marriage / relationships

Happiness

“I’m really frustrated with my marriage.” – “My wife is driving me crazy!” – “I am so sick of my husband!” – “Our marriage just isn’t what it used to be.” – “I just don’t feel satisfied with my marriage.” – “Is this as good as it gets?” – “I’m not happy anymore.”

So many different ways of expressing dissatisfaction with married life – and I’ve heard a lot of them in my office.  The details of the problems can vary greatly, and just when I think I’ve heard it all, I hear a painful new story.  Humans are tremendously complex creatures, being made in the likeness of a fantastic, multi-layered God.  To say that human relationships, particularly marriages, are complex is a huge understatement.  And yet…

While I am always keenly interested in the particular dynamics of the individuals and marriages of the couples with whom I work, I am beginning to see marriage in simpler terms.  Most couples who seek counseling with me do so because one or both spouses are feeling unhappy.  And they are hoping I can offer them the guidance they need to find the path back to happiness.  It is human nature to desire happiness and fulfillment, and we certainly expect to experience it in our marriages, of all places.   We all know we will experience some times of unhappiness in this journey of life, but significant ongoing unhappiness within a marriage is typically a sign of a problem that needs to be addressed and resolved.  And professional marital counseling is often the best approach.  But here is where it gets…tricky. (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

Weeds

A few months ago, my wife and I invested a good bit of money in having professionals come whip our front landscaping into shape.  They did a great job.  We’ve got all kinds of new flowers (don’t ask me what kind), new greenery, new mulch.  The house has really benefitted from the colorful “facelift.”  It looks pretty snazzy.  We are thankful for our nice home, and enjoy it very much.  We also didn’t want to be the eyesore of the neighborhood.  But we finally admitted we were never going to get the motivation to attack the project ourselves.  So we called in the pros – and are very pleased with our choice.

But now there are weeds.  How did this happen?!  I watched how deeply the husband and wife team dug up the old beds, cleared them out, and filled in fresh beautiful dirt.  The flowers and plants they put in place were weed-free.  So what happened?  Did the weed fairy come visit our house and plant the nasty little green monsters while we slept?  No, the reality of life is – weeds grow wherever there is dirt and water to be found.  This has been a constant on planet earth since, well, the Garden of Eden.  If I want to keep the ground around my home looking fresh and neat and well kept, I’ll have to either keep pulling weeds and trimming edges and cutting grass, or pay someone else to do it for me.  (For what it’s worth, I’m opting to do it myself, because I think it helps reconnect me to the rhythm and order of God’s creation.)

So today I began pulling weeds.  I donned my long sleeve gold Tigers shirt, clasped on the overalls, laced up my old pair of Timberlands, and dug my fingers into the moist, dark earth in front of my home.  I was quickly faced with a very big decision, one I had not anticipated.  What level of weeding was I going to perform?  A quick scan of the sixty feet or so of flower/shrub beds indicated somewhere in the neigborhood of a dozen big, nasty, “devil weeds.”  I don’t know what you call these things, but they are big and ugly and clearly love South Louisiana.  And I was really tempted to just attack them and call the job done.  But they were not alone.  They had less obvious, but more sinister friends.  Mid-level weeds that spread and hunker down.  And don’t get me started on all the clover.  And there was the grass from the yard that refuses to respect my boundaries.  What should I do?!!

I decided I really wanted to get our money’s worth out of the recent landscape job, so I started at one end and began to remove all unwanted greenery (and a little brownery) from my path.  Wow!!!  What a job!  This is a narrow strip of ground, and I really thought the whole project would take a half hour at most.  When I reached the path from our front door (the halfway mark) an hour later, I decided to stop for the night and finish tomorrow.  I may not have finished the weed pulling project yet, but I made some observations in the process that I believe are worth sharing:

(more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

Advocates – not Adversaries

Some of you have healthy, vibrant, joy-filled marriages that are a great source of security and love in your life.  It’s not perfect, but it sure is good!  If so, please consider finding another couple or two to mentor.  Believe me, some couple out there could really use your encouraging example.  Others reading this post are not so content.  Your marriage has sadly become a source of discouragement and pain, and you aren’t sure what to do, or even how you got here.  If you find yourself in this group, or even just need a boost to a good marriage – read on (then pass it on to someone else).

Most of us did a great job being a loving, supportive, encourager to our spouse back in the days of dating, courtship, and engagement.  Everything was so fresh and new, and your sweetheart just seemed so perfect and easy to serve wholeheartedly.  You felt compelled to do kind, loving, encouraging things for this wonderful person who could make you feel good with simply a word or a smile.  Then you got married, saw the real-life unedited version of one another, disappointed each other and hurt each other a few times, and suddenly it wasn’t so easy to focus on blessing them.  You started putting more and more energy into protecting and defending yourself.  Before you knew what happened, you had become an adversary of your imperfect spouse, rather than an advocate of your beloved sweetheart.  Following is a very simple explanation of what leads to being either an adversary or an advocate to your mate: (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

A “Storiented” Family Activity

Apparently I coined a new term a few nights ago through a slip of the tongue.  After making some comments in my Bible study group, a couple of people immediately spoke up, saying they like my use of the term “storiented” in reference to our postmodern culture.  I didn’t really mean to say it – I guess I just ran “story” and “oriented” together a little, so it sounded like one word.  We moved on with our discussion of the Gospel of Mark, and I told them I wasn’t trying to sound clever.

I’ve thought about it several times since then and realized…we do live in a storiented culture.  Stories are very important to us.  They evoke deep emotion in our hearts.  A good story can prompt us to: laugh, cry, shout, believe, remember, imagine, hope, sympathize, blame, forgive, and so much more.  Stories open up other worlds of adventure and romance and possibility.  Wrongs are righted.  True love prevails.  Goodhearted heros triumph over sinister villains.  Problems are solved.  And relationships are restored.

Many of our entertainment choices are very storiented in nature.  We keep up with our favorite prime-time dramas or “reality” shows on TV.  We enter the story world of a good movie in a dark theater or the privacy of our own surround-sound entertainment room.  We lose ourselves in the unfolding narrative of a novel, biography, or other book.  Even music, videogames, and web surfing can be about connecting with a story larger than ourselves.  We love great stories, and we love to feel that we are, in some way, a part of them.

If approached properly, stories can inspire us to live better lives and build better relationships. (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

Reconnecting with Family and Community During Summertime

In my recent interview on “Around Town with Scott Rogers,” I spoke on this topic, but our interview was cut fairly short.  Here is a fuller picture of my thoughts and suggestions on this timely and important issue:

What has contributed to our society’s disconnection?  High mobility.  Families no longer live in one central community for generation after generation.  Extended families, even “nuclear” families, are more scattered and mobile than ever.  Families are also busier than ever.  Between each family member’s schedule, there is often barely time to sit down or go for a walk, just to find out how the other’s activities are going.  It’s a tiring and disconnecting trap, and a trend that seems to be growing.  Similarly, the average work week has grown significantly over the last few decades, despite early speculation that increasing technology would actually shrink the work week!  Another big factor is the massive amount of time Americans spend involved with entertainment media.  The numbers are staggering.  In general, plugging into the screen means unplugging from the people around you.  All of these factors seem to be connected to a shift in our culture away from service and community life toward more affluence and personal enjoyment.

How do we reconnect?  Get out of our entertainment rooms and fenced-in backyards, and get involved in others’ lives. (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago

Whatever happened to chainlink fences?

Last week I was driving down a major thoroughfare in Baton Rouge behind what appeared to be a fairly nice upper-middle class neighborhood.  Something caught my eye that made me profoundly sad as I considered the implications behind it.  Three backyards in a row contained very nice red cedar playground sets.  Three families living next door to one another had spent thousands of dollars buying the very best professional level equipment for their children’s backyard adventures.

Now, I don’t have any problem with families spending money on nice swingsets.  What struck me was the thought that I never would have seen this when I was growing up – three houses right next to one another, all with virtually identical major-league playground gear.  I’m not reaching back to some long ago era, either.  I’m talking about growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, when yards were separated by chainlink, if there was a fence at all.

The good ole chainlink fence served to keep the dogs in the right yards, and let you know where to stop cutting the grass, but they didn’t keep neighbors away from each other. (more…)

By Roger Butner, ago