into places within yourself that
you really don't want anybody
touching? How badly do you want
to remain married? Marital therapy is like gutting a duplex while
you are trying to live in it. I believe that almost all marriages are both
salvageable, and worthy of being saved. I believe that most people
would be ultimately happiest remaining married to the person they
are currently married to, as long as issues are resolved and changes
are made. As my brothers say when we are playing basketball, "don't
bring no weak stuff." It takes courage and determination and
strength and character to rebuild a marriage from the ground up.
Many other important and valid pressures can get in the way and
squeeze out the needed time for therapy if therapy does not remain a
high priority. You must be seriously motivated.
The second, and perhaps the
most important marital building block, is teachability, or the
ability to have what I call
"insight." Insight is having an
epiphany. It is having an "ahha" moment. It is the ability to
stand back from yourself and
openly observe and examine
your issues without being defensive in the least bit. It is powerfully
life changing. Anybody who has ever been married has been in therapy. Marriage is therapy. It is an opportunistic tool formed in order
to break you down so that you can learn about and heal unresolved

childhood issues. It can be a proactive, growth producing experience,

no matter how bad the marriage is. Part of teachability is being accountable. It is standing in the box, to switch to a baseball analogy,
even though you might be exposed to an occasional screaming fastball from either your spouse, or, for that matter, from your therapist.
A lot of people are simply not capable of insight. They are too defensive, or what I call shame-based. They cannot take critiquing, when
in fact accurate critiquing is exactly what they need the most. They
build lives for themselves in which they do not ever have to be critiqued by anybody-even their spouses. They are sometimes surprised
to discover that healthy critiquing actually comes with a healthy
marital contract. Defensive individuals like the ones I'm describing
almost always grow up with overly-critical and many times raging
parents who mercilessly shamed them all throughout their childhood.
You must be insightful in order to rebuild a marriage. It is all about
taking a fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself, rather than reactively
pointing your finger at your spouse. The
more insightful you are, the more progress
you will make.
The third building material needed to rebuild a marriage is the willingness and ability to embrace and work through whatever
emotional pain might come up during the
therapeutic process. The clinical name for this building material is
"deep processing." Basically, it means dealing directly with sadness, anger and fear, rather than fleeing from them. I think that it is
human nature to attempt to avoid pain. Most people employ a variety
of addictive behaviors in their efforts to "numb out," and avoid
their pain. We have learned that allowing painful feelings to well up,
and pour out has tremendous healing properties. It is like cleansing
your heart and mind. It is like having a heavy weight lifted off of
your chest. So much of what is diagnosed and seen as the disease of

depression (and then quickly medicated into oblivion) is healthy, appropriate pain that should be a large part of our growth and healing
process. Fixing your marriage entails fixing yourself, and fixing yourself entails healing the deep emotional wounds sustained in childhood. Facing yourself, warts and all, is definitely a necessary aspect
of the marital therapy process.
The fourth building material involved in rebuilding a marriage is
trust. Trust in your partner, in the therapist, in members of a group
you might be in group therapy with, and in yourself. Some people are
so trust damaged from their childhood experiences that it is virtually
impossible for them to trust. Frequently, after we are well under way
in the therapeutic process, clients do develop a great deal of trust in
the therapist. That trust is earned as a result of progress made, new
insights developed, as well as the provision of a consistent, safe, caring, connected environment.
The fifth needed building
material used in order to develop a new and greatly improved marriage is trustworthiness. The lack of personal trustworthiness has
sabotaged many attempts at
marital therapy. In this context, trustworthiness means
following through with your
commitments, doing what
you say that you will do, consistently making appointments on time,
check in hand. Many times people are well intentioned, but they lack
the discipline, focus, and responsibility that they would need to complete any type of rebuilding project.
The sixth building material is an obvious one, lots of patience and lots

