Healthy Love

Own Your Stuff

Published on by Cos Davis

One of the greatest challenges of human relationships is to keep our personal stuff from creating unnecessary issues. In other words, we need to learn to own our stuff. For example, if you are person who always needs to be in charge, you can make others uncomfortable with your need to control or have things your way.

Refusing to recognize and deal with our “stuff”  may cause others to have little to do with us. However, our children cannot easily avoid us and may choose unhealthy behaviors to deal with our stuff.

Children often adapt unhealthy reactions to a parent’s angry tirades, abuse, anxiety or any number of other issues. One example of this is the child who becomes a “pleaser.”  This child doesn’t dare do or say anything that might create discomfort for someone even if he/she has been highly offended by their actions.

How does a child come to be this way? Most likely they learned early to stuff her feelings out of fear of setting off a parent’s explosive temper. Their “pleaser” ways may protect them from the parent’s anger but can have a big downside. They may come to believe they can’t have strong negative feelings. So, feelings are stuffed or the person can become passive aggressive.  Certainly, they can’t take the risk of expressing their feelings directly and openly. Continuing on this path of stuffing their anger may lead to avoiding all kinds of conflicts and develop very shallow relationships in life.

What do you think could happen if an angry parent becomes able to own their stuff? It would mean they could learn to apologize and the child wouldn’t have had to internalize the parent’s stuff. It would mean the child could grow up with a more balanced emotional life. 

Is there some emotional baggage you need to own? What, if any, unresolved anger or insecurity do you need to address so your kid won’t have to deal with it? If you don’t own it, it is quite likely your child, and perhaps others, will have to deal with it.

Parenting Character

Published on by Cos Davis

Successful parenting starts with you, the parent. Your character, who you are deep inside determines what you value most and how you will live. Character also determines the kind of parent you will be.

So, who are you? What values are at the core of your being? Are you kind and gentle? Selfish, arrogant or prideful? Are you a know-it-all or are you open to learning new ways of thinking and doing things? Most importantly, does your character resemble God’s view of who he is capable of making you?

God knows each of us just as we are. He knows our secrets, strengths and weaknesses. Thankfully, He also knows our potential and wants us to continually grow toward being that person. Like a loving parent, He hopes for and dreams of the fulfillment of our greatest potential.

What is God’s view of the potential you? He sees you as becoming more and more changed into the character of Jesus, his son. Paul captures this great vision of us in Romans 8:29 ” For those God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son ….”(NIV).

In the larger passage from which this statement comes, God promises to work in every circumstance in our life to promote this growth of Christ-like character in us. He is able to use all the difficulties, pain and disappointments to shape our character. Our character, formed around faith in Christ, is his greatest concern for us.

Where do you start with this change of character which will gradually transform you and the way you parent? You begin with the surrender of your life to follow Jesus as Lord and Savior. If you haven’t already made this decision, I encourage you to begin this wonderful journey of forgiveness and grace right now.

What is Parenting About?

Published on by Cos Davis

What is Parenting About?

Perhaps the most central question we need to ask ourselves as parents is: “What is parenting really about?” In other words, what is the main role or central purpose I, the parent, need to fulfill in relation to this child that has been entrusted to me?

Unfortunately, for some reason, this may be an area of concern which some parents never consciously consider. Many are so caught up with their personal agendas and the busyness of life that they don’t take time to talk about, much less put into action plans related to their primary role as a parent.

I would venture to say that many parents don’t have much of a clue as to what their main purpose as a parent really is. With our society’s rapid advance toward materialism and secularism it is no wonder that we are losing our sense of what life is really about.

This secular mindset defines what many think life is really about. Consequently, they rear their children in this godless approach to life where all values are relative and human life itself is becoming less and less valuable.

What do you think is the bottom line in parenting? What is parenting about to you? My next blog, “North Star Parenting” will attempt to provide a direction for you to consider.

 

Do You Really Want to Build Trust?

Published on by Cos Davis

Do you  really want to build trust in your marriage? If so, you need to see how things you do or do not do everyday affect your spouse’s ability to trust you.

Marriage has multiple demands that go beyond maintaining and growing the relationship with your spouse. Work, child rearing, financial management, and such things as maintaining where you live play a part in how trust is built or destroyed in your marriage. With effort a deficit of trust in any of these areas can be overcome in time. However, an unwillingness to address trust issues will lead to a growing distrust and possible destruction of your marriage.

The real issue in making your marriage work well is CHARACTER. By this I mean that people of good character really want to mature and do those things that are healthy for their marriage. They will make mistakes but will also admit them and attempt to correct them. You will not need to try to change a person with good character because they will want to change for the sake of the marriage. So, it all comes down to a couple of things: heart and head.

The “heart” part has to do with will or intention. “In my heart, do I really want to do the right thing?”This question gets at the essence of the issue. If the heart is wrong or selfish then only a deep personal change such as conversion can change this.

