Posts tagged ‘marriage’

I’m continuing my journey on completing the 40 tasks to fireproof my family. Am I close to finishing? Hardly, while some of the tasks are easy, I have found others to be very difficult. In my post on Fireproofing the Family I explained why I wanted to take this path and in the second installment I talked about how hard the first task had been for me.

Why did I want to do this in the first place? Parents who have at least one child with a disability have a divorce rate that is much higher than the national average. My son has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, adhd, ocd, odd, pdd/nos, and sensory issues. It has put a large strain on our marriage and I can see where it may go.

Starting this project came about from seeing the movie Fireproof. A man on the brink of divorce is given the book “The Love Dare“. He uses it in an attempt to save his marriage. The book’s purpose is to improve marital relationships and it has tasks to be completed for each of 40 days. In the movie it took the main character more than that to complete them all.

Even though the first task was difficult, the one I am working on now has stopped me cold. Different people may find other ones that they struggle with. This one has gotten my stomach in knots. I am supposed to sit down with my wife and ask her a question:

“What 3 things bother you the most about me?”

And then I am supposed to shut up and listen. It is all about her now. If I have comments I must keep them to myself. If I get angry, or frustrated, or have any other emotion I am supposed to stifle them. My only goal is to listen to her carefully and really hear what she is saying.

But this really bothers me. There are several reasons, among them:

1. This involves communicating. I don’t like to “communicate”. It’s true that I will just be listening and not saying anything. But listening is communication too. And starting the conversation is also communication. It is true that being in any marriage involves conversation; being in a marriage that contains disabilities requires much more talking and listening. I didn’t get married until I was in my midforties. I had lived all of my adult life alone until then. I didn’t mind talking to people but I wasn’t much for talking with people. And yes, it is something I have to learn if I want my marriage to succeed. This task is a step forward in that direction but it still bothers me.

2. I already know a lot of things she may tell me which I’m not sure how to address. For one thing I am currently unemployed as are a lot of people right now. In the beginning I looked hard for another job but then I started a couple of things on my own and I’m pushing to get those off the ground. In the interim I’ve picked up odd jobs here and there to bring some money in. I know she is bothered that there isn’t a steady income. There are things that also need to be done around the house that I haven’t been addressing because I’ve been concentrating on my businesses. Our relationship may be another one she would mention. And of course there is the unknown, that is, what else could be bothering her about me.

3. I don’t know if I can sit still and keep my mouth shut. I know I’ll want to address and maybe even contradict everything she says. That certainly would be detrimental to our conversation.

So I’ve been holding off on this task. I know I have to get through it not only for our sakes but our son’s as well. It is a very tense atmosphere around here sometimes and he reacts to it. The meltdowns are worse, the disobedience becomes rampant, and in these situations he wants new parents!

I finally opened up to my therapist about this issue. After I explained both the book and movie to him he saw a major benefit in me doing the steps. I talked about my problems with this task and he said something that I found very interesting.

“You can learn a lot from things that you don’t want to hear.”

I may hear the things I expect her to say but I’ll get her point of view and her feelings. I may hear something totally new, something that may shock me, or something that will give me one of those “aha” moments. But in any case I can learn from the things she tells me.

What happens when she finishes talking? Again, I don’t make excuses or contradict her. My job now is to think about what she has said. If I have really listened to her, not just daydreamed while she was talking, I can put a plan together to resolve her issues to her satisfaction.

What would be the benefits to doing this? Probably better communication and a better relationship. At the same time it will improve our relationship with our son. And if we can get this down, we can teach him how to communicate better himself without all of his explosions and destructive behavior.

The bottom line is am I going to do this task? Yes I am even though it still really bothers me but “I can learn a lot from things that I don’t want to hear”.

Since I wrote my post on “Fireproofing the Family” I hadn’t planned on writing an update for awhile. Things are always changing. The movie, Fireproof, that prompted the post is about a man who uses the book “The Love Dare” in an attempt to save his marriage. Its purpose is to improve marital relationships. My wife and I are parents of a special needs child. Since divorce rates for parents like us is much higher than the 50 percent average statistic my purpose is to strengthen not only our relationship with each other but also with our son. The book has tasks to be completed for each of 40 days. In the movie it took the main character more than 40 days to complete them all. It now appears that it is going to take me quite awhile too.

I started task 1 on Monday. This appeared to be a good one since the book suggested it was an easy one to start with but it has proved to be difficult for me. What is a big problem in arguments? Anger and the things said because of it. The first day is spent working on letting go of it.

Um, okay but I have always found it difficult to control my anger when I’ve been “done wrong”. I’ve been trying to figure out how to stop it but I was convinced that it was just an inherent part of my makeup. Let it go? It comes on so quickly that I don’t have a chance and then I want to wallow in my anger once it has me in its control. I’ve been looking for years for a way out. I’ve been to therapy, tried meditation, considered medication but nothing helped. I’ve searched for road maps in books and on the web to resolve it. Something like: do step 1, then move on to step 2, etc; but I haven’t found anything.

The book, however, showed me a different way of doing it. Look at it as a choice. I can choose to be angry or I can choose to be patient. It reminds me of a course I took at Landmark Education. It suggested that humans tend to react to situations or choices that we have.

For example, you have a vacation coming up and you are trying to decide whether to spend it camping in the mountains or tanning at the beach. You don’t like the beach so you have to go to the mountains. Was this a choice? Not really, you are reacting to the fact that you don’t want to go to the beach.

Now look at it a different way. List the positives and negatives of going to the mountains. Do the same for beach. Based on your results what do you choose? In this case you are taking control of the choices and you are making a decision, you aren’t reacting. “I choose the mountains because this is what I want to do”

I remember going through all this “choice” stuff during the course but I didn’t think I could use it for my anger. Choose to be patient? I at least figured I would give it a try. So far it seems to have worked pretty well. “I choose to be patient” has become my mantra this week. I have been saying it over and over again when I get into a situation with my wife or son and have had mixed results so far.

I think it has confused my wife a bit. I haven’t told her I’m doing this. Like the main character in the movie I’m working on it on my own. In several instances she has reacted as if I am angry even when I am smiling and talking calmly. When I have not responded to her anger she has left the room and settled down. Only once have I almost lost it but I started repeating my mantra again and the anger eventually went away. It took awhile but as long as I concentrated on the mantra and not the things she was doing that were making me angry it didn’t escalate in my mind.

I’ve seen better results with my 8 year old son, he has had fewer explosions with me this week since I haven’t responded in anger to the things he has been doing. And last night he snuggled up against me and fell asleep watching television. This doesn’t happen too often.

I said that I think this program is going to take longer than 40 days. Today is the fifth day I have been working on task 1. I’m going to be ready to go to task 2 tomorrow. This doesn’t mean that task 1 is complete. I will probably be practicing it during the whole project if not for the rest of my life.

But you know what? I have no complaints.

39 book days left to go!!

My wife and I watched the movie Fireproof the other night.  I expected it to be a movie about firefighters and their stories.  I have liked firehouses and fire engines ever since my Grandfather took me for a ride on the hook and ladder truck.  In those days it had a seat and steering wheel on the back and I got to steer whenever we went around corners.  I was 3 at the time.  Today my son and I spend alot of time exploring firehouses and it helps that my cousin is a fireman.

But back to the movie.  Yes, it did have a few stories about firemen battling blazes but it actually centered on the fire captain and his marital problems.  In fact his wife served him with divorce papers towards the beginning and the rest of the movie showed the captain going through his personal fire to save his marriage.

His dad gave him a book called “The Love Dare“.  It contains 40 days of projects designed to improve a marriage, even ones that are at the breaking point.  The captain had to commit to following the program if he hoped to succeed.

While watching the movie I saw a lot of the captain in me.  Like me he was frustrated with the way he saw his wife treating him.  Like me he was getting angry more and more and was actually thinking about ways out of the marriage.  Fed up with the situation his wife wanted out too.

My wife may feel that way too.

The movie scared me.

We all know the statistics.  In the United States 1 out of 2 marriages end in divorce.  The number one problem is money.

But what most people don’t know is that the divorce rate among parents of special needs children is much higher.  In this case the problems center on the care and raising of these kids.

So here I was identifying with this captain who doesn’t have children and I have one with issues such as bipolar disorder, pdd/nos, and odd.  It has been a struggle raising him and my wife and I are always short tempered.

The day after I saw the movie I searched the internet and discovered that “The Love Dare“  actually exists.  My son and I went to Borders but I couldn’t find the book.  The girl at the information booth went to several different locations and was also unable to find it.  She informed me it is a very popular book and has been flying off the shelves.  She suggested I come back in a few days. Not what I wanted to hear, I wanted to start immediately!

As I was walking out of the store she caught up to me.  She had found a copy in the return section.  I bought it and after reading the introduction I knew it is going to be hard and is going to take a lot of commitment.

I would like to suggested to other parents of special needs kids who may be feeling the strain of raising them (or not) to consider getting this book or finding some other way to strengthen their marriage (even if it is a good one).

But I called this blog “Fireproofing the Family” not “Fireproofing Your Marriage”.  Think about it, kids get escalated when their parents are escalated and that is when all the junk will hit the fan.  These kids don’t need more issues than they have already.  Parental problems don’t help them learn how to deal with their own problems because the parents aren’t dealing with them.

Strengthening the marriage is the first step in helping these kids strengthen themselves!

As I work on the book I will write blogs about my discoveries.  Please don’t hesitate in commenting about my progress.