of time. People are used to instant results. They want quick fixes.
There really are no quick fixes if your goal is to truly make your marriage significantly healthier. We work with most of our clients over a
matter of years, rather than weeks, or months. Think about how
deeply ingrained issues are. They are part of the foundation of our
personalities. They literally have been part of us for decades. That
simply will not change very quickly. The change will be genuine, and
long lasting, but it won't be quick and easy.
The seventh and final building material needed to rebuild a marriage
might surprise a lot of you-group therapy. Group therapy is by far
the most effective form of therapy, even for marital issues.
As couples work in their separate groups on the real core issues-their
individual childhood stuff, the marital issues almost take care of
themselves. Almost every client that I have ever worked with, who
has made a significant amount of progress has done a great deal of
group therapy. In group, clients find a great deal of insight, support,
encouragement, accountability, perspective, community, friendship,
and laughter. People get healthier quicker when they help each other.
Group is like the gym for emotional muscles. Of course, a great deal
of marital work is done as well,
but it is not the main focus.
Most marriages can be saved.
People just need direction. Before
they come to therapy, many times
they are fumbling around in the
dark, cursing the darkness that is
usually represented by their
spouse. So much of their attention
is on what their spouse is doing or not doing that they have a hard
time taking responsibility for their own lives. When both parties are
working hard on their own issues and they are patient and realistic in

their expectations for change, the divorce rate is almost non-existent.

Your marriage probably can be rebuilt.

Chapter Eleven - Learn From The Pain Of Your Marriage

I usually don't like working with couples in their twenties. They usually have not experienced enough pain as of yet. They are still pretty arrogant about what they do and what they
don't know. Give me a couple in their 40's who are sick and tired of each other. Or give me
someone who is on their 3rd marriage (and all three spouses were psychological triplets).
That person is motivated and highly teachable. They KNOW what they are doing is not
working and since it is a pattern they know that it has everything to do with who they are
picking. Marital problems are all about teaching you. Learn from them. Squeeze every
ounce of insight and healing that you can from them.

Your coffee better be really strong today because we are going to get
deep in your free 5-minute therapy session. This article could really
change your life and your marriage. Marriages can be brutal places
to be. They have the ability to unearth our deepest pain " rage, abandonment, betrayal, depression, tears that won't stop, hatred, defensiveness, feeling unheard, and that awful crackling tension in the air.
If you are currently in such a marriage I want to help you to make
some sense of it all.
Somewhere along the line we got it
in our heads that the purpose of
marriage was to provide unconditional love, happiness, nurturing,
safety and a little heaven on earth.
That is absolutely, positively not even remotely close to the real purpose of marriage. The purpose of marriage, get this, is in fact to hurt
us! You read that right. Let me explain - as children we all sustained
some emotional wounds along the way, some more than others. It
might be the premature death of a parent, a distant father, a divorce,
addictions, an overly critical parent, or even a tragic event that happened outside the family. Fortunately we came equipped with the
ability to protect, defend and bury those wounds so that we could
cope and then get the heck out of Dodge. When we hit our early twenties we are idealistic enough to believe that by physically leaving the

premises we have raised ourselves above whatever dysfunction our

families tried to foist upon us. I wish that were true.
Here is my unromantic but quite accurate definition of love - we become attracted to wonderfully appealing, attractive and as far as we
can tell nearly perfect love objects, we open up the walls of our emotional forts and once safely inside, enemies of our worst nightmares
emerge and start wreaking havoc in our lives. There you have it,
right from the pen of a leading professional - the true meaning of
love. That is why marriage is so painful. It is a can opener that cuts
through our protective shells only to reveal ancient weaknesses, vulnerability and pain.
Your irritating, pain-causing spouse is actually your teacher, your
healer and your best friend. In spite of evidence to the contrary, your
spouse isn't the devil him or herself. They are exactly what you
needed to help you grow and heal. They aren't doing you wrong.
They're being the person that theyve always been. Your problem is
not your spouse. Your problem is your unresolved childhood stuff.
The marital problems are just symptoms. When that light goes on for
a couple it changes everything. They are no longer enemies lashing at
each other. They become buddies who support and encourage
growth in each other. Our marital misery is not about our spouse. It
is all about our unresolved childhood issues. That is good news, because we are the only ones that we have both the power and the responsibility to heal.
Learn from your marital wounds. They are there to teach, instruct
and heal you. Stay in the box. The next guy won't be a prince, trust
me. He'll ultimately have the worst traits of your dad and mom just
like husband #1 does. Stick with your spouse, roll up your sleeves and
get to work proactively learning what you can learn from your marital wounds.

