If Our River Can Change, So Can Yours
Failure is only failure if it happens in the last chapter. Otherwise it’s a plot point. People put the book down too soon.
Danny Iny
In 1985, my wife’s husband is thirty-four years old and an alcoholic who drinks three quarts of beer a day and falls asleep on the floor every night by 7:00 p.m.
He’s a college dropout with no training or skills, no ambition, and no motivation. He’s lost, apart from God, unemployed half the time, and drives an old Chevy Vega with a driver’s side door that flies open every time he makes a right turn. He drinks behind her back and lies about it, and she learns she can’t trust him.
My wife lives with this man in a nine-hundred-square-foot house with lots of arguing, mostly because he’s clueless about how to be a good husband or raise kids. He vows to himself not to have children until he “figures out how to be an adult,” but he never does and here they are, two daughters eleven and eight.
That’s my wife’s life. This is normal for a long time.
I’m the husband.
That’s how our family starts and how it goes for the first twelve years of our marriage. No one has any reason to believe anything will ever change.
It changes.
Not overnight but over time. Today our marriage centers on grace and patience and caring more for the other person than for ourselves. Most of our arguments are over giving the other person their way (yes, we argue over sacrificing for each other). We’re best friends. Trust dominates and creates an inviting vibe in our home. Disagreements are brief and hardly an inch deep.
We share a rich connection as a family with our daughters, their husbands, and their kids, and people seem to notice.
How does this change happen?
It should have come from the family in which I grew up, but it didn’t. Mine was a nice middle-class family but purposeless, with its own unique dysfunctions. Dad was an alcoholic, and his unstable presence dominated our family mood. We all knew the rules: Thou shalt not upset Dad. Avoid anything controversial or confrontational. His inner anger broke out almost daily at home in loud, yelling monologues aimed at no one but intended for everyone to hear. Rants began for no reason; Dad upset with the world. Often I’d hear him yelling from downstairs, “Does anybody hear me!” as if he wanted someone to argue with, to vent to, but everyone was upstairs trying to avoid him.
We walked on tiptoes when he quieted down, hoping he’d go to sleep. Later, he reminded me of that guy in the Bible who lived in the tombs, shouting and hurting himself and no one dared go near him.
Ours was the classic stereotype of the addicted family where everyone is an enabler because it’s too painful to confront.
Like on our spring break trip to Florida. Dad and I are going to check out colleges. Mom’s at work. I’m packed and ready, and the old Impala pulls in the driveway and just sits there. I wait, then go outside. The car is running, and Dad’s slumped over the wheel. I know Mom’s not going to like it if Dad blows our trip, so I scoot him into the passenger seat, load the bags, and start driving south. Two hours later in Kentucky, he slowly wakes up, chin on his chest, opening one eye at me, realizing what’s happened.
“You’re a good boy,” he says groggily. And I’m just relieved he’s not mad. I’ve learned my job is to do whatever it takes to maintain peace and not deal with anything. To me, this is normal.
But there’s a problem: I don’t know what normal is. I never learn what healthy family relationships look like. I just react in whatever way will hold down turmoil and help me survive. Defensiveness becomes normal. Being offended is normal. Arguing is normal. Reacting out of my emotions is normal. Doing something purposeful with or for my family? Seeing “grace” in my family? What’s that? That’s not normal.
Your Normal Is Normal to You
Maybe in your immediate or extended family, you have learned over the years that patterns and behaviors repeat themselves in family relationships. You watch as average problems are treated like crises. And the crises come to be accepted as unavoidable. You see some family members so worried about themselves that they have no room for understanding or generosity. Others seem to major on how they’re treated, how they’re wronged and offended, or how they’re misunderstood and underappreciated.
Some members of your family seem to collect offenses and misunderstandings as if it’s a contest. Others are afraid to live their own lives because someone else might be offended. Still others seem eager to give offense, to try to give back what they think has been given to them. Sometimes it seems as if each person is convinced they understand everyone else, but no one else understands them, and each one is working very hard to convince the others of their lack of understanding.
Sometimes much of this is rolled into one person, and sometimes that person becomes your nemesis.
Usually, everyone doesn’t do all these things. And some don’t do any. But many do some, which often leads to an emotional disconnection and even physical avoidance of each other, sometimes for years. No one really knows how to restore the relationship. Everyone waits for someone else to take the initiative.
You reject many of these patterns and behaviors. You know better. But you don’t reject all of them. You don’t reject all of them because some of them seem normal to you. Those are the ones you keep and pass on. Just a few. Which is what everyone you have observed in your family has done, each one passing on just a few dysfunctions, which adds up to all of them showing up in your entire family.
