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EDITORIAL: Father's Day, Part One |
Bill Hudson | 6/17/09
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This is going to be an unusual Father’s Day for me. Not that I have anything special planned; in fact, I’m not really the type of person who normally plans special things on holidays, and I don’t recall ever planning anything special for Father’s Day in the thirty-two years I’ve been a Father.
The unusual part, this year, is that my relationship with the Mother of my three kids is in the midst of divorce proceedings, and I have moved out of our family home, and moved in with my friend Glenn Walsh — a wonderful person, but very different from my wife, Clarissa.
I probably could mention, too, that Clarissa and I now share two grandchildren. Although it's now exactly clear what the word “share” means in the current context.
 So I’ve been thinking a lot about Father’s Day this year. I always thought of the term “Father” as referring to a relationship between a man and his children — his biological children, or his step-children, or his adopted children — but this year I’ve realized that the term “Father” also implies a relationship of some type with a corresponding woman known as “Mother.”
Contemplating Father’s Day this year, without the “Mother” in the picture, has me a bit disoriented. So I decided to do what I normally do when I feel disoriented: write an Editorial for the Daily Post.
About a week ago, I found a message on my phone from my daughter Lily, a lovely person and the mother of my eldest grandchild, Elizabeth, age 18 months. Lily sounded very emotional in the message, and upon returning the phone call, I learned that Lily’s boyfriend Ishmael — the father of Elizabeth — had moved out of the apartment and was living on his own, for a “trial separation.”
My little granddaughter Elizabeth is named after Ishmael’s mother, who had passed away many years ago. Ishmael is a great guy — in fact, he reminds me of myself in many ways, so perhaps it’s inevitable that I think he’s a great guy. I sense that — like myself at his age — Ishmael wants to be a good and caring father to his child. But that’s more difficult to do when you are living separately from your daughter.
It’s the relationship with the Mother — not with the Child — that has made Father’s Day 2009 so challenging for Ishmael.
As Lily and I spoke over the phone, I wondered: Has my own decision, to seek a divorce after thirty-two years of marriage, caused my children to re-examine their own marriage relationships? What kind of Father am I, in the eyes of the world? In my own eyes?
Lily didn’t say much about the exact nature of her disagreements with Ishmael, but she did talk briefly about a fascinating new bestselling book she was reading, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Christian psychologist Dr. Gary Chapman.
“There are five basic ways that couples express their love to one another,” Lily told me. “I found out that I speak the ‘Acts of Service’ Language — I’m always expressing my love by doing things for Ishmael, and I expect to have him show his love for me in the same way.
"But he’s been speaking the ‘Words of Affirmation’ Language — he’s always telling me, in words, that he cares about me.
“But I keep expecting him to show me instead of telling me ... because that's my language ...
“We’re both expressing our love, but we’re just not communicating — it’s like we’re speaking two different languages. I keep doing acts of service and he keeps giving words of affirmation, but we’re both left feeling unsatisfied.”
The other three Love Languages, according to Chapman, are Physical Touch, Quality Time, and Receiving of Gifts.
According to his website, Dr. Chapman is “the leading author in biblical marriage counseling ... With over thirty years of experience in marriage counseling, Dr. Gary Chapman has worked closely with thousands of couples struggling with countless issues. But at the heart of every marriage he has encountered — including his own — rests the same core longing: all people need to feel loved.”
The website doesn’t mention it specifically, but obviously, if all people “need to feel loved”, that “need” might involve a wide range of relationships. Do I need — as a Father, for example — to feel loved by my children? Do I need to feel loved by my own Father? How about — by my friends? By the clerk at City Market?
Does my relationship with my spouse offer me the only significant chance to fulfill my “need” for love?
“My conclusion after thirty years of marriage counseling,” Chaman writes, “is that there are basically five emotional love languages — five ways that people speak and understand emotional love ... The important thing is to speak the love language of your spouse.
“Communicating love isn’t as easy as feeling ‘in love,’ because it’s quite a different thing. Falling in love is not an act of the will or a conscious choice. It’s effortless. One who is ‘in love’ is not genuinely interested in fostering the personal growth of the other person. If the euphoric pleasure of being ‘in love’ never ended, we might never experience true love and meaningful communication.”
Chapman then clarifies what he means by real ‘love” — which, as it turns out, he sees as something of a chore:
“Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself. Most of us do many things each day that do not come ‘naturally’ for us. For some of us, that is getting out of bed in the morning. We go against our feelings and get out of bed because we believe there is something worthwhile to do that day. And normally, before the day is over, we feel good about having gotten up. Our actions preceded our emotions.
“The same is true with love. We discover the primary love language of our spouse, and we choose to speak it whether or not it is natural for us. You might not love the language itself, but speaking it will clearly communicate love to your spouse. Love is a choice. And either partner can start the process today.”
To judge by the marketing pitch on the Five Love Languages website, the first step in learning to communicate ‘love’ to your partner appears to be the purchase one of Dr. Chapman’s several books on the subject.
But Chapman himself seems to be suggesting a somewhat different first step:
“Having confessed your failures and accepted God’s forgiveness, ask your partner to forgive you. Then ask God to let you be His agent for loving your partner. Ask Him to fill you with His Spirit and His love.”
Thus prepared, we can then get down to the real work of loving someone:
“Forget about your feelings. You do not have to feel anything to love your spouse. Feelings may change because of your actions, but feelings should not dictate your actions. Choose to love your mate, no matter how you feel.”
On the one hand, Chapman tells me all people need to “feel loved”. But then he tells me that it doesn’t really matter how I “feel” — that I can make my spouse “feel loved” even if I “feel” nothing of the sort.
Is that true? Can I make people “feel loved” even if I feel no love toward them? Are my wife and children really that easy to beguile?
This is the type of shallow nonsense that nowadays passes for marriage counseling and relationship theory. But I want a deeper understanding. What does it really mean to be a Father, here in Colorado in 2009? Is Fatherhood merely a biological term — or does it refer to a complex set of emotional relationships with my spouse, my children, my parents — and with myself?
Does “love” have anything to do with Father’s Day, 2009?
Read Part Two... |
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