THE HARMONIOUS COUPLE – CASES OF HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIPS (TODD AND CHARLOTTE) CONCLUSION
«His affairs were attempts to get my attention. When we understood this and discussed it, our relationship went back to normal, and he wasn’t tempted again. Actually, each time he had an affair I saw it as a sign that something was wrong between us and as an opportunity to correct it; and each time I discovered that there was something I was doing that contributed to his wandering.»
Other trouble spots concerned the children—who, on becoming teenagers, began to have problems. This caused friction in the family in general and between Todd and Charlotte in particular. After their son crashed his second car, they went into family therapy. «I realized that I have this stubborn need to be right all the time,» Todd later admitted. «It was getting in the way of my relating to the children. I always want to be seen as Mr. Good Guy, and they didn’t necessarily see me that way, but they couldn’t tell me that because I wouldn’t hear it. So they smashed cars and got into trouble at school.» Added Charlotte, «I had the same problem. I was so busy being Mother of the Year that I didn’t stop to look and listen to what my kids were trying to tell me until it was almost too late. Actually, it’s never too late.»
Todd and Charlotte again managed to work through these rough spots (with the help of therapy) and to maintain both their own, and their family’s, integrity. They are not the perfect television family who raise perfect children. Rather, they are a hard-working, harmonious couple who have managed to maintain that basic harmony over a period of years by taking responsibility, being willing to look objectively at themselves, and doing whatever was considered necessary to deal with the inevitable crises of their marriage.
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