You grow up thinking you’re stuck with how family relationships turn out. You assume relationships are not something you have much influence over. Instead, you react to disagreements and offenses without any guiding purpose, assuming that your reaction is normal. You just hope your reaction will help. Oh, you try to be a little more patient, try not to make the situation worse. But of course you know if you’re pushed too far, you’re allowed to blow up, because you’re only human. And you get to decide what “too far” is for you, and they get to decide what “too far” is for them. Everyone thinks their own “too far” is patient and generous and everyone else’s is short and selfish. No one knows any other way.
I learn all this just like we all do, simmering in my own family soup.
Then I get married and become my wife’s husband. And then I become an alcoholic just like my dad. Three quarts of beer every day for fourteen years becomes another normal. I bring all my dysfunction and ignorance into my marriage, like we all do. And Brenda brings her whole story in too. And together we team up to learn more habits of just reacting, arguing, and being offended and defensive. Next stop: 1985.
How Can My Family Be Happy?
Twenty years earlier when I was a teenager, I started noticing, It’s pretty tense around here. Nobody seems very happy. My younger brother and sister and I never have friends over. We never talk about why; we all just seem to understand it’s not something you do. It’s as if there’s something inside our house that no one is supposed to see. The house is undisciplined. The dog poops on newspapers on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. There’s no housekeeping. Dad sleeps in the basement family room. There’s tension in the air. When Dad is home—shhhh—you need to be careful, and if he’s not home, there’s the risk he could come home any minute and who knows what mood he’ll be in?
I realize something is missing in our home. It’s a lack of peace, satisfaction, happiness. For a long time I don’t notice, but as a fifteen-year-old, I am beginning to long for something I can’t describe. I’ve never seen healthy family relationships, yet I sense there must be more than just knee-jerk reacting to people, arguing, getting offended, yelling, and protecting yourself.
A question is born in me: How can my family be happy? It seems there should be answers somewhere, a way out, some hope, some tools or something. But I don’t know enough to even begin to learn. I know I need enlightenment. As I grow older, I feel lost in a jungle of cluelessness. How can I get out of this jungle? I don’t want to just leave it behind. I want to fix it.
We All Learn What’s Normal as We Go
Around this same time, I know Mom and Dad struggle with money. So I say, “I’ll do a budget for you!” I’m probably sixteen.
They give me their bills and income, we clear Dad’s pile of papers and old mail off the kitchen table, and I go to work. Looking back, I’m sure they were humoring me, but I’m also sure they’d never actually done this before. I add it all up and go, “Uh, you don’t have enough. You spend more than you make.”
And they go, “Yeah, we know,” and shrug.
And at that moment my eyes are opened to, Oh, that’s just the way it is. There’s nothing you can do about it.
It doesn’t occur to anyone to actually deal with the financial situation. And so I learn to think that it’s normal to believe you’re stuck with how things are. Just accept it. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and if your family is unhappy, you have to learn to live with it.
At sixteen, I’m at an age where it’s easy for dads and teenage sons to get into arguments, and we do. It’s all part of growing up and finding your way. I think one motivation for our arguments is we both long to connect, but neither of us knows how. We just yell and argue as a substitute. “I love you” is not part of our vocabulary, but one time in mid-argument, I violate our unspoken code and blurt out, “Dad, I love you! Don’t you know that?”
He can’t handle it. He doesn’t know how to deal with those words. I’m sure he had his own similar issues with his dad. He stammers, “What are you, gay or something?” Fifty years later, I still feel the clueless craziness of that answer.
He can’t handle the potential intimacy. It’s as if he’s rejecting an opportunity to be happy. I think, Saying I love you is a negative thing? To be avoided? Shouldn’t saying I love you make people happy? How can I make us happy?
I begin dating Brenda after high school while still living at home. I come home from dates and go downstairs to say hi to Dad. The family room is his bedroom, TV room, living room. He sleeps on the couch. The TV’s on as usual. I’m getting serious about Brenda. But neither Dad nor I know how to talk about marriage or relationships or becoming an adult. We have these awesome opportunities to connect one-on-one, but neither of us knows what to do. So we just watch Johnny Carson and Benny Hill and Perry Mason reruns until 1:00 a.m. and make small talk about sports. That’s it. No meaning or depth. I just want to connect, and I think he does too, but how? I assume this is just the way it is, so of course I accept it. But I don’t like it. How can a family be happy?
I turn twenty-one, and he takes me to the Cozy Lounge for my first official drink as an adult. Hmm, not bad. Later, I start buying beer on my own. Then more. I discover something good—beer relieves the frustration and that lost-in-the-jungle feeling. How can a family be happy? I don’t know, but maybe I’ll think about it later.
Brenda and I get married. I am going to do my absolute best, everything I know how, to make her happy. But I don’t know how. I never learned. I’ll just try to be what she wants me to be, right? Ha! And I never can. I feel I always disappoint her. What’s the secret? Add in that I become an alcoholic for fourteen years, drinking at least three quarts of beer every day. I learn more habits of just reacting and being defensive. And I lie to Brenda about how much I’m drinking.
We Humans Are Incredible Learning Machines
Without trying or realizing it, we all process our daily experiences and adapt our thinking and behavior to help us get through the day. I learn arguing is a great way to distract people from talking about things you don’t want to hear. I learn that when you’re wrongly accused, make sure you really give it back when that person does something wrong. How dare they accuse me! I learn to be outraged at unfairness against me, because in my mind my good far outweighs my bad, and so my good should be appreciated. I learn how to use being offended to manipulate people to back off. If someone can’t see the light of the truth, then manipulation is justified, wouldn’t you say?
I end up thinking there’s something wrong with me. I go to the local mental health clinic for enlightenment—we had a good one in our town. I explain to the counselor how I feel. Life isn’t working, and I don’t know how to be happy or have a happy family. What am I missing? I want him to understand and at least encourage me and give me hope. “Do you know what I mean?” I say.
He says, “No. I’ve never felt that way.”
Now, I realize that to do his job he doesn’t need to have ever felt like me, but still his response makes me feel hopeless and foolish. I feel like Charlie Brown in the Christmas special—except I’m saying, “Doesn’t anyone know what family happiness is all about?”
I know there must be answers. There must be tools to use or ways to think so things make sense. But I’m clueless.
So now it’s 1985.
I’ve been looking for this family happiness for almost twenty years. All I’m doing is learning what doesn’t work. Twenty years of what doesn’t work.
We’ve been married thirteen years, I’m thirty-five years old, and our oldest daughter is almost a teenager.
We take a family vacation to Texas to visit my brother. And Brenda makes a comment about something she thinks I’m doing and thinking. I’m not doing it, but I go into my full offended meltdown mode using everything I’ve learned.
“I can’t believe you’d think that! I’m so tired of you believing things about me that aren’t true! You always accuse me! Why do you always think the worst of me?”
It’s a huge, overblown argument from me. The kids hear it all. I act like I’ve been so wronged, so offended. I’m persecuted, a victim.
Soon I feel shame over how I acted. But I can’t take it back. Now I’m not mad; I’m just a horrible person. And part of the shame is that I know there is something I deserve blame for that she isn’t criticizing, because I’m drinking way more beer than she realizes. I stay out way too long on errands so I can drink in the car without her knowing how much. And when she calls me on it, I get offended about that too.
“Why did it take you so long?”
“That’s just how long it takes! This is normal!,” I respond.
Over time she starts thinking maybe her thinking is cuckoo because she seems to be thinking things that aren’t true. And I let her think it. Yeah, you’re ridiculous.
I’m lying to her, breaking our intimacy, letting her think maybe it’s her and that she’s the one who’s wrong—all so I can have my beer.
And then I get mad and offended at her for some little comment.
What a horrible thing to do.
I can’t make her happy. I don’t know how to have a happy family. And it’s not going to change.
Your Normal Can Change
Then three things happen:
These three things change everything, each one piling on the previous one. It takes time and is still ongoing. But once your direction changes, certain things become inevitable. Get the direction right and good things will come.
I don’t know how I stopped drinking. I didn’t go to AA or Celebrate Recovery, and there was no family-and-friends intervention. There is a long period of guilt and frustration and trying to quit on my own. However, unknown to me, Brenda and her friends are praying. One day Brenda confronts me (again), and I’m so tired of lying and hiding I blurt out, “Brenda, I’m an alcoholic.”
She doesn’t get mad or argue. I wish she would, so I could argue back. Instead, I’m stuck with the realization that I just broke her heart. I’m stuck with my bad, lying, drinking self. It’s too much. I know I won’t drink another beer for a while. A while turns into decades. I’m now convinced Jesus got me sober to get me home to him.
