Finding Real Love

BY CHUA EE CHIEN. Published by Asian Beacon on 28 July 2013.

Edmund Smith is a good-looking pastor, loving husband and father of two children who once led a “wild homosexual lifestyle,” as he says.

Smith had his first gay relationship when he was 18. A pub singer at night and a special education teacher by day, he used to entertain thoughts of having a sex change and tried to behave as femininely as possible. Plucking his eyebrows and shaving the hair on his legs were just two of his many womanly routines. What drove him to this lifestyle and what made him walk away from it?

Confusing Childhood

“I am the fourth boy in my family. When Mum was pregnant with me, they had hoped that I would be a girl. Perhaps that’s why, until I was five, my mother brought me up like a girl. I played with dolls and wore dresses,” says Edmund. “My father rejected me – he never
hugged me or touched me. My rejection deepened especially after my younger sister was born because I could remember clearly my father loving her and saying nice things to her just because she was a girl.”

“So, for the first five years of my life, I remember wishing to be a girl due to all the ‘self issues’ that had developed because of how my parents treated me and my confusing upbringing. I hated being a guy and naturally I began to think, feel and talk like a girl,” he recalls.

“When I reached the age of six and started to go to kindergarten, my mum suddenly decided to stop treating me like a girl after receiving comments from others and she started abusing and beating me up, making me more confused,” he says.

Edmund was later sent to an all-boys school and there he found boys who were just as effeminate. So, at the age of 13, he began his homosexual life.

Triggers

Based on his personal experience, he finds that there are mainly three specific issues which would trigger one’s journey to homosexuality, if not dealt with.

The first is the ‘vacuum’ issue, which is related to a lack of parental love. “Everyone needs the ‘V’ love. A mother’s love flows down from one side, and a father’s love flows down from the other and a child needs both parents’ love. Most gay guys have never had a father’s love,” he says.

The second trigger is the ‘self issue’, which is basically something about ourselves that we reject. For example, if you are a man and you reject your masculinity, that becomes a ‘self issue’ towards your gender.

The third trigger is the ‘barrier issue’, which causes one to look at the opposite gender negatively due to bad experiences such as abuse and bitterness.

Unfortunately for Smith, he had all three issues and therefore, looked for real love among his kind all through his secondary school days, while trying to be as feminine as possible.

Smith had his first real relationship with a man when he was 18 but it only lasted a year as his partner became possessive. He then started another relationship with another man.

It was not until he was 24 when he was dumped by his third lover that Smith decided he was sick and tired of his lifestyle and decided that he’d rather be single than be used by men again. It was a lonely journey to recovery as he had to walk away from his friends and give up his lifestyle of frequenting gay clubs and saunas.

Meeting The Right Man

Brought up in a Roman Catholic home, Smith faithfully went to church even while he was practising the homosexual lifestyle. “I went to church every Sunday, but I never had a relationship with Jesus,” he says.

His turning point came when he met Jenny, his colleague at Salvation Army where he worked as a teacher. “One day, Jenny asked me, ‘Why don’t you give Jesus a try?’ I then decided to open up my heart and receive Christ into my life.”

Upon Jenny’s invitation, he started attending the Salvation Army Church and grew in his relationship with this Jesus.

Looking back, Smith realises that his “right man – Jesus” had always been by his side because when he was going through his third break-up, he happened to be at a place where he was surrounded by Christians.

“If not for Jesus and the support from fellow Christians, I would have gone back to my old lifestyle. The journey to recovery from sexual brokenness is not an easy one. You need a church or group who can listen to you and lift you up when you fall,” Smith says.

One of Smith’s greatest blessings is his wife, Amanda Amutha Perumal, who was his colleague and good friend at Salvation Army. In 1997, Smith and Amanda went to Singapore Bible College to further their studies and there, they got to know about Choices, a Singapore- based organisation which reaches out to homosexuals.

They were trained at Choices for their ministry with homosexuals and in 2003, they moved back to Malaysia and set up Real Love Ministry (RLM) in Malacca.

“I started the ministry with the goal of raising up Befrienders-trained RLM workers who will journey with homosexuals who want to leave their lifestyle. I also started giving talks on the issues of sexual brokenness and formed support groups,” says Smith.

Spreading The Love

In 2006, Edmund and Amanda felt God’s call to start a church in Malacca which they later named Real Love Fellowship. Today, Edmund is the Senior Pastor of the church, reaching out and spreading the love of Jesus to the sexually-broken and marginalised community. His church is attended by the young and old from all walks of life.

The proud father of two – Angel and Ethan – has a passion for the performing arts and still sings, acts and dances professionally. His album, Wake Up, was inspired from his years of community work with the mentally-challenged, AIDs patients and homosexuals. He also travels frequently as an itinerant speaker, sharing his testimony to many.

Seeing the huge need of the homosexual community, Smith says that his church is looking to doing more work among the community. “There are hundreds of homosexuals who want to come out, but we have only few Befrienders,” he says. “We need more people to step out to reach out to these people.”

The Smiths also hope to purchase their own building to cater to the increasing needs of their church members and ministry. More information on Real Love Ministry is available at www.r-l-m.com.

