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About a week ago, I sent out a personal request for
help. I asked for testimonials by seminar participants
who have been using my methods in schools and
children's groups, for use in getting a grant approved. I
was extemely moved by the outpouring of support.
Even many people who don't work with schools or
children's groups wrote supportive letters and
testimonials. They obviously wanted to be of help
even though they couldn't provide precisely what I had
been looking for. I thank you all from the bottom of my
heart.
Lawyers and the Perils of Divorce
I have met countless people who have gotten divorced
yet continue to be tormented by their ex-spouse. They
were miserable in their marriages and expected their
divorce lawyer to free them from their shackles of
misery. Surprise, surprise! They may have divorced
their spouse, but they did not divorce their misery.
I imagine that most mental health professionals must
have made the same observation. It can't be that I am
the only one who has discussed life with divorced
people. So I am always surprised when mental health
professionals begin the divorce process actually
expecting that life is going to become easier once the
divorce lawyers do their magic.
Miserable relationships don't end just because miserable
marriages end in divorce. Especially when there are
children involved, the couple is going to have to
continue to deal with each other because of visitation
and money issues. Often, the couple hates each other
even more after the divorce than they did before. Once
lawyers are involved, hostilities escalate. I don't know
if it consciously affects the way lawyers work, but
intense, protracted conflicts are in their interest
because that's how they make their money. As I often
say at my seminars, if you are having difficulty getting
along with your spouse, and you find out your spouse
went for help to a lawyer, do you think, "Thank God
things are going to start getting better now!" Of course
not. When your spouse goes to the lawyer, that's when
the war REALLY begins."
I can see how ordinary people may believe that divorce
is the light at the end of the tunnel. But what is the
excuse of mental health professionals?
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When Should Marriages be Salvaged? |
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I take marital problems very seriously. When a couple is
miserable, children suffer as well, and the pain
continues even after divorce. I believe in saving
marriages whenever possible. If you are considering
divorce, I would like you to ask yourself some simple
questions that will help you determine if your marriage
can be salvaged. Or if you counsel couples, keep these
questions in mind to help you decide if their marriages
have hope. Remember, divorce is probably the most
expensive decision you will ever make. Don't make it
lightly.
1. Did you get along well with your spouse
BEFORE you got married?
Relationships tend to get worse after marriage. In the
dating stage, couples generally treat each other very
well; otherwise they would break up. Once they are
married, though, they discover they can be nasty to
each other and no one disappears. Then they start
getting angry at each other to make the abuse stop.
They don't realize that by getting angry they
unwittingly make the abuse continue.
If your relationship was good before you were married -
if you truly admired each other and enjoyed each
other's company - the chances of restoring the good
relationship are excellent. By refusing to get angry, and
by treating your spouse as a friend (using the Bullies to
Buddies rules I teach in my seminars) there is no reason
your marriage can't go back to being just as good as it
was before you got married.
However, if your relationship was stormy when you
were single, the prognosis is much worse. Sometimes
people think that after they get married the battles will
end. However, this is wishful thinking. Such marriages
are much harder to improve. Perhaps not impossible,
but certainly a lot harder.
2. Are you the only one your spouse abuses?
If your spouse treats everyone else well but treats you
terribly, you probably feel like you know the "real"
s.o.b., who has everyone else fooled. The truth is that
you are the one who is not seeing the "real" person.
You are seeing your spouse at war, and when people
are at war, they literally become monsters.
If this is your situation, the marriage has hope. Learn
to treat your spouse like a friend, and your spouse will
treat you (almost) as well as he/she treats the rest of
the world.
On the other hand, if your spouse has trouble getting
along with lots of people, you have less reason to be
optimistic. Unless your spouse is really committed to
self-improvement, you may not want to stay in the
marriage.
3. Does your spouse have a serious love
relationship outside the marriage?
If your spouse has a passionate relationship with
someone else, your chances of repairing the marriage
are gravely hurt. If you do a super job of making your
spouse realize what a fool he/she has been, looking for
love in all the wrong places, your marriage may be
saved. Not everyone can accomplish this, so don't keep
your hopes too high.
4. Has your spouse come to loathe you?
Sometimes people can come to despise their spouse so
strongly that there is no desire to continue the
relationship. Unfortunately, some people can't admit
that they no longer want to be married to their spouse,
but go along for marriage counseling hoping to appear
like the "good guy (or gal)." In the therapy, they are
likely to try to make it seem that the failure of the
marriage is their spouse's fault. As a result, the
counseling drags on and goes nowhere. There is little
hope for such a marriage.
Click here to read previous newsletters. »
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Good news! Bullies CAN feel remorse! |
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In my seminar on bullying, I list a number of popular
myths. One of these myths is that bullies are incapable
of feeling remorse.
Why do I say it's a myth? I have spoken to a number of
people who identified themselves as bullies, and
they told me they felt terrible when they realized they
hurt people. There are books written by people who
were victims of bullying when they were kids, and later
ran into their bullies as adults. When confronting their
bullies with the hurt they caused them as kids, the
bullies were shocked and they apologized profusely.
And I have read articles by adults who recalled having
bullied other kids and felt terribly guilty about what
they did.
And now I found support for this in an academic
journal. In the article, An Ecological Perspective to
School-Based Bullying Prevention, by Dorothy Espelage,
PhD, in the Sept. '04 issue of The Prevention
Researcher (the entire issue was dedicated to bullying)
the author writes, "Research suggests that self-
declared bullies sometimes report feeling sorry after
bullying their peer; however, many bully prevention and
intervention programs assume that these students lack
empathy." ("Self-declared bullies" is what I refer to
as "true bullies." Most of the people who get
labeled "bullies" actually experience themselves as
victims, and their aggressive actions are the actions of
victims.)
But don't expect this to dampen society's crusade
against bullies. Despite the fact that this article in The
Prevention Researcher reported that bullies can feel
remorse, it was a strictly "anti-bully" article,
as was the entire issue. Bullies will continue to be
demonized because it makes us feel good. Why should
truth matter when the cause is so popular?
Best wishes,
Izzy Kalman
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