And after Tom expressed himself, Adam asked Jane, “What did Tom just say?” She replied, “He said, ‘I’m afraid of rejection. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid no one cares at all.’ ” Even though she’d known him for fifteen years, Jane had no idea that Tom had been abandoned by his father when he was small and that he was determined not to do that to Jared. She didn’t realize how alienated he felt from her family after the divorce. For Tom it had been like being abandoned all over again. She began to realize how lonely Tom had been during the past five years. She began to understand how his declaration of bankruptcy a few years earlier made it impossible for him to get a credit card, so that when he came to visit Jared, he had no car. He was alone in a hotel room, with no friends and no transportation. And, she realized, we had just dropped Jared off.
Once Jane and Tom felt really understood and got down to the issues, they discovered that there was not a single thing on either of their lists that the other did not also want. They talked for three and a half hours, and the issue of visitation never even came up. Independently, they both told me later, “You know, this isn’t about Jared. It’s about trust between the two of us. Once we have this solved, the problem with Jared is a no-brainer.”
After this meeting with Adam, the atmosphere was much more relaxed and congenial. We all went to a restaurant together, and Jane said to Tom, “You know, it’s kind of tough with the kids here to talk about things, but when I come down next month for visitation, let’s take some time to talk.”
I thought, This is Jane talking? I had never heard her say anything like this before.
When we dropped Tom off at his hotel with Jared, Jane said, “What time are we picking Jared up tomorrow?”
He said, “Well, my shuttle to the airport leaves at 4:00 P.M.”
“Let us take you to the airport,” she said.
“That would be great, if you want to.”
“No problem,” she replied.
Again I was thinking, Wow! This is a major turnaround!
Two weeks later, Jane went down for visitation. One of her bones of contention had been that he never acknowledged what he had done to her. But when they had their talk, for the first time Tom apologized to her in great detail for everything. “I’m sorry for pulling your hair. I’m sorry for taking drugs. I’m sorry for walking out on you.” And this led her to say, “Well, I’m sorry, too.”
Following his visit with us, Tom began saying “thank you.” Tom had never said “thank you” for much of anything before. His conversations were now filled with thank-yous. And the week after his visit here, Jane received this brief letter from him:
Dear Jane,
I find it necessary to put in written word my thanks to you. We have shared so many ill feelings toward each other in the past, but the initial steps we took together last Saturday toward their resolution should be documented. And so . . . thank you.
Thank you for agreeing to meet with Adam. Thank you for sharing the things you shared. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for the love from which we created our boy. Thank you for being his mother.
I mean it as sincerely as can be,
Tom
At the same time he sent me a letter.
Dear Mike,
I wanted to take a formal moment to thank you for putting Jane and me together with Adam. It has done more for my outlook toward my relationship with Jared and Jane than I can find the words for. . . .
Your desire to do what’s right both now and in past years is quite commendable. Without your good offices, there is no telling how ugly things would have gotten between Jane and me. . . .
My deepest appreciation,
Tom
When we received these letters, we were stunned. And in the phone conversations that followed, Jane said, “We talked almost like giddy school kids.” The understanding, the letting go, the forgiving, was so unleashing.
So many good things are happening now. Jane even went so far as to say to me, “Maybe when Tom comes up here, we could let him use one of our cars.” I had thought about that many times, but I didn’t dare mention it for fear of being accused of taking his side. I thought her attitude would be, “How dare you! You’re trying to accommodate the enemy.” But now she is recommending it. She even said, “What would you think about letting Tom stay in our spare room to help with his costs?” And I thought, Is this really Jane? It was a 180-degree turnaround.
I’m sure there will be challenges ahead, but I believe the groundwork has been laid. The tools for appropriate communication are there. There’s almost a feeling of deep respect now for one another and a genuine concern that I see in Jane and Tom for each other and for our kids.
It’s been a real challenge at times, but through it all it’s been crystal clear to me that anything less than this would make life worse for everyone.
Notice how Tom and Jane were able to rise above the hate, the blaming and accusing. They were able to diffuse the conflict and act based on principles instead of reacting to each other. How did they do that?
In seeking to understand each other, they both got psychological air. It freed them to stop fighting each other and to connect with their own inner gifts, particularly conscience and awareness. They became open, vulnerable. They were each able to acknowledge their part in the situation, to apologize, to forgive. And this healing, this cleansing, opened the door to more authentic relationships, to creating a synergy in which they were able to establish a better situation for their child, for themselves, and for everyone involved.
As you can see in this story—and in every other story in this chapter—not seeking to understand leads to judgment (usually misjudgment), rejection, and manipulation. Seeking to understand leads to understanding, acceptance, and participation. Obviously, only one of these paths is built on the principles that create quality family life.
Overcoming Anger and Offense
Probably more than any other single factor, what gets families off track and gets in the way of synergy is negative emotions, including anger and taking offense. Temper gets us into problems, and pride keeps us there. As C. S. Lewis said, “Pride is competitive in nature. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. . . . It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.”3 One of the most common and debilitating forms of pride is the need to be “right,” to have it your way.
Again, remember: Even if anger surfaces only one-tenth of 1 percent of the time, that will affect the quality of all the rest of the time because people are never sure when that raw nerve might be touched again.
I know of one father who was pleasant and agreeable most of the time, but on occasion his vicious temper was aroused. And this affected the quality of all the rest of the time because family members had to brace themselves for the possibility that it might happen again. They would avoid social situations for fear of embarrassment. They would walk around minefields throughout the day to avoid stepping on a raw nerve. They never became authentic or real or opened up. They never dared to give him feedback for fear that it would stir up the anger more than ever. And without feedback, this man lost all contact with what was really happening in his family.
When someone in the family becomes angry and loses control, the effects are so wounding, so intimidating, so threatening, so overpowering that others lose their bearings. They tend to either fight back, which only exacerbates the problem, or capitulate and give in to this win-lose spirit. And then even compromise is not likely. The more likely scenario is that people will separate and go their own ways, refusing to communicate at all about anything meaningful. They try to live with the satisfactions of independence, since interdependence seems too hard, too far off, and too unrealistic. And no one has the mind-set or the skill-set to go for it.
This is why it is so important when this kind of culture has developed for people to go deep within themselves. Then they can do the necessary work within to acknowledge their negative tendencies, to overcome them, to apologize to others, and to process their experiences so that gradually those labels are unfrozen and people can come to trust the basic structure, the basic relationship, again.