Tough Love Counseling Situations

Love Must Be tough

James C. Dobson

Dobson, J. (2007). Love must be tough: New hope for marriages in crisis. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House. ISBN: 9781414317458.

Chapter One

With Love to the Victims

More than one hundred thousand letters and hundreds of telephone calls pour through our Focus on the Family offices each month, representing the full range of human circumstance and need. Every form of suffering and anguish, as well as many joys and triumphs, is shared with us in intimate detail from day to day. Included in that mail recently was a poignant letter from a man I’ll call Roger.1 His story moved me deeply.

A few months ago, my wife, Norma, left to go to the grocery store in a nearby shopping center. She told our four children that she would be back in half an hour and warned them to behave themselves. That occurred on Saturday morning. Six hours later she had not returned, and I began a frantic search for her. I could imagine her being kidnapped or raped or even something worse. By Sunday morning I called the Detroit police, but they said they could not help until she had been gone forty-eight hours. The children and I were worried sick!

We requested prayer from our church and Christian friends, especially for Norma’s safety. She had left no notes or messages with friends, and she didn’t call. We did find her car behind the shopping center, locked and empty. The police theorized that she had run away, but I didn’t agree. That just wasn’t like the woman I had lived with for fourteen years . . . the mother of my four children. We had been getting along quite well, actually, and had been planning to take a brief vacation over the Labor Day weekend.

On Tuesday, I obtained the services of a well-known police detective and asked him to help us locate my wife—or at least discover what had happened to her. Well, he began interviewing her friends and associates and the details unfolded. To my utter shock, it became clear that Norma had left of her own free will with a married man from her place of employment. I just couldn’t believe it.

Then about two weeks later, I got a “Dear John” letter, saying she didn’t love me anymore—that our marriage was finished. Just like that, it was over. She said she would be returning in a few months to fight for the children, and that they would be living with her in Kansas.

Dr. Dobson, I tell you truthfully that I have always been a faithful father and husband. Even since my wife left, I have taken good care of the kids. I did the best I could to pull our lives together and keep going . . . to try to make a decent home for these four bewildered youngsters. Nevertheless, the court ruled in my wife’s favor last month, and now I am alone.

I built our house a few years ago with my own hands, and now it is empty! All I have to show for the family I lost is a stack of Norma’s bills and the memories that were born in these walls. My kids will be raised in an un-Christian home, five hundred miles away, and I hardly have enough money to even visit them!

My life is a shambles now. I have nothing but free time to think about the woman I love . . . and the hurt and rejection I feel. It is an awful experience. Norma has destroyed me. I will never recover. I am lonely and depressed. I wake up in the night thinking about what might have been . . . and what is. Only God can help me now!

I wish this letter from Roger represented a rare tragedy that occurred only in the most unusual of circumstances. Unfortunately, variations on this theme are increasingly common today. Sexual intrigue has become a familiar pattern in today’s marriages, not only outside the framework of the Christian church but within it as well. And, of course, the most vulnerable victims of family instability are the children who are too young to understand what has happened to their parents.

That tragic impact on the next generation was graphically illustrated to me in a recent conversation with a sixth-grade teacher in an upper middle-class California city. She was shocked to see the results of a creative writing task assigned to her students. They were asked to complete a sentence that began with the words “I wish.” The teacher expected the boys and girls to express wishes for bicycles, dogs, television sets, and trips to Hawaii. Instead, twenty of the thirty children made reference in their responses to their own disintegrating families. A few of their actual sentences were as follows:

• I wish my parents wouldn’t fight and I wish my father would come back.

• I wish my mother didn’t have a boyfriend.

• I wish I could get straight A’s so my father would love me.

• I wish I had one mom and one dad so the kids wouldn’t make fun of me. I have three moms and three dads and they botch up my life.

• I wish I had an M1 rifle so I could shoot those who make fun of me.

I know it’s hardly front-page news to announce that the family is in trouble today, but it will always distress me to see little children like these struggling with such chaos at a time when simply growing up is a major undertaking. Millions of their peers are caught in the same snare.

Consider the plight of Roger’s children in the letter I shared. First, they lost their mother, then watched their father immersed in grief and agony, and finally found themselves jerked from familiar surroundings and transplanted into another state with a new guy who wanted to be called “Dad.” They will never be the same! And why was this upheaval necessary? Because their mother cared more about her own happiness and welfare than she did about theirs. As a young woman, she had stood at an altar before God and man, solemnly promising to love and to cherish Roger—for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, forsaking all others, till separated by the hand of death. Unfortunately, Norma changed her mind.

