Book # 1

Okay. Here we go.
"Relationship Rescue" by Dr. Phillip C. McGraw.
You know the guy. Dr. Phil from Oprah fame. Some love him, some hate him, my brother thinks he's annoying, one sister thinks he's wonderful. Personally I don't have much of an opinion about him. I don't watch TV, so I've never seen him in action. The only exposure I have had with him is reading this book, and a friend telling me about something he said on his show. My ex used to often say to me, "Why do you always have to argue with me?"  I was telling this friend about that and she said, "you know Dr. Phil had someone on his show who said that his wife always argued with him. To which Dr. Phil replied, "What are you always saying to your wife that makes her need to argue with you?" Which made me instantly like Dr. Phil because I felt like he understood.

You need to know something about me, I just got a divorce. It was final 2 weeks ago today. I would not have chosen to read this book, however I promised to read it under duress. My ex, when he came to sign the divorce papers made me promise to read it. He wouldn't shut up about it. I finally promised to read it in order to get him to stop. Of course, he still didn't stop, and even had me write down on a piece of paper that I would read it and then he had me sign it and have it notarized the same time as we got the divorce papers notarized. Silly. As if he would have any legal way to force me to read the book. I know that he thought if I read it I would take him back. So I suppose I read it just to prove him wrong. But also, because I promised. I do not take a promise lightly. And I had just broken a big one....to love, honor and cherish; through richer and poorer, through sickness and health, through good times and 9 months of emotional torture.... I suppose keeping this promise eased my conscience a little.

Dr. Phil begins with a prologue that tells you he is going to help you reconnect with your core. He is going to help you clean house inside yourself  first. I liked it when he wrote, "if you are in a relationship that has gone awry, a relationship that is laced with pain, confusion, or emptiness, then by definition I know that you have lost touch with your own personal power, your own dignity, your own standards, and your own self-esteem. You've allowed yourself to accommodate pain and disappointment and self-destructive attitudes. You have rationalized away many of your hopes and dreams, you've settled for so many things you did not want, you've allowed apathy to settle in, and along the way you've probably let your partner mistreat you over the years. But most important, you have mistreated yourself. You've blamed your partner or other circumstances for your place in life rather than making the effort to find the true answers within you. You've lost touch with that part of you that I call your core of consciousness--that place where you are absolutely defined, the place within you where your greatest strengths, instincts, values, talents and wisdom are centered...." Right on, Dr. Phil! But why do we let ourselves get lost like that?

His first chapter talks about how most therapists have it wrong and so if you have been going to counseling you might have come away confused. How our society has it wrong. We see fairy tale movies on the big screen and they are a very distorted version of reality. He talks about how you have to fix yourself first, your attitudes, beliefs, and ideas about marriage. Then he asks the questions that help you determine whether you are ready for his help. Frankly, I was waaaaay past his help.

In chapter 2 he helps you to define the problems. He has you finish some short sentences, like: "I am happiest when___" and "I hate it when___" There are 42 of them and when you have completed them, you then answer questions based on those 42 sentences. First one said, "Look at your response to items 4, 6, 7, .... What do these answers tell you about anger in your life and relationship? Write a 2 paragraph answer in your journal." Then he has you answer 62 true and false questions which profile your relationship health. If your score is above 32, it is likely your relationship is in extreme danger of failing. My score was 42. (That score, I imagine means the corpse is dead and cold.) It runs you through a few more exercises that help you define some specific feelings and problems regarding the relationship. He has you profile the relationship behavior of your partner and yourself individually. Questions like, "List and describe your partners best qualities" List five things which you have asked or scolded or nagged your partner to correct or improve, but which your partner has not corrected or improved."  He has you profile your communication, your lifestyle and your chemistry. And lastly he asks five tough questions that you need to ask yourself to see just how close you are to the danger line of a failed marriage. One question was, "Knowing what you do now about your relationship, would you still get involved with the same person if you had to do it over again? Why?"

In chapter 3, he "blows up" the relationship myths. Which are as follows;
1.   A great relationship depends on a great meeting of the minds.
2.   A great relationship demands a great romance.
3.   A great relationship requires great problem-solving.
4.   A great relationship requires common interests that bond you together forever.
5.   A great relationship is a peaceful one.
6.   A great relationship lets you vent all your feelings.
7.   A great relationship has nothing to do with sex.
8.   A great relationship cannot survive a flawed partner.
9.   There is a right way and a wrong way to make a relationship great.
10. Your relationship can only become great when you get your partner straightened
        out.

Having been married to an imperfect, yet wonderful man for 14 years, I already knew most of that. My ex however, suffered under the delusion that most of those were true. Thus the struggle. Anyway, my favorite part in this chapter was when Dr. Phil was talking about myth #4. He wrote, "You've no doubt attempted some major project with your partner as well, thinking it would make the two of you closer. I'll never forget a woman friend of mine who tried fly fishing one morning with her husband. After an hour of listening to him complain to her about how she wasn't standing in the right place or casting to the correct part of the river, she dropped her rod and said, "It's six a.m., it's cold, you're rude, and I'm going home. In case you haven't heard, you can buy fish at the supermarket in the middle of the afternoon." I laughed out loud at the one, yet I felt sad too, knowing that if only I had spoken out in the beginning, my relationship either would have fizzled out before getting to marriage, or it would have been better in the marriage. I know I made mistakes too. My biggest one being that I didn't address some major issues before we got married.


Chapter 4 focuses on eliminating your bad spirit. He defines the different bad spirits we carry around in our relationships.
1.   You're a scorekeeper.
2.   You're a fault finder.
3.   You think it's your way or the highway.
4.   You turn into an attack dog.

5.   You are a passive warmonger.

6.   You resort to smoke and mirrors. (you make issues out of things which really
       don't matter, instead of focusing on what is really bothering you)

7.   You will not forgive.

8.   You are the bottomless pit. (needy, needy, needy!)

9.   You are too comfortable.
10. You've given up.

Chapter 5 asks you to reclaim your core and defines personal relationship values, which are:
1.   Own your relationship
2.   Accept the risk of vulnerability.
3.   Accept your partner.
4.   Focus on the friendship.
5.   Promote your partner's self-esteem.

6.   Aim your frustrations in the right direction.

7.   Be up front and forthright.

8.   Make yourself happy rather than right.

9.   Allow your relationship to transcend turmoil.

10. Put motion into your emotion.

Chapter 6 reveals the formula for success. I'm sure you are just dying to know what Dr. Phil's magic solution is. I know I was. My ex was so excited about this program. He wrote pages and pages in a notebook to try to figure out our relationship and how to save it. Unfortunately, it was already dead. No resuscitation potential. I don't feel I am being dramatic. I had come to the conclusion that this relationship was a mistake. I made a mistake in getting married. I wanted to be married. I wanted my sons to have a father figure. There was chemistry. We had some major lifestyle ideologies that were the same. He made me laugh...in the beginning. But in the end, I realized that there are some things worse than being alone. 

So the magic formula for relationship success is:  (insert drum roll here...) The quality of a relationship is a function of the extent to which it is built on a solid underlying friendship and meets the needs of the two people involved. To make this formula work in your life, you've got two important jobs to complete. Make your needs known and discover the needs of your partner. He then works you through some assignments where you describe your needs and then attempt to discover your partner's needs. This is very complex and intensive and will take some time to accomplish, but I could see that in a relationship that is making an honest attempt to first survive and then become great, how it would be beneficial, however difficult.

Chapter 7 describes how you can reconnect with your partner. Dr. Phil understands that you, the reader, may be in one of three scenarios; One: working with a willing partner, who has been reading the book with you and participating in the assignments. Two: A partner who has not read the book, yet is willing to work with you. Or Three: a partner who is not willing. He then gives the reader who is in the third scenario a strategy for getting that partner to cooperate.

