Healthy Choices, Healthy Marriage
Click here to listen to Today’s Marriage Minute with Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott
Additional Thoughts on Expectations from the Parrotts
Two emotionally healthy partners are vital to a strong marriage. Ultimately, a marriage can only be as healthy as the least emotionally healthy partner. And emotional health is intertwined with making healthy choices.
1. They don’t need to be perfect. Emotionally healthy people recognize that perfection in any aspect of life is a futile goal. They understand that being human means having flaws. Healthy people recognize how difficult life can be and how often they fall short of their own ideals. Additionally, they have the grace and maturity to recognize that the same is true for other people.
2. They have inner security. Healthy people don’t buy into the idea that their worth depends on what others think of them. Their inner conviction that they are worthy of enormous respect is so deeply established that nothing could shake it. Healthy people attribute the same worth to you that they claim for themselves. What they know is that you are inherently worthy of respect, and that is the basis on which they relate to you. That’s why you feel good about yourself when you’re around a healthy person.
3. They overcome major problems with even greater solutions. Healthy people will turn tragedy into triumph time after time. Even if a tragedy is momentarily overwhelming, they work at it until they emerge triumphant. They may come out a bit bruised, but the point is that they always end up stronger and wiser. There is a fundamental confidence that they are resilient enough to deal with the challenges life will hand them, because giving up is not an option.
4. They reinforce the health of others. Show us an extremely healthy person and we’ll show you someone who immediately recognizes and reinforces health when they see it in others. That’s another reason we enjoy being around these people. They seem to genuinely enjoy pointing out our assets, our gifts. They genuinely celebrate our triumphs. They don’t need to promote themselves, so they are able to focus on others.
5. They are not hesitant about using professional resources in a time of need. If the situation merits it, they will seek the counsel of a professional or trusted confidante. Healthy people are so secure and confident about their worth that they are totally nondefensive in their pursuit of help. Not only that, but they don’t mind telling you about the help they received.
Now really delve deep. Are these qualities you possess day in and day out? What about your partner? What can each of you work on? If both you and your mate have a healthy understanding of yourselves as individuals as well as strong self-concepts, the load you place on your marriage will be decidedly lighter. Remember that marriage is not designed to make you emotionally healthy. Make every effort as an individual to arrive at an emotionally healthier place for the sake of your marriage. It can seriously impact your personal satisfaction and directly affect the choices you make in relating to your partner.
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8 Responses to “Healthy Choices, Healthy Marriage”
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It sure sounds like you have to be perfect to be married! These standards, the five “you’ll have a rotten marriage unless you…” are so impossible to attain. I mean, thanks for the perfect, lovely, attractive Parrots to tell us what we need to be happily married. But continually turning tragedy into triumph? What kind of tragedies have happened to the Parrots? Two high earning people married to eachother? Two people whose entire life and education is devoted to relational issues? Two people whose entire life and financial security depends on people “seeking the counsel of a professional” – and of course “not minding telling other people about it?” Oh come on. I’m sorry, but these five little nuggets of wisdom coming from a disadvantaged minority who has worked himself out of the gutter and risen to great responsibility would actually MEAN something to me. “Advice” about having to be emotionally healthy and sure of your own respect for yourself means nothing to me coming from two priviledged white people, rich white people…
Judith, I am a well educated white person who fixes other people for a living (I work in Special Education). I’m married to an attractive high earning man, yet here I am at a marriage counseling site, be cause none of that has anything to do with how I deal with my relationships. I can’t speak to what tragedies the Parrots have had in their lifetime because I DON”T KNOW THEM. I know that my husband and I have had times in our marriage that certainly felt like tragedy, and although I can’t quite say I’d call the results triumph, I’d say we’ve come through them a bit wiser. What does my education, my color, my earning potential, or my looks have to do with that? Will I never be worthy of giving advice to any of the families that I work with simply because my child has no developmental problems?
None of the advice here (or any of the advice that I give in the course of my job) is going to help anyone unless they are willing to accept it as coming from someone with good intentions who wants to help. Either you believe the Parrots are giving the best adivice they know how because they want to help people, or you believe they are doling out a line of ____ to make you feel bad. You get to decide, and whether or not they make money from it makes no difference.