The “head” part has to do with knowledge or understanding. A person can have a good heart or intentions but lack knowledge. For example, you may want to live within your means but are challenged when it comes to knowing how to make a budget. This principle applies in many areas of marriage and family life. Trust grows when each of you shows yourself willing to learn new skills which are important to the overall management of family concerns. Likewise, trust in these areas deteriorates when such issues are not addressed.

Are You Too Trusting?

Published on by Cos Davis

Are you too trusting? In the previous blog I dealt with the issue of transference and how our difficult experiences in the past can cause trust problems in our present relationships. There is a “flip side” to transference related to trusting people which we also need to be aware of because that can cause tremendous heartache also.

Let’s say you grew up in a family where you could absolutely trust the word and character of your parents. And, for argument’s sake, let’s say that you would admit to being too trusting of some people, a bit gullible or naive about relationships. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Here’s the problem. When you grow up with trusting relationships you may assume you can trust almost anyone. You trust easily and have a hard time thinking that people aren’t using you or not telling you the truth. You want friendships and that special relationship with someone of the opposite sex. However, what you may experience if you are too trusting is heartbreak and disappointment and that you simply cannot trust everyone. This is a hard and cruel lesson but it can be very helpful.

How can it be helpful to have your heart broken by a sweetheart or be betrayed by a “friend?” Hopefully, you will learn that, while you are a trusting and trustworthy person, not everyone is worthy of your trust. You will learn that true friendships are very rare and are something to be treasured and honored. And being hurt can make you a bit cautious about who you marry; not to give your trust and love to someone who can’t reciprocate in kind.

Our trust needs to be given to someone who will treat it as a sacred gift. But, for this to happen, we must first value our trust and ensure we don’t just throw it at someone out of a “romantic” infatuation and desire to be loved. Guard your trust wisely.

What is Your Trust Quotient?

Published on by Cos Davis

What is your trust quotient? Very trusting of others? Too trusting of some people? Distrusting of almost everyone?

How did we come to be who we are when it comes to the matter of trust? Since a good marriage and other important relationships depend on trust, it’s important for us to think some about these questions.

You may not have to search any further than your family of origin to understand why you trust the way you do. If you grew up in an environment that was emotionally stable it is likely you don’t have lots of trouble trusting others. However, if you grew up uncertain of the love of your parents, feeling you might be abandoned or that you had to earn their affection, you have probably struggled with trust issues. If you were a child of divorced parents this could also cause serious problems in trusting others. Abuse and neglect are also fertile soil for distrust.

“Well,” you may ask, “How does my trust quotient possibly affect my marriage?” Let me explain what could be happening. Transference is a term which means that we are acting in or reacting to a current situation based on past experience. For example, John says to his wife, Melanie, “I’m not your father. I’ve told you the truth and you refuse to believe me because your dad always lied to you.”John is saying that Melanie is accusing him of treating her the way her father did. She is transferring feelings of distrust and anger from her experience with her dad to her husband. There may be absolutely no rational basis for her behavior.

Obviously, John will feel like he is under scrutiny a good deal of the time and any slip up will bring the accusation, “You don’t love me.” Hopefully, he will see that, although he is trustworthy, he will need to be especially patient with Melanie in order to help her build the trust which will make the marriage work. Melanie will need to get some insight into how she has developed this deficit of trust and work through the emotional damage done to her so she can live with some sense of assurance and comfort in her relationship with John.

Trust Your Spouse?

Published on by Cos Davis

There is no way to overstate the importance of trust in marriage. Trust is to your marriage what your heart is to your body. Trust is absolutely indispensable to a healthy marriage. Therefore, our character and the things we do to earn trust are vital if we are to have a good marriage.

What I have just said implies at least two important things about trust. First, trust is a basic need in your marriage. Being able to depend on each other to respect your deepest feelings and needs builds security and gives comfort. When this is not true good communication is absent and there is a sense of anxiety and loneliness in the marriage. When your word cannot be relied on in ordinary, everyday transactions the foundation of trust is eroded and a deeper problem is often lurking just under the surface: If I can’t trust you in the small things, how can I trust you with my heart? Trust is basic to your marriage.

Another idea I want you to consider is that trust is learned. There is a real sense in which most of us didn’t really know our mate when we first married. Perhaps we had developed a certain level of trust strong enough to take a big chance on marriage. But, if our marriage has grown the way it should, we have had to continue developing trust in our spouse .The biggest issue for couples in this area, I think, is whether you believe your spouse is really trying to be unselfish and to look out for your best interest. If that trust is there you can continue to grow through mistakes by forgiving each other and address the areas where you need to grow. As you mature together in your love you will find that you have learned more and more how to trust each other.

Not all people enter into the venture of marriage with the same ability to trust and this can be a problem in making the marriage work. Why is this and what do you need to do if you are in this situation? We’ll look at this in the next blog.

