Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 132

Wifey Wednesday: A Big Thank You to the Husbands of Sexual Abuse Survivors

Some of the biggest heroes, to me, are the faithful men who stand beside their wives as they deal with the memories, trauma, and aftermath of sexual abuse–and help them heal.

And I want to talk about that today. This may be a bit of a different post because I’m typing it this morning, on a really busy day. Over the next few days I’m helping my daughter Rebecca move, and we have so much to do (and neither of us will be in the comments much!) But I have a ton running through my mind and I just want to get it out before I run.

Last week, when I got home from Ireland and Keith was jetlagged and sleeping and I couldn’t sleep, I binge watched the Netflix series The Keepers. It’s ostensibly about the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik in Baltimore in 1969, but it’s really about why she was murdered, not who murdered her. She had discovered horrible abuse by priests and others going on at the girls’ high school where she taught, and she was about to reveal it.

I took three main things away from the show:

1. Older women are a force to be reckoned with.

I absolutely LOVED Gemma and Abbie (real-life women; the show’s a documentary). They’re in their 60s, they’re retired, and they decided that they didn’t want to die without knowing what happened to Sister Cathy. So they learned how to use Skype and the Freedom of Information Act and how to navigate government archives, and they compiled a better case file than any agency ever had. They’re so great. And when the media often portrays “women of a certain age” as being past their prime, this show demonstrated what an amazing force for good newly retired women can be. They were awesome!

2. The sins of an organization do not need to reflect on your faith or on God.

The Catholic church horribly violated Jean Wehner (the first of over three dozen abuse survivors to step forward) not because of the abuse (an evil man perpetrated that, and evil men are everywhere) but because of how the institution handled it and is still handling it. The bombshell in the last 15 minutes of the series of what the church knew and when it knew is quite astounding, and indicting. Even though the Archdiocese of Baltimore formally settled with victims and admitted their guilt in the early 2000s, it still has not told the whole story, to their everlasting shame.

(The Catholic church is the most visible organization to do this, but not the only one, as I’ll talk about later).

But the show does not say that everyone should throw away their faith or that God is dead. On the contrary. In the 1990s Jean starts having problems and has a feeling that there’s something really big in her past that she won’t let herself remember. She tries a bunch of stuff that doesn’t work, and then she just settles herself and tries praying. And that’s when the memories come. It is only when she’s quiet before God that he gently brings stuff back. She explains it in her words, and the documentary maker lets those words stand. And I liked that. Though she was hurt in a church setting, God was still there, just as God is here now. And the best people in the documentary are all people of faith whose church has betrayed them. But  you get the sense that these lovely, everyday saints are the future of the church, and it will be okay.

3. A good man can be a amazingly healing.

That’s really my main point today.

Jean married her husband Mike soon after leaving high school, where she was raped repeatedly and often passed around by the priest to other men. The priest said horrific things to her about it all being her fault and part of her punishment for not getting better (she had originally gone to the priests for help with healing from her uncle’s sexual abuse).

She and Mike had the picture perfect family, until these memories started coming back. The couple approached the Archdiocese to report the priest, who was still working with children in another parish. They told them there was nothing they could do without corroborating evidence.

Jean comes from a family of 10 siblings. So the documentary shows pictures from the 1990s of all the siblings and their spouses and even their kids writing over 1,000 postcards to alumni from the school, asking them if they had any information on sexual abuse happening there.

About 50 women came forward with remarkably similar stories to Jean’s.

The church still did nothing (and neither did the police). So Jean and one of the other women sued. And here’s where stuff gets interesting with Mike.

Jean talks about how Mike had to sit behind her during a seven hour deposition, during which the church’s lawyers were picking her apart, and challenging everything. And she said, “He had to sit there when he wanted to jump across the table and strangle these people. And he had to swallow everything he was feeling, because if he said a thing he’d be kicked out of the room, and he knew that if he went, I’d follow.” So he swallowed it.

Later, in the court case, where she was being pulled apart on the witness stand, he had to do the same thing. “He had to sit there and swallow it while these people questioned everything.”

They didn’t win the court case (the statute of limitations had expired), and so they went on with their lives. But, said Jean, Mike had a plan of how he would murder Father Maskell. “The only reason he didn’t was that I begged him not to. If he did, the kids and I would be alone,” Jean explained. “And we’d really be the ones who would pay for it.”

The documentary shows touching home movies over the years of anniversary parties for Mike and Jean, and birthday parties. And then at the thirty-fifth anniversary they’re asked for advice, but Mike is sweet but rather quiet. And you start to wonder why Mike has never been interviewed for the documentary.

And then modern-day Jean explains, on camera, that Mike was so great to her, but that he always had to swallow down everything he wanted to say. He was never allowed to get angry.

And then these words appear on the screen:

“Mike Wehner passed away May 26, 2007, from esophageal cancer.”

All that swallowing down, Jean thinks, eventually killed him.

I saw those words on the screen on May 26, 2017. Exactly 10 years to the day of his death. And it hit me like a sucker punch.

That was a GOOD man. He was a faithful man, both to his wife and to God. He never let go of his faith, and he didn’t let Jean let go of it either. He was a great dad. And he stood beside his wife and protected her.

To have a man who would make plans to kill your abuser when nothing else works–I don’t know. I think that’s kind of cool. Obviously it’s wrong to murder and vengeance is God’s, but when you’ve been hurt, to have a guy desperately want to make it right for you? That’s an amazing thing (and kinda sexy, too).

That’s a healing thing.

I’m sure Mike and Jean’s marriage was really impacted from her abuse. I’m sure that things were never totally rosy, because she had so much to get over. But he stuck by her, and he never failed to fight for her and to separate what happened to her from who she was.

And I know today that there are so many Mikes out there.

There are men who weren’t abused themselves but who are survivors nonetheless as they walk through all of the garbage that their wives have to deal with. And these men are one of the biggest forces for healing that God uses, I believe. It must be hard to be patient, yet a good husband can be such a rock.

So today, to those men, I just wanted to say thank you. You make a real difference.

I was never a victim of abuse, but I was a victim of abandonment. And having a husband who can be righteously angry on my behalf is so cool. I’m always trying to forgive, and trying to move on, and trying to be healed (and I think I pretty much am), but when Keith gets mad–that’s great. I don’t let myself get mad really. I want Jesus to redeem that part of my life and have it not define me. But when Keith takes on that emotion that I don’t always let myself feel? So neat. So neat. So neat.

I don’t know how else to explain it, but those of you who have lived it, know.

Another word about church abuse:

I know there will be lots of pushback in the comments about The Keepers, and so I just want to say something else that I think is important.

I truly do not believe that this series was anti-Catholic–I think it was anti-Archdiocese of Baltimore (for good reason), but not anti-Catholic.

Here’s how I see the sex abuse scandal:

Being Catholic does not make anyone more likely to abuse.

But abuse flourishes wherever there’s a culture that allows it. When individuals (especially men) are given power over others; where there is a hyper-obedience to authority; where there is an ethos of protecting the community first and foremost; where there is an environment of secrecy–then there will be abuse.

