The family that Internets together stays together?

I am sure that you have heard of Fr. Patrick Peyton’s famous quotation “The family that prays together stays together.” If we are to believe however a BBC news story entitled “Hi-tech brings families together” based on a Pew Internet report, it is now the Internet and mobile phones that are keeping families together. Consider some of the findings of the report:

[1] The Internet was often a social activity within families, with 51% of parents saying they browsed the web with their children.

[2] Using the Internet was often a social activity within families, with 51% of parents saying they browsed the web with their children.

[3] “Nuclear” families were more likely to have more hi-tech gadgetry in their home than almost any other group in the study. Multiple mobile phones were found in 89% of nuclear families and 66% had a high-speed net connection. The US national average for broadband is 52%. It also found that 58% of this type of family was likely to have more than two computers in the home.

[4] Many people use their mobile phone to keep in touch and maintain social ties with parents, siblings and children. Seventy percent of couples who both own a mobile use it every day to chat or say hello. In addition, it found, 42% of parents contact their children via their mobile every day.

[5] Fifty three percent of those questioned said that new technologies had increased the quality of their contact with distant family members, while 47% said it improved interaction with those they live with.

Any increase in time spent among family members is good news indeed. However, all is not well on this issue of the Internet and family ties.

Online murder, she wrote

Consider for example the Associated Press report by Mari Yamaguchi entitled “Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby.. The report stated that a 43-year old Japanese woman is currently facing a possible five year prison term or a fine of five thousand dollars for carrying out a virtual murder of her online husband in a popular interactive game. (Those of you who know about or are involved in “Half-Life” are familiar with the online world of relationships, avatars, social interactions and even real life business dealings.)

Well, according to the AP report, the woman’s avatar was divorced by her online digital husband. That sudden divorce made her so angry that she committed virtual murder by killing off her man’s online persona. She was not arrested for the virtual murder but for hacking into the man's account.

Chat rooms and online affairs: from virtual to real

I had previously written about the dangers to children brought by Internet pornography and to marriages by online affairs in chat rooms. Perhaps it’s a good idea for you to re-read that post about the dangers to children brought by the Internet. As to online affairs in chat rooms, here’s the specific portion of that post:

Probe Ministries, in an article by Kerby Anderson, points out a danger that lonely and bored housewives are falling into, that is, online affairs or the allure of cyber-relationships. Anderson, citing the work of Peggy Vaughn, states:

Peggy Vaughn is the author of “The Monogamy Myth” and also serves as an expert for America Online on problems caused by infidelity. She predicts that one “role of the Internet in the future will be as a source of affairs.” She is writing a second book on the subject of adultery and says she could base half of it just on the letters she receives from people who started an affair online.

An online affair (or cyberaffair) is an intimate or sexually explicit communication between a married person and someone other than their spouse that takes place on the Internet. Usually this communication takes place through an online service such as America Online or CompuServe. Participants usually visit a chat room to begin a group conversation and then often move into a one-to-one mode of communication. Chat room categories range from “single and liking it” to “married and flirting” to “naked on the keyboard.”

Women in a chat room are often surprised at what develops in a fairly short period of time. At first the conversation is stimulating, though flirtatious. Quickly, however, women are often confronted with increasingly sexual questions and comments. Even if the comments don’t turn personal, women find themselves quickly sharing intimate information about themselves and their relationships that they would never share with someone in person. Peggy Vaughn says, “Stay-at-home moms in chat rooms are sharing all this personal stuff they are hiding from their partners.” She finds that the intensity of women’s online relationships can “quickly escalate into thinking they have found a soulmate.” [emphasis by boldfacing supplied - GTG]

Online affairs differ from physical world affairs in some ways, but are similar in others. Cyberaffairs are based upon written communication where a person may feel more free to express herself anonymously than in person. Frequently the communication becomes sexually graphic and kinky in ways that probably would not occur if a real person were hearing these comments and could act on them. Participants in an online affair will often tell their life stories and their innermost secrets. They will also create a new persona, become sexually adventurous, and pretend to be different than they really are. [emphasis by boldfacing supplied - GTG]

In that AP news report I mentioned above, Japanese police officers who arrested the woman said that she did not plot to carry out her revenge in the real world. Okay but I do question the state of mind of a person whose emotions can get so carried away by an imaginary, online world.

As to chat rooms and cyber-affairs, I personally know of one marriage that was shattered because the wife became involved in a real-life adulterous relationship with a man she had been chatting with in a singles chat room.

Transformers: Why do persistent suitors become passive husbands?

I have a question for the married women among you.

Do you still remember your days of courtship when you were showered with flowers, letters, chocolates, gifts, dates, time, affection, sharing of plans and dreams, romantic conversations, etc? But where, oh, where are all these things now? Why is your persistent suitor (who fetched you at home at 5 in the morning, brought you out on dates after school or work, and then brought you back home late at night, never wanting to be apart even for a second) NOW a sullen, uncommunicative robot glued to the news or sports programs on television?

Okay, okay, I got carried away, that's three questions in all.

The joke is, Adam was the very first passive husband, who by his disinterest and passivity, allowed Eve to fall into sin. We could all still be in Eden if Adam had only paid a little bit of attention to what was happening to Eve! Too many jokes have indeed been told about passive husbands, and men themselves, in their candid moments, admit that they have oftentimes abdicated the leadership role in the family. As Ptr. Chuck Swindoll once said in a radio message, “Most families today are run by petticoat governments.”

