Tips from American Association of Christian Counselors

          Last week, I attended the American Association of Christian Counselors conference.  All the ‘noted’ names in counseling and psychology attended.  Dr. James Dobson, author of numerous books on child rearing, spoke on abortion and remarked that he would never vote for any person who supported the killing of innocent babies, He asked that we, too, support such a stand. 

            Dr. Eggerich had audience members tearing when he repeated, “Good parents do have bad children.  If you do everything right, there is no guarantee that your kids turn out as you want.  In the very best of homes, many kids rebel, commit sinful acts, and reject our faith.  It is time we stopped measuring ourselves as parents by the outcome of our children because they, too, have free will.  Many choose wrongly, regardless of what parents say or do.”  Funny, how we know these things intellectually but still feel emotionally responsible for our children’s outcomes.  We answer to God for how we parent, but not for how our kids turn out.

            I especially enjoyed a minister from Florida who spoke on how the Bible balances law and love/grace and how it’s what we must have to succeed as a family.  We need rules or we experience continual chaos and fighting.  Without love, we fail to forgive or give care when others need us and aren’t bonded as a family.  The Old Testament lists more rules and gives concrete examples of how God responds both when we love and put Him first in our lives and when we put self desires before Him.  Yet, most rules are repeated in the New Testament by the Lord and apostles, with Jesus demonstrating how to love the often unlovable.

            The Parriotts, a husband and wife counseling team, gave an interesting example of working with a hot-headed man.  This man blew up in counseling, verbally attacked his wife, and when Lee Pariot told him to sit down, and shut up, he threatened Lee.  Lee referred them to his wife, Leslie, knowing she would not tolerate such treatment, and being petite, the man wouldn’t dare threaten her.  When the man became hostile with Leslie, she tip toed as close to his 6’3”face as her 5’ body could and told him that he better sit down while he still could.  Tough love counseling, wouldn’t you say? 

            The man sat down, and she continued as if nothing happened.  Leslie taught him how to use his fingers for remembering to maintain control.  The thumb is what he was to grab when feeling upset and admit how frustrated he felt.  Taking two deep breaths, he then grabbed his index finger and admitted why he felt upset, what happened from his perspective.  He then held his middle finger and shared what he feared will occur because of what happened and described aloud his fear.  He then grasped his ring finger and told his wife the messages he repeated inside his private thoughts that kept him upset, “I am telling myself that . . .” Then he held his little finger and asked for what he wanted.  Dr. Parriott had him practice each stage multiple times.  His most challenging was learning to express what he feared and sharing his private thoughts without using the word ‘you.’ “You made me. . .”  “You caused. . .”  But within weeks, the man followed the finger routine regularly, and arguments with his wife decreased greatly.

            The following week when the man returned home, his teenage daughter met him at the door and begged to take his expensive sports car for a drive.  She had completed driver’s education and was dying to drive dad’s sports car and show her friends.  Reluctantly, dad agreed and handed her the keys.  As she backed out the drive, she hit their brick mail box post.  Bricks crumbled onto the ground and the car’s crimped fender hung by a thread.  Hearing the crash, dad rushed outside.  Seeing her dad, the daughter began yelling, “Daddy, grab your thumb!  Grab your thumb, daddy! Grab your thumb!”

            Times like this are why I enjoyed my profession.  At such times, you know you make a difference in the lives of others.  That daughter will remember forever how to handle anger.  Hopefully, the dad will too.

            And I presented an overview of my upcoming book, Women Talk Men Walk:  Keep Your Man Connected, God Tells How, Hormones Tell Why.  Afterwards, I spent considerable time with a young man from Canada who runs away when his wife wants to talk, and, to make matters worse, he is overly-bonded with their daughter. The daughter receives more of his time, attention, and money than his wife.  Because his wife had suggested divorce, he admitted he needed to shift his priorities to save his marriage.  In addition as a Christian dad, he needed to show his daughter what a healthy relationship between a man and woman requires, and to feel good about himself and be pleasing to the Lord.  By the time we finished talking, he promised to phone his wife, apologize, tell her loved her, and ask for a date the following week.  However, he was to make no promises but rather show her that he was changing.  If he made a promise and failed to keep even a small part, she might leave because she was already tempted.  During the phone call, he was not to speak to the daughter, nor ask how she was.  The call remained a gift for his wife, exclusively for her, and not one minute was to be shared with or about the daughter.  To save his marriage, he needed his wife to know that she is number one in his life, and know she isn’t losing her man to her own daughter.