I wrote a long article on this last year about what’s happening in conservative Christian circles that’s really important–

It so happens that that culture flourished in the Catholic church in the 1900s. I do believe that it does not flourish today in the United States, which has largely cleaned up its act and really worked hard to protect kids. (I do, however, wish that the Vatican had not allowed Cardinal Law from Boston to retire there. I think that was a big mistake).

I also believe that the Catholic sex abuse scandal is not one of pedophilia but instead of homosexuality. The vast, vast majority of victims were pubescent boys, not young children. And the vast majority were boys.

Certain areas had more abuse because the seminaries were homosexual enclaves. Boston had about 6% of their priests abuse; Australia had 7%. In Ireland, the percentage was likely higher. But in some jurisdictions it was much lower because the culture in the seminaries producing the priests was different.

Again, it is about culture.

And the Protestant church is not immune to this. I have never talked about the Catholic sex abuse scandal on this blog until this week, but I have been quite vocal on social media and here about what I believe should be the shame of The Gospel Coalition. C.J. Mahaney, who used to run Sovereign Grace Ministries, knew that there was sexual abuse of minors going on in his churches. But instead of encouraging parents to go to police, he tried to hush it up. And then an abuser went to another church.

He had to resign from Sovereign Grace, but he has a new church. And last year The Gospel Coalition, with big names like John Piper, still had him keynote at their conference.

Look, abuse will always happen. We can’t eradicate it. But what we can do is treat it seriously when it comes to light.

That was the real scandal of the Catholic church–that it knew and did nothing.

And that is the scandal today of The Gospel Coalition. That it is still promoting a man and laughing about his legal troubles and his “persecution”. (Note: If people are mad at you because you did something horrendous, that does not count as “persecution”).

The other scandal is that too many conservative denominations have those same cultural markers–hyper obedience to males; an ethos of secrecy; little power for women. They are breeding grounds for abuse (as I will talk about tomorrow). And until we get real about this culture, the sexual abuse of children will keep happening.

I’ve been talking a lot about abuse this week–and tomorrow I want to turn to something closer to home: homeschoolers.

But for today, let’s talk in the comments: How can a husband be healing in your marriage? Let’s celebrate great men like Mike Wehner!

The post Wifey Wednesday: A Big Thank You to the Husbands of Sexual Abuse Survivors appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

10 Reasons We Need to Stop Romanticizing the Amish

The buggies. The farms. The laundry hanging out on the line, the girls learning how to bake, the boys in the fields. Amish life seems so idyllic!

And so we Christians gobble up millions of romance novels about the Amish. We travel to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to see them up close. We hold them up as proof that even in this busy world you can still live a simple life.

But what if, in so doing, we’re covering up a sinister side? 

While I was away on vacation I read the book Tears of the Silenced by Misty Griffin. In it she documents her horrific abuse (as well as her sister’s) at the hands of her psychotic mother and step-father, and then the danger and evil they were exposed to when they moved to an Amish community which did not deal appropriately with the sexual predators in their midst. It was so awful I almost thought she may be making some of it up. So I researched online, and found court cases that were eerily similar, and academic papers showing the same thing. There is a crisis in the Amish community.

Perhaps, in and of itself, that needn’t concern us that much. After all, there’s a crisis of female genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East. There’s a crisis of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. There’s a crisis of child sex slavery in Asia.

Yet this, I believe, is different, because Christians, by romanticizing the Amish and publishing so many books that depict them in totally unrealistic ways, inadvertently cover up and perpetuate the problem.

A few years ago I was also sent the book Other Loves All Flee: One Family’s Journey from Legalism to Grace by Leona Koehn Nichols. She was writing not about the Amish but about a Holdeman Mennonite community, which is almost as strict (except for the electricity part). And she makes so many of the same points! And so I want to challenge us to open up our eyes to what is going on in these supposedly “idyllic” communities.

  

Let's pull back the curtain of the Amish culture, and fight for the women and children there.Click To Tweet
1. There is absolutely no understanding of grace–and therefore no understanding of salvation

The Amish live by works. A multitude of rules governs their daily lives, from what they can wear, what they can play with, how they can behave, what they must do on Sundays, and even what happens if someone breaks the rules.

The emphasis is not on serving God, even if it may be phrased that way. The emphasis instead is on preserving the community, exactly as it is. In Other Loves All Flee, Leona tells what happens when she and her husband have an honest encounter with Jesus. They’re so excited they tell others. And then they are told that they can’t remain in the community and believe that you can pray and hear God, because only the elders can tell you what God says. That’s the only way to preserve uniformity. So no one should be praying on their own.

2. There CAN’T be any understanding of grace and stay as they are

Practically any Amish romance I have read features the main characters coming to an understanding of salvation (they are Christian books, after all) but then deciding to remain in the Amish community. This sounds lovely. But it is absolute nonsense. The whole point of the Amish and other hyper-conservative Mennonite communities is that they live “apart”. They are not “the English”. And so the emphasis is on preserving a culture that’s different. You can’t preserve such a culture if people are allowed to think for themselves or to have their own relationship with God. What if God were to tell them something different from what the elders believe?

Anyone who thinks for themselves is therefore a threat to the community. And so what these romance books depict isn’t real. That is not to say that I don’t believe that there are true Christians within the Amish communities. There may very well be. But the constant pull they must feel can’t be easy, and the community itself doesn’t encourage this.

3. The Bible is often incomprehensible and quite unknown

In fact, the Bible that they read and the prayers that they say are often in High German–the language spoken in the 1500s. Just like Catholic masses used to be said in Latin so the hearers wouldn’t understand, so much of the religious life of the Amish is done in a language that others can’t understand. And they are not encouraged to read the Bible for themselves (in fact, in Tears of the Silenced Misty’s KJV Bible is taken away from her by the Amish when she starts to question some of what they believe. They decide her having a Bible she can read is too dangerous).

Let's stop romanticizing Amish culture! Top 10 reasons why it's more than bonnets and buggies.Click To Tweet
4. Women are exhausted

Their lives are hard work, from sun up to long past sun down, and they rarely get enough sleep. To have huge families with no electricity is no easy task.

Sure, baking bread and growing vegetables and sewing your own clothes looks like a really neat way to live–and it is. But when it’s packaged with heavy rules you must follow, right down to how wide the seam is on the garments you sew or how high your bonnet is, it’s not a fun experiment at counter-culturalism. It is an unbearably heavy yoke.

5. Many women suffer from depression

I have good friends who are physicians near an Amish community in Ontario. And they will attest to the fact that Amish women are worn to the bone. Studies show that the rates of depression among Amish women are much higher than the general population.

6. Cruelty runs rampant

Part of the depression stems from the fact that cruelty seems to be a big part of Amish culture, even if we don’t see it. When the emphasis is on being a community and not causing waves, and the threat of banishment and community punishment is ever so real, then gossip tends to run rampant. Judgment is a huge problem. Any book about the Amish realistically shows this, but Tears of the Silenced especially depicted the bullying that often happens.

In fact, one of the things that surprised the main characters in both books I read was how nice and kind people were among “the English”. They had grown up their whole lives hearing how depraved the English were, but it was only among the English that they encountered true kindness. Their own communities were harsh and judgmental.

The Amish also believe that the earth was given to them to have dominion over–and hence animals are their property. Animal cruelty is quite widespread (just Google court cases involving the Amish). And the Amish are responsible for about 70% of puppy mills in the United States, according to some studies. The dogs are kept in cages their whole lives, and only removed for breeding. It is really quite horrendous.