How to Build Trust In your Marriage

Published on by Cos Davis

How do you build trust in your marriage?

It’s a wonderful thing to be in a marriage where you trust your partner. Such trust builds security and hope, diminishes anxiety and fear and makes the challenges of family life much easier to deal with. 

In my previous blogs I have dealt with the importance of trust and many situations which present us with the opportunity to build trust with each other. In this blog I want to be very direct in my approach and give you some advice which will be pointed and explicit on how to build trust in your marriage.

Make it easy for your spouse to tell the truth. If you think I’m saying that we can do something to help our spouse be truthful with us you are correct. Influence is the key issue here. You cannot make your husband/wife be honest with you but you can create an environment which can make it easier to be honest.

Think about this for a moment. Has there been someone in your life with whom you have felt safe to be yourself? What is it about that person that allowed you to be truthful about what you felt or where you had goofed up?

If you have been fortunate enough to have that person in your life I would say they offered you these things: a non-judgmental attitude, unconditional acceptance, understanding and a listening ear. These qualities create an environment which makes it easier for us to be truthful.

Pay attention to the things you need to do and things you need to avoid to make honesty an integral part of your marriage. Obviously, there are actions, attitudes or habits you will want to eradicate if you want to build a positive environment for truthfulness.

First, drop the critical attitude. Allow for human error and recognize that you are mistake oriented, too. Quit seeking perfection in your spouse until you have achieved that lofty goal for yourself.

 Second, be generous with grace and mercy. Make allowances for personality differences and areas of weakness in your spouse.

Third, be quick to encourage and praise. Look for strengths and encourage your spouse’s efforts to improve. Few things help the marriage more than an attitude that is positive and looks for opportunity to encourage your spouse.

Fourth, listen with your heart as well as your ears. Listening is hard work. If you work hard and intelligently at it you will be rewarded with a deepened relationship which will grow in understanding and trust.

Parenting and The Trust Factor

Published on by Cos Davis

Do you realize your parenting affects the trust factor in your marriage?

One of the most important areas in which trust is built or destroyed in marriage is how you deal with your children. Having children, for most couples, is the easy part. Rearing those children to become healthy, responsible people is not so easy. Let’s face it; children are expensive and can be a lot of work if you do child rearing as you should.

There was a time in our country when the basic idea was that the husband earned the money and the wife did most, if not all, of the child raising.This attitude, I believe, is a very limited view of how parenting ought to be done. Thankfully, I see many young fathers taking a very active role in the care and discipline of their children. This is as it should be and builds strong ties with the child and trust with the wife.

However, there are moms and dads who, because of laziness, selfishness, or some other reason, put the work of parenting on their spouse. This is hurtful to the child and undermines the trust that is so basic to the marriage. What is there that a couple has that should be more important than the child they have brought into the world? To neglect the rearing of your child is a sin against the very marriage that gave the child its life. Such neglect can do nothing but destroy trust in your marriage.

As you realize, there is a lot more to rearing your child than the physical care and nurture they require. They are moral, spiritual beings which need guidance and spiritual foundations. Your time is limited,there is only a relatively small amount of time you have to lay the foundations of character and faith upon which the remainder of your child’s life will be built.

So, commit to work together to rear your child to have a positive influence on the world. By doing this you will build a trusting relationship in your marriage and give your child the character and balance he/she needs to face the challenges of life.

How Dependable Are You?

Published on by Cos Davis

How dependable are you? The way in which you keep your word and do, or neglect to do, what you are supposed to do affects trust in your marriage. One word that aptly describes the idea I’m getting at is dependability. This is not so much about deliberately lying or misleading your spouse but whether or not he/she can depend on you to do what you’ve agreed to do.

Dependability covers a broad range of issues: faithfulness, truthfulness, and all the little things husbands and wives do to make their marriage healthy and secure. Marriage involves lots of mundane, ordinary stuff that has to be done to keep the household running smoothly. Most of this stuff is not glamorous or fun but it needs to be done. And, somebody needs to do it.

How does the stuff we need to do build trust? Let’s suppose you and your spouse both have jobs to support your lifestyle. And, let’s say the two of you have agreed on a division of work to be done to keep the household functioning well. For example, you have agreed to do the basic cleaning while your spouse has agreed to pay the bills. What happens when the bathroom is nasty and not cleaned for several weeks? Or, how does a pattern of late payments affect your trust of your spouse?

You and your spouse need agreements about who does what in the maintenance of your residence and the work that maintains your family. Where such agreements do not exist resentment grows and arguments are not far away. (Perhaps the arguments will lead to agreements). When the agreements are made, it is essential that you do your job in a way that says to your spouse: “You can depend on me to keep my word to you.” It’s amazing how dependability in these smaller matters builds up the foundation of trust so important to your marriage. Think about it.