Sorry I wasn’t able to post a blog last week. My family – all 34 of us took a week long cruise to Alaska to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday. I’ll be posting some pictures for those who want to see some of Alaska’s beauty on my facebook page. We had lots of fun in spite of all the rainy weather. However, we did not have easy access to internet and I decided not to get anxious over a missed week of blogging.
Our family consisted of four generations and throughout the week we had lots of opportunities for family discussions around politics, religion, lifestyle and other hot topics. I answered this particular question for last week but have lost it on the computer. But I think I can answer this week’s question better now having listened to them this past week.
Question: My adult daughter is living a lifestyle I don’t agree with. She knows our values but rejects them. She functions in an adult capacity, is responsible and a nice person but I am heartbroken that she doesn’t really want anything to do with God, church or the Christian faith. I’m not sure what to do at this point to help her to see she’s heading down a destructive path, even if society says that she is doing fine and is successful in a worldly way. Any advice?
Answer: I know your heart hurts for her. You see her bedazzled by the world and the things of God seem boring and irrelevant. It saddens me too but I think those of us in the baby boomer generation have to take some responsibility for this problem. I don’t think we’ve done a great job making our faith very real to the younger generation. We’ve taught them all the right things to believe but I don’t think we’ve done a great job living them out in our culture, our world, or in relationships with one another.
Abuse, injustice, and immorality are all around us, not just in the world, but also in the church. They’ve heard Jesus’ words about love and kindness but have observed our complaining, pettiness, and gossip. They see more selfishness than sacrifice in our daily lifestyles.
So they reject this brand of faith (as they should), but that does not mean that they will reject Jesus. So here is where I think we need to start if we want to have an opportunity to be a light in their lives. We need to be different ourselves, without focusing on how they need to be change. Let me share with you some tips I garnered from my discussions with my nieces and nephews this week.
First and foremost, people want to be loved and valued for who they are. They hate feeling like they’re a project where your mission is to convince them or transform them. If your daughter experiences your love for her even through your differences, she will be more open to your influence in every way.
On the other hand, if she feels that whenever you are together you have an unspoken agenda (to convince her of the truth, get her to repent and/or change her lifestyle), she will likely close herself off to you. I’d encourage you to spend lots of time with your daughter where there is no agenda. In other words spend time shopping or having dinner or playing a game but do not manipulate the conversation toward what the Bible says about something or ask her to listen to the latest Christian speaker’s views on a particular topic. Your goal is to simply love her and show her that you want to be with her for who she is, not convince her that she’s wrong and you’re right.
Second, live your faith before her without words. If you’re against something, such as homosexuality or abortion or materialism, what specifically are you doing to show love and kindness to a pregnant woman who feels abortion is her only choice, or people sick with HIV, or hungry children in your community?
Our walk speaks much louder than our talk. Your daughter will pay far more attention to how you treat her father when you’re upset with him, how you handle difficult life stressors, and what you do when you’re angry, scared, hurt, or tempted than she will to a specific book you want her to read or program you want her to listen to. If she has been raised in the church, she has already heard it, read it, and been taught it and for this time in her life rejected it. One of the definitions of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results. I’m not saying that you will never share a verse with her or talk about values but do it in a context of your life, not hers. Surprise her with truth in a new way.
For example, if you blow it and behave sinfully in a moment of frustration you can say,
“I’m really sorry. That is not who I am or want to be. It was how I felt in the moment but I am learning by God’s grace I don’t have to give into my temporary emotional states whenever I’m feeling them.”
Or, if you share different values about an issue you can say,
“I understand that you don’t see anything wrong in homosexuality and it doesn’t bother you but would you consider this possibility? If it’s true that God made us and he loves us, wouldn’t he know best what’s good for us?"
Allow room for disagreement and discussion. Listen respectfully. Show interest in her points of view and if she offers something for you to read, read it. These are ways that build a relationship that expresses mutual caring, mutual respect and mutual caring. It is in that context that we will have the greatest influence.