7. There is an epidemic of sexual and physical abuse

Because of the culture of secrecy, male domination, and obedience of wives and children, it’s hardly surprising, then, that abuse in Amish communities is at levels far higher than the general population. After all, if the community tells men that women are their property and that wives must automatically obey; if the community tells boys that they are more important than girls; if the community tells people that they must never bring shame to their families (which is awfully easy to do given the gossip mills), then the community is a perfect breeding ground for abuse.

The rates of brothers abusing their sisters is also really common. Mary Byler’s case became quite well known in the news media in the 2000s; she had been raped literally hundreds of times by her brothers Eli and Johnny. At one point Johnny said that Amish boys believe it is normal to do this to your sister. That’s what she is for until you can get married. (BeliefNet has a huge story about the sexual abuse crisis in the Amish community here.)

8. There is no way for an Amish child to report the abuse to authorities

Amish children go to school only until Grade 8, but often at schools run by their own community. If one ever talks to the police, one is automatically punished by the community, no matter the underlying crime. Children have very little exposure to anyone outside the community, so they have very little way of stopping it. Even more, they grow up believing that this is normal, because they have no one else telling them otherwise. And they have so little education they truly don’t know what to do.

There's an epidemic of sexual abuse among the Amish, so why do we devour so many Amish romances?Click To Tweet
9. The community protects the abuser

So what happens if abuse allegations come to light in the Amish community? This is really the strength of the book Tears of the Silenced, and the main reason that Misty wrote it. It is not that sexual abuse happens among the Amish; sexual abuse happens everywhere, after all. No, the problem is how the Amish handle sexual abuse. 

Here’s what happens: the Amish believe in God’s mercy and forgiveness, they say. If a person confesses, then, they must be forgiven. Of course, they’ll be punished. But the harshest punishment meted out is 6 weeks where you must remain separated from other community members (meaning that you don’t eat with them and sometimes don’t talk with them, though you can still live in your house). After that six weeks you are declared “forgiven”.

Then, if the sin is ever brought up again, the person bringing it up is now sinning. And they can be banished if they don’t forgive.

So if a father serially abuses his daughters, all that happens is that he’s punished periodically for six weeks. But he’s not removed from the home. The wife is not offered any protection. The children are not offered protection. They are, after all, his property and he is the head of the house. And so they must obey and fall into line, because they must forgive, or else they are the ones at fault.

Now, how many of you believe that a father who sexually  abuses his daughters will stop after six weeks of separation, with no counselling and no real repercussions at all?

10. It is impossible for an Amish mother to protect her children from abuse within the community

This is the main reason why Misty left the Amish community. She saw so many families where sexual abuse was passed down from generation to generation, and the mothers knew about it and could do nothing. If they went to the police, they’d be banned.

An article from the Lantern Project explained it this way:

Amish do not believe in divorce, so mothers whose children are assaulted face a stark dilemma, Anna Olson said.

“You stick with it, or you leave,” she said. “But if you leave your spouse, you’re out. They’ll excommunicate you. And when that happens, the Amish consider you dead.”

Mast said mothers and children, who are not formally educated beyond the eighth grade, would be “terrified” to take accusations of sexual abuse to outside authorities.

“And if they went to the police, where do they go from there?” she asked.

“Amish children do what they’re told,” Olson said. “They don’t dare say a word.”

How could Misty have children if she couldn’t protect them?

Both Other Loves All Flee and Tears of the Silenced are self-published memoirs. Sure, they likely could have done with a little more editing, but I truly found them absolutely riveting. I couldn’t stop reading Tears of the Silenced. It was so horrific I thought she may be making some of it up, until I googled it and found so many cases almost identical. This stuff really happens.

So here’s my challenge for you: If you’re absolutely taken by the Amish, and you’ve read all those novels and you love them, could you take your next book and read the other side? I think we need to wake up to the harm the culture can cause. And then we need to figure out a way to reach out to the girls and women there and tell them that they do have a choice, and there is safety and grace outside the Amish.

Last year I wrote an important piece on how cultures that give men power over others inevitably lead to abuse. And I pleaded with us not to do that in Christian circles–not to give people unfettered power so that abuse would become more rampant.

It is not only the Amish. Wherever we give individuals power over others, we distort the relationship that God intended and that can lead to all sorts of horrors. .

Now, what do you think? Have you read Amish romances? What do you think of the Amish culture? What should our response be? Let’s talk in the comments!

 

 

 

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What If We’re Teaching Purity All Wrong?

What if the way that we’re teaching purity is really hurting kids?

I’m just back from my walking tour of Ireland with my husband, and it was AMAZING! I’m hoping to do a post soon with some of our pictures and tell you about how neat (and relatively inexpensive) a walking tour can be.

But I have so much running through my mind right now that happened while we were gone, and I just have to share it with you this week.

First up is today’s post: while I was gone, my daughter Katie made a video about the way youth groups often teach purity. And it went CRAZY. She’s saying something really, really important, and I just encourage every parent and everyone who works with youth to please listen. We need to hear young voices on this one:

Are we teaching PURITY wrong? A millennial explains problems with typical youth group messages.Click To Tweet

But while the video was great, I’m actually more taken by the reaction. Right now it has about 31,000 views, but it also has 5,500 likes and over 1,000 comments–a ratio really unheard of on YouTube. This is resonating with young people. Please, we need to listen about how we frame such an important thing.

So click through to the video and just peruse the comments. It matters. (And don’t forget to subscribe to her channel there, too!)

I’ve written about the harm that we can do when we emphasize virginity over chastity before, too. (Chastity means just acting in obedience to God. Anyone can do that now, no matter their past.) You can see some of those posts here:

A Letter To Those Who Feel as if They Have Lost Their Purity
Top 10 Things That Scare Me About the Purity Culture
Does the Purity Culture Make Women Ashamed of Sex?

I completely believe that waiting for marriage for sex is so important. But that doesn’t mean that I agree with the way that we often portray this to kids.

In everything, let’s just emphasize knowing Jesus and following Jesus. That should be our focus, not trying to shame a girl’s body or make her feel as if she’s irredeemable.

This week I want to look more at ways that our culture can harm us, and talk about what we can do about it. I’ve been binge watching some shows and I read a book while I was away about the Amish, and there are some desperately important things there we need to talk about.

But for today, I just want you all to know: if you had sex before you were married, that does not make your marriage any less valuable in God’s sight, and you are not a failure. Your purity is not based on what you did with your body, but on what Jesus did with His. And let’s make sure we’re teaching our kids to run after Jesus, not run after rules.

Let me know in the comments: What do you think? Have you ever heard (or used) the chocolate bar analogy or the glass of water analogy that Katie used? Are these effective or harmful? Let’s chat!

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In Which I Make a Fool Out of Myself Multiple Times

Yesterday was my birthday!

And some years on my birthday I write in-depth, useful posts, like how to make your birthday meaningful, or about dreaming new dreams.

Yesterday I shared 47 things you might not know about me. And today I thought I’d continue the birthday treatment by sharing something where the main message to me is “just don’t take yourself too seriously.”