Chapter Twelve - Rebuilding After An Affair

Having an affair is not the unforgiveable sin. Most of my clients overcome affairs and not
only stay married but rebuild their marriages into something better than they have ever
been. Abandonment issues are the King Kong of issues and they have everything to do with
unforgiveness and divorce due to affairs. Recovering from an affair is all about the heart of
especially the cheated upon partner. If they get the message of this book they will be able to
forgive.

This is another difficult issue that we obviously deal with quite regularly. Just as with other marital issues, there is a healthy and proactive way to deal with this situation and there are many other very unhealthy and destructive ways to deal with it. I will cover 5 extremely
important principles concerning the issue of extramarital affairs.
Most of the insights that I have gained from my years of working
with these issues are boiled down and covered in these five principles.
1. There are NO victims in marriages, even if your spouse cheats on
you! I am serious as a heart attack. This is by far the most important
concept that you will need to come to grips with. You will certainly
feel victimized initially. Family and friends will certainly view you as
a poor unfairly betrayed victim. In my many years of experience as a
marital therapist and from all the professional reading that I have
done, the evidence is quite clear; affairs do not occur in highly emotionally and sexually intimate marriages. They do occur with startling regularity in marriages that are distant, emotionally cutoff and
lacking in intimacy and commitment. Our marriages are not about
the other person. They are about us. Whom did you choose to be
solely in charge of loving you? It is so important that you get this.
Our marital choices are based on our unconscious "radar system"
which attracts us to partners who basically will give us the same type
and quality of love that we grew up with. Bummer, huh? It is absolutely the truth though. If you had some form of abandonment from
parents during your childhood-a father who died or abandoned the

family when you were very young, a mother who wasn't there for
you, or if you are adopted, there is a very strong chance that you will
unconsciously select a marital partner who will abandon and betray
you by having an affair once the "enmeshment" or the close honeymoon over-idealizing is over with. It just might be who they are. God
and we are in charge of our destinies, not other people. We are responsible for the choices that we have made in our lives. Our learning
about the affair is our invitation to work really hard on our issues
and ourselves and to learn what it all means about us. If you get this
insight, then the recovery process will be in full swing. If you don't,
then you will be mired in a dark, bitter, nasty, depressing and powerless place for a long, long time.
2. Playing the victim role will destroy whatever chance you had left of
saving your marriage. Oh the stories that I could tell. Let me contrast
the stories of two couples that will help me to illustrate the right way
and the wrong way to deal
with the revelation that your
spouse has had an affair. The
examples that I use here are
not specifically about two actual couples that I have
worked with, but rather they
are a mixture of many couples
that I've worked with through
the years. The first couple
we'll call Dave and Sue. They
are in their mid-fifties by the
time they cross paths with me.
Dave is still obsessed with a
brief affair that Sue had 30
years before! Dave was a hard charging lawyer clocking 80 to 100
hours a week during the early years of the marriage. Sue was desperately lonely and a womanizing acquaintance picked up on what was