People today crave authenticity, genuineness and transparency. For some, we are the only bible they will ever read, the only church they will ever attend, the only Jesus they will ever see. The question we must ask ourselves is do we look like him?
This week’s question is: What specific things do you do to live more authentically in front of your children and others who are watching you live out your faith?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Is my marriage emotionally abusive?
Question: I’m confused on what constitutes emotional abuse. My husband is a well respected man in our church and community. He doesn’t call me names or curse at me but he thinks he knows best about everything and he believes he should control absolutely everything as the head of the house. I have no say in our finances, what I can buy, how I decorate the house or even what groceries to purchase each week. He tells me what clothes I should wear and when I resist, he says that if I loved him, I’d want to please him in the way I dress.
I’ve told him I want to be free to make my own choices, but he tells me God has called him to be the head over me. When I disagree, or refuse to listen to him he tells me I am being unsubmissive and disrespectful and that I must not love him.
I feel like I’m being slowly smothered and I can’t breathe. I wanted to go to work and he said I can’t because I am needed at home even though our children are in school all day long. If I do not have his meals cooked the way he wants when he wants, he withdraws, sulks and won’t talk to me.
There are times when I feel so angry I blow up and say terrible things. I feel bad for getting angry and sometimes I wonder if I’m not the abusive person because of what I say when I get upset. I find myself sneaking things behind his back and I know that’s wrong. Bottom line is I want to leave him but I’m afraid God will punish me if I do. Am I being rebellious and ungrateful or is there something more wrong here?
Answer: Although we may not be able to articulate exactly what’s wrong, one of the ways we know that we are in an abusive and destructive relationship is that we feel it. Our spirit is crushed and we cannot thrive in the environment that we’re in. We’re slowly shriveling up and dying inside.
From what you describe, although your husband isn’t verbally abusive, his domineering and controlling behaviors are slowly suffocating you. They keep you afraid of making choices for yourself and as a result you function like a child, not a grown up woman. This is not healthy. This is also not what God intended for marriage.
God did not give husbands freedom to demand their own way all the time and call that headship, rather, God calls that behavior selfishness. Biblical headship, as described by Jesus, involves sacrificial servanthood. As the head, your husband gets to initiate that kind of service toward you. To learn more on the whole issue of Biblical headship and submission issues read my article on my free resource page at www.leslievernick.com.
However, as you indicate, your response to his attempts to control you has been to either cave into his demands and allow yourself to be coerced into doing it his way, or have a temper tantrum and/or sneak what you want behind his back. Either way you are not only being treated as a child, you’re responding like one; either a complaint child or rebellious child. If you want to change this destructive pattern in your marriage, the change must start with you.
I outline how to make these changes in detail in my book The Emotionally Destructive Relationship but here are some crucial steps.
First, it’s imperative that you stop and ask yourself why you’ve permitted yourself to be treated like a child instead of an adult woman throughout your marriage? Ask yourself what is going on in you that makes you unable to tolerate both your husband’s disapproval and his withdrawal which he uses to manipulate you into doing what he wants? If you want to make a significant change and become healthy, you’ll have to be able tolerate his disapproval and withdrawal, at least for a season.
Second, you need to face whatever fears you have that keeps you from learning to speak up for yourself in a calm, firm, adult way. You have a typical pattern of putting up with inappropriate behavior until you can’t stand it anymore and then you blow up. You feel ashamed and guilty so you go back to putting up with it until you can’t bear to. Now you want to run away and leave the relationship. But I’d encourage you to stick it out for now but this time from a position of strength, not fear. God wants you to function as an adult woman, not a passive, fearful child. Gaining strength and courage is something he wants to give you. Pray and ask him for his wisdom and strength to begin to have a crucial but calm and controlled conversation with your spouse.
Third, it seems like your husband believes certain lies that hinder his ability to allow you to function independently of him. I’m not sure of all of them but here are a few that I’ve discerned in your question:
Lie # 1: If someone says she loves you, she should always want to please you, do what you want her to, and make you happy.
Lie # 2: If you say you love someone that means you should always do what the other person wants you to do and always want to please him.
