The first booklet LCG produced following the split in the Global Church of God was a booklet by Roderick C. Meredith entitled Build a Joyous Marriage. It has since been renamed God's Plan for Happy Marriage.
The He-Won't-Talk-to-Me Anecdote
In the booklet Meredith contains this anecdote.
Scores of women have told me, with tears in their eyes: "My husband just won't talk to me! He is distant. He won't share things with me anymore. Even though we share the same house and the same food, I feel so alone most of the time!" ...
As stated earlier, scores of women have cried out to me in despair: "My husband just won’t talk to me! That is why we are not close—he just doesn’t share anything with me. He just sits glumly at the table at mealtime or reading a paper or watching TV at night!"
The above example is typical of literally millions of marriages. Often, at least one of the partners thinks that they communicate. But the other partner, normally the woman, knows that they do not and feels alone and frustrated. She senses that she and her husband are simply coexisting in the same house. They do not necessarily fight and hurt each other physically or even verbally. But there is not the openness, the closeness, the total sharing of two lives, the love that there should be. (Roderick C. Meredith, God's Plan for Happy Marriage, 1999-2015, p. 1, 12.)Where did this anecdote come from? The following is from the March 1975 issue of Good News.
HER eyes flooded with tears, the woman before me began to shake and sob. Bending over with her face in her hands, she quietly moaned as she cried — finally catching herself, sitting upright and wiping her eyes. "I have always realized how empty my marriage was," she blurted out. "But hearing you describe in your talk today what marriage ought to be like makes me realize that I've just got to do better in my marriage!"
"What's wrong?" I inquired, asking the question in several different ways.
The Cause of Utter Despair
There were, of course, a number of things wrong. But obviously the deepest and most pathetic problem of all had nothing to do with sex, money or other widely publicized stumbling blocks to a happy marriage.
"My husband just won't talk to me," she said again and again. "I am lonely and frustrated. I don't even really know the man I married. I feel like I'm living with a stranger."
This case is typical of literally millions of marriages. Often, at least one of the partners thinks that they communicate. But the other partner, normally the woman, knows that they do not and feels alone and frustrated. She senses that she and her husband are simply coexisting in the same house. They do not necessarily fight and hurt each other physically or even verbally. "But there is not the openness, the closeness, the total sharing of two lives, the love that there should be. (Roderick C. Meredith, Neglected Keys to a Joyous Marriage, Good News, March 1975.)This article was later printed in the August 1979 issue of The Plain Truth.
The Ten Year Marriage Anecdote
Here is another passage from Meredith's booklet.
One authority on the subject quoted a woman discussing her ten-year marriage: "It's heartbreaking. Before I was married, I used to go out to restaurants and just by looking around the room I could tell who was married and who wasn't. Either the married couples were eating in dead silence, or the woman was gabbing away while the man ate and pretended she wasn't there. I swore that this would never happen to me—but it has." (Roderick C. Meredith, God's Plan for Happy Marriage, 1999-2015, p. 12.)Curiously the quote is not cited.
Here it is from the 1975 article. Here Meredith also neglects to note where this quote came from.
One authority on the subject quoted a woman discussing her ten-year-old marriage: "It's heartbreaking. Before I was married, I used to go out to restaurants and just by looking around the room I could tell who was married and who wasn't. Either the married couples were eating in dead silence, or the woman was gabbling away while the man ate and pretended she wasn't there. I swore that this would never happen to me — but it has." (Roderick C. Meredith, Neglected Keys to a Joyous Marriage, Good News, March 1975, p. 7.)But it turns out this passage dates back even earlier. It is based on an earlier article by Richard F. Plache in an article for the October 1967 issue of Good News.
A mother of two, for example, commenting on her ten-year-old marriage, said, "It's heartbreaking. Before I was married, I used to go out on dates to restaurants, and just by looking around the room I could tell who was married and who wasn't. Either the married couples were eating in dead silence, or the woman was gabbing away while the man ate and pretended she wasn't there. I swore that this would never happen to me — but it has." (Richard F. Plache, How to Build Your Marriage, Good News, October 1967, p. 15.)Who knew that passage dates back to 1967 and that it was originally used Plache's article? Plache also neglects to note where this quote came from. But at least this passage has an amusing history.
Other parts of Meredith's booklet can be traced back to his article "What All Husbands Need to Know!" in the June 1966 issue of The Plain Truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment