Dennis Rainey - Staying Close: Stopping the Natural Drift Toward Isolation in Marriage

STAYING
CLOSE

OTHER BOOKS AND RESOURCES BY DENNIS RAINEY

Ministering to Twenty-First Century Families
One Home at a Time
with Barbara Rainey
Growing a Spiritually Strong Family
Moments Together for Couples
The New Building Your Mates Self-Esteem
Parenting Todays Adolescent
Passport to Purity
Simply Romantic Nights
So Youre About to Be a Teenager
(with their children, Samuel and Rebecca)
Starting Your Marriage Right
Two Hearts Are Better Than One

STAYING
CLOSE

STOPPING the NATURAL DRIFT
TOWARD ISOLATION IN MARRIAGE

Dennis & Barbara Rainey

Editors Note: One technical point to make reading this book less cumbersome: any use of the personal pronoun I will mean that Dennis is speaking. All of Barbaras comments are found in chapters 15 and 16.

1989 by Dennis Rainey
Repackaged edition 2003.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations noted NKJV are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1982. Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations noted PHILLIPS are taken from J. B. Phillips: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ENGLISH, Revised Edition. Copyright 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. Scripture quotations noted RSV are from the REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible. Copyright 1946, 1952, 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S. A. Used by permission. Scripture quotations noted TLB are taken from The Living Bible, copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

An effort has been made to locate sources and obtain permission where necessary for the quotations used in this book. In the event of any unintentional omission, modifications will be gladly incorporated in future editions.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Rainey, Dennis, 1948
[Lonely husbands, lonely wives]
Staying close : stopping the natural drift toward isolation in marriage / Dennis Rainey.

p. cm.

Previously published under title: Lonely husbands, lonely wives.

ISBN 978-0-7852-6168-1
1. Marriagereligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Intimacy (Psychology) 3.

Communication in marriage. I. Title.

[BV835.R347 1992]
248.8'44dc20 91-37199
CIP

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 11 QW 13 12 11 10 9 8

We would like to dedicate this book to our friends

Don and Sally Meredith

who gave this ministry a great start and a great message. Thanks for your impact in our lives and in millions of families around the world.

CONTENTS

PART ONE:
THE THREAT OF ISOLATION

PART TWO:
THE SEVEN THREATS TO ONENESS AND INTIMACY

PART THREE:
THE PLAN, THE PURPOSE, THE POWER

PART FOUR:
BUILDING A SOLID TEAM

PART FIVE:
BUILDING ONENESS THROUGH COMMUNICATION

PART SIX:
A FINAL CHALLENGE

PART
ONE
The Threat of Isolation

HOME BUILDERS PRINCIPLES

If you and your mate arent living according to Gods plan, youre destined to experience the disease that causes marriages to die: Isolation.

1
MARRIED BUT LONELY

Getting married is easy.
Staying married is more difficult.
Staying happily married for a lifetime
would be considered among the fine arts.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

W hen the letter came to me, I cried as I read it. Tragically, it represented what is happening with increasing regularity in our country. My friend Dave Johnson is a police officer in San Jos, California. He often answers that dreaded call: 4-15Family Disturbance. His letter to me, now published in his book, The Light Behind the Star, described what happened when he received one such call and arrived on the scene:

I could see a couple standing in the front yard of the home. A woman was crying and yelling at the man, who was standing with his hands in the pockets of his greasy overalls. I could see homemade tattoos on his armusually a sign of having been in prison.

Walking toward the two, I heard the woman demanding that he fix whatever he had done to the car so she could leave. He responded only with a contemptuous laugh.

She turned to me and asked if I would make him fix the car. The other officer came forward, and we separated the couple to find a solution to the problem.

I began talking to the man, who told me his wife was having an affair and was leaving him. I asked if they had gone for counseling, and he said he wasnt interested. He said he was interested only in getting back his things, which he said she had hidden from him.

I asked the wife about his things and she said she wouldnt give them to him until she got one of the VCRs. She said she wanted only one of the three VCRs they owned.

The other officer walked over to the wifes car and looked under the hood to see if he could fix the trouble. The husband walked over, took the coil wire out of his pocket, and handed it to the officer. He then told his wife that she could have a VCR if he could have his things. She finally agreed and went into the house. (I found out later that his things were narcotics he was dealing in.)

As the wife entered the house, I noticed two little girls standing in the doorway, watching the drama unfold. They were about eight and ten years old. Both wore dresses and each clung to a Cabbage Patch doll. At their feet were two small suitcases. My eyes couldnt leave their faces as they watched the two people they loved tear at each other.

The woman emerged with the VCR in her arms and went to the car where she put it on the crowded backseat. She turned and told her husband where he could find his things. They agreed to divide their other possessions equally.

Then, as I watched in disbelief, the husband pointed to the two little girls and said, Well, which one do you want? With no apparent emotion, the mother chose the older one. The girls looked at each other, then the older daughter walked out and climbed into the car. The smaller girl, still clutching her Cabbage Patch doll in one hand and her suitcase in the other, watched in bewilderment as her sister and mother drove off. I saw tears streaming down her face. The only comfort she received was an order from her father to go into the house, as he turned to go talk with some friends.

There I stood... the unwilling witness to the death of a family.

As I put that letter down, I asked myself, Why did this family die? Was it drugs? The husbands criminal background? Anger and hatred? All these may have been involved, but the look on the little girls face said it all.