Lie #3: God has given men total decision making power in a family and over their wives.
Lie # 4: When my wife disagrees or doesn’t want to do what I want her to do, that means she doesn’t love me or love God enough to submit to my leadership.
Lie # 5: A wife’s sole purpose is to revolve herself around the needs and interests of her family. If she wants anything independent of those things, she is not loving her family or loving God first.
Your husband may mean well but if he’s attached to these lies, he’s blind to the truth. He may not be able to see clearly but you must. However, when you assert yourself understand that it will not only make him angry, it will be painful to him because it means to him that you either don’t love him or don’t love God enough.
In order to break this pattern, you must begin to refute the lies your husband believes in your conversations with him. In addition, you must not allow his sulking behavior or withdrawal to intimidate you to do what you do not want to do.
As you implement these changes, I’d encourage you to have a “speak up” dialogue with him where you address not only what you do or don’t want to do, but you address the lie in order to expose it to the light of truth. It might go something like this:
“Honey I know you mean well and you are trying to do what you think is best for me and our family but I’m a grown up woman and need to make my own choices. If I choose an outfit for myself, it’s not because I don’t love you, but I want to wear clothes that make me feel comfortable and attractive and I think I can best decide how I feel in certain clothes.”
Or when he withdraws and sulks because you haven’t done something he wanted you might say something like this:
“Honey, I know you’re disappointed that I’ve decided to take that part time job but I need some outside stimulation and am bored at home all day. I know you think that the household chores will suffer but I think that I can still cover the basics with working these hours. The kids can help out more and I think I will feel happier as a person. I need you to respect my decision, even if you disagree.”
This change will feel very awkward to both of you at first. He won’t like your new found strength to stand up to him and you will feel uncomfortable asserting yourself without using your anger as a shield. But I promise you that if you stick with being respectful toward him, yet assertive in what you need for yourself, this path will have the best shot at turning around his controlling behavior. If you refuse to give into his sulking and just go about your business, then it no longer works for him to do it. He will probably respond in one of two ways. He will either escalate into more controlling abusive behavior, or will adapt to the changes you are trying to make in the marriage. If he adapts then you have given your relationship a new foundation, if he escalates into greater abusive behaviors, then you have more grounds to consider separation.
Readers: When you realize that you are being controlled or manipulated through someone’s emotional withdrawal or hurtful words, how have you gained the strength to respond and set healthy boundaries in a godly way?
I’ve told him I want to be free to make my own choices, but he tells me God has called him to be the head over me. When I disagree, or refuse to listen to him he tells me I am being unsubmissive and disrespectful and that I must not love him.
I feel like I’m being slowly smothered and I can’t breathe. I wanted to go to work and he said I can’t because I am needed at home even though our children are in school all day long. If I do not have his meals cooked the way he wants when he wants, he withdraws, sulks and won’t talk to me.
There are times when I feel so angry I blow up and say terrible things. I feel bad for getting angry and sometimes I wonder if I’m not the abusive person because of what I say when I get upset. I find myself sneaking things behind his back and I know that’s wrong. Bottom line is I want to leave him but I’m afraid God will punish me if I do. Am I being rebellious and ungrateful or is there something more wrong here?
Answer: Although we may not be able to articulate exactly what’s wrong, one of the ways we know that we are in an abusive and destructive relationship is that we feel it. Our spirit is crushed and we cannot thrive in the environment that we’re in. We’re slowly shriveling up and dying inside.
From what you describe, although your husband isn’t verbally abusive, his domineering and controlling behaviors are slowly suffocating you. They keep you afraid of making choices for yourself and as a result you function like a child, not a grown up woman. This is not healthy. This is also not what God intended for marriage.
God did not give husbands freedom to demand their own way all the time and call that headship, rather, God calls that behavior selfishness. Biblical headship, as described by Jesus, involves sacrificial servanthood. As the head, your husband gets to initiate that kind of service toward you. To learn more on the whole issue of Biblical headship and submission issues read my article on my free resource page at www.leslievernick.com.
