The best way of keeping a marriage healthy is to maintain a system of mutual accountability, within the context of love. Speaking personally, the secret of my beautiful relationship with Shirley for the past twenty-three years has involved a careful protection of the ‘line of respect‘ between us. This is a difficult concept to convey and its function is different from one personality to another. Perhaps by explaining how it operates between Shirley and me, I can help the reader adapt the principle to his own circumstances.

Suppose I work in my office two hours longer than usual on a particular night, knowing Shirley is preparing a special candlelight dinner. The phone sits there on my desk, but I lack the concern to make a brief call to explain. As the evening wears on, Shirley wraps the cold food in foil and puts it in the fridge. Then suppose when I finally get home, I do not apologize. Instead, I sit down with a newspaper and abruptly tell Shirley to get my dinner ready. You can bet there’ll be a few minutes of fireworks in the Dobson household. Shirley will rightfully interpret my behaviour as insulting and will move to defend the ‘line of respect‘ between us. We will talk it out and next time I’ll be more considerate.

Let’s put the boot on the other foot. Suppose Shirley knows I need the car at 2 p.m. for some important purpose, but she deliberately keeps me waiting. Perhaps she sits in a restaurant with a girlfriend, drinking coffee and talking. Meanwhile, I’m pacing the floor at home wondering where she is. It is very likely that my lovely wife will hear about my dissatisfaction when she gets home. The ‘line of respect‘ has been violated, even though the offence was minor.

This is what I mean by mutual accountability. Such minor conflict in a marriage plays a positive role in establishing what is and is not acceptable behaviour. Some instances of disrespect are petty, like the two examples I gave, but when they are permitted to pass unnoticed, two things happen. First, the offender is unaware that he has stepped over the line and is likely to repeat the indiscretion later. In fact, he may go farther into the other person’s territory the next time. Second, the person who felt insulted then internalizes the small irritation rather than spilling it out. As the interpretation of disrespect grows and the corresponding agitation accumulates in a storage tank, the stage is set for an eventual explosion, rather than a series of minor ventilations.

What I’m saying is that some things are worth fighting over, and at the top of the list is the ‘line of respect‘. Most of my conflicts with Shirley have occurred over some behaviour that one of us interpreted as unhealthy to the relationship. Shirley may say to me, in effect, Jim, what you did was selfish and I can’t let it pass.’ She is careful not to insult me in the confrontation, keeping her criticism focused on the behaviour to which she objected.

A workable system of checks and balances of this nature helps a couple keep their marriage on course for a marathon rather than a sprint. And I can assure you, Shirley and I are going for the long distance!

That philosophy contradicts what I have been taught by Christian leaders who say as believers, ‘We have no rights’. If I understand what they say, I should not even notice instances of disrespect because I have no rights to be defended. Do you disagree?

“She angrily blamed me for the divorce despite my desperate attempts to hold things together. In her mind, I failed so miserably as a husband that she was forced to run around with her boss! Are you saying that this transfer of responsibility is typical when one spouse has been unfaithful?”

Guilt is a very painful emotion, and the person who is wilfully tearing up a home in pursuit of a new lover is in an uncomfortable position. He (or she) feels condemnation from four primary sources— from the rejected husband or wife, from the children, from friends and associates, and from God. In order to justify his behaviour, he energetically constructs a verbal defence around those who would testify against him in the divorce court. His purpose, of course, is to make adultery seem reasonable and downright godly. That takes some creativity!

Ask any victim of an affair; he or she has probably heard a specialized version of the following rationalizations:

To resolve marital guilt… ‘I know that what I’m doing is difficult for you now, but some day you will understand that it is for the best. I never really loved you even when we were young. In fact, we should never have got married in the first place. Furthermore, this divorce is really your fault. You drove me to it by— [insert grievances here, such as frigidity, in-law problems, nagging, overwork, or all the foregoing].

This message has a transparent purpose. The first sentence marvellously purifies the motives of the unfaithful spouse. It says in effect, ‘I’m really doing this for your good.’ The second sentence is also a beauty. It is designed to serve as an ‘annulment’ to the marriage instead of a cruel abandonment of a loved one. By saying that they should never have got married, their union becomes an unfortunate mistake rather than a relationship that God himself ordained and cemented. (Henry VIII used this approach to eject his first barren wife, Anne Boleyn.) Then by putting the remaining responsibility on the other party, what was left of the blame is successfully transferred from the guilty to the innocent. So much for wedding vows. Now let’s deal with the children.

To resolve parental guilt… ‘This will be hard on the children for a while, but they’ll be better of in the long run. It certainly isn’t healthy for them to see us fight and argue like we’ve been doing. Besides, I will spend just as much time with them after things settle down as I do now.’

Here guilt over the children is also tucked away. Would you believe that Dad’s escapade with another woman or Mum’s flight with the local romeo is actually a constructive thing? Never mind what the children see and comprehend with their big, beautiful eyes. Pay no heed to the conclusions they draw about why Mummy or Daddy left, and why he or she doesn’t love them any more, and why God let it happen, and why the divorce may have been their fault, and why life is so painful and frightening. Try to ignore the fact that everything stable has just come unstuck in the lives of some very impressionable and sensitive children. Don’t think about it, and maybe your rapidly beating heart will return to normal again. Guilt over the children can be the toughest to rationalize but, fortunately, hundreds of books and movies are available today that will help you silence your writhing conscience.

To resolve social guilt sure our friends won’t understand at first and I can hardly wait to hear what your mother will have to say. But it’s like I told the pastor last week, our divorce is really no one’s fault. We’ve just outgrown each other. People change as the years go by, and relationships have to change to accommodate them.’ (If a woman is speaking she may say: ‘Besides, I am entitled to do what’s best for me once in a while. I’ve given my entire life to everyone else—now it’s time for me to think of myself. It’s only fair that I fit into the picture at some point, and this is it. Anyway, what’s right for me will prove best for you and the children, too.’)

This line of reasoning has been provided for women today almost word for word by the more radical elements of the feminist movement. It is only one of many rationalizations by which selfishness can be purified and made to appear altruistic. Three down and one to go.

To resolve divine guilt… ‘I’ve prayed about this decision and I am now certain that God approves of what I’ve chosen to do.’

There it is, folks, in living colour—the ultimate rationalization. If the Creator in his infinite wisdom has considered the matter and judged it to be the best interest of everyone, who can argue the point further? The conversation is over. Sin has been sanctified. Guilt is expunged. Self-respect is restored …and, alas, evil has prevailed. Having settled the ‘big four’, every moral and spiritual obstacle is removed. The stage is set for separation and/ or divorce.

“My wife has been involved in an affair with her boss for six months. I’ve known about it from the beginning but just haven’t been able to confront her. Melanie acts as if she doesn’t love me anyway. If I give her an ultimatum I could lose her completely. Can you assure me that that won’t happen? Have you ever offered the love must be tough advice and had it backfire, ending in divorce?”

Unfortunately, life offers few certainties, even when all the probabilities point in one direction. Sometimes well-conditioned athletes drop dead from heart attacks. Some outstanding parents raise children who rebel and become drug addicts. Some of the most intelligent, cautious businessmen foolishly bankrupt themselves. Life is like that. Things happen every day that shouldn’t have occurred. Nevertheless, we should follow the best information available to us. I read a sign on a wall this week that said, ‘The fastest horses don’t always win, but you should still bet on them.’ Even as a non- gambler, that makes sense to me.

Having offered that explanation, let me say that there is nothing risky about treating oneself with greater respect, exhibiting confidence and poise, pulling backwards and releasing the door on the romantic trap. The positive benefits of that approach are often immediate and dramatic. Loving self-respect virtually never fails to have a salutary effect on a drifting lover, unless there is not the tiniest spark left to fan. Thus, in instances when opening the cage door results in a spouse’s sudden departure, the relationship was in the coffin, already. I’m reminded of the old proverb that says, ‘If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t come back, it never was yours in the first place.’ There is great truth in that adage, and it applies to your relationship with your wife.

Now, obviously, it is risky to precipitate a period of crisis. When explosive individuals are involved in mid- life turmoil or a passionate fling with a new lover, great tact and wisdom are required to know when and how to respond. That’s why Christian professional advice is vital before, during and after the confrontation. It would be unthinkable of me to recommend that victims of affairs indiscriminately pose ultimatums with 24-hour deadlines, or that they push an independent partner into a corner. Great caution is needed in such delicate conflicts, and certainly, no move should be made without much prayer and supplication before the Lord.

This picture was taken from one of Beijing restaurant. It was named as Human Flesh Restaurant. I was curious at that time. I went inside the restaurant.  I was shocked. The whole restaurant was weired, looked like horror movie. I was lucky to catch one clear shots when I fled.

You may ask, then, what you should do if the person you are with starts gossiping about somebody else. You should certainly not just sit and listen. By doing so, you become complicit in this indiscretion. While you may not be doing the gossiping yourself, by listening to it you are using other people’s problems for your personal recreation.

However, I don’t advocate that you criticise your date for their poor behaviour either. One of the rules of dating is never to come across as judgmental or employ a ‘holier- than-thou’ attitude. If your date tries to draw you into a gossipy conversation, smile wryly and change the subject. Show them subtly that you want to talk about something else. Possibly your date will want to know about a specific person against whom you have a known grudge. If you feel the matter is important enough to warrant discussion, then do so, but put a positive ’spin’ on the conversation.

So, for instance, if you are talking about your college roommate who chopped up your pet hamster, say something like, ‘Yes, he did hurt me (and poor Hammie). But then, he did have a difficult childhood in those Siberian salt mines. I’m sure deep down he has many good qualities.’

Don’t tell your date about the contract you took out on the guy’s life. Let her admire your good spirit. Maybe she’ll even pay the bill.

But even not joining in is not enough. Make sure that when you decline to gossip, you do so in a way that shows unequivocally that you have nothing negative to say about the person in question. If you are asked whether you think a certain woman is promiscuous, don’t say, ‘No comment’ while pumping your hand in the air and raising your eyebrows suggestively. Insinuation is a powerful mode of communication. Don’t try hair-splitting with the definition of gossip. If what you have said or done damages someone’s reputation, then you have gossiped, and broken the Ninth Commandment. End of story.

Nowhere is this truer than in dating. No one wants to go out with a person who is on some sort of romantic power trip, who thinks a relationship should be as competitive as the workplace or the sports field, and only one of you can come out on top. If you find yourself wondering whether you have more influence over your date than he or she has over you, then shame on you. If the thought, `What am I getting out of this?’ pops into your head, pop it right out again. You are building a beautiful relationship together that will bring joy to both of you equally. This is the ultimate `win/win’ situation.

Sam had a real problem in his dating. On the one hand, he only wanted to date intelligent ‘career’ girls, who were as interesting and ambitious as he was himself. On the other hand, whenever he got serious with any of these girls, he found himself feeling very insecure.

It was only when he and I discussed this that the truth behind it came out. His father had gone bankrupt and his mother had been the family’s main supporter ever since. Sam looked down on his father for his failure, and for not being the traditional breadwinner, and he assumed that his mother felt the same.

I said to him, ‘You are looking at your parents as though they were competitors. But they are married to each other, they are equal partners in everything that they do. They love each other and see themselves as one organic unit. It makes no difference to them who brings the money in. When you marry, you will feel the same.’

To succeed in dating, you must feel and believe that you were created to make someone else happy, that happiness is something everyone is entitled to; that it is a birthright; and that you can give it to the one you love. And the love they give you is a gift from God. Don’t keep looking around to see if other people are getting a better deal, and don’t put your date through endless battles of wits to see which of you is top dog. Don’t abandon them. Never make them cry. Together, you will find real contentment. Just don’t ruin that unity by bringing in a selfish, Godless and competitive spirit into your relationship.

We all sometimes love to marvel about things like, ‘Had I never gone to the Pizza Hut that day, I would never have met her . . .’ or, ‘It all began when I spotted him in the police line-up.’ It is fine, so long as you understand it as deep mystery, the romantic beginning of the story of how your fates have been intertwined . . . but not as a simple accident.

To say that anything happened by sheer luck can ultimately be a threat to your relationship. When we believe that we gained something merely by chance - that it was not preordained - we are adopting a dangerously cavalier attitude towards it. Just look at the way lottery winners spend money, compared with those who have to earn it through hard work.

So if we believe that we bumped into the person we are dating only by accident, we may be far less committed to making the relationship work when things begin to go wrong. What begins by chance could end by chance. We think, ‘Heck, it’s a shame that after all these dates this thing ain’t working out. But had I not rescheduled my appointment at the proctologist (?!) that day, we never would have met anyway.’

Judaism maintains that nothing happens by accident. According to Jewish thought, the Almighty has a soul- mate intended for each and every one of us. And when a couple who were meant to be together separate, we are told that God weeps for this disruption of His plans. Keep that it mind next time you snigger at the ‘Lonely Hearts’ section of the newspaper.

A belief that God brought us together inspires us to try much harder. This is the reason that the Tenth Commandment closes the circle originally opened by the First Commandment, ‘I am the Lord your God.’ Someone who believes in God will be satisfied with what he has as a blessing from God, and will never covet anything belonging to another man. He will accept that he should exert every effort to make God’s blessings work for him, rather than always looking over the fence into his neighbour’s back garden to see what he is missing.

Moishe the tailor came to the Rabbi to complain. `Rabbi, I had a wonderful business until that wretched cheat Shalom the tailor opened next door to me. He has taken all my business. And do you know what? I put in six stitches per inch, where Shalom only puts in four. I use 100 per cent wool, while he uses a polyester wool blend. And I put double stitching in all the seams. Shalom puts only single stitching.’

The Rabbi looked at Moishe and said, My dear Moishele, it seems to me that if you concentrated half as much on your own business as you do on Shalom’s, you would probably have as many customers as him.’

Your life is your life. There is no need to focus on what you don’t have. Work with what you do have.

From time to time I am asked to help emotionally troubled children with behaviour disturbances whose problems I diagnose as untreatable or, at best, highly resistant to treatment. This situation perplexes and frustrates any professional, myself included, since each of us would like to feel and be sufficiently powerful to cure any possible problem for any patient. Nevertheless, doctors and society in general must recognize that there are some problems that a patient simply must learn to live with. Why? Because to treat the emotional problem is more disruptive for the troubled patient than for him to learn to cope with the problem directly. Acknowledging the limits of treatment hurts the unscrupulous professional in the pocketbook; it hurts the most professional professional in the ego. Let me give you an example.

Recently I was called in to see a youngster who had contracted a blood disease that required hormone injections for him to survive. The little boy, aged five, was given high daily doses of male hormones. He became aggressive, his voice took on a deep tone, hair grew on his face, and he showed many of the other characteristics of a normal adolescent. In particular, he began to show sexual interests, demanding to be cuddled by the nurses who cared for him. Perhaps incidentally but yet significantly, the hormones that were administered caused the boy’s penis to become rather large. The youngster was confused, the staff was perplexed, and other patients to whom he exposed himself were curious. Overall, the boy’s behaviour somewhat overwhelmed the doctors and nurses who had to handle him, since they could not recognize that he was still a young child who happened to have many adult physical characteristics. They were inclined, consciously and unconsciously, to react to him as an immature adolescent, not as a young child who was artificially (as part of his treatment) afflicted with certain adolescent secondary sex characteristics. As hard as it was for the doctors and nurses to care for him, it was even more difficult for the boy to cope with his own impulses and particularly with the feedback he got from other people. He was totally confused.

The doctors and nurses were ready to try anything. They wanted a psychological explanation for the boy’s behaviour and they wanted me to get the child to behave normally. I told them I couldn’t help because the hormones were causing the abnormal behaviour, not emotional disturbances. They must either stop the daily hormone injections or live with the abnormal behaviour.

A more sophisticated example involves a twelve-year-old girl who had had a brain tumour removed one week before I first saw her. She complained of severe headaches and showed excessive clinging behaviour. She was extremely demanding toward her mother. At times the girl responded to voices and people not apparent to others. These visions particularly distressed the doctors and nurses who had to care for the girl, so they referred her to me. Although the girl’s mother had clearly been inconsistent in handling her in the past, I had to consider that the disturbed behaviour might be a reaction to her brain tumour, her operation, and the unpleasantness of the postoperative period. I felt it was best to tolerate her disturbed behaviour, offering her simple reassurance until she was sufficiently recovered for me to evaluate the true nature of her emotional problem. I declined to initiate psychotherapy. As it turned out, the girl’s behaviour returned to what was described by her mother as “normal.” True, “normal” included behaviour I might have characterized as demanding and clinging. But neither the mother nor the daughter felt any particular concern. Apparently I had been wise to consider that the girl had experienced a severely traumatic surgical procedure. I was correct in deciding to leave her behaviour problem alone rather than push this youngster into intensive psychotherapeutic sessions. She was having enough trouble as it was, without having to cope with a professional. Incidentally, you too must accept the fact that your child will have problems that you cannot help him with.

You can recognize, and help him recognize, that problems are relative. A child who lives on hormone shots that make him behave strangely is better off than a dying child. It is easier for your child to live with problems if he accepts them as a normal part of normal life. In fact, problem-solving adds zest to life. Of course, it helps your child to know that you want to help with his problems. You should let your child know that you care about him, that you will be there to help him when he needs you. Make him understand that his feelings concern you, that you enjoy him as he is, together with his problems. In short, that you love him as he is. Believe me, when your child sees you expressing love like this, he will learn from you to love. After all, didn’t you learn to live with some of your problems? And, in spite of them, don’t you give and receive love? To look at it another way, who wants to know the perfect human being? Or, worse yet, to be the perfect human being? It would be a terrible responsibility, and it would be absolutely impossible to find anyone who could love you.

Marriage partners can hold widely differing opinions without necessarily experiencing conflict. A woman may think that a particular movie star is wonderful. Her husband may disagree completely — yet it would not create conflict because it wouldn’t affect any decisions that they would have to make. However, when differences do affect a decision in the home, the conflict has to be handled effectively.

Decisions always lead to some sort of outcome, some sort of action. Therefore, it is important right from the start, that each partner states specifically what he or she would like to happen. When a wife accuses her husband of not being demonstrative, she is not expressing a specific desire in terms of action. If however, she says, “I would like you to give me a hug at least once a day,” she is declaring a specific wish in terms of what she would like the outcome to be.

These wishes must always be stated in the first person singular (so-called “I” messages) and they must always be expressed in terms of action or outcome rather than feelings. They must also be expressed without putting the partner under any kind of pressure. When a husband says to his wife, “You are more interested in your garden than in getting my supper ready on time,” he is not using an “I” message and at the same time he is “accusing” her of neglecting her marital responsibility. It would be far easier to adopt the win/win approach: “I would like to eat my supper at 17h30 if possible.” In this way he is not putting subtle pressure on her.

Other examples of “I” messages with reference to some of the cases mentioned previously might resemble the following

“I would like to spend our holiday at the seaside.”

“I would like to buy a new car, rather than a new lounge suite.” “I would like to serve supper between 18h00 and 18h30.”

“I would like you to give me more housekeeping money.”

“I would like to have at least four hours notice of any dinner guests.”

“I would like you to stop asking me to make love every evening.”

These are wishes that leave no doubt about your partner’s feelings without you having to exert any pressure on your partner.