It is apparent that the marriage between these former lovers is now beyond repair. But could it have been saved? Were there signs and symptoms that Roger failed to notice in the course of recent years? Would any advice by some profound “Solomon of psychology” have prevented the ultimate tragedy? Before attempting to answer these important questions, let’s consider another troubled family that has not yet passed the point of no return. Their difficulties are summarized in the following letter from a wife and mother whom I’ll call Linda. Please give careful attention to this letter, for I will be referring to it throughout the remainder of this book.

Dear Dr. Dobson:

I have a problem and it has become a terrible burden to me. It is affecting me both physically and spiritually. I grew up in a good Christian home, but married a man who was not a Christian. Paul and I have had a rough time—a lot of anger and fighting. He has refused to participate in the family as father of our three children—leaving everything up to me. He likes to bowl and watch football games on TV—and he sleeps all day Sunday. So things have always been rocky. But a much more serious problem arose a few years ago.

Paul began to get interested in a beautiful divorcée who works as his bookkeeper. At first it seemed innocent, as he helped her in various ways. But I began to notice our relationship was deteriorating. He always wanted this other woman along whenever we went anywhere, and he spent more and more time at her house. He said they were doing accounting work but I didn’t believe it. I began to nag and complain, and it just made him more determined to be with her. Gradually, they fell in love with each other, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I bought a book about this time in which the author promised if I’d obey my sinner husband, God wouldn’t allow any wrong to happen so long as I was submissive. Well, in my panic, I thought I would lose him forever, and I agreed to let the other woman come into our bedroom with us. I thought it would make Paul love me more, but it just made him fall deeper in love with her.

Now he is confused and doesn’t know which one of us he wants. He doesn’t want to lose me and says he still loves me and our three kids, but he can’t give her up, either. I love Paul so dearly and I have begged him to turn our problem over to the Lord. I love the other woman too and know she is also hurting, but she doesn’t believe God will punish this sin. I have experienced terrible jealousy and pain, but I always put the needs of my husband and his friend above my own. But what do I do now? Please help me. I’m on the bottom looking up.

Linda

Have you ever been presented with a problem of this nature by either friend or relative? If so, what counsel have you offered? Do you think Linda handled the crisis appropriately? Would you have permitted your husband or wife to bring another lover into your bedroom in a last-ditch attempt to save your crumbling marriage? Linda’s motives seem clear enough. She knows that her husband just might leave her if she doesn’t accommodate him in every way possible, and perhaps his escapade with the “beautiful divorcée” will blow over and be forgotten if she can avoid antagonizing him. And after all, doesn’t the Bible say that “Charity [love] suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked” (1 Corinthians 13:4–5, KJV)? Love also “hopeth all things” and “endureth all things” (v. 7). Isn’t it reasonable, therefore, for Linda to hold steady and “obey [her] sinner husband” in anticipation of a miracle? Would you have agreed with the wisdom of this approach? Or would you have told her to divorce the bum and get him out of her life? Is there a third alternative?

Based on more than thirty years of experience in marriage counseling, I am of the opinion that Linda’s tolerance and longsuffering will probably be fatal to her marriage, and that her advisor has misinterpreted the Bible. If she deliberately set out to destroy what was left of her relationship with her husband, she could not do much more than has already been done. Though I empathize with her and intend no disrespect in this context, Linda has already made several fundamental mistakes that have contributed mightily to the present disaster in her home.

Linda’s first error occurred in not recognizing the threat imposed by a beautiful divorcée. We must never underestimate the power of sexual chemistry existing between an attractive, needy, available woman and virtually any man on the face of the earth. In the case of Linda’s husband, he suddenly found himself hopscotching between their two houses to provide whatever service the gorgeous-one might desire, while his wife concluded, “It seemed innocent.” Innocent indeed! That’s like a farmer thinking the fox visited his henhouse because it enjoyed the company of chickens!

Linda’s second error occurred after observing that her marriage was going downhill. That was an extremely important moment in their relationship when an appropriate reaction from Linda might have pulled her playboy husband back from the precipice. But alas, she was ill prepared for the task. She nagged and complained. How inadequate but how human! Her husband was rapidly falling head over heels in love with “the other woman,” and Linda’s only response was hand-wringing and verbal abuse. That form of reproof is about as effective with a wayward spouse as it is with a disobedient toddler: he doesn’t even hear it!