(Do women still wear petticoats at this point in time? Maybe Ptr. Chuck needs to update his quotation.)

Passive men … Some twenty years ago, a powerful earthquake devastated Kobe, Japan. A news story (from Time or Newsweek, I can’t recall now) reported that while the men just stood around, doing nothing except talking with other men, it was the women who set about clearing the debris, putting back together what remained of their houses into order, etc. (Maybe it's a cultural thing with the Japanese about this kind of work being beneath men.)

I have personally dealt with couples involved in legal and financial problems, and it’s amazing that it is often the women who take the active steps in dealing with their problems. One woman called me up and as I began to ask her questions on what the problem was all about, she said almost apologetically, “Sir, you better talk to my husband. He knows more about the problem than I do.” I wanted to ask her, “Then why didn’t your husband call me up himself, instead of asking you to call me up?”


Reasons for passivity among husbands

I’ve done some reading from pastors, psychologists and marriage counselors, and I have discovered several reasons why persistent suitors become passive husbands. By passivity among husbands, I mean, being uninvolved with the children or family life, being more involved in work or hobbies, and being uncommunicative and unresponsive emotionally with their wives. In fairness to men (that includes me!), some of these authors place the blame for men’s passivity on women themselves.

Men get burned by their wives’ unrealistic expectations

Chip Ingram (pastor, marriage counselor and president of Walk Through the Bible ministries) said something about passive men during his seminar held at Greenhills Christian Fellowship over a month ago. I’m amplifying what he said and I hope that I am not mis-stating him. Well, Ingram said that oftentimes, women have high, unrealistic expectations of their husbands and of their marriage. At first, a husband tries to meet these expectations but as he struggles to do so, all he gets from his wife are criticisms and nagging, without even a word or two of encouragement for some small steps of progress.

As he fails to meet his wife’s expectations, he begins to get discouraged, thinks that he's being judged unfairly, and feels that he will never measure up to his wife’s expectations. Result? He loses the interest or the motivation to change and thus becomes, what’s the word again? Ah yes, he becomes passive.

Most men have low expectations of their marriage

Dr. James Dobson, world-wide known authority on marriage, relationships and parenting, in his book “What wives wish their husbands knew about women”, says that loneliness, isolation, boredom and absence of romantic love in marriage are at the top of the list of sources of depression for women. In pages 64 and 65 of his book, Dobson bluntly states that most men are content with a business like partnership in their marriage, with sexual relations thrown in as part of the package. He says further that a husband is generally content if his wife is amiable and looks well after the home and the children. But Dobson clarifies that a woman is different, yearning to be loved and cherished as the most important person in her husband’s life.

Most men marry for safety; hesitant knights in shining armor

John Eldredge, in his book “Wild at Heart: Discovering The Secret of a Man’s Soul” says in more poetic terms what Dobson said so bluntly about men. In the chapter titled “A Beauty to Rescue,” Eldredge states that “the theme of a strong man coming to rescue a beautiful woman is universal to human nature.” He cites the examples of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Helen of Troy, Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Arthur and Guinevere, to prove that this theme is “written into our hearts as one of the core desires of men and women.” (I might add to his list of knights and maidens, Dingdong and Karylle … Or is it Dingdong and Marianne now? I’m getting confused.)

Anyway, Eldredge says of his own marriage that after ten years, he didn’t feel any love at all for his wife, and that divorce seemed to be the only viable option for them. Eldredge asks, “Where did all that passion go?” In page 184, he admits that like most men, he married for safety, marrying a woman whom he thought would never challenge him as a man. He says that like the knight in shining armor, he wanted to woo and win the beautiful maiden in the castle, but that he thought he could do it without bleeding or fighting for her. He concludes, “The number one problem between men and their women is that we men, when asked to truly fight for her … hesitate. We are still seeking to save ourselves; we have forgotten the deep pleasure of spilling our life for another.”

Gear shifting and changing tack

Bill and Lynne Hybels, in their book “Fit To Be Tied” (probably the best book on marriage and relationships I have ever read) give the most practical reason why a man becomes passive in his relationship with his wife. They say in pages 146 and 147 that men, by nature, are task- or goal-oriented, capable of focusing only on one thing at any given time. A man persistently showers his prospective wife with attention, affection and attention until the woman says "yes" to marriage. Right after the marriage however, the man shifts gears (or changes tack, in sailing terms) from getting the woman to say “yes” to working hard at his work or career. He does this gear shifting in good faith, thinking that he should now focus in providing for his family and getting ahead in his work or career.

For the man, this gear shifting is a function of his being task- or goal-oriented, of focusing on one thing at a time, and is a natural progression in his life. But for the woman he pursued so persistently and so passionately, the shift in his focus and attention (from her as a woman to his work or career), is an earth-shaking, Magnitude 8 betrayal. She thinks and feels that she has been deceived.

How a woman measures the quality of her marriage

Secular psychologist John Gray in his book “Mars and Venus: Together Forever” says that today’s men do not realize that today’s women do not want financial security only but crave for emotional support from their husbands. Perhaps Jenet Jacob, a social science fellow of The Heritage Foundation, has stated it more cogently than the male authors I have quoted. She says, “Men’s ability to emotionally connect is the most important factor when women evaluate the quality of their marriages.”


Note: Read also “Relating to the Emotionally Detached Man” by Dr. David Hawkins, Director, Marriage Recovery Center