Pornography: A Habit That Can Destroy Lives

Published by The New York Times (Room for Debate) on 11 November 2012. By Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, is the author of “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.” Robert Jensen, a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.” They are founding members of Stop Porn Culture.

Assessing the effects of mass media is never simple, but the important questions about pornography are obvious: What happens when a culture is saturated with sexually explicit images eroticizing male domination and female subordination? When those images become increasingly cruel and degrading to women and increasingly racist? When pornography becomes the de facto sex education for most boys and an increasing number of girls?

These disturbing trends do not apply to all pornography. There are many varieties made by hundreds of small producers, but the porn industry around Los Angeles dominates, shaping cultural ideas about sexuality, relationships and intimacy. Just as the food industry shapes how we eat and the fashion industry shapes how we dress, the sex industry shapes the way we think about sex.

This dominant source of pornography has some consistent themes. The most extensive peer-reviewed study in the past decade found that a majority of scenes from 50 top-rented porn movies contained physical and verbal abuse of female performers. Physical aggression – including spanking, open-hand slapping and gagging – occurred in 88 percent of scenes, with expressions of verbal aggression – usually a man calling a woman derogatory names – in 48 percent.

Individual experiences as a viewer of pornography differ, and many men and some women report pleasurable experiences. But clear patterns emerge from more than 30 years of academic research and organizing informed by a feminist critique of pornography. In heterosexual couples, men who habitually use pornography sometimes withdraw from intimacy with female partners, and sometimes make demands on female partners for sexual acts that are uncomfortable, painful or degrading to the woman. Women in heterosexual relationships report that both these behaviors can destroy relationships, and men sometimes report that they are aware of the damage but cannot break the habit. 

Anyone who doubts these trends should talk to marriage therapists and divorce lawyers. 

Although there is little systematic research on performers, anecdotal evidence suggests it’s a harsh business for women. The industry portrays high-profile performers with glamorous lives, but producers and directors we’ve interviewed said candidly that the industry “chews up and spits out” women. According to the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which provided testing and health care for performers in Los Angeles until it closed last year, female performers are at risk for injuries and diseases. The group’s founder once said the average career of these women was “six months to three years, tops,” after which they must cope with a variety of physical and psychological problems. 

Pornography is the industrialization and commodification of sex, and like all big industries, its product is generic, formulaic and plasticized. These images tend to rob sex of its creativity, playfulness and intimacy, and hence are ultimately profoundly alienating. The performers, the consumers and the culture deserve better.

Link: 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/11/11/does-pornography-deserve-its-bad-rap/a-pornography-habit-destroys-relationships

More British women aborting their children over financial worries, say UK doctors

BY HILARY WHITE, 

ROME CORRESPONDENT.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/more-british-women-aborting-their-children-over-financial-worries-say-uk-do

LONDON, August 14, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A survey by a market research firm has found that the global economic crisis may be influencing more British women to abort their children. The research by Insight Research Group found that about one-fifth of GPs are reporting more women requesting abortion for financial concerns.

Seventeen percent of GPs surveyed felt there was an increase in patients who “were specifically requesting terminations due to financial concerns.” Fifty-four percent of those GPs said they believed the biggest increase was among women ages 26-35. Another twenty-three percent believed the biggest increase was among single women with no previous children, while twenty-one percent said they believed it was among single women living with a “partner” with 1 to 3 previous children.

Thirty-four percent of all the GPs surveyed said that they are seeing women putting off having children “until their financial security improved.”

The findings echo those of Russian demographers who fear that recent gains in the country’s abysmally low fertility rate will be lost as more women turn to abortion to ease financial worries http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/international-life-and-family-roundup1 . 

Although pro-life observers say that they have no argument with the study’s findings, they question the reaction of GPs who endorse abortion for financial reasons.

Anthony Ozimic, the communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said that for authority figures like doctors to affirm with their actions that an abortion is an acceptable solution to financial anxiety sends a profoundly negative message to the culture at large.

“Whatever the merits or otherwise of this study, Western society will continue in its moral and demographic declines as long as the message goes out that women should abort their children or significantly postpone conceiving because of financial concerns,” Ozimic said.

The UK should follow the lead of other EU countries who are offering financial, tax and other incentives to increase the financial security of families and encourage couples to marry earlier and have children, Ozimic said. Instead, the myth is being promulgated that there is such a thing as a “perfect” economic condition in which to have children, when the reality is that such conditions will not exist while the European fertility rate continues to decline.

“While prudence in planning a family is necessary, optimal economic conditions for raising children are illusory.”

Ozimic confirmed that the law does not technically allow for abortions for financial or “social” reasons, but said that doctors have been granted enormous latitude in deciding what factors in a woman’s life constitute a threat to her “mental health”.

This is acknowledged even by the courts to be the case, despite voluminous research demonstrating that abortion has a serious, long-term negative impact on women’s mental health and increasing skepticism http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-study-says-pregnancy-is-safe-even-beneficial-for-women-recovering-from/  among the psychiatric community of the existence of any mental health benefits of abortion.

Marriage for the 99%: Seeing Family as a Social Justice Issue

How research demonstrates that marital status can predict a person's socioeconomic status.

By Glenn T. Stