Encouraging Health

One of my neighbors is going through a very messy divorce. Sometimes, when I walk past their house I can hear the husband and wife argui9ng. The wife even came over to our house in tears one night, betgging us to shelter her, as her husband was on the rampage.

Thirty years ago, I experienced a similar situation. The police were not a sinclined then to help a woman in that sort of trouble as they are now. Some people wouls say they have gone too far in the opposite direction. Now, in many courts, all a woman has to say is that she is afraid her husband might beat her up. She does not even have to prove that he ever did. The judge will immediately give her a protective order. Conversely, it is next to impossible for a man to prove that he never will hurt his wife. it used to be that even if a man threatened to kill his wife, the judge would be likely to aver that he said this in the heat of argument, and did not really mean it.

Neither of these situations is right. But as parents with children, our first concern is to ensure that our sons and daughters never have to endure such devastating ends to their marriages. What do we need to teach them and what do we need to show them, so that they can recognize when a situation or relationship could be dangerous? And what do we need to teach them so they can get out of a bad situation, and not lose what they hold most dear?

Doctors and psychologists will say that the best candidates for a good marriage come from homes where the fathers and mothers made a practice of being kind to each other and treated each other with respect. The best teacher for a growing child is still the good examples his parents set for him.

And what do we do when we find that those relationships into which we have invested ourselves emotionally are dangerous? The best advice would be to control your emotions as much as possible until you are out of that relationship and away from the danger, and to get out as quickly as possible. This is far more easily said than done, especially when the victim is a woman who is economically dependent on her husband. And everything is more complicated when there are children involved. This is too often a time when one must battle their way through a maze of bureaucratic insults in order to try to make right what should never have gone wrong.

Family and friends too often back away at such times, forcing the husband or wife to work things through on their own, just at the time when both members of the couple needs friends the most.

If as the old African saying goes, we need a village to raise a child, as adults we still need that village to stay healthy. When caught in such untenable situations, we cannot let ourselves be afraid to reach out for help, nor should we be afraid to offer help and encourabgement when we see someone else caught that way.