going on at home and he started to give Sue what she needed from
Dave but wasn't getting on an emotional level-attention, compliments
and romance. Although Sue never thought that she would ever cheat
on Dave, the new relationship did become sexual. And, for the past 30
years she has paid dearly for her indiscretions. Dave still gets tearful
as he talks about the affair. It has been the major issue around which
all other conflicts have centered. I like to share a little story to help
such husbands understand their responsibilities in marriages like
Dave and Sue's. If you go away on a vacation and you not only leave
your front door unlocked, but you also leave it standing wide open,
and you return home to discover that your VCR has been stolen, then
you have not been victimized. You invited it. If you have a pretty,
young wife and you check out of the marriage in your insecure pursuit of "success," if you stop meeting her emotional needs, then
somebody is liable to come along and start to meet those needs in
your stead. You have to own your part. Affairs happen for a reason
and there are no victims.
The second fellow was a workaholic accountant who ignored his
pretty, young wife. He was devastated to learn of her affair. However,
in the next few months, he focused on his own issues. He learned that
an affair was all but inevitable in any marriage that he would be part
of because he knew very little about emotional intimacy. He even got
to such a wonderfully proactive place that he held no bitterness towards his ex-wife and he stated that the affair was actually the best
thing that had ever happened to him! It was his emotional and psychological wake up call. The things he learned about himself and the
ways in which he grew were priceless to him.
3. It is natural to try to grovel and to cling to the betraying spouse,
but it is exactly the wrong thing to do. Affairs touch people on a very
deep level. The knowledge that your spouse has been with somebody
else brings up powerful feelings of abandonment. These strong feelings many times sort of override our judgment in terms of what the

next step should be. Non-emotional men

usually become an absolute mess, but
they then attempt to process the whole
matter in 2 to 3 days, which is not
healthy. They can't stand the pain so
they skip the grieving process and arrive prematurely at a stance of "let's
forgive and forget." It is natural to
want to compete with the new challenger for your spouse's affections.
Many couples have reported that some
of the best sex of their marriages occurred just after the revelation of an affair. However, clinging, pursuing and
prematurely forgiving are all wrong
moves at that point. You need to feel
your anger without getting victimy.
Your anger needs to get bigger than your abandonment issues. I tell
my clients that they need to take an invisible tape measure out of
their pockets, measure just how far their spouses have backed up and
then back up from them an equal distance. That does not mean for
them to go out and act out sexually themselves. It means treating
yourself with dignity, value and respect. It means putting them on relational probation. It means setting boundaries and expectations. Dr.
James Dobson has a very helpful book on the subject of how to handle your spouse's affair in his book "Love Must Be Tough." Get a
copy of it and read it through about three times. It will encourage you
to set healthy and appropriate boundaries rather than weakly giving
in to your spouse's inappropriate behavior.
4. Therapy is an absolute must and separation will probably be necessary as well. If your spouse is truly penitent and if they desperately
want to work on the marriage, then therapy together as soon as possible should be a foregone conclusion. You have to fix the underlying

problems that caused the affair to begin with.

"I'm sorry and I promise to never do it
again" just won't cut it. Is there an intimacy
problem? Are there many unresolved marital
conflicts? Are there problems with addictive
behavior? Does your spouse have an addiction to relationships? Do they have a sexual
addiction? If they do, then they will need
some serious therapy as well as involvement
in a 12-step group. Your marriage is crying
for professional intervention. The affair isn't
the problem; it is a symptom of a bigger
problem. If you stick your head back in the
sand and just move on without fixing anything, it will happen again.
The pain of your marital crisis is the perfect opportunity to get into
therapy and to fix whatever needs fixed. Having an affair is a big
deal. Part of the placing of your spouse on marital probation might
very well mean separating while you work hard to repair the damage
and while you both work hard at repairing the damage that occurred
during your childhoods. They do not deserve to be in your bed just
days, weeks or months removed from bedding down with someone
else. They have some things yet to prove to you. Do you have the
courage and the self-esteem to step back from them? You had better
have it. If you gloss over the problems, they will not go away all by
themselves. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
5. Divorce is not necessary or the best option as long as your spouse is
sincerely engaged in the recovery process. Although scripture indicates that infidelity is grounds for a divorce, it still leaves the door
open for the better option of a healed marriage. Literally millions of
couples have worked out their issues with each other concerning an
affair by one of the spouses. Do not run out and consult an attorney
to start divorce proceedings immediately. The only winners there will
be the attorneys. Call a good therapist-one who won't just let you

vent your spleen while they

kiss your boo-boos. Hook up
with a therapist who will hold
your feet to the fires of your
choices and your responsibilities in the marriage. Give it
time to see how it will play out.
If your partner leaves you for
the new lover, then obviously
it will be time to seek legal
representation.