The key word in the next phase of this story is panic. Linda could see the handwriting on the wall. It scrawled the frightening word divorce and moved on. How terrifying to one whose entire life is her family! She could visualize herself as the mother of three fatherless children, struggling to survive financially and emotionally in a lonely, broken home. Furthermore, she was losing the man she loved with all her being. And as panic is irrational, so was her reaction to it. She brought the other woman into her bedroom in a desperate attempt to occupy even a crowded corner of her husband’s heart. What an incredible error in judgment! She soon discovered the inevitable result: “It just made him fall deeper in love with her.”

The best news I can give Linda is that it is still possible for her to save her marriage, but she hasn’t a minute to waste. Her husband has admitted that a spark of love still glows under the smoldering ashes (“He doesn’t want to lose me and says that he still loves me and our three kids”), but she must not smother it! One more bad move and he will be gone forever. He is in a state of confusion and can be swayed one way or the other, but how can Linda tug him in her direction? She’s tried everything in her own playbook and nothing has worked. What does she do now? If she is like so many others in today’s world, she will be baffled by the question.

The frequency with which I have been confronted by problems similar to the plight of Linda and Roger has led me to write the book you are reading. I’m especially concerned about the person in an unsatisfying relationship whose mate could not seem to care less. Let me be more specific. In any apathetic or dying marriage, there is typically one partner who is relatively unconcerned about the distance between them, while the other is anxious or even panic-stricken over it. The detached spouse, whether husband or wife, may not realize how much danger the marriage is in or may not care. Therefore, that person resists any effort by his mate to entice him into counseling or compromises or even meaningful conversations to address their difficulties. “We have no serious problems,” he contends.

The vulnerable partner, who could represent either sex but is more likely initially to be female, is aware that something precious is slipping away day by day. Everything of value is hanging in the balance, and she awakens in the midnight hours to contemplate the future. She thinks of the children—those beautiful kids who slumber unknowingly in their bedrooms—and wonders what will happen to them. She reaches for the affection and attention of her mate, and experiences depression when she doesn’t get it.

I’m not implying, of course, that frail marriages can be blamed entirely on one spouse, and I’m accusing neither men nor women. Marital conflict always involves an interaction between two imperfect human beings who share the responsibility to one degree or another. Nevertheless, there is usually one partner who would do anything to hold the home together—and another who seems disinterested in the relationship.

The book you hold is dedicated, therefore, to that vulnerable member of the family who can be thought of as a victim in extreme cases. This is the only text of which I am aware whose primary purpose is to help a distressed person strengthen or preserve his or her marriage, even in the absence of a willing spouse. What advice can be offered to a woman like Linda whose husband is entangled in an affair, or a man like Roger whose wife seems to disrespect and hate him, or a wife whose husband is an alcoholic or drug abuser or child molester? And what about the woman who loves her husband and is loved by him in return, but worries about the total absence of romantic excitement between them? Is there any way she can heat up their relationship without nagging her husband incessantly?

Virtually every counseling program now in existence for such families is designed to bring together two people who can agree, at least, to discuss their problems. Or if therapy is offered for a single partner, it is directed at strengthening that individual to cope with the crisis and go it alone, if necessary. But our purpose here is unique: we want to help one spouse maximize the chances of preserving the marriage, as in Linda’s case, and to survive till the long night is over. It’s an ambitious undertaking.

In the process of reaching out to the hurting members of the family, it is my desire to accomplish much more. The principles I will describe are not only relevant to husbands and wives in a time of crisis; they are applicable to healthier marriages, too. Indeed, I wish they could be taught to every engaged or newlywed couple in the morning of their lives together. There would be fewer bitter divorces if young husbands and wives knew how to draw their drifting partners toward them, rather than relentlessly drive them away.

But the concepts I will share have even broader applicability than the interaction between husbands and wives. As we will see, they are relevant to all human relationships, including employers and employees, parents and children, pastors and parishioners, businesspeople and laborers, guards and prisoners, Americans and Russians, and all the other categories of people who share an interface from time to time. In other words, I will be describing in subsequent chapters what I consider to be some universal concepts that cut across cultures, sexes, races, and economic circumstances. And unless I have missed the mark, they will hit somewhere near your neck of the woods in one context or another.

Now isn’t that just like an author to promise the moon to his readers? All writers have this tendency to overestimate the significance of their views. Books being published today offer everything from immeasurable wealth for men to instantly smooth thighs for women. Unfortunately, these authors rarely deliver on their promises; they remind me of “Professor Miraculous” in the Old West who sold his Elixir of Life from the back of his covered wagon and then left town . . . fast.