            God says a wife must respect her husband, and a husband must love his wife (Ephesians 5:33).  This is what the guy from Canada needed to learn.  The commandment has nothing to do with how we feel about each other.  Many days, a wife doesn’t deserve love, and a man doesn’t deserve respect.  We are not required to earn love or respect.  Nice when we do, but nowhere does God say we give love or respect if the other deserves it.  God’s commandment has nothing to do with how our spouse acts, but rather, It is a directive of how God says we must act towards our mate, no matter how we feel.  It’s God’s way of showing us that we are stronger than our wishy-washy emotions.  In fact, when a woman proves the hardest to love and a man the most difficult to treat respectfully is when they need love and respect the most.  When we treat the other as God’s commands, regardless of how we feel, we restore the closeness we crave and need.  

            Yes, God does tell us how to stay bonded, and yes, hormones explain why it is so important.  After all, God decides which hormones and how much each sex receives.  My book is about stopping our unproductive, and often destructive, fight and flight behaviors and staying connected – God’s way.

WOMEN DO NOT HAVE A MID-LIFE CRISIS LIKE MEN

Daniel Levinson wrote Seasons of a Man’s Life and Roger Gould Transformations.  Both books examined the changes men go through as they age and face multiple experiences.  Because no one had studied the changes in a woman’s life, I chose this for my research study and interviewed women holding senior level positions at universities where the majority of positions are filled by men.

A significant finding of my study proved women who pursue high level positions received support and push from their fathers.  He received credit for their success in school and careers.

An important finding for marriages was that while many men wrestle with changes between ages 40 and 45, women hit a similar desire for change between ages 31 and 35, with 32 being the most frequent.  If a homemaker, she wants out of the house.  She may return to school, become a full-time volunteer or pursue a career.  If she works outside the home, she wants a child.  No matter her current state, she feels driven to make a change.  Fortunately, men at this age have settled into a full-time job or advanced education and has no desire to make a change.  Thirties for man prove a time to show what he can accomplish.  He wants to write that book by age 40 or advance as high as possible in his job, or have his own business running well.  When a woman hits the early 40s, she has settled down and wants to fulfill her 30s change.  Otherwise, men and women might kill each other if they hit crisis at the same times.  Certainly, the divorce rate would be higher. 

A woman faces a lesser drive at age 50-55.  Her push is to realize her goal, whatever it is.  Her husband, however, is ready to relax and slow down some.  He wants to travel more, spend more time with the kids.  With the kids now out of the nest, she no longer feels a need to chase them and thinks he wouldn’t either if he had been there when they were little.  She would rather work than play.  She has things she still hopes to accomplish.

What makes such times a crisis, is a turning inward of the person’s thinking. Crisis thinking becomes, “After all I gave up for you and the kids, it’s my turn to have some of life’s goodies.”  The idea of Biblical serving is so remote they can’t define it, let alone do it. Life is all about self and ‘what I want, when I want it.’  It’s like an adult body carries a selfish, two-year old brain.  Sadly, when the ages of most changes (40-45 men; 31-35 women) become a crisis, little talking to them can help.  It’s as though the brain freezes on self interests and can’t be thawed.  

I know women who tried to wait out their husband’s crisis only to find their legal two year time required for obtaining a divorce expired before his three year crisis ended. He obtained the divorce, bought the long gold necklace, convertible, married another, and later regretted it, but it proved too late to reverse things. 

Without consciously thinking about it, most at crisis period are struggling with their own immorality.  They realize how short life is and fear they are going to die without having accomplished all they wanted.  However, during a crisis they lose sight of heaven and that with right living the best still lies ahead, not in the things they missed.

Do Women Experience a Mid-Life Crisis?

    A few years ago, Dr. Daniel Levinson published a book about mid-life crisis for men, and Dr. Roger Gould published a similar book.  Dr. Levinson’s book focused on the type of changes men make at certain ages; Dr. Gould’s explored the stages men go through and what each stage involved.  Both books were preceded by a book by Gail Sheehy, who had interviewed both men and ‘stole’ their research (Dr. Levinson’s word, not mine).  Gould sued Sheehy for plagiarizing his unpublished research, and he won.