1.   Open the reconnection dialogue.

2.   Describe your work.

3.   Describe working back to your core.

4.   Talk about the myths.

5.   Explain bad spirit

6.   Introduce personal relationship values.

7.   Share the formula for success.

8.   Share partner profile.

9.   Clarify partner needs.

10. Share personal profile.

Of course this must be quite casual, even a covert operation with a partner who is unwilling. He even gives an example of what you might say to an unwilling partner to start the dialoge. It was somewhat amusing to me to read this part because I recognized my ex's similar attempts after I had asked for a divorce. Not to make light of his genuine attempt, but because of my realization that those letters he wrote were not his own original ideas and feelings. And I had been impressed with his sudden eloquence.

The final part of this chapter shared some do's and don't as you try to deal with your partner during this important phase. 

DO: Be patient, Be humble, Be accountable, Be strong, Be specific, Be totally open, and Use "I" statements.

DON'T: Push too hard, Come across as a know-it-all, Be judgmental, Take the bait if provoked, Be mysterious, Hide anything, Use your partner as a bad example. 

As for Chapter 8, had I actually worked through it with my ex, it would have been my worst nightmare. My ex, uhg! would have loved it! It is titled, "Fourteen days of loving with honesty." Dr. Phil is adamant about following this part of the program to the letter. He gives you a morning assignment and an evening assignment. The morning assignments would have been fairly easy for me, as I am an action oriented person. In the evening you are to eliminate all distractions, sit in chairs facing each other, so that you are knee to knee, and make eye contact for 2 silent minutes. Then for 14 consecutive nights you tackle different topics, discussed in a very strict manner. 

Example: Partner A: "I chose you as the person with whom I would form an intimate relationship because____" Then you fill in the blank for three minutes, no more, no less. Then Partner B says, "Thank you for caring enough to share, and I promise to weigh it carefully." Then partner B shares in the same manner about the same topic. Several topics are discussed each night and then you stand up and share a 30 second hug. Not all of it would have been bad for me and I can see the value in the exercise, but I don't share my innermost feelings easily and this exercise would have been difficult for me, especially considering the level of trust I had for my ex at the time. 

Chapter 9 alerts us to the fact that relationships are managed, not cured. Dr. Phil walks you through priority management, behavior managment, goals management, difference management and admiration management.  Which was a very helpful chapter in that it dealt with specifics that we often forget about in our day to day lives, or because the conflict gets too intense. 

Chapter 10 is titled "The Doctor is in". He acknowledges that sometimes couples need some help with some fine tuning and specific issues. So he very helpfully answers some questions that he has heard over and over throughout his years of practice. One of the questions was about arguing and I found his rules of arguing very good, yet sometimes aggravatingly impossible to follow. 

Rule 1.  Take it private and keep it private.

Rule 2.  Keep it relevant.

Rule 3. Avoid character assassination.

Rule 4. Remain task oriented.

Rule 5. Allow for your partner to retreat with dignity.

Rule 6. Be proportional in your intensity.

His conclusion was personal letters from him to his female readers and to his male readers, separately. And then his final word is about how we should give ourselves "permission--in fact, demand of yourself--to go forward with hope, optimism, and unbridled passion. Don't be afraid to admit that you want it, and don't be afraid to get excited about having it. Living, loving and laughing are as healthy and natural as anything you could ever do. I believe it is part of God's plan for this world. The only reason more people don't do it is because we, in our infinite wisdom, decided to "fix" the plan...."

So, there you have it. A good book, if that's what you need. I would have liked to apply some of it, maybe all of it to my marriage of 14 years to my first husband, who passed away 7 years ago in an auto accident. Our relationship didn't need rescuing, yet our relationship could have been a little deeper and a little more understanding. We both liked to keep our deepest feelings to ourselves. I don't think that it was because we didn't trust each other, but that it was just in our natures to be private. Yet, now that he is gone, I long to understand him better. To feel closer to him. To feel like we shared more than just a bed, a home, a life and 5 lively boys. Regrets. 

And for you my friendly reader, I hope that this was helpful and that somehow you work through your life so that you have fewer regrets. If you need to leave, leave.
But if you stay, then love your partner. Every day. Kiss them goodbye when they leave and kiss them hello when you see them again. Make their happiness as important as your own. Forgive and forget. Laugh. Make more good memories than bad ones.
And that is my magic formula. 

See you later. ;o)