Hoping not to fall into the same “cure-all” trap, let me tell you candidly how I feel about the concepts you are about to read. Genuine insights into human behavior are not everyday occurrences—at least not for me. Indeed, if one stumbles onto two or three fundamental principles in the course of a lifetime, he has done well. The pages that follow focus on one of my allotted few. I’ve called the concept love must be tough. It won’t smooth out your thighs or make you wealthy, but it should help you cope better with the people around you.

Chapter Two

Panic and Appeasement

Only those who have been rejected by a beloved spouse or lover can fully comprehend the tidal wave of sorrow that crashes into one’s life when a loss is threatened. Nothing else matters. There are no consoling thoughts. The future is without interest or hope. Emotions swing wildly from despair to acceptance and back again. If one word must be selected to describe the entire experience, it would be something equivalent to panic.

Since panic is the characteristic response to rejection, imagine how much more distressing a loss is felt when a new and perhaps younger lover is brought into the picture! Nothing in human experience can compare with the agony of knowing that the person to whom you pledged eternal devotion has betrayed your trust and is now engaged in sexual intimacies with a “stranger” . . . a competitor . . . a more beautiful or handsome playmate. Death itself would be easier to tolerate than being tossed aside like an old shoe. Those who have experienced such a loss tell me that the most painful aspect is their own loneliness—knowing that their unfaithful partner is comforted in the embrace of another. How desperately Christian counsel is needed by those who awaken to the awful knowledge that adultery has taken residence in their homes!

In the absence of that guidance, a rejected man or woman often reacts in ways that make matters worse. Just as a drowning person exhausts himself in a desperate attempt to grasp anything that floats, including his rescuer, the panic-stricken lover typically tries to grab and hold the one who is attempting to escape. I have witnessed the scenario a thousand times. Supercharged emotions zip up and down a roller coaster of extremes.

Upon disclosure that the marriage (or premarital relationship) is over, the first reaction is almost sure to be one of utter shock and disbelief. That is followed by weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, giving way to begging and pleading for forgiveness and restoration. When that too is rejected, a bargaining period ensues. The person promises to be a better lover, to be more considerate, to quit work or to go to work or to bring flowers more often or to have a baby or whatever is perceived to be important to the disenchanted mate. Suggestions are made that they both seek counseling assistance, but the offer is almost always declined by the one whose mind is already settled. Then when all negotiations prove futile, an angry stage is often entered, perhaps eliciting every mean and hostile thought that the victim has harbored. A man may threaten to inflict bodily harm on his ex-lover during this phase, and sometimes succeeds in doing so. With or without violence, the hostility of this terrible ordeal is ventilated in a period of wrath, ending in physical and emotional exhaustion. Then a brief time of acceptance occurs, after which grief and sorrow return like an unwelcome visitor who so recently came to call. Finally, the cycle repeats itself on a revolving merry-go-round of misery.

With the reader’s indulgence, I will continue to include letters that illustrate the circumstances I am attempting to describe. It is the best way I know to make the words come to life. These are the thoughts and feelings of real people who have been through the turbulent waters I have described. Faye is such a person whose panic has led her to plead and bargain with her husband. She wrote:

Dear Dr. Dobson:

I’m writing to you regarding my marriage. My husband gave me the bad news earlier this year, telling me he no longer loved me. He told me of his plans to leave soon. Well, I begged and pleaded with him to stay with me, and he did for a while. Then one night he became so cruel and said many mean things before walking out.

Ever since he left, for some odd reason, I humiliate myself every time I see him. I beg him to call the kids and me. He’ll say, “I don’t want to talk to you!” I tell him how much I love him, and he’ll reply, “I have no love for you! I don’t hate you, but I don’t love you either.” That hurts me so much!

I’ve asked Joe to see a counselor, but he said he doesn’t need any help from anyone. He doesn’t even care about the marriage. He only wants his freedom. He says he wants to go to Pennsylvania where he can get a better job in the mining business.

So what do you think the problem is? We’ve been married eleven years, and we have two beautiful children. The odd thing is that we never did fight or argue very much. It just seems that he slowly turned against me and changed his mind about being my husband. Have you ever seen cases such as this?

Now something awful has happened. I went to the doctor recently, and he told me I’m going to have to have surgery on my eye, and I could lose my vision. I’ll be going into the hospital next week. I just couldn’t help it, Dr. Dobson. I broke down and called my husband again, but he was indifferent to the news. He quietly asked me if I had made any arrangements for the kids and if I had someone to take me to the hospital. I asked if he would take me and then stay in the waiting room while I had the surgery. Joe hesitated and then said, “Well, I guess so.”