    At that time, no one had looked at women to see if they experience similar changes, so I selected this as my dissertation research project.  I chose high achieving women, in the field of education. Typically, education at all levels employs more women, and they do the classroom teaching.  When it comes to the top positions of university presidents/provosts/vice-presidents in our larger schools that provide graduate degrees, these titles are predominately held by men. That trend continues today. At that time, there were 39 women holding top slots in US universities in 30 states.  Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and South Carolina each had two women holding top positions in different schools. I interviewed 38 of these women in their offices.  Each interview took approximately five hours.  I asked professional and some very personal questions from a structured interview guide that shared many similarities with the one Dr. Levinson used with men.

    Thirty-six of the women were White; two Black.  Most came from middle class backgrounds, some from very poor environments, only one grew up in a wealthy home. The vast majority of the women paid their own way to school, some with scholarships, some with part-time and summer jobs, and most acquired school loans.

    A couple of things immediately stood out about these women. First, they were extremely warm, and hospitable. They cracked the glass ceiling without losing charm or femininity. They appeared calm, happy, and smiled a lot.  Their offices smelled of fresh flowers and pots of hot coffee brewing with cups available for serving others. Family pictures adorned their desks.  Nothing reminded me of a typical man’s office.  I felt comfortable like I had visited in their homes and had known them for years.

    Second, it was their fathers who influenced them to continue their education and succeed.  Not one woman credited her mother for her attending college or graduate school. Their dads began discussing college attendance with them while they were young children.  If they encountered an obstacle, the father fought to find a way to help overcome it.  For example, one woman wanted to be a veterinarian, but, at that time, only one veterinarian school in the US allowed a woman to attend, and that school did not accept girls who were white.  Her father, the only rich family of my group, offered to build a new building for several colleges that provided veterinarian degrees if they would let her attend but to no avail.  She acquired a Ph.D. in education instead but still yearned to work with animals.  All the women had doctoral degrees and about half interned with the Department of Education in D.C.

    The home lives of these women seemed typical of today. Some were married with children, some married without children.  A single woman adopted a child in another country with no plan to marry.  Two who were single admitted having affairs with single men with whom they traveled frequently.  While these two had no plans to marry, they did work to keep the affairs private.  No woman lived with a man, unless married to him.  Some divorced, and two divorced more than once. Of the divorced, all but one assumed full responsibility for the care of any children, and this woman’s ex was rearing one child and she cared for their other child.  When school business required the women to travel, all reported that their mothers came to stay with their children, and mature babysitters filled in when their moms couldn’t. 

    One woman had a commuter marriage, and she described her marriage as happy and extremely good. She lived in an upper northern state, while her husband resided in southern California.  He commuted each weekend, arriving late Thursdays and leaving on a red-eye flight Sunday night.  Between their children’s ball games and eating, this couple spent most of their weekends together in bed.  All the women worked long hours, and all believed in God but about half attended worship services on a regular basis.  Money was not a factor that influenced the jobs they had.  In fact, many thought they were over-paid.  They loved the challenges and felt they made a difference in the lives of others.  All, but one, mentored a younger female.  Five asked to nominate me for a sabbatical in Washington DC with the State Department of Education, one that pushed them onto a fast-track for their current positions, but my children came first.  They were at ages that I did not believe they could relocate without serious upheaval in their lives.  I have never regretted that decision.  I have enjoyed many of my jobs, but I love my children more.

    Since the interviews, I followed several of the women. Some moved from president of a large university to become provost over a state-wide system.  Some retired, and some moved into teaching.  Some accepted similar positions at other universities.  One was elected governor of her state when her governor husband died.  One became a full-time minister.

    Regrettably, my major advisor would not allow me to write my findings like I wanted.  I spent numerous hours talking with Dr. Levinson processing my findings and wanted very much to follow the style of his book. However, in order to complete my degree, I had to write it in typical, boring, research format.  Still, the style did not change my findings.  I did find that many women go through fairly drastic changes and at very specific ages.  In my next blog I will explain what causes these stages to seem a crisis for some people and the different ages men and women face real lifestyle shifts.  It’s another area where men and women differ.  Many times I think God made us more different than alike and the findings that I share in my next blog prove that it’s probably a good thing He did.