Leading out of an Emotionally Healthy Marriage - Eagles' Leadership Conference 2013 - Singapore

Guest Post by my husband Rick Harner

While in attending Eagles' Leadership Conference 2013 in Singapore, my wife Jiji and I had the opportunity to assist Pastor Pete Scazzero and his wife Geri in their seminar:  Leading out of an Emotionally Healthy Marriage.  The seminar was packed out, and it was quite exciting to be a part of building marriages of couples from many different countries throughout Southeast Asia.  There were translators working in 5 different languages, facilitating the learning and understanding of the material.

Pastor Pete started the day with 3 ideas.  First, marriage is bigger than you think.  Your marriage as a Christian leader impacts future generations of your family and it bears witness to the loving relationship that Christ has with his Church.  Second, marriage is harder than you think.  (I don't think I need to explain this one . . . )  Third, marriage is greater than you think.  When we invest in and build our marriages, they can bring more joy than any other earthly pleasures.

After the inspiring talk, Pastor Pete and Geri demonstrated a Community Temperature Reading (CTR).  This is simple communication tool developed by Virginia Satir designed to be used regularly that increases emotional openness (a vital aspect of bonding) in a relationship.  The CTR is one of the skills presented in Emotionally Healthy Skills 2.0.  After the demonstration was the fun.  Everyone got to try it.  Many different languages sharing things in their hearts with their loved one.  But above the din of languages I did not know, universal languages could be heard:  Laughter, tears, joyful smiles and loving embraces . . .

The next topic was assumptions and mind reading.  Pastor Pete reminded us that we are not to bear false witness against our neighbor.  When we assume we know what someone else is thinking and we are wrong, we are bearing false witness against our neighbor.  And contrary to our favorable opinion of ourselves, when we assume about others, we are frequently wrong in our assumptions.  This hurts people we love, causes conflict and general chaos in relationships.

Another New Life couple Kelly and Shirley Ng traveled from New York to assist and facilitate in the seminar.  They demonstrated the Emotionally Healthy Skill to combat assumptions:  Stop Mind Reading.  In this skill, a partner asks permission:  "Can I 'read your mind'?"  When the other partner gives permission, the first partner proceeds, "I think that you think  . . . .  Is that true?"  To which the 2nd partner can respond either "Yes, that's true," "No, that's not true."  or "That's partially true.  Let me clarify . . . "  This brings hidden assumptions into the open and allows us to let go of assumptions of issues that were bothering us that were not even true.  It also opens a place to discuss issues that are bothering us that we are keeping inside and often assuming the worst.

After their demonstration, couples experimented with the simple tool to replace our natural tendencies to assume things about our loved one. 

After lunch, we worked on speaking and listening.  Geri gave us 4 criteria with which to evaluate and improve our speaking.  Be respectful.  Be honest.  Be clear.  Be timely.  Participants were asked to consider a recent experience of frustrating communication and evaluate.  Then they were asked to form a request to their partner. We had quite a laugh as one volunteer shared that his wife was usually late for lunch.  As Geri coached him, she prodded him with a few questions.  He came to realize that he had not really even given her a time or an expectation, but he just felt like she was always late . . . 

Next, Shirley and Kelly demonstrated the art of Incarnational Listening - to listen at the heart level like Christ did, with empathy, being attuned to another person's words and non-verbal communications.  This was a very moving time as Kelly demonstrated his vulnerability and shared a deep pain with his wife Shirley who listened in a way that communicated a lot of love and support. 

After the participants practiced Incarnational Listening, Jiji and I demonstrated Clean Fighting.  The purpose of clean fighting is to resolve conflict as emotionally healthy adults by eliminating dirty fighting and taking responsibility for the issue.  Jiji confronted me in a very considerate, respectful and loving way with how the mess of my working papers infringe upon her living space (specifically our kitchen table)  It was very interesting and even comical to see as other couples began their own Clean Fights the similarity of themes that couples struggle with.   

The day ended with couples being encouraged to develop their own Marriage Rule of Life.  Basically, they were encouraged and coached to consider and plan practical ways and routines that will build a healthy marriage for the long haul.  We were asked to consider how our personal habits impact our marriage:  overworking, not sleeping enough, poor communication skills . . . These types of things drain us and then we come to our marriage drained with very little to give.  Then we were asked to consider things that we can do together on a regular basis that will breath life into our marriages.  Being married becomes so much a part of us that we can take marriage and our partner for granted, not investing the time and energy we did at the beginning of the relationship.  A healthy marriage requires learned skills, intentionality, time and good will to make things grow.

The seminar was meant to be a seed planted into marriages that will grow, flourish and develop into emotionally healthy marriages of Christian leaders throughout Southeast Asia.