What must I do to get Joe to love me again? He has told me over and over that nothing could make him care for me like before. I have cried and begged him to come home. I’ve told him how badly we need him. I’ve tried being nice. That doesn’t help either. I’ve told him I’m afraid and I need him especially now, and he says, “I’m sorry. The timing is bad.”

Is it likely that we will end up in a divorce? Joe has asked for one but I’ve refused. I still have hopes that we can get back together. I told him that and he said, “Can’t you get it through your head that I’ll never love you again?”

We used to do everything together, but now it’s all over. I keep calling my husband because if I don’t, he would never call me. Next Monday is a holiday; he didn’t ask what the kids and I were doing, so I asked if he would spend the day with us. He acted so smart and said, “If I have nothing else to do . . . ” Should I ignore him? If I do, I’ll never see him again.

Dr. Dobson, please help me. Tell me what to do. I love Joe so much!

Faye

Though I understand the compulsion that drives Faye to plead for Joe’s attention and love, she is systematically destroying the last glimmer of hope for a reconciliation. She has stripped herself of all dignity and self-respect, crawling on her belly like a subservient puppy before her master. The more Joe insults her and spurns her advances, the more intensely she seems to want and need him. That is, in fact, the way the system works.

The message Faye is giving her husband can be summarized thus: “Oh, Joe, I need you so badly. I can’t make it without you. I spend my days waiting for you to call and am crushed when the phone doesn’t ring. Won’t you please, please, let me talk to you occasionally? You see, Joe, I’ll take you any way I can have you, even if you want to walk all over me. I am desperate here without you.”

Linda, whose letter I shared in the first chapter, has given precisely the same message to her unfaithful husband. In her case, however, the panic even led her to invite the other woman into her bedroom. What a pitiful expression of low self-esteem and inadequacy. My heart aches for her and for the millions of others facing similar sorrows.

Linda and Faye have brought us now to an extremely important and well-known principle of human relationships: panic often leads to appeasement, which is virtually never successful in seeking to control the behavior of others. In fact, it often leads directly to war, whether between husbands and wives or between antagonistic nations. Attempts by one side to “buy off” an aggressor or offender appear to represent peace proposals, but they merely precipitate further insult and conflict. World War II might have been prevented and fifty million lives saved if British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and other national leaders had understood the folly of appeasement in 1936–39. Every time they offered Adolf Hitler another Czechoslovakia to tranquilize his lust for dominion, they only fed his disdain for them and their armies. Hitler’s interpretation of their yearning for “peace in our time” as evidence of weakness and fear enticed him to ever greater audacity. Finally, it became necessary to fight what Winston Churchill called the most preventable war in modern times. That is where appeasement leads, whether in affairs of state or affairs of the heart.

In Linda’s case, her husband threatened to divorce her if she didn’t allow him to engage in extramarital intimacies in their bedroom. Not only was this a cruel form of blackmail, it was also a test of her confidence and self-respect. She failed it.

Let me make it clear that my opposition to marital appeasement—this defenseless, pleading reaction—has nothing to do with pride, as such. If stripping oneself of dignity would preserve a marriage, I would enthusiastically endorse the behavior. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Nothing destroys a romantic relationship more quickly than for a person to throw herself, weeping and clinging, on the back of the cool partner to beg for mercy. That infuses the wayward spouse with an even greater desire to escape from the leech that threatens to suck his life’s blood. He may pity the wounded partner and wish that things were different, but he can rarely bring himself to love again under those circumstances.

Perhaps the reader can now understand why I disagree strongly with Christian leaders who recommend that rejected husbands and wives smile during a time of breakup or unfaithfulness and act as though nothing had happened. This advice is especially characteristic of those who write books for women today. They recommend, “Just keep lovin’ your men, ladies, and sooner or later they’ll come to their senses.” As you will recall, that counsel was offered to Linda by some misguided author who promised, “God [won’t] allow any wrong to happen so long as [you are] submissive.” That is Pollyanna in the pulpit if I’ve ever heard it!

Please understand that I believe firmly in the biblical concept of submission, as described in the Book of Ephesians and elsewhere in Scripture. But there is a vast difference between being a confident, spiritually submissive woman and being a doormat. People wipe their feet on doormats, as we know. Furthermore, it is terribly destructive to one’s internal organs to hold inside all the sadness and anxiety generated during a disintegrating marriage. Everything from hypertension to ulcers and even cancer can result from unventilated stress.2

Finally, successful marriages usually rest on a foundation of accountability between husbands and wives. They reinforce responsible behavior in one another by a divinely inspired system of checks and balances. In its absence, one party may gravitate toward abuse, insult, accusation, and ridicule of the other, while his or her victim placidly wipes away the tears and mutters with a smile, “Thanks, I needed that!” This passivity was the subject of a country song entitled “She’s Got to Be a Saint.” The words tell us what often happens to the appeaser who lacks the courage to confront a disrespectful partner.