Without beer I can think straight, and after two years of straight thinking, my soul becomes convinced that I’m lost, spiritually dead, and separated from God. That’s bad news. One evening, alone in the basement of our rental house in Bettendorf, Iowa, I get down on my knees and give my life to Jesus. I say out loud, “Please take my life, I don’t want it, I don’t know what to do with it.” That’s good news.
Six months later, I meet the man who will mentor and shepherd me. He invites me to a class he’s teaching at church. He posts a sign on the wall in front of the room. “Think Biblically,” it says. Thinking biblically, he says, means learning to connect the dots. The dots are me, God, family, people, the world, and all our hopes and dreams. The more you see how the dots connect and fit together, the more life makes sense. The more you learn to cooperate with the connections, the easier things become. More good news.
The Bible becomes fascinating to me. The man, Harold, shows me how to apply the Bible to my life. I begin to unlearn some of those habits of defensiveness and emotional reacting. I begin to learn new perspectives and to understand how things work and why and how marriage and family relationships work and don’t work. I read and study on my own and pay attention to people’s words, behaviors, and attitudes. I learn that I really can do nothing apart from Jesus.
Not only do I learn the truth that’s in the Bible, but I also begin soaking up the demeanor and personality behind the words. I hear God’s tone of voice and feel his character of grace, humility, and patience. Slowly over time I sense that unique demeanor and personality of God working their way in and through me.
One Small Step, One Giant Leap
Brenda and I have been married close to twenty years by this time, and the kids are teenagers. I still get defensive, still get offended, still argue, still don’t know how to make my family happy—but life is better. I feel softer. My trust in Jesus is growing. I’m putting down roots.
One day I’m talking to Harold about finances and debt and money. I never wanted debt and would never touch our savings. I didn’t want to borrow money even to buy a house. We’re renting with no plans to buy, and guess what? Brenda isn’t happy. Harold makes it seem as if Brenda being happy is pretty important. He tells me there are worse things than mortgage debt and spending a little money on a house to make your wife happy. I trust Harold’s judgment and think maybe I’m wrong.
I think, So if I let Brenda buy some furniture from savings, I’m not violating the Bible?
Uh, no.
And it makes her so happy! And that makes me happy, because I made her happy! She didn’t even buy new furniture; she bought used! And she loved doing it. It was wonderful. She found beautiful, quality pieces that were so good we kept them for years.
I experience satisfaction in her satisfaction. This is a first. It’s a breakthrough. She feels cared about. She feels loved. She feels like her feelings matter. I never expected this to make her feel so good. I enjoy her enjoyment. The atmosphere in our home changes.
And then our refrigerator breaks, and there’s not enough money in the budget to buy a new one for two weeks. Harold says, “Well, I guess you don’t need a refrigerator.” Huh? How can we not need a fridge? Then I realize he’s reminding me that God says he’ll supply every need according to his riches in Christ. If he’s not supplying it, we must not need it. He knows, he’s in control, he supplies our needs, so trust him for a fridge.
Hmmm. I can understand that. It’s called faith. We never had that in the home I grew up in. Instead, we panicked and got mad and felt shame.
Brenda agrees. OK, we’ll use a cooler for a few weeks. Jesus is in control, so let’s act like it.
Then I take a job in Texas, far away from our youngest daughter, who is in college and just beginning a relationship with the guy she’ll marry. We’re moving away, and Brenda is going to miss all the mother-daughter talks after the dates and leading up to the engagement. We’re going to be over twelve hundred miles away. Brenda is going through her own issues of fear and insecurity, and she’s crying several times a day.
Harold says to me, “When you get to Austin, put away your lists and concentrate on her.”
I am to put her first and help her in her pain and insecurity. And I’m surprised to discover what a sweet, sweet assignment this is. I work early hours and get off at noon, so we can spend afternoons together exploring, shopping, and enjoying ourselves. It’s too good.
It makes her happy. I made her happy! This is so satisfying!
Between the furniture, the refrigerator, and putting away my agenda, it’s as if I’m discovering secret laws of the universe.
Jesus meets my needs! I don’t have to be stingy and protect myself. I can be generous.
I can put the other person first and experience more satisfaction than when I put myself first.
Generosity is actually not a sacrifice. It feels good! It really is more blessed to give than receive. When I give, I actually get. And what I get is so good it almost feels selfish to give.
Cue the angels singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Cue Dorothy, Toto, and friends dancing out of the woods and into the light. I’ve come out of the woods too. I’m enlightened. This is the beginning of a beautiful journey. I know the starting point for how to be happy. I know the starting point for how to make Brenda happy. I still have to go down the path—it’s sometimes hard and I make mistakes—but at least I know the path to follow.
