By Mansfield Frazier
If only Rodney Jenkins’ powerful and easy to read little book on smoothing out the rough edges that virtually all relationships are subject to having — at least initially — had been around when I first got hitched, maybe my marriage might have turned out differently. Instead, the only so-called “counseling” my then-wife Christine and I got was from one of her sisters, who was about a decade older.
We were supposed to listen to Willa for a couple of reasons: First, she, at this point in her life was calling herself an “evangelist” and my wife’s family was very religious; and secondly (and more importantly), we were supposed to listen to her because she had tons of experience with relationships, having been legally married a total of seven times.
When I questioned the validity of her wisdom and advice — since her techniques had obviously failed her so many times before — my wife, as well as her other family members, considered me a heretic. Yet, I still maintained that repeatedly being carted off the matrimonial battlefield on one’s shield does not an expert make.
However, Jenkins’ book is packed with commonsense advice from a very successful husband and father, and he states that the key to having a great relationship lies in establishing good communications — teaching couples how to speak openly and honestly to each other without rancor, bitterness, and the need to “win” the conversation … to simply score points. He wisely points out that words matter, and invectives hurled at one’s mate during a heated discussion not only have a corrosive effect on the relationship, but often come back to destructively haunt.
A Cleveland native, Jenkins is currently the vice-president of communications at a small Pennsylvania university and is preparing to defend his dissertation for his PhD. So if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s to clearly communicate.
The title of the book Don’t Waste Your Mad refers to the petty grievances that are bound to spring up between couples, but are not really worth getting mad over. But if they are not talked out or addressed in some other way, they fester and grow, turning molehills of misunderstandings into mountains of miscommunications.
By way of example: I hate to run out of clean underwear … absolutely hate it, and was silently fuming at my wife about it. Why should I have to tell her to wash my drawers, I reasoned. But then it hit me, for less than $25 I could solve the problem simply by buying a couple of packs of new underwear.
And, while making the purchase it further hit me that indeed I was the cause of the problem because I had “retired” some of my older boxer shorts (it really was about time, since some of them date back to the last time the Indians were in the World Series) and had not replaced them … which is why I was running out. Simple things.
In this concise book (which can easily be read in one sitting) Jenkins “relies on real-life scenarios as well as his own professional, personal, and faith-based experiences to offer couples clear ground rules for communication, including scheduling daily conversations, including ‘I’ messages, and engaging in active listening techniques that help break down barriers and create intimacy.”
The author wisely points out the value of a stable home life by highlighting the fact that absent having a peaceful and productive relationship things can — and often do — go wrong in other aspects of life, such as work, community involvement and anything else done outside the home. While it may be possible to have a chaotic home life and still be successful otherwise, the chances are slim indeed.
When you consider the cost of this book versus the expense of a divorce, the $12.95 price tag is a real bargain … and it just may save your marriage.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.