And I thought I’d let you see the dangerous side of blogging and writing!

EXHIBIT A: The Seriously Dangerous Group Text Scenario

A little while ago I was looking over some of the earliest posts on this blog and debating whether I should rework them. I came across rather a funny anecdote in one to do with my daughter Katie when she was 11, and decided to text it to my daughters.

So I opened my messages app on my Mac, and I found the first text where I saw both of their heads.

And I texted them this message:

Now, Katie happened to be home the day I texted that. She was right upstairs in fact (I could have just called her downstairs and avoided texting altogether). And as soon as I hit send, she screamed.

“MOTHER!!!! What did you do?!?!?”

I didn’t understand what she as so upset about, until I looked at that group text–and realized that one of her best friends, who happens to be male, was ALSO in that particular group conversation.

He actually thought it was hilarious. Katie thought I was just insane.

But it reminded me of another instance–with another one of Katie’s friends.

EXHIBIT B: In Which I Text a Teenager By Accident

This one happened when I was writing the final edits for The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.

It was due in at the publisher’s in the middle of a speaking tour in Alberta. I managed to finish it in time, but a few days later my editor got back to me to say that she’d like to see some of the “Good Girl’s Dares” that I’d offered to write: short little fun things that wives can do to spice things up.

Now it so happened that on the day she asked I also had two different columns due and a lot of travel time, and very little time in a hotel with a computer. So I decided to write them on my Blackberry in the car. I did, and later copied them and pasted them into an email on my Blackberry which I then sent to myself so I could edit them on my computer and send them off.

Now, my-then 2011 Blackberry was new and I hadn’t figured out how to lock it. It kept calling my husband by accident, for instance.

So here’s what happened just a few days later. My girls were in a Bible quizzing invitational tournament in upstate New York. We left early so we could meet up with some friends at a big mall, so the teenage girls could shop for a few hours before the competition. I took my friend Kathy’s cell number so I could text her when we got there and we could meet up. Which I did, as soon as we arrived.

Kathy then gave her cell phone to her 15-year-old daughter, and the five teenage girls (including my two) went off together, while Kathy and I explored.

An hour later I looked down at my cell phone only to see, to my horror, my list of rather explicit things wives could do to spice things up. It had been texted. To Kathy’s phone. Which our daughters had.

Somehow a combination of Kathy’s number being the last to be texted, and the text to my publisher being the last thing copied, made for a very dangerous combination.

When I realized what I had done, I yelled out for Kathy, and in horror explained what I had just sent her daughter. She took it much better than I did.

When we met up with the girls we got their take. I guess they read about five before they decided they had better stop. Rebecca figured it had something to do with my book and thought it was funny. Kathy’s daughter thought it was hilarious. The other mom with us wanted me to text it to her, too. But my youngest just said I had a dirty mind.

Let me reiterate: Bible quizzing. Teenage girls. Marriage sex dares. How do I get myself into these things?

Here are just a few:

Want to See More Good Girl Dares?
Check out the Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex!

It’s a great book (my favourite I’ve ever written!) with everything about how to make sex great physically, emotionally, AND spiritually. And it has these gems sprinkled throughout!

Get your copy here. Because good girls do have more fun!

The moral of the story? Sometimes we just do seriously embarrassing things. Everyone else may think they’re hilarious, but they really are quite embarrassing. But you know what? Time goes on anyway. And the memories fade. And sometimes it’s just good to look back and laugh at yourself anyway!

Have you ever had a serious misstep with texting? Let me know in the comments!

Marriage isn't supposed to be blah!


Sex is supposed to be stupendous--physically, emotionally, AND spiritually.

If it's not, get The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex--and find out what you've been missing.

 

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47 Things You May Not Know About Me on My Birthday

It’s my birthday today!

I’m just back from our anniversary trip to Ireland, and I’m rather jetlagged.

Our anniversary was back in December, but December is a lousy month to go on a walking trip to Ireland. So we went in May instead! Which was nice, because it seemed like a birthday present, too.

And today, for my birthday, I thought I’d share 47 things you may not know about me, so you can get to know me better! (When I first wrote this post I made it 48 things. Then I realized I’m only turning 47!).

Here goes: 47 Weird Facts About Me:

My favourite snack is chocolate chips in milk. (That’s IN milk, not AND milk). You pour enough chocolate chips in a glass to cover the bottom, pour the milk, and get a big soup spoon. Two chocolate chips per a spoonful of milk is pretty wonderful!
I’ve knit 32 pairs of socks in my life. And I’m working right now on 3 more!
I grew up as an only child.

My grade 2 school portrait!

I was allergic to milk as a kid so I never grew up eating cheese. Still hate it.
I hate peanut butter, too. (Start watching that video at 5:05!)
When I was a kid, I loved putting plain chips on sandwiches. It made them crunchy.
I’m Canadian, and I’m American. My whole family is Canadian, but my parents were studying in the U.S. when I was born. Lived there for 5 months only, but it was enough to get me a U.S. passport, which has helped so much as my speaking has stepped up in the U.S.! So God saw I’d need it even back then.
I was flying by myself from Toronto to visit my dad first in Boston and then in Vancouver starting when I was 6. I found out that if you’re an unaccompanied minor on a plane and you cry, stewardesses bring you cookies.
I grew up in downtown Toronto and even worked at Maple Leaf Gardens as a teenager.
My favourite colour is purple.

This colour scheme is quite typical for us!

I have oily skin. Hated it as a teen. Love it now. No wrinkles!
I think my natural hair colour is mousy brown. I think.
My lower eyelashes are almost entirely gone, and it seriously bugs me.
I have 2 children in heaven and 2 children on earth. We had a miscarriage, then Rebecca, then Christopher (who passed away when he was a month old), then Katie.
I’m 98% English and 2% Polish. Kind of boring, actually. My husband’s a much more interesting mix.
My first big job was programming databases. I learned how to create applications in Microsoft Access. Wrote a billing program for my husband, too.
I was supposed to be a university professor. Changed my mind at the end of my second Master’s degree.
I started blogging in 2008 to try to build a platform so I could sell more books to a publisher. I thought of myself as a writer who blogs. Now I’m really primarily a blogger–and I’m totally happy about that!
I want to write novels. I’ve got two in my head, and I like them. But they don’t have “happily ever after” endings, so I don’t know if that’s okay or not.
You probably know that I love speaking, but did you know that it runs in my family? My whole family are great speakers, as were my grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.
I can type 120 words a minute.
I can knit even faster.

The most intricate pattern I’ve ever made–the shawl on a long cardigan.

I can knit without looking.
I can eat without looking, too (but everybody can).
I love dresses, but hardly ever wear them in the winter because I’m always too cold.
I’m a terrible decorator.
I’m sleeping a lot less the older I get. And I love it!
My dream is to live in Kenya for half the year and help equip church leaders to teach more about marriage and sexual fidelity. My husband would like to teach at a missions hospital. We’re working on it!
My favourite thing I’ve ever done in missions is repairing clothes and doing laundry at the children’s home in Kenya. It wasn’t planned, and I’m sure we did more good with the medical team and with sending money.  But somehow repairing a child’s pair of jeans or washing a sweater of an orphan meant something to me.




