Parenting as a Christian Single Dad

Having failed at my first marriage it is important to me to not repeat the same mistakes. If you are married and having a tough go, Dr Hornell Hart has a few recommendations to help make a marital adjustment.

Abandon ALL Feelings of Resentment! Emotional hostility toward one’s mate acts as an effective barrier against finding a creative solution and putting it into effect. What you hate you cannot understand so surrender all your feelings of contempt, jealousies, and grudges. Emotions of hate distort one’s vision and force one toward actions and words that are not beneficial. When one person feels resentment towards another, the other is likely to feel resentment in return. This intensifies the situation making things even worse. SOMEONE HAS TO BREAK THE CYCLE! Don’t sit back waiting for your partner to take the first step, just do it, forgive and forget. Let good will take the place of antagonism in your own consciousness, even though your mate continues to carry on the old grudge for a bit longer.

Eliminate Needless Irritants. Take time to make a thorough and careful examination of the things that hurt, distress, or upset your mate.

Here is a list of many common irritants to focus working on:

• Stop criticizing your mate, publically and privately.



• Avoid situations or actions that make your mate feel inferior. This goes the same for situations in which you demonstrate your own superiority over theirs.



• Figure out which topics of discussion are annoying to one another and eliminate them. For example; stop bringing up the subject of his relatives you don’t like, that time he went bankrupt, the occasion he made a foolish decision, or that political or religious question on which you can’t agree on.



• Replace household items that are causing unnecessary pain such at a broken washing machine, leaky faucet, etc.



• Try to avoid making plans or being around people that bore your mate. Don’t take your wife to a prize fight if she hates it and don’t take your husband to the opera if they hate that.



• Create the habit of keeping all appointments with your mate on time. But (unjust as this may seem) don’t demand that your mate does the same.



• Never read at the dinner table unless your mate also has something interesting to read and agrees to the arrangement.



• Bring your mate into contact with your relatives just enough so that their relationships will flourish – basically don’t over do it.



• Do NOT try that dangerous experiment of flirting with someone else in order to keep your mate interested in you.



• Never repel your mate’s sexual advances in a way which will seem unloving, disapproving, or aggravated. Make it clear that you are only postponing it until another time.



• Watch to see if you are needlessly violating your mate’s ideals of courtesy, generosity, honor, and decency.



• Take time to examine and discover any other way in which you may be irritating or hurting your mate, and stop doing it.

Stay tuned for part 2...