Chapter Thirteen - Let Us Rock Your Marriage to Its Core!

This is a short and rather newly written article. I tell clients that I only know one thing (uh,
the message of this book of course) and I only have one skill - that I can be so abrasive that
I will shove this message down your throat until you either swallow it or run from the room.
I hope that your vision of marriage has been rocked, socked and completely restructured to
fit our paradigm. If you havent gotten it yet, then flip back to chapter one and re-read.

Does your marriage seem hopeless? Does it seem like kind effective
communication with your spouse is utterly and pathetically impossible? Have you ever asked yourself why relationships, love and marriage are so difficult and so excruciatingly painful? Have you been to
a marital therapist or two only to walk away with little progress, lots
of meaningless psychobabble and ultimately less hope? You are not
alone. The above paragraph describes the vast majority of my brand
new clients. But they come to our offices having heard or read that
we are different, that we can actually help them. They have heard
that we dont pull punches, that we accurately, courageously and
bluntly called a spade a spade. They have heard that our approach
rocks and they heard right!
Let me describe for you what differentiates our approach from other
less experienced and less established
practices. On September 4th we celebrated our 21st year as a vibrant,
powerhouse fixture in our community. Marriage rocking therapy is
about truth, confidence and respect.
Great therapy isnt about your
spouse. It is ALL about you Skippy.
Do not call us and come to our offices unless you are ready, willing
and able to be confronted, enlightened and even assaulted (if need be)
with the cold, hard truth about who you are, where you came from

and why you married the person you married. I really only know
one thing and I really only have one skill. The one thing that I know
is that in the history of marriage there has NEVER been a victim because we ALL marry exactly the right person who gives us pretty
much the same flawed, dysfunctional love that we got growing up
from our parents. The one skill that I have is the ability to abrasively
communicate that one thing I know deeply into the often resistant
psyches of my clients. It is actually a fabulously wonderful and positive message. Our message of truth is that #1 your whole life from
the day you were born to today makes all the sense in the world
there are patterns in your relationship history that fit, #2 your life is
completely fair your signed on for the lessons that you have an opportunity to learn in your relationship, #3 Nature, the Universe or
God, however you view it, is using your relationship to reach, break
and heal your deepest childhood wounds (whether you like it and cooperate with it or not) and #4 you and only you have the power and
the responsibility to heal and fix you and your situation. It is a shame
reducing message. The mess of your life is your responsibility but it
is not your Fault. Abrasiveness is an awesome thing if breaks down
walls of marriage smothering denial. We attempt to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. We all have our comfortable
denials, half truths, rationalizations, blind spots and BS. We are all
about razor sharp psychological surgeries that reduce the cancers of
marriage and life BS as small as possible.
Therapist generally have been taught to taught to passively nod their
heads, stoke their beards and facilitate a process wherein you have to
try to figure your own stuff out. Are you freaking kidding me? If
you could figure it out yourself you wouldnt be shelling out the big
bucks for therapy. People want and need answers! One client described her former therapist as a sweet, jolly, huggy snowman who
would never hurt a fly. That was nice but it didnt help her much.
She didnt need a hug; she needed whacked in the head with the
truth that she was not victimized in her marriage (even though every-

thing pointed to that erroneous and destructive conclusion). You will

not get sweet, jolly and huggy at Family Tree. You will get cutting
edge Truth about you rigorously applied to your defenses in such a
way that you will have an opportunity to humbly and proactively rebuild your life with depth, grace and empowerment. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it but it also really hurts you to your very core. It connects you to that wounded little boy or girl from so long ago. That
pain beats the heck out an unnecessary divorce though.