My two favourite mini-series are polar opposites: Pride & Prejudice (BBC version) and Band of Brothers. Can quote both of them.
I’ve been to 48 states. I’m only missing Idaho and Utah.
I’ve been to 9 provinces–but I’ll fix that with Newfoundland in June!
My biggest fear is heights. I could speak in public all day and it wouldn’t bother me at all. But I still have to breathe deeply when I pass the stair rail on my top floor at my house.
My recurring nightmare is driving and having the brakes not work.
I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 22, since I grew up in downtown Toronto and no one drove. I made my kids get their licenses earlier because I’ve always thought I’m not a very confident driver because of it.
3 of the 4 guys I ever dated seriously went on to be doctors. Don’t know what that means, but I guess I have a type.
For our twenty-fifth anniversary my husband redid my engagement ring. Originally it was an amethyst and cost about $187. He put a diamond in it now. I didn’t want to give up the original setting because it meant a lot to me!
I actually scored higher on a math contest in grade 11 than my husband did on the same math contest. Only difference? He could still do that math test today. I forget all of it.
I took ballet as a child–and even could pirouette on pointe.
I have a phobia of playing team sports.
I started wearing earplugs in university and now can’t sleep without them. I start to panic if I can’t find my earplugs when I’m away speaking. What if I can’t fall asleep?
I’m a decent singer. My girls are amazing singers.
My resting heart rate is way too high even though I’m in pretty good shape. It makes me nervous.
The first Bible chapter I ever memorized was Isaiah 53. Still my favourite.
I’m an ENTJ (if you like the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator). It means I’m a CEO, know-it-all, executive type person.
I’m a recovering political junkie. Although I’m currently relapsing and so I’m glad to be away with no internet!
Some people want to teach the world to sing. I want to teach the world to knit. (And we’ve done that, bit by bit!

Wifey Wednesday: What Lens Do You See Your Husband Through?

Did you bring baggage into your marriage?

I did. I had baggage from my father issues, but also baggage from Keith breaking off our initial engagement. And that baggage led to real trust issues.

When we have baggage, that often affects our marriages. Instead of seeing our husbands as they are now, and reacting to just what’s happening in front of us, we look at things through baggage-coloured glasses.

Every Wednesday on this blog we talk marriage, and today I just want to ask a simple question: Do you have any of these “glasses” on when you interact with your husband? Do you see him through a certain lens, rather than seeing him just as he is?

Here are a few “baggage” lenses that can impact our marriages:

1. The Father Lens.

Did you have a close, loving, supportive father? If you didn’t, that likely left a hole in you. My father, for instance, left me when I was two, and I’ve always had rejection issues. For the first few years we were married, whenever we were feeling particularly close and snuggling, I would find “you’re not going to leave me, are you?” coming out of my mouth instead of “I love you.” I was programmed to assume that this relationship wasn’t going to last.

And that can lead to a lack of trust in your relationship, which makes transparency hard, intimacy tricky, and happiness difficult. What we tend to do is to push our husbands away before they push us away. We get defensive, and believe that everything that they bring up that is negative means they’re going to leave us–as opposed to the fact that they just want to work on something.

So we assume the worst. We think that when he’s being insensitive it means he genuinely doesn’t care, as opposed to maybe he’s just being lazy or preoccupied. And so we start attacking him and accusing him of things that he has no intention of doing and aren’t even on his radar screen. And yet what’s happened is not that he’s doing anything in particular; it’s that we have read too much into things because of our own prejudices.

2. The Past Bad Relationship Lens.

Often our lack of trust is magnified if we’ve had really bad romantic relationships or marriages in the past. I have a friend who was abused in her first marriage, and is now married to someone who loves her dearly. But she has a hard time believing it. He says that he often has a nightmare where he’s lying in his coffin, about to be lowered into the ground, and she’s standing above it, saying, “See! I told you you’d leave me!”. That’s the only way that argument can end, because he can never prove to her that he is going to stay.

3. The Pathetic Man Lens.

In our culture men are thought of as incompetent when it comes to relationship stuff, housework stuff, and parenting stuff. We are the wise ones; they are the dolts that we put up with for some reason. And it becomes in vogue to make fun of men for how they can’t share their feelings, or can’t do laundry, or can’t play with a baby.

The problem is that many men CAN share their feelings, CAN do laundry, and CAN play with babies. They just may do it differently than we do. But because our lens tells us that he is pathetic, we assume that when he launches into his version of it that it’s wrong, and we berate him for it. Not a good way to build intimacy!

4. The “He’s Always Right” Lens.

This one perhaps is not as common as it used to be, but it’s still out there, and it goes something like this. God has called me to submit to this man, and He has made this man head over our marriage. Therefore, what my husband says I must obey, because my husband is right. Nope. God is your final authority; not your husband. We must submit, yes. But God never asks us to do that without thinking for ourselves. And if your husband isn’t close to God, and isn’t leading your family close to God, then you need to pick up the slack and do those things on your own.

If your husband asks you to do something in the bedroom that you feel is wrong, you don’t have to do it. If your husband is addicted to pornography, it’s okay to confront him on it. Submitting does not mean letting go of our wisdom or our discernment.

5. The “My Kids Are My Main Concern Right Now” Lens.

Too often we weigh everything in our marriage in terms of the kids. If our husbands want a night away with us, we wonder how that will affect the kids, and why doesn’t he love the kids as much as I do? Our children are our main priority, and we give them the majority of our time and attention, and we wonder why our husbands don’t seem to do the same thing. We assume that we must love the children more. Actually, our husbands might have the right idea. What children need is to feel that their parents have a stable relationship; if you put the children first, you’re sacrificing their stability.

6. The “All Men Are Perverts” Lens.

For several years after I was released from my indoctrination program at university, I believed that all men were evil to a certain extent, and women were superior. This isn’t the same as believing all men are buffoons; it’s actually more harmful. We learned that “all sex is rape”, for instance, and that makes it very hard to figure out how to handle intimacy in a marriage.

Others of you may have grown up with sexual abuse, and couple that with a culture which is so degrading towards women, and it’s easy to think that all men are perverts. Then, when our husbands are interested in sex, we think he’s just an animal, confirming our worst fears about the male gender.

In each of these cases, though, we’re allowing our biases to impact how we see our husbands. And that can seriously harm our marriage!

Often we have very good reason to have these biases. Perhaps your childhood was very difficult. Perhaps men did hurt you in the past.

But even if you have a good reason to have this baggage, you’re still left with this:

Are you going to let your past baggage hurt your marriage, or do you want to have a fresh start with the man you love?

Here’s my assignment for you this week: figure out what lens, or lenses, you have. If you can identify your biases, then it’s easier to take off those lenses and see him with clear eyes.  Then, next time you find yourself getting upset with your husband, or ticked off about something, ask yourself this question:

“Is he really doing something very wrong? Or am I assuming something about the situation?”

That’s a good practice to get into in marriage: start with yourself when there’s a conflict. And you just might find that those conflicts magically disappear!

Now, let me know in the comments: which lens is the most difficult for you? Or do you have one I didn’t even mention? Let’s talk!

Marriage isn't supposed to be blah!


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10 Ways Technology Can Enhance Your Marriage

Is technology making it easier to drift apart in our relationships?