However, as you indicate, your response to his attempts to control you has been to either cave into his demands and allow yourself to be coerced into doing it his way, or have a temper tantrum and/or sneak what you want behind his back. Either way you are not only being treated as a child, you’re responding like one; either a complaint child or rebellious child. If you want to change this destructive pattern in your marriage, the change must start with you.
I outline how to make these changes in detail in my book The Emotionally Destructive Relationship but here are some crucial steps.
First, it’s imperative that you stop and ask yourself why you’ve permitted yourself to be treated like a child instead of an adult woman throughout your marriage? Ask yourself what is going on in you that makes you unable to tolerate both your husband’s disapproval and his withdrawal which he uses to manipulate you into doing what he wants? If you want to make a significant change and become healthy, you’ll have to be able tolerate his disapproval and withdrawal, at least for a season.
Second, you need to face whatever fears you have that keeps you from learning to speak up for yourself in a calm, firm, adult way. You have a typical pattern of putting up with inappropriate behavior until you can’t stand it anymore and then you blow up. You feel ashamed and guilty so you go back to putting up with it until you can’t bear to. Now you want to run away and leave the relationship. But I’d encourage you to stick it out for now but this time from a position of strength, not fear. God wants you to function as an adult woman, not a passive, fearful child. Gaining strength and courage is something he wants to give you. Pray and ask him for his wisdom and strength to begin to have a crucial but calm and controlled conversation with your spouse.
Third, it seems like your husband believes certain lies that hinder his ability to allow you to function independently of him. I’m not sure of all of them but here are a few that I’ve discerned in your question:
Lie # 1: If someone says she loves you, she should always want to please you, do what you want her to, and make you happy.
Lie # 2: If you say you love someone that means you should always do what the other person wants you to do and always want to please him.
Lie #3: God has given men total decision making power in a family and over their wives.
Lie # 4: When my wife disagrees or doesn’t want to do what I want her to do, that means she doesn’t love me or love God enough to submit to my leadership.
Lie # 5: A wife’s sole purpose is to revolve herself around the needs and interests of her family. If she wants anything independent of those things, she is not loving her family or loving God first.
Your husband may mean well but if he’s attached to these lies, he’s blind to the truth. He may not be able to see clearly but you must. However, when you assert yourself understand that it will not only make him angry, it will be painful to him because it means to him that you either don’t love him or don’t love God enough.
In order to break this pattern, you must begin to refute the lies your husband believes in your conversations with him. In addition, you must not allow his sulking behavior or withdrawal to intimidate you to do what you do not want to do.
As you implement these changes, I’d encourage you to have a “speak up” dialogue with him where you address not only what you do or don’t want to do, but you address the lie in order to expose it to the light of truth. It might go something like this:
“Honey I know you mean well and you are trying to do what you think is best for me and our family but I’m a grown up woman and need to make my own choices. If I choose an outfit for myself, it’s not because I don’t love you, but I want to wear clothes that make me feel comfortable and attractive and I think I can best decide how I feel in certain clothes.”
Or when he withdraws and sulks because you haven’t done something he wanted you might say something like this:
“Honey, I know you’re disappointed that I’ve decided to take that part time job but I need some outside stimulation and am bored at home all day. I know you think that the household chores will suffer but I think that I can still cover the basics with working these hours. The kids can help out more and I think I will feel happier as a person. I need you to respect my decision, even if you disagree.”
This change will feel very awkward to both of you at first. He won’t like your new found strength to stand up to him and you will feel uncomfortable asserting yourself without using your anger as a shield. But I promise you that if you stick with being respectful toward him, yet assertive in what you need for yourself, this path will have the best shot at turning around his controlling behavior. If you refuse to give into his sulking and just go about your business, then it no longer works for him to do it. He will probably respond in one of two ways. He will either escalate into more controlling abusive behavior, or will adapt to the changes you are trying to make in the marriage. If he adapts then you have given your relationship a new foundation, if he escalates into greater abusive behaviors, then you have more grounds to consider separation.