Chapter Fourteen - Me and My Sparrow

This is the most personal, most revealing article in the book. I go into
depth about the severe dysfunction of my childhood and how I deliberately but unconsciously sought out a marital partner who would withdraw, judge, criticize, abandon and ignore me. It takes two people to
heal a marriage. If just one is able to do the work then divorce is almost always the end result. I share this to teach you and to help you.
Me and my (Sp)arrow
Straighter than narrow
Wherever we go, everyone knows
It's me and my (Sp)arrow
Forgive me, but as I contemplated writing this article I couldn't help
but have the old Diana Ross tune roll around in my head. My favorite
tool for explaining our most important take on marital problems is a
cute little story about a sparrow it goes like
this
Once upon a time; there was a nonconforming
sparrow who decided not to fly south for the
winter. However, soon the weather turned so
cold that he reluctantly started to fly south. In a
short time ice began to form on his wings and
he fell to the earth in a barnyard, almost frozen. Then a cow passed
by and crapped all over the little bird. The sparrow thought his life
was over, but in fact the manure warmed him and defrosted his
wings. Warm and happy and able to breathe, he started to sing. Then
a cat came by, heard the chirping, cleared away the manure, found
the little bird and promptly ate him. The moral of the story is #1 everyone who craps on you is not necessarily your enemy. And #2 everyone who gets you out of the crap is not necessarily your friend.

I've probably personally read that story to thousands couples

through the years. I think that is contains an incredible amount of
wisdom. Let me explain " it is our strong belief that any and all
spouses (yes, even yours) are gifts from God to aid us in healing our
unresolved wounds and issues from our childhoods. As I have suggested to many a client through the years that they should be thankful for the pain that their spouses have caused them I have gotten
smirks, frowns and facial expressions that seemed to suggest that I
was the one needing therapeutic services. The heart and soul of Family Tree Counseling Associate's message is that we ALL have a perfect
radar system that unfailingly attracts us the exactly the right person
whose unknowing mission is to hurt us in exactly the same way that
our parents hurt us as we grew up. This is why children of alcoholics
invariably marry alcoholics, why abandoned children marry spouses
who ultimately run off with the choir director, why kids with controlling parents grow up to marry controlling spouses, etc. This pattern
applies to you as well. I have proven this to every couple that has ever
sat in front of me. When it is spelled out in black and white it is very
hard to argue with. They say that love is blind and in a way it is.
During the powerful early enmeshment stage we are blinded to the
many ways our new love is like our parents. In a way they are disguised. In our enthusiasm and in our over-idealizing of the object of
our desires we miss out on just why we are so strongly attracted to
them and not the other attractive possibilities around us.
I don't wish to argue with you over this, however. Another foundation
of the Family Tree brand of therapy is that as therapists we open up
and openly share our vulnerabilities. We feel that to do so is both
healthy and extremely instructive to the clients. A great therapist is a
flawed human being who has done a lot of his or her own healing.
Great therapists are not produced in graduate schools, they birthed
on the receiving end of the therapist's couch. I would like to share
about me and my sparrow, my lovely former bride of 27 years.

I come from a wonderful and yet highly dysfunctional family. Both of

my parents were extremely wounded people. My Dad's mother was
14 when he was born, his father denied that he was his father and his
stepfather abused him both physically and verbally. He was brought
up is stark poverty, both from an emotional and a material perspective. He was a self absorbed lost, sad and helpless little boy walking
around in a father's body. My mother was a product of a married
man seducing my Grandmother when she was a teenager who was
babysitting he and his wife's children. My mother was shipped off to
an orphanage for the first several years of her life. When my Grandmother married she picked mom up at the orphanage and never ever
shared the secret with her that Granddad wasn't really her biological
father. My mother grew up not understanding why her father rejected and abused her. When a handsome Air Force fellow with a cool
car proposed she jumped at the chance to escape her tyrant of a father. It was either marriage or the monastery and Mom was too just much fun to
spend her life as a nun.
These confused and deeply wounded
young people for some reason decided to
produce 4 children by my mother's 22nd
year and 3 more by her 30th birthday. I
was #2. My Dad was never there for us "
he was either in Vietnam (which he volunteered for to avoid my mother's rage and
criticism), playing bridge, reading the paper, watching TV, eating or
otherwise occupied. My Mother had all the responsibility of 7 kids
and it made her an angry, overwhelmed and self-destructive woman.
I grew up walking on eggshells trying to avoid my mother's shrieking
rage. We were poor, we had cockroaches, I had the shaming experience of asking for my free lunch at school every day and neither parent was there for me.