A Says: I agree! Let me simplify how I look at each day and each opportunity. God says to us ” Today is the day that I have made” and my response should be “I will rejoice and be glad in it”. I believe that each day is a gift from God and if we embrace it this way we can either be greatful for each person, place or thing that comes down our path or we can be dissatisfied each day and throw away a gift given to us. Unwrap the gift and have a heart of thanksgiving it will surely make everything else seem like icing on the cake!!
I would never see my profession as “fixing” anyone else. But you do. You “fix other people for a living”. How shockingly arrogant, or maybe not so shocking – since you are a white person in America with money and good looks and that is a prescription in this world for thinking you have the answers and if everyone else just listens to your “well-intentioned” advice, they can be helped. Which is why we are over in Iraq blowing the limbs off of the citizens of that country…because we know best…we can “fix” their system. If they just listen to us, because we’re so well-intentioned, they can be “helped”.
And that attitude is why we, in American, are universally despised by most other countries. Because we have the natural resources that we have in this country, we are rich. And because we are rich, priviledged people – we can do and say anything we want to. We are the “pretty people” of the world.
And maybe it’s why I look at a column like this one and it feels like spoonfuls of sugar without much substance, but the ability to rot teeth if there’s too much of it.
I think the responders have lost the focus of this topic.
I do agree with Judith to some extent…these ideals are hard to live by…but I do not agree with her attitude on America and race. Why does color even enter into the conversation? I think that the point the Parrotts are trying to get across is that as long as we are TRYING to keep our relationsips going and being honest with ourselves and our partner, we CAN BE HAPPY. It seems to me that someone on this site has a few of the problems being disscussed in this article, namely inner security. I say: Stop attacking the worth of others that are making it thier life goal to try and help others! Grow up! And most of all: Judith seems to take pleasure in attacking America in general, while those she attacks are defending her right to do so. Not at all AMERICAN!
I have just read all of the above. It seems to me the Parrotts are giving us each a guideline to aim for and for each of us to choose what we will or will not apply in our life depending upon our belief system at this time. If I belief in certain things I can see how they can be applied in my life but if I don’t I will see things through filtered tinted glasses even whether it is truth or not, or I will tend to flat out reject it because my denial system isn’t ready to deal with such issues at this time. And that’s okay too. None of us have had the same life experiences so there’s no way we can compare who had it more difficult than another. And theres not need to either. But we do share common things. We are each 100% responsible for our own feelings, actions, decisions, words, etc… We all want to be treated with respect, dignity, and value.
I believe lasting change comes from the inside out and not from external forces applying pressure on someone for whatever well intentions. Rescuing others shows a caring person yet it has a root in codependency. Other people need to be doing for themselves all that they can so they can be all they were intended to be. This can short circuit their lifes journey. Sometimes if things come too easy some can have a tendency to not appreciate the hard work it took to achieve where they are and the gratitude of what they have. Not only a mind change but a heart felt change.
I appreciated hearing from each one of you above. I hear the enthusiasm, I see you wanting more in the area of growth, relationships, and out of life, and I also hear you’re willing to be vulnerable to others even if they may not like what you have to say. That takes courage. Thank you. Others were willing to hold another accountable and confront in a respectful manner yet condsidering the other persons feelings. That too takes courage and I commend you for this.
Judith, I’m sorry to hear your anger and dissapointment about life situations. My mom always taught me to take what I like and leave the rest. The Parrotts where giving advise to help eliminate some issues that we may not realize we bring on ourselves. I’ve learned to reflect on myself and not my spouse’s negatives. The healthier I am mentally, physically and spiritually, the more I have to bring to the table. We can’t control others, just ourselves. Once we become stronger within (inner bonding), other’s won’t be able to zap our positive energy so easily. I’ve also learned that it’s easy to give advise but sometimes a little harder to live it when you are emotionally connected to the problem. But the bottom line is we have choices in life. And like the Parrotts were saying, no one is perfect. We can choose to be open-minded to receive the resources available out there or we can choose to feel sorry for ourselves and not grow. It’s sound like to me that you are a phenominal, observant woman. Don’t loose yourself in the issues that life throws your way, just learn from it. Encourage yourself every day. It’s called growing!!! I wish you peace within.