I’m out late ev’ry night, doin’ things that ain’t right,

     And she’ll cry for me.

When I’m down in the dumps and she nurses my lumps,

     How she cries for me.

And she’ll never complain, she keeps hiding the pain

     But I know all the while:

She’s not feeling too well ’cause I’ve put her thru hell;

     Still she forces a smile.

She’s got to be a saint, Lord knows that I ain’t.

     I finally realized right before my eyes,

Here is a saint.

There’s a dress in the shop that’ll make her eyes pop

     But she’ll look away.

She’d-a gotten a lift if I bought her that gift

     For her birthday.

But her birthday has come and I feel like a bum

     ’Cause I spent my last dime

On a worthless old friend on a drunken weekend.

     I’ve done it time after time.

She’s got to be a saint, Lord knows that I ain’t.

     I finally realized right before my eyes,

Here is a saint.

Should I stay, should I go? I really don’t know,

     My mind’s in a blur.

Soon it’s gonna be dawn and if she finds me gone

     Would it be best for her?

I see her cry in her sleep so I kiss her wet cheek

     I kneel by her and pray.

And I’ll turn off the light, step out in the night,

     and I’ll go on my way.

She’s got to be a saint, Lord knows that I ain’t.

     I finally realized right before my eyes,

Here is a saint.3

Nice guy, huh? He’s just the kind of jerk that every father fears is going to marry his daughter. (I can’t help wondering what he said to the Lord in that bedside prayer.) But let’s take a closer look at him. What would motivate a man to be so cruel? Every elementary psychology book describes the yearning for affection that throbs within the breast of all mankind, males and females alike. Yet here we see a drunken bum who sneaks away from the caring, sharing, loving devotion of this marvelous woman. Why does he want to escape in the night? His wife would do anything to hold him, yet he prefers to spend the weekend weaving on some barstool with another wasted sot. How can such strange behavior be explained? Well, in addition to the effects of booze, this bleary-eyed crooner just can’t handle an appeasing wife who gives him everything and requires nothing in return. Sober or not, very few of us can!

It is even more important to understand the behavior of the woman represented in this song. Is she really some kind of superhuman saint? Of course not! She is merely a vulnerable female who has considered the alternatives and concluded that her only option is to keep her mouth shut. Perhaps in younger years she stood toe-to-toe with this beer-drinking bully and was hurt more than he by the brawl. Or maybe she is by temperament a peace-lovin’ lady who just can’t tolerate conflict. Either way, she knows that her husband is on the verge of leaving, and she wants to give him no excuse to split. Therefore, she has chosen to appease her man in the hope that he will clean up his act.

What passes for a “saint” to a half-drunk husband, then, is a normal woman who is carefully concealing what she really feels. You can be certain that she is in agony. She’s like a duck who is calm and serene above the water but paddles like crazy below it. How can we be so sure that she is in secret pain? First, because contented people do not cry themselves to sleep at night, and second, because of the delicate psychological nature of human beings. Our emotional apparatus is like a finely tuned violin which can be distorted so easily. The woman in the song is being abused by the one she loves, and there is no doubt that she is experiencing agitation, resentment, low self-esteem, and other disturbing emotions. These kinds of troubling feelings simply cannot be denied in most people, especially the female of the species.

The question remains, what is she going to do with these negative emotions? Sending them downward into a secret holding tank is the psychological equivalent of storing TNT. Sooner or later, a spark will touch off a blast that will make Mount St. Helens look like a popgun. (Helens was a saint, too, as you recall!) If marriage is to last a lifetime, then it must not accumulate and preserve resentments that can eventually turn into hatred. There must be a mechanism for releasing small tensions as they arise in everyday life. In the absence of that safety valve, what will happen to the saint in the course of time? Let’s assume that her alcoholic husband stays with her but continues to take advantage of her passivity. A blowup is likely at some future moment. To illustrate the point, let’s look in on our saint twenty years downstream, cleverly described in the lyrics of another country song entitled “To Daddy.”4

Mama never seemed to miss the finer things in life.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

She never wanted to be more than mother and a wife.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

The only thing that seemed to be important in her life

Was to make our house a home and make us happy.