These are the kinds of things that lead to a happy family.
It’s backward. You lose your life to save it. If you grasp for it and for your “rights,” you’ll lose it, but if you release it, you’ll keep it.
Refresh others and you’ll be refreshed.
Generosity and caring and trusting Jesus feel good. They make other people feel good. People who feel good get along.
Life is never going to be fair, so somehow I give up expecting fairness. I do my best to trust Jesus to take care of me.
When you’re caring and generous, people tend to respond likewise, but even if they don’t, giving still feels good.
Sacrifice for them to make them happy, and you’ll be happy.
Isn’t this a law of the universe? God loves peace and reconciliation, and peace and reconciliation are achieved by sacrifice. Isn’t this what Jesus did?
Of course, there’s no guarantee that cooperating with this law will bring about the changes that Brenda and I experienced. There are exceptions, and those exceptions have their own purposes and lessons that God intends for good. But in general, honoring how the Lord made things to work will somehow, some way, and at some time, be honored by him in our experience.
I continue to call Harold weekly with questions about marriage, family, kids, finances, work, and church. I can’t get enough of this new direction. I want more and more of what this enlightenment looks like in all the situations of every day. “Why does this happen? Now what do I do?” He rarely gives me straight answers but asks questions that help me think and see on my own.
I tell him, “I don’t want to have to call you every time I have a question.”
“You’ll get there,” he says.
I don’t get there, but I go further than I could ever imagine. Learning to think biblically takes time, but it’s slowly affecting the man I am becoming, the husband, dad, and family member.
Good-Bye, 1985
Our family becomes more and more unlike the family I grew up in and more unlike 1985.
The daughters get older and marry. Grandkids appear. Our entire family grows, evidenced by the ways we relate to each other, the grace and patience we extend to each other.
We assume the best, not the worst. We give each other the benefit of the doubt. We root for each other rather than manipulate to make ourselves feel better. We’re genuinely curious about each other, and we accept each other as we are. We want what’s best for each other without insisting on our own expectations. We have an unspoken agreement concerning decisions that says, “Relationships come first.” There are no big divisions, no elephants in the room pushing us away from each other.
We have disagreements, but they’re small elephants, and they don’t dominate our attitudes and family atmosphere. There’s no getting mad and stomping off and not talking for days or weeks or years. Grace and patience dominate. Trust in each other and in God dominates.
Unlike all those years ago, we now do things purposefully. We get together yearly for “Goals Weekend” to hear each other’s heartbeat. Brenda and I hold “Grandy Camp” every year to reconnect with the grandkids without the moms and dads around. We share with each other about major decisions, expecting encouraging straight talk in return. Our family has grown into a safe place to launch and a soft place to land.
We’re a long way from the old days of arguing, being defensive, taking offense, acting out of emotions, and repeating the same patterns over and over as if there is no other way.
People notice. They see Brenda and me and our relationship. They see our daughters and their marriages and families. They see us root for each other and get along. Our entire family legacy has changed. Sometimes they ask, “How do you do that?”
We do it by adopting simple attitudes, perspectives, expectations, and actions—the ones you see in the Bible, the ones Harold made real to me, the ones you know in your gut are true, right, and good. You can adopt them too. For a while, I called them the Lost Tools of Family Peace and Happiness, because for a long time they were lost to me. Today, however, they have become for me the Timeless Tools of Family Peace.
We also do it by moving away from all those old ways of thinking and living. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had been following a very common playbook, one that’s deeply ingrained in every human being. It’s as if someone has created another set of tools designed to create family disharmony. You’re given those tools at birth. I call them the Everyday Tactics of Family Disharmony, and I was a master at them.
You can replace performance and manipulation in your family with acceptance and grace. It’s not an impossible dream. It’s what God wants, and he’s calling us to cooperate and trust him while he achieves his goals and purposes in our lives and families. You can make a difference in your family. You can feel better about even your most challenging family relationships. You can replace the Everyday Tactics of Family Disharmony with the Timeless Tools of Family Peace. That’s what this book is about.
The way to begin is not by following a formula or checking off steps on a checklist. We begin by appreciating our family in its timelessness. If you were able to get every family member together and take a snapshot, you’d back way up to get everyone in. You’d think you have a picture of your family, but you don’t. The ones you see are not the whole story. You have to back up even farther—generations—to get everyone in. You need a movie, not a snapshot. Your whole story is sweeping, boundless, impressive, and moving. Our families flow. Like a river. And you’re in the middle of that river.