The Bill McIntosh show sat down with Blake and Heather Carter for a totally non political conversation about marriage and how they overcame a separation and marital difficulties after Heather had leukemia. They married during college at 21 and have been married for 30 years and have three children.
Statistics published in US News.com https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with-the-highest-divorce-rates concerning divorce rates found that of the top ten states for divorce, seven of the ten were red states. #1 Arkansas; #2 Oklahoma; (#3 Nevada-red?) #5 Kentucky; #6 Wyoming followed by Utah, Kansas & Alabama at #8,9 & 10 respectively.
Lest you’re wondering why Freedom First would feature an interview like this, we should remember the old saw that politics is downstream from culture and the culture depends on the family which is intrinsically tied to matrimony.
What came out of this discussion of just one marriage is useful in January-a month described as, par excellence, the #1 month for divorces. What the Carter’s found to be an enormous help was to focus on each one trying to change themselves instead of trying to change the other. Book author Heather Carter stated:
“What we found in our relationship, anyway, The best progress we’ve made in staying healthy and happy as a married couple, is when we went to work on ourselves…it’s kind of been overdone but the whole idea [from] Jerry McGuire that you complete me is bogus”
Blake Carter is a former full time church minister who added:
“…we both had some character defects that kind of never got dealt with, they’d bubble up from time to time…we both had baggage from our families of origin that we hadn’t always effectively dealt with”.
The man or the woman in the mirror is the first to blame for marital troubles. It’s too easy to place the burden of blame on your spouse. Blake found that the marriage dynamic is all about three things: “romance, finance and ego”. Ego certainly has to be the worst obstacle and it prevents couples from living the St Francis principle of prime concern for the other person:
O Divine master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand.
To be loved. as to love
For it’s in giving that we receive
And it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it’s in dying that we are born…
To eternal life.
Let’s resolve this month to work on our marriages!
Heather Carter is an author and blogger. Her latest book is Soul-Selfie: #NoFilter
For more information, visit https://www.heathercarterwrites.com/