Mama never wanted any more than what she had.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

He often left her all alone;

But she didn’t mind the stayin’ home.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

And she never missed the flowers

And the cards he never sent her.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

Being took for granted

Was a thing that she accepted,

And she didn’t need those things to make her happy.

And she didn’t seem to notice that he didn’t kiss and hold her.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

One morning we awoke, just to find a note

That Mama carefully wrote and left to Daddy.

And as he began to read it,

Our ears could not believe it,

Words that she had written there to Daddy.

She said the kids are old enough, they don’t need me very much,

And I’ve gone in search of love I need so badly.

I have needed you so long,

But I just can’t keep holding on.

She never meant to come back home.

If she did, she never did say so to Daddy.

Good-bye to Daddy.

Chapter Three

The Tender Trap

I hope we have succeeded in documenting three conclusions thus far:

1. Marital (and premarital) conflict typically involves one partner who cares a great deal about the relationship and the other who is much more independent and secure.

2. As a love affair begins to deteriorate, the vulnerable partner is inclined to panic. Characteristic responses include grieving, lashing out, begging, pleading, grabbing, and holding; or the reaction may be just the opposite, involving appeasement and passivity.

3. While these reactions are natural and understandable, they are rarely successful in repairing the damage that has occurred. In fact, such reactions are usually counterproductive, destroying the relationship the threatened person is trying so desperately to preserve.

In the previous chapter we explored the fears and sorrows reverberating in the mind of the rejected partner. Now let’s take the next step by looking at the husband or wife who is drifting away. In order to pull that person back from the brink, we need to understand the forces operating within. What do you believe motivates a man or woman to terminate a marriage? What thoughts are typical of one who rejects the unconditional love offered at home? What secrets lie deep within the psyche of the woman who has an affair with her boss, or the man who chases the office flirt? Is desire for a new thrill the only enticement, or are more basic motivators operating below the surface?

It has been my observation that the lust for forbidden fruit is often incidental to the real cause of marital decay. Long before any decision is made to “fool around” or walk out on a partner, something basic has begun to change in the relationship. Many books on this subject lay the blame on the failure to communicate, but I disagree. The inability to talk to one another is a symptom of a deeper problem, but it is not the cause itself. The critical element is the way one spouse begins to perceive the other and their lives together. It is a subtle thing at first, often occurring without either partner being aware of the slippage. But as time passes, one individual begins to feel trapped. That’s the key word, trapped.

In its more advanced stages, a man considers his wife (gender is interchangeable throughout these discussions) and thinks these kinds of thoughts: “Look at Joan. She used to be rather pretty. Now with those fifteen extra pounds she doesn’t even attract me anymore. Her lack of discipline bothers me in other areas, too—the house is a perpetual mess and she always seems totally disorganized. I hate to admit it, but I made an enormous mistake back there in my youth when I decided to marry her. Now I have to spend the rest of my life—can you believe it; all the years I have left—tied up with someone I’m disinterested in. Oh, I know Joanie is a good woman, and I wouldn’t hurt her for anything, but man! Is this what they call living?”

Or Joanie may be doing some thinking of her own: “Michael, Michael, how different you are than I first thought you to be. You seemed so exciting and energetic in those early days. How did you get to be such a bore? You work far too much and are so tired when you come home. I can’t even get you to talk to me, much less sweep me into ecstasy . . . . Look at him, sleeping on the couch with his mouth hanging open. I wish his hair wasn’t falling out. Am I really going to invest my entire lifetime in this aging man? Our friends don’t respect him anymore, and he hasn’t received a promotion at the plant for more than five years. He’s going nowhere and he’s taking me with him!”

If Joanie and Michael are both thinking these entrapment thoughts, it is obvious that their future together is in serious jeopardy. But my point is that the typical situation is unilateral. One partner begins to chafe at the bit without revealing to the other how his perception has evolved. A reasonably compassionate person simply does not sit down calmly and disclose these disturbing rumblings to someone who loves him. Instead, his behavior begins to change in inexplicable ways.

He may increase the frequency of his evening business meetings—anything to be away from home more often. He may become irritable or “deep in thought” or otherwise noncommunicative. He may retreat into televised sports or fishing trips or poker with the boys. He may provoke continuous fights over insignificant issues. And of course, he may move out or find someone younger to play with. A woman who feels trapped will reveal her disenchantment in similar indirect ways.

Let’s examine a letter from a woman whose husband quite obviously feels locked into his marriage. He’s never asked for a divorce, but we can sense what he is thinking from what his wife tells us.

