2 200 word Replies Apa references also one must be biblical * I will post the other reply tomorrow
but i need this reply done by 11:59 pm 8/30/20 do not Bib if you cannot do the 1st reply requested time
Jessica
Dr. Dobson text, Love Must be Tough (2007), narrates letters of people searching for answers and help as they navigate their challenging relationship situations. He describes the desperation of a spouse clinging onto a marriage that is vanishing before them, and the damage that desperation can lead to. My parents divorced when I was eleven, which according to Hart (1997), is an age I should have experienced anger as the dominant emotion. While this is true, at this time I was relocated and moved with my aunt and uncle two states away. What I didn’t realize then is how the next few years I would be in deep grief; I moved away from my two older siblings, lost all contact with my biological mother, and the relationship with my father deteriorated to an extent that it is still almost non-existent. My parents wed during my mother’s 8 month of pregnancy with my older sister, my brother followed 14 months later, and myself 18 months. What is evident to me know is my biological mothers poor mental state, often swinging between deep depression and denial of her current life. My father was an ok father, but a very poor husband and on the night he left to file for divorce I don’t think him or my mother had second thoughts. I later found out that my mother was most likely involved in an affair and had barricaded my father in his office with a gun. Luckily, this all happened while my siblings and I were visiting the relatives I would soon move in with. By the time my father re-married (maybe two years later), he married a very toxic women and I believe that at the end of their marriage he was determined to cling to their relationship desperately. In the final year of their marriage they would travel across the country attending marriage seminars, splurge on last ditch vacations and buy countless self-help books (not sure if they read any). Unfortunately (from the outside looking in), it appeared that he carried all the emotional responsibility for his wife’s unhappiness and his failure to bring her back to the “warmth of the hearth”, was evident by their eventual divorce. Dr. Dobson (2007) describes why these last ditch panic reactions are rarely successful although completely understandable, even stating that they are counterproductive, hurting the relationship further. When one spouse is clinging on, the other feels trapped by feelings of grief, anger, blame, appeasement and servility (p. 43). Dr. Dobson further elaborates this polar response with diagrams on page 44 of his text, noting how although it seems contrary giving space for the otherwise suffocating partner shows not only self-respect, but often conveys freedom that will pull the suffocating spouse back into the relationship (Dobson, 2007).
References
Dobson, J. Love must be tough: New hope for marriages in crisis (2007).
Hart, A. Helping children survive divorce: What to expect; how to help (1997).