Readers: When you realize that you are being controlled or manipulated through someone’s emotional withdrawal or hurtful words, how have you gained the strength to respond and set healthy boundaries in a godly way?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Adopting a child of a different race
Hi everyone,
My June newsletter, The Importance of Play, is coming out today. If you haven’t signed up to receive my monthly newsletter, go to www.leslievernick.com and sign up. We will send it out to you too.
I am doing a taped radio interview with my friend Susie Larson Tuesday, June 8, on my book, Lord I Just Want to be Happy at 1:15 CST. If you’d like to be part of the listening audience and have the opportunity to ask questions, call 1-877-933-2484 or 1-877-93FAITH. I’d love to hear from you.
Question: My husband and I can’t have biological children, but still feel we want a family so we’ve been talking about adoption. I see in your books you have one adopted child and one biological child. I think there are many cases where adoption goes wrong (but then I suppose that happens with biological children as well), but it’s encouraging to know that a family without genetic heritage can have such a positive family bond together. My question is this: How on a practical day to day level, do you show your adopted child, especially when their ethnicity shows them to be so obviously not your natural child, that they are a valuable part of your family?
We really want children in our family and we live in a country where there are many orphaned and neglected children, but we don’t want to jump into something without thinking through it clearly and making certain that we would be the best parents that we could possibly be for any children that God would give us.
Answer: Adopted children are every bit as much as a gift from God as natural born children are. I can’t imagine my life without my daughter Amanda, who we adopted from Korea at 4 months of age. We already had a home grown son Ryan, and Amanda was a wonderful blessing. With that said however, raising children, whether they be biological or adopted presents challenges for all parents and you are wise to be prepared as much as possible for the sacrifices and challenges that parenting brings.
Let me answer your specific question first. Practically you show your child that you love him or her by wanting to spend time with her. When I was raising my kids, the experts told us that quality time was more important than the actual quantity of time we spent (so we wouldn’t feel guilty working), but that’s not true. You can’t make those quality time moments just happen. They occur in the every day rhythms of family life and that involves spending time together. Whether a child is biological or adopted, he or she will feel unimportant to you and insignificant as a person if you aren’t willing and able to give her lots of your time and energy teaching her, playing with her, talking to her and enjoying being around her.
That doesn’t mean you can’t work if you need to, but are you prepared to give up other things you may enjoy doing in order to spend time with your child? Kids can feel like burdens and bothers to their overworked, frantically busy parents. Adopted children already may be saddled with feelings of rejection from their biological families. All the more reason to show them that they are wanted, valued, treasured and loved by you.
You bring up the question of how we handled the issue of ethnicity. A small child won’t notice the difference. I remember Amanda at 3 telling me that she thought she looked just like me even though we were both staring into the same mirror. But as she got older, it became much more important to provide places where she saw people of her own race and was able to connect with things in her heritage that were meaningful for her. We would attend picnics with other families who adopted a child and we had a close friend who also adopted a Korean daughter.
When our daughter hit her teens, she found herself feeling much more self-conscious about her ethnicity but we had a good relationship and it wasn’t a matter of not feeling like she fit into our family, even as she struggled inwardly to find her place in the larger social circle of the group she hung out with.
However, it’s important to ask God to search your heart about any racism issues that you have before you adopt a child of a different race. When we love our child, we don’t even see him or her as different from us anymore but sometimes we say stupid things without even realizing how they might sound to our adopted child. My daughter told me that she would sometimes hear rude comments from other adults as well as her friends about people of different ethnicity that deeply wounded her and made her wonder if they felt that way about her too. They didn’t see Amanda as a different race, but in those moments, she deeply felt the difference.
Whether you adopt or give birth, there are no guarantees that the child God brings you will always make you happy, do what you want her to do, or make good choices. Sometimes kids break our hearts and I have done more praying and worrying over my children than anything else in my life. God uses the parenting process to teach us how to be less self-absorbed, more humble, more giving, loving and sacrificial than we would have ever been childless.
Parenting is a commitment to a person and a process and if you want a successful family, there can be no turning back once you agree to the job. Honestly, for every family some days are better than others, some years are easier than others but the love you have for your child stays constant.