Instead of talking, we sit on our cell phones. Date nights become us chatting about what we saw on Facebook, instead of what’s been going on in our own lives. We spend hours that families used to have together watching Netflix or YouTube videos.

But that doesn’t mean it’s all bad! 

Just like everything, technology is a tool, and it can be used for good or for bad. I’m so happy to have Diamond with us today to give 10 ideas of how to use technology to enhance your marriage, not detract from it! Here’s Diamond!

There is a lot of talk about the ways technology can cause problems in relationships. As with any issue, though, there is another side to the story. When used deliberately, there are many ways technology can bring you and your husband closer together.

Here are 10 ways technology can actually enhance your marriage.

1. Podcasts

Instead of listening to the radio in your car, consider trying a podcast. There are thousands of podcasts available through outlets such as iTunes. A simple search for “Christian marriage podcast” will reveal great options such as “Anything & Everything” and “Sex Chat for Christian Wives.” These podcasts have great stories and tips for strengthening your marriage. Some shows are humorous while others are more serious. With so many choices, you should be able to find something that appeals to you and your spouse.

2. Text Messages

Texting is something you probably do every day. Yet what’s in the messages you’re sending to your spouse? Do you use texts to remind your husband to pick up the kids or stop at the store for milk? While there’s nothing wrong with that, you can also use texts to send special notes, reminding your husband why you love him. Make it a point to send him at least one romantic or flirty text every day. You might be surprised how much of a difference this will make in your relationship.

Here are a few of my favorites to send (and receive):

“Thank you for being you and for being mine.”
“I was just thinking about the way you kissed me this morning. I can’t wait to do it again tonight.”
“I looked at that photo of [the time we did that thing] and remembered [fun memory].”


3. Subscription Services

Online subscription services have exploded in popularity in recent years. You can get monthly boxes in the mail with anything from wine and candy to clothing, makeup and accessories. One subscription niche you may not be familiar with is date night boxes. These boxes provide fun activities for couples. Most include a theme with an activity and conversation topic included. Activities can be anything from painting to cooking to dancing.

My husband and I received one such subscription box for couples as a gift. We expected it to be kind of lame, so we weren’t in a hurry to open it up. It collected dust in the closet until one Saturday night where we didn’t have plans. We cracked it open along with a bottle of wine and were pleasantly surprised by how much fun we had. Our box included a dessert we made together and an art project that required us to both contribute different parts, but still work together to complete it.

We spent the evening laughing and talking and generally having a good time. It was a great night, and we’re looking forward to ordering another box soon.

4. Meal Services

If your marriage is anything like mine, then “what’s for dinner?” is a question that haunts you daily. Eliminating the hassle of meal planning and grocery shopping can free up a lot of time in your week. Consider trying a meal delivery service such as Chef’s Plate. These services allow you to log-on to a website or an app and choose weekly meals for delivery.

Once you’ve placed your order, the service will send you pre-portioned ingredients along with recipes and cooking instructions. Most meals require 30 minutes or less of cooking time, and you’ll get to try new recipes, such as Nashville-Style Hot Catfish and Three-Cheese and Broccoli Stromboli. You and your husband can even try making these meals together for some additional quality couple time.

5. TED Talks

As a couple, especially if you have children, it can be difficult to find time to sit down every week at the same time to watch something together. Instead, why not choose a TED talk a day, watch it while on your lunch break, and then discuss it together at night? It will give you something to look forward to doing together every week but doesn’t require a lot of energy or planning.

6. TaskRabbit

Is the honey-do-list a constant source of arguments in your marriage? Instead of nagging your partner to do the chores you want to be completed around the house, try an app such as TaskRabbit. You can get help with anything from building a bookshelf from Ikea to hanging a picture. All you do is post the project on the site and you’ll be matched with Taskers who have experience in the area. You can communicate directly in the app and see hourly rates before making a selection. After you’ve chosen someone, he or she shows up and completes the work and payments are completed automatically through the app.

You might be thinking hiring someone to do the work your husband could do for free doesn’t make financial sense. But how much is a peaceful marriage worth to you? My guess: a lot.

7. Online Calendar

How many fights in your relationship started because one of you forgot something that was important to the other person? Nobody’s perfect, so it’s likely happened to all of us at one time or another.

My husband and I decided to solve this problem by creating an online calendar solely for the two of us. We each are responsible for putting in important things affecting our relationship such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc. We also use it to mark out personal time for girls’ nights or guys’ weekends. It’s provided a great way to communicate and eased the burden of expectations on both of us.

You can use a free program such as Google Calendar to set up your calendar and create parameters that work for both of you. You might be surprised at how this small change can impact your relationship.

8. FaceTime

In addition to text messages, video chat apps such as FaceTime are a great way to stay connected with your spouse. This is especially true if one you has to travel or work long hours away from home. The app can also be a nice way to check-in when you simply want to see your partner’s face and feel a little more connected as a couple.

9. Happy Couple App

There is an app for everything these days, including your marriage. The Happy Couple app is a fun way to boost your relationship and learn things about your partner you never thought to ask. The app uses a quiz-style interface and presents questions about both you and your partner.

You both answer the questions, and the app compares your answers. It can be fun and surprising to learn new things about your husband, especially if you’ve been together a long time.

10. Silent Alarm Clock

Getting enough sleep is critical for everyone. Since most of us require an alarm of some kind to wake up, this can become a serious point of contention in your marriage, especially if one partner likes the snooze button or has to wake up much earlier than another.

Luckily, technology has provided us with quite a few options when it comes to waking up without disturbing your partner. One silent alarm option is something you might already have at home. If you wear a fitness tracker such as a Fitbit, you can set a vibration alarm to wake you in the mornings. The gentle vibrations shouldn’t disturb your spouse and will wake you up without a traditional alarm clock.

A second option is the Wakē by Lucera Labs. While somewhat pricey at $249, this intelligent system can wake one sleeper without disturbing another in the same bed. It recognizes each person based on individual body temperature and other variables. When it’s time for one person to get up, Wakē, which is mounted on the wall above the bed, sends a targeted burst of light and sound only to that person. The result? Better sleep for everyone, and likely a happier marriage.

In today’s digital age, we all have to be aware of technology taking over our personal relationships. While there are excellent reasons to be vigilant about technology disrupting relationships, there are also many ways technology can support and improve your marriage, if you manage it properly.

Diamond is a writer for eHealth Informer. Her writing focuses on different aspects of personal wellness, including health, fitness and relationships.
What are some of the ways you use technology to keep you closer, instead of apart? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!

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What If You’re Not in Love with Your Boyfriend?

What do you do if you’re not in love with your boyfriend–but you really want to be?

Connor and I met in September, were dating in January, and were engaged exactly 11 months and 20 days later. Six months later, on July 18 2015, we were married. We had a whirlwind romance, and it was perfect. (I’m hoping by now you’ve realized it’s Rebecca writing today, not Sheila.)

But I’ve also recently had a friend get married who dated for 7 years, and they were happy to take it slow. I know another woman who, when he first asked her out, told the man she would eventually marry that she wasn’t attracted to him (that changed, FYI). But when do you know that you need more time, and when do you know that it’s time to call it quits? 

We got this reader question the other week, and I’m going to try to answer it today:

I’m in a bit of a situation. I’ve been seeing this guy for a few weeks, and we get along tremendously well. We’re both Christian, in our 20s, we share the same values, have lots of fun and are seriously attracted to each other. He is intelligent, kind, and is not afraid to challenge me or be challenged by me. In short, he’s amazing and we click. But here’s the problem: I’m not in love. Last time we met, he said he was ready for a relationship, and I told him I wasn’t ready yet. (I had told him the same morning I wasn’t ready, and he had said that neither was he. He must have changed his mind during the day.)

We live several hours apart, so meeting each other requires planning, money and sacrifice of other social activities. So we can’t hang out casually forever, waiting for me to make up my mind. We’ve talked about relationships and we both take them seriously. For me, it’s completely off the table to get into a relationship with someone only hoping that I eventually will fall in love with them. My last boyfriend did exactly that to me, and it ended in heartbreak. I would never want to hurt this guy like that.

Having a connection like this with someone is rare for me, and I care very much about this guy. The thought of having to hurt him and to never see him again is really painful. But what can I do? I can’t force any feelings, no matter how much I try. And I would rather miss out on a great future with him than lead him on and break his heart later. I pray about this continuously, and I know I need to trust God’s plan for both our lives. I just don’t want to sabotage this by being too afraid, or overthinking it. Does anyone have any advice for this girl who really needs to study but is crying over a guy instead?

I’m going to give it a shot. Let’s go.

1. Remember that love doesn’t always mean butterflies. 

Often we confuse “love” with what we first felt in grade school about that cute guy who smiled at us. Love is supposed to be butterflies, and giggling, and late-night phone chats with your friend about every last thing he said that time you hung out…right?

But it isn’t always like that in real life. Sometimes the butterflies come after you’ve fallen–not before. I know a lot of now-married couples who started dating where the guy was much more love-struck than the girl, and in a few months’ time the girl really fell hard, too.

Now, I do think that the “spark” is an important part of a relationship–but for many of my friends, it came a few months into the relationship. Just because you don’t feel it yet doesn’t mean you won’t feel it ever.

In this situation, the reader said she’s only been dating him for a few weeks. If you really have that great of a connection with the guy, think he’s amazing, and really want to fall for him, honestly I’d give it more time.

2. Ask yourself why you aren’t in love with him

In high school I was “talking” to a guy (we’ll call him Nathan) that I really admired. He was hard-working, sweet, cute, kind, seriously in love with God, and pretty much the nicest guy you could ever imagine.

I tried to fall in love with him for a year straight. It just never happened.

And I knew the reason. Nathan wasn’t someone who “got” the part of me that likes to write books, talk about politics, explore the abstract and debate theology. He wanted a simpler, small-town-type life that I was never going to be able to give him, and I needed someone to go on adventures with.

We stopped seeing each other and three years later we were both married to people absolutely perfect for us.

Sometimes you aren’t in love because it’s just not meant to be. And it’s OK if you aren’t “meant to be” with everyone you have a connection with. Nathan and I will always be good friends–we really did have a connection. But I’m happy that I let it go, because it freed both of us up to find our spouses.

If there is a real issue in your relationship that is the reason you’re not in love, ask yourself, “is this the kind of thing that we can work on, or is this a personality mismatch that will never be resolved?” If it’s the latter, I believe that it’s better to be honest and end it, rather than continuing. But if there isn’t, it may be good to wait a bit longer, like I said in the first point.

3.  Give yourself permission to not have it all together yet 

It sounds like this girl has gone through a really hard break-up. A lot of times, when we’ve been hurt, it can be scary or difficult to let ourselves feel emotionally vulnerable with another person again.

In her fear to not do to this guy what happened to her, she’s worrying about the relationship when they’ve only been together for a few weeks! It’s a really sweet thing to consider, but I believe the reader is expecting a bit too much of herself.

In relationships, things are messy. You don’t always know what the right thing to do next is, and it can be stressful when people’s hearts are on the line. But sometimes when there are issues like this in a relationship the best thing to do is to take a step back, breathe, and lower the stakes a bit.

Dating has begun to come with a lot of pressure, especially in the social media age. You have to be “in love,” you have to post instagram pictures that are “#relationshipgoals,” and you have to be able to see yourself together forever. But it’s OK if you’re not there yet. It’s alright if you’re seeing someone and you don’t have a “perfect” relationship. Cut yourself some slack, and give yourself time to figure out what you’re feeling. It’ll either become clear, and you’ll fall in love with him, or it’ll continue to remain unclear and it’ll be time to end the relationship.

I don’t envy this girl her position–but I want to know, what’s your advice? What would you do in this situation? Let me know in the comments below! 

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Is Getting Married Really Worth It?

 Is marriage worth it?

That’s a question so many people ask today. All around them it seems like everyone is divorcing and married people are miserable. But is that actually true?

All week we’ve been looking at some tough problems in marriage, and I thought today, for my Friday Marriage Musings, I’d come back to basics and write a defense of marriage. I actually wrote this first in a column a few years ago, but I thought it was time to talk about it once again. 

Sheila’s Marriage Musings: Getting Married is Definitely Worth It!

If an alien were to peruse the magazines at the checkout counter, he or she would likely conclude that humans are all masochists: we’re inexplicably drawn to the institution of marriage even though we know our partners will cheat on us, denigrate us, and complain about our lack of bedroom prowess. Our kids, reading those same headlines, are likely to become disenchanted with the institution, too. Marriage is a pipe dream. The most we can hope for is a few years of happiness before it all falls apart.

After all, even beauty, that most prized possession, can’t keep a spouse in line. Tiger’s wife is beautiful. Sandra Bullock is beautiful. Jennifer Aniston is beautiful. But their husbands all ran around on them. And women aren’t that much better. Leanne Rimes, Jennifer Lopez, Heidi Klum–even Whoopi Goldberg!–have all been caught cheating.

Disastrous relationships and celebrity seem to go hand in hand, of course, from as far back as Cleopatra. But today it’s not just celebrities whose marriages are failing. Many kids who have witnessed family breakdown firsthand. Those they know and love couldn’t make it work, so why should they expect to find lifelong companionship themselves?

Let me attempt to answer that question. Yes, marriage is hard. Yes, people can have affairs. But despite the epidemic of non-commitment in Hollywood, more than 50% of marriages do survive in the here and now—and the rate is higher for first-time marriages. Sure many marriages fail, but it’s not as if the institution is dead. In fact, Shaunti Feldhahn crunched the numbers in her book The Good News About Marriage and found that the divorce rate is closer to 30%. Things are not as bad as magazine covers make them out to be.

Thinking marriage is going to fail, though, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If we figure marriage is doomed, we’re far less likely to look for someone that we can see ourselves growing old with, and far more likely to seek someone to be with right now. That can cause immense heartbreak, but also more seriously it can lead to pregnancies that hand us the hardest job in the world—parenthood—without a partner to shoulder the burdens and the joys with. When we don’t believe in long-term relationships, we often get too involved in short-term ones, even if these short-term ones have long-term consequences.

The problems with forsaking life-time commitment don’t just fall on those who have yet to say “I do”, though; they chase those who have already promised it. When people think that they can run if things aren’t going their way, they’re far less likely to work on problems. And if you feel like your commitment isn’t solid, you’re less likely to bring up problems, too. Your marriage can’t grow.

Yet problems don’t have to signal the end of a relationship.

In their book, A Case for Marriage, Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher reported on a five-year study of couples who rated their marriages as terrible. Those who divorced in that five-year span were less likely to be personally happy than those who stuck it out. But even more striking, 78% of couples who stayed in their marriages, even during the tough times, five years later rated those marriages as very good. In other words, if your marriage is in the toilet, it’s not necessarily time to flush it.

And so is marriage worth it? Well, you have to believe in marriage to see it work: it’s just too hard to keep a relationship together when one person has left the escape hatch open. Yes, people can cheat on you. Yes, they can betray you. Maybe you’ve already been married and you’ve experienced this firsthand. But it doesn’t mean that all potential spouses will forsake you. Most marriages still work. Marriage is worth it. And marriage is worth fighting for, because life is just too lonely without someone to walk through it with us.

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How Do I Keep My Teenage Son from Getting Addicted to Gaming?

The average age of a gamer is now 31. 

Ten years ago that was not the case. But as video games are becoming a part of more and more teens and children’s lives, we’re just going to see video games become a bigger part of adulthood, too. So it makes sense that I’m getting more and more emails and comments from women frustrated that their husbands play too many video games.

I’ve written in the past about steps you can take if your husband plays too many video games, but we haven’t talked much about how to help prevent unhealthy gaming habits in the first place. My daughter Rebecca is handling this one today, as her husband is a gamer and I thought the two of them could add some helpful insight into this conversation!

Here’s Becca!

My husband is a gamer.

He loves it. When we were dating he lived with a bunch of other guys who all gamed, too. They all shared Connor’s PS3 and had a bunch of games for the house and it was a lot of fun. Now that Connor’s moved out, they still play online together.

Something that I’m grateful about Connor, though, is that gaming isn’t a problem for him. When he was in university, he studied, got his work done, and gamed during his breaks. Now that he’s working full-time, he gets up early, goes to work, comes home and then turns on the console. He doesn’t let it control his life.

That’s not always the case with men, though. And often the problem starts in high school. So what can parents do to help their kids have a healthy relationship with gaming? Here are three things to keep in mind:

Understand WHY Kids Like Gaming, and Use it to Your Advantage!

A problem that I had when we got married was understanding that gaming is not bad. I’m not much of a gamer. I have a few games that I like and can play for hours on end, but for the most part I’m a knitting and Netflix kind of gal. So when I saw Connor choosing to play video games in his free time, I tended to think, if I’m honest, that it was immature.

But I needed a serious reality-check.

Like I said, Connor wasn’t being immature about gaming at all. He gamed after he got the important stuff done. He just liked video games! And he liked them for good reason, too. He explained to me that with a good game, you get engrossed in the story-line. You have goals to complete, it’s exciting, it gets your blood pumping, and you feel like you’re really accomplishing something, even if it’s only in that game’s universe. And to me, that makes a lot of sense. To be honest, that’s a lot of the reason I knit! (Ok, maybe not the blood-pumping part.)

If you’re worried about your child playing too many video games, I urge you to ask yourself these two questions: 

Is this hindering his life? Is it getting in the way of school/friends/work?
If no, am I worried about this for another legitimate reason, or just because I don’t understand it?

Or put it this way:

If he were spending this much time doing some other leisure task (watching Netflix, listening to music), would I be concerned?

Understand that people like video games for a reason. You might not understand it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate thing to enjoy. So instead of trying to stop him from liking video games (which is extremely unlikely to happen anyway), start using his enjoyment of games to your advantage.

Here’s what my husband said about helping a teenager who loves video games learn some responsibility:

People like concrete, visible achievements. It feels good–you get a medal. If you can set up tasks that they need to accomplish in a way that there’s achievement and rewards, you’re shaping their life in the way that they personally find gratifying.

In the workplace, I have a stack of papers that I need to get through. Every single paper that I do is one paper closer to that stack being gone. I can watch the stack disappearing before my eyes. That’s a concrete achievement-oriented task. The kind of stuff I hated growing up was knowing that my parents could call me out of what I was doing to do a house chore without knowing if there was anything else that was coming next. What worked, though, was having a checklist that I could power through. If my mom came to me and said, “here’s everything that needs to get done today” I didn’t mind. Again–it was a concrete, achievable goal-oriented task.

If your kid loves video games and you’re concerned he’s not taking any real responsibility in his life because of it, use progress checking like what Connor said to help teach him responsibility and the importance of getting work done. Progress checking teaches kids how to make their lives more goal-oriented on their own, as well.

Teaching them how to find a finish line that they can work towards will help them both become responsible adults and find meaning in even mundane tasks.

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Keep Gaming Console in a Public Place–including laptops!

If you’re worried about how much time your kid spends playing video games, the first thing to do is to put all gaming items into a public place. For my husband’s family, the gaming console was in the living room. Connor’s mom could call out, “Hey, you’ve been gaming for over an hour now. It’s time to turn it off,” and Connor couldn’t exactly sneak in more gaming time without his mom knowing.

Keeping laptops, computers, and gaming consoles in a family communal area lets you know what your kids are doing and when they are doing it. Having a family desktop computer instead of multiple personal laptops may help with this, as well. It adds some accountability, as teenagers aren’t always the best at self-regulating, and also keeps you involved so that you can monitor their gaming use to make sure there’s nothing overly graphic or inappropriate going on in the games your kids are playing, too.

Watch How You Spend Your Time

What I’ve seen in a lot of families is the parents are angry and in arms about video game usage is that their family often wastes a lot of time–just not on video games. If you’re mad at your kids for playing five hours of video games straight, but then you watch 5 hours of Netflix on a Saturday, that can seem pretty hypocritical to a kid. Harsh, I know, but it’s a conversation I’ve had with lots of friends. It’s also one that Connor and I had to have–he pointed out that it was unfair for me to get mad at him for playing video games for less time than I spent on Instagram, Pinterest, Netflix, and Facebook in a day. Sure, I may have been on four sites, but we spent the same amount of time goofing off. And he was right!

So what I suggest is to talk with your kids. Explain “I’m worried about the patterns of time use in this family. I’m worried that how much time you’re spending on video games is going to make it harder later in life for you to be able to do well in college/get a job/have a good marriage, and I’m worried that I’m spending too much time goofing off in unhelpful ways, too. I would like it if both of us got to be more productive with our lives, and here’s how I’m going to start.” Then set boundaries together to figure out what’s a reasonable amount of time for your kid to be spending gaming.

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Like with everything I write, I just want to urge you, as parents, to understand your teenagers are people, too. Don’t just brush them off as kids–really talk to them. Explain your concerns. Explain that you want him to be the kind of guy who is ready to take care of a family someday, but right now he isn’t taking care of himself because of how much he’s gaming. That’s an OK thing to say to a teenager–it’s treating them with respect. Say it with grace and love, of course, but don’t be afraid to treat them like an adult. They’re becoming one quickly anyway.

 

Have you dealt with gaming addiction or unhealthy gaming behaviours in your family or your marriage? Let me know in the comments below! 

The post How Do I Keep My Teenage Son from Getting Addicted to Gaming? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.