Dear Dr. Dobson:

I have been married for twenty-one years, and the entire trip has been stormy. My husband cares about only one thing: getting ahead. He works two jobs, seven days a week. I know he loves our four kids, but he has no time for them, or else he’s too exhausted to give them any attention.

Our relationship is stale! My husband has never (and I do mean never!) approached me physically with a hug, kiss, or embrace, but will “go along with it” if I am the initiator. I long to get inside his head and find out how he feels, but he simply won’t talk about personal things.

We went to a marriage counselor a few years ago after almost splitting up, and I thought he was really helping us. Jack didn’t agree. He called the counselor “worthless” and a “waste of money.” Now he says he’ll see a divorce attorney before he’ll ever go back.

I’ve studied 1 Peter 3 (about submission) until I’m blue in the face. I’ve practiced those principles to the best of my ability. What has Jack done in response? He now expects me to always be cheerful and loving, regardless of how he treats me. Am I to accept this non-affectionate man forever [author’s italics], or is there hope for change? He enjoys putting me down.

I love him, but sometimes I get so upset that I think I hate him. He just withdraws. Do you have any suggestions or books or tapes that could help me? Jack won’t read anything I give him.

Thanks for your help.

Nancy

How could it be said any more clearly? Here we have a man who obviously disrespects his wife, treating her like an unwanted child. I would bet my shirt he’s wishing there were an acceptable way out of his commitments and obligations. On the other side, we hear an emotionally deprived woman asking, “What’s going on in this man’s mind? Why is he so cold and unresponsive?” The answer? He feels trapped.

This intense desire to escape from a marriage can occur on the first day of the honeymoon or fifty years thereafter. For men, it is the primary ingredient of a midlife crisis. But these feelings of constraint are by no means unique to men. For women, they usually (but not always) occur in response to an unromantic relationship that refuses to be energized. A wife may “reach” for her husband for years, beg for his attention, nag him when he fails to notice, and then scream to herself, “Help! I’m suffocating in this loveless marriage! Somebody get me out!”

How sad it is, furthermore, that this trapped partner who is fighting an impulse to run is rapidly sinking deeper and deeper into a form of marital quicksand. Why? Because the more he struggles to gain his freedom (or even secure a little breathing room), the more his panic-stricken spouse clutches his neck. Even the fluctuating emotions of the rejected party are interpreted as attempts to grab and hold him. For example:

• The response of grief: “Please don’t hurt me. Come and meet my needs.”

• The response of anger: “Get back in line, stupid! How dare you try to walk out on me!”

• The response of blame: “How could you do this to me and the kids?”

• The response of appeasement: “Name it and you can have it. Just don’t leave me.”

• The response of servility (the doormat): “No matter what you do, I’ll go on smiling ’cause you’re mine.”

The common denominator between these varied responses is one of entrapment. They each restrict the freedom of the less interested party. For someone in the trapped syndrome, love then becomes an obligation rather than an incredibly wonderful privilege. Perhaps it is now obvious why the natural reaction of the panic-stricken spouse typically drives the cool partner farther away; the more he pulls back from their relationship to gain desired space, the tighter the bonds close around him. He sometimes becomes almost claustrophobic in his desperate attempts to breathe—to get the noose off his neck. He may even resort to infidelity as a vehicle to escape from his partner’s clutches.

If the reader will forgive the redundancy, I’ll make a more graphic attempt to express this important concept. I have often explained it to those I have counseled by demonstrating with my hands, as follows:

Partners A and B decide to get married and live happily ever after. At some point along the way, however, Partner B begins to feel trapped in the relationship. His spouse offends or bores him in numerous ways, and he resents those five constraining words, “’til death do us part.”

In order to deal with this sense of containment—this restriction of freedom—Partner B moves gradually to the right, away from Partner A.

Partner A observes Partner B’s retreat and reacts with alarm. Her impulse is to pursue Partner B, closing the gap even tighter than before.

Partner B makes more obvious attempts to flee, but in a moment of desperation, Partner A jumps on Partner B and clutches him with all her strength. Partner B struggles to escape and will surely run the moment he gains release.

Partner A then droops in loneliness, wondering how something so beautiful became so sour.

INSTEAD . . .

Regardless of what common sense tells us to the contrary, Partner A’s best chance of attracting and holding a suffocating lover is to pull backward slightly, conveying freedom for Partner B and respect for herself in the process. Curiously, Partner B often moves toward Partner A when this occurs.

We’ve all observed this need for “space” in human relationships, but the concept is still difficult to comprehend when it pertains to ourselves and our loved ones. The next chapter will explain why.