By Todd McFliker
In the 1976 blockbuster Network, evening news anchor Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, urges viewers to open their windows, stick their heads out, and scream, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
The film struck a chord with a worldwide audience during a period of economic and social uncertainty, winning four Academy Awards and continued recognition decades later.
Recent news stories left me thinking that for many, it may be time to open our windows for another scream. When it comes to preserving marriages and sanity alike, finding positive ways to release feelings of anger, fear, frustration, and sadness are key.
The challenge of learning, working, and loving with a gut full of powerful emotions is one with which many can identify. “Emotions themselves are not the problem,” says Seth Eisenberg, President of the nonprofit PAIRS Foundation, an industry leader in relationship and marriage education. “We feel what we feel. The real question is what we tell ourselves about our feelings and what we do with them.”
Dr. Doyle Hamilton, a therapist in Atlanta, helps prepare couples for marriage. In a recent CNN feature, Hamilton said today’s newlyweds have a 50-50 chance of staying married. The odds are significantly worse, he cautions, for those heading down the aisle a second time.
Like Eisenberg, Hamilton says couples who learn to fight fair and handle conflicts constructively have a much better chance of keeping the flames alive. Both agree that sweeping differences under the rug, acting one way when you feel very differently inside, and other creative ways of avoiding conflict can be the kiss of death for love and intimacy.
I’ve had my own issues with a temper that sometimes boils over into angry expressions directed at those to whom I closest. A recent newlywed, I thought stuffing my feelings inside would help preserve and protect my marriage. Hamilton, Eisenberg and other experts helped me realize I had it almost exactly wrong.
Ask nearly anyone with the perspective of having lived a life of joy and fulfillment and you’ll almost surely hear the same reaction. Marriage, children, and individuals’ closest relationships were the greatest source of life’s most cherished moments and memories. When we separate what’s most meaningful in life from the events that are fleeting at best, with few exceptions, they are connected to shared experiences with the people we love.
It’s no surprise that sustaining love, intimacy, marriages and families takes work. Who could expect that the very foundation of our lives is created without periods of turmoil, challenge, and most important, opportunities to learn, grow, and choose the legacy and meaning of the years we’re given?
