When children sleep with parents…

Managing the parenting triangle…

Kids are great. They smile at you, love you unconditionally and look up to you with respect. At least until they’re like two years old. Then things change. The rebellious nature that is inherit in every human being’s DNA begins to transform our offspring into…the spawn of Satan is a bit strong…umm…how about tricky, conniving, manipulative little darlings.

Every parent’s had an encounter with a child that’s attempted to divide and conquer their parents so that they can get what they want. You know, if the kid doesn’t get the answer they want from one parent they go ask the other parent.

When I was in grad school, I developed an addiction to Little Debbie Snack cakes in the form of Devil’s Squares. They are the perfect refined sugar snack. I passed that addiction to my daughter by sneaking her bites when my wife wasn’t looking. When my daughter would fly across the kitchen floor in her walker, my wife thought we were just playing daughter/dad games. My wife finally figured out that when my oldest daughter would hear me unwrap that delicious piece of heaven she would move at warp speed to my chair, flash her baby blues and then open her mouth like a little birdie to get the chocolatey goodness . Mom did not like that I was circumventing a Mom rule. I didn’t think it was as bad for her as the Diet Coke I gave her. It was cute to see her eyes water.

We had words.

Then we had a come to Jesus meeting. Okay, my wife had a come to Jesus meeting. I was wrong because I had allowed my darling daughter to “work the triangle” in a masterful way. My wife had a different rule for the same situation. The triangle of kid/mom/dad is something that took us a while to figure out. Kids learn to work the triangle much quicker than parents learn how to manage the triangle.

The little darling in the walker is now a senior in high school. Once in a while, even though we’ve explained to her that working the triangle is not acceptable, she has a relapse.

It seems stupid to me and her Mom. She knows that Mom and Dad come to a common agreement before most things come up. We’ve learned how to manage the triangle. If we don’t have a common agreement already in place we delay the answer until we can communicate the common agreement. When we don’t, we have words. And then…you know the drill.

Want to stop your kids from working the triangle? Come to a common agreement on what the consequence or reward is in advance of a situation. When a situation arises that doesn’t have a common agreement, delay on giving an answer until you as parents have ONE answer. If kids see that Mom and Dad agree and are functioning as a cohesive parental team, they figure out that working the triangle is useless.

Learn to manage the triangle and your life will be less chaotic.

Blessings on you and your triangle(s).

"My marriage hasn’t turned out like I expected…."

If you walk into the magazine section of Kroger, Publix, Albertson’s, Winn-Dixie, Barnes and Noble or Borders you’ll find a huge selection of bridal and wedding magazines. In one of the those zillion mags, women everywhere begin their quest for the perfect wedding. The perfect wedding consists of the perfect dress, the perfect venue, the perfect caterer, the perfect cake, the perfect photographer, the perfect tux, and the perfect bridesmaid dresses. Sorry, I forgot the perfect reception. In one of the zillion bridal magazines they find the perfect bridal show to attend so they can make sure their selections are…you guessed it…perfect.

That’s because the bride to be has found the perfect husband…

The groom to be, on the other hand, buys into the whole “perfect” thing because his perfect wedding (remember this is hypothetical) will end in a raucous round of perfect sex. He dreams of the perfect beach, or the perfect cabin, with the perfect adult beverages (non-alchoholic of course), and more perfect…….you fill in the blank for the guy.

That’s because the groom to be has found the perfect wife…

So we find the perfect couple after the honeymoon…a few weeks, months, years, or a couple of decades after the perfect honeymoon having an identical conversation with their friends (seperately, of course) that begin with the phrase, “My marriage hasn’t turned out like I expected….”

Small wonder, if you ask me. Our culture has created a fantasticly idealist perception of marriage…with the hope of the perfect wedding, the perfect spouse, and even the perfect family. No pressure there, right?

So married couples try to live up to that culture induced expectation and, at all cost, look marvelous on the outside, but live miserable lives trying to figure out why marriage hasn’t turned out the way they expected.

So they sit down with a counselor and they hear the phrases idealistic perception and unmet expectations and begin to see how they set themselves up for the perfect disaster.

More on that in the next post…

Welcome to Holy Freaking Matrimony…

I’ve been thinking about doing a marriage blog for a long time. It seems that there’s a need for a good marriage blog. I mean, who doesn’t want to check out or subscribe to a blog that has the ability to at least nudge you to at least think about maybe doing something to make your marriage better?

So…here it is.

Hot topics? You bet. Worth coming back for? Probably. Another Christian sub-culture site with a bunch of fluffy cliches? Nope. This blog is for married people. With or without kids. First, second, or third marriage. Blended, dysfunctional, or Ward and June Cleaver.

Irreverent? Only to legalistic religious types. They probably alread hit the back button on their browser when when the name of the blog popped up in Google anyway.

The content: Marriage (no kidding), parenting, sex (it causes the whole parenting thing), divorce, who gets the remote, adultery, finances, communication, and commentary on anything that has to do with being married. All this through the filter of lessons I’ve learned from being married for over twenty years and being a pastor for over fifteen…and two kids…and a dog.

Hope you come back. Posts will be at least once a week.