I met my now ex-wife during my 2nd year of college at Taylor University. There was something very intriguing in her quiet demeanor.
When I would return from a horrible weekend of rage, depression
and hurtfulness back at home she would listen to me, wipe away my
tears and hold me. She loved me like I had never been loved. She was
quiet, nurturing, sweet, generous, strong and stable (or the exact opposite of my Mother). During our lingering hugs in front of South
Hall I felt waves of powerful, unconditional liquid love surging between us. I
had become a strong Christian and I
was certain that my wonderful new
loves of both Lisa and Jesus would
heal me and put into the past forever
the sadness and the brokenness of my
painful childhood. I was not aware of
any flaws that my sweetie had and she
at least wasn't mentioning any of mine.
We didn't fight, we prayed together a lot and our love grew every
day. I now know that this was our "enmeshment' stage. Everyone
who ever fell in love goes through it " it is addictive, bonding and a
whole lot of fun. The problem with it is that it just doesn't last, for us
or for any couple.
There are no marriages made in heaven. That is a myth. If you think
that yours is, then just give it 5 to 7 years and come talk with me
then. When the enmeshment wears off and your spouse starts to
knock down your defenses and touch you in your deeply wounded
spots then I like to say that the marriage is in purgatory. Through
hard work, quality therapy, accountability, communication, insight,
voicing needs directly and non-reactively, couples can reach up and
occasionally taste a marriage that includes true slices of heaven. Unfortunately, what takes place more often than not is that couples
scend to an awful marital hell through finger pointing, rage, victim
stances, shaming, blaming and just not understanding what marriage

descend to an awful marital hell through finger pointing, rage, victim

stances, shaming, blaming and just not understanding what marriage
is and what it's purpose is. All is fair in marriage. Nothing is unfair.
We pick who we need to pick and they collude with us to re-create
our hurtful childhoods so that God can have a chance to heal us
deeply from our cores. Anyone who has ever been in a relationship
has been in therapy.
My lovely sparrow and I didn't make it. I had a powerful addiction
and unfortunately she was not able to swallow the message of this
book. Even though I have helped to save hundreds of marriages with
this lie changing message, she could not hear it from me. A prophet is
not without honor except in his home town. It was really sad. If we
had gone to a therapist who courageously taught this message I believe that we would be happily married to this day. Her limitations in
loving well have helped me to grow and to heal and for that I am
truly thankful. She was my best friend because she has caused me the
most pain. The other moral of the story is that those who get you out
of the crappy pain of your wounded marriage aren't your friends.
Those people are #1 new enmeshed perfect loves otherwise known as
affairs and #2 divorce attorneys. They'll get you out of the frying pan
and into the fire.
Me and my Sparrow. Straighter than narrow. Wherever we go, everyone knows. It's me and my Sparrow.

Epilogue
I hope that you have benefitted from this book. I have poured a lot of
myself into these pages. Learn from what you have read. Don't get
divorced. You don't have to. Get your spouse in with you and to
work on eliminating any victimy thinking in your marriage. Nature
or God or the Universe - Whoever you want to say it is - has offered
us a difficult, painful but proven path to the healing of our unresolved childhood wounds. We all marry our issues. I wish it wasn't
true but it is. It is good news. We all married the right person.
There is no bad luck or marrying too young or making a mistake.
We can all grow and heal AND stay married. Good luck with your
marriage saving generation impacting recovery work!