My June newsletter, The Importance of Play, is coming out today. If you haven’t signed up to receive my monthly newsletter, go to www.leslievernick.com and sign up. We will send it out to you too.
I am doing a taped radio interview with my friend Susie Larson Tuesday, June 8, on my book, Lord I Just Want to be Happy at 1:15 CST. If you’d like to be part of the listening audience and have the opportunity to ask questions, call 1-877-933-2484 or 1-877-93FAITH. I’d love to hear from you.
Question: My husband and I can’t have biological children, but still feel we want a family so we’ve been talking about adoption. I see in your books you have one adopted child and one biological child. I think there are many cases where adoption goes wrong (but then I suppose that happens with biological children as well), but it’s encouraging to know that a family without genetic heritage can have such a positive family bond together. My question is this: How on a practical day to day level, do you show your adopted child, especially when their ethnicity shows them to be so obviously not your natural child, that they are a valuable part of your family?
We really want children in our family and we live in a country where there are many orphaned and neglected children, but we don’t want to jump into something without thinking through it clearly and making certain that we would be the best parents that we could possibly be for any children that God would give us.
Answer: Adopted children are every bit as much as a gift from God as natural born children are. I can’t imagine my life without my daughter Amanda, who we adopted from Korea at 4 months of age. We already had a home grown son Ryan, and Amanda was a wonderful blessing. With that said however, raising children, whether they be biological or adopted presents challenges for all parents and you are wise to be prepared as much as possible for the sacrifices and challenges that parenting brings.
Let me answer your specific question first. Practically you show your child that you love him or her by wanting to spend time with her. When I was raising my kids, the experts told us that quality time was more important than the actual quantity of time we spent (so we wouldn’t feel guilty working), but that’s not true. You can’t make those quality time moments just happen. They occur in the every day rhythms of family life and that involves spending time together. Whether a child is biological or adopted, he or she will feel unimportant to you and insignificant as a person if you aren’t willing and able to give her lots of your time and energy teaching her, playing with her, talking to her and enjoying being around her.
That doesn’t mean you can’t work if you need to, but are you prepared to give up other things you may enjoy doing in order to spend time with your child? Kids can feel like burdens and bothers to their overworked, frantically busy parents. Adopted children already may be saddled with feelings of rejection from their biological families. All the more reason to show them that they are wanted, valued, treasured and loved by you.
You bring up the question of how we handled the issue of ethnicity. A small child won’t notice the difference. I remember Amanda at 3 telling me that she thought she looked just like me even though we were both staring into the same mirror. But as she got older, it became much more important to provide places where she saw people of her own race and was able to connect with things in her heritage that were meaningful for her. We would attend picnics with other families who adopted a child and we had a close friend who also adopted a Korean daughter.
When our daughter hit her teens, she found herself feeling much more self-conscious about her ethnicity but we had a good relationship and it wasn’t a matter of not feeling like she fit into our family, even as she struggled inwardly to find her place in the larger social circle of the group she hung out with.
However, it’s important to ask God to search your heart about any racism issues that you have before you adopt a child of a different race. When we love our child, we don’t even see him or her as different from us anymore but sometimes we say stupid things without even realizing how they might sound to our adopted child. My daughter told me that she would sometimes hear rude comments from other adults as well as her friends about people of different ethnicity that deeply wounded her and made her wonder if they felt that way about her too. They didn’t see Amanda as a different race, but in those moments, she deeply felt the difference.
Whether you adopt or give birth, there are no guarantees that the child God brings you will always make you happy, do what you want her to do, or make good choices. Sometimes kids break our hearts and I have done more praying and worrying over my children than anything else in my life. God uses the parenting process to teach us how to be less self-absorbed, more humble, more giving, loving and sacrificial than we would have ever been childless.
Parenting is a commitment to a person and a process and if you want a successful family, there can be no turning back once you agree to the job. Honestly, for every family some days are better than others, some years are easier than others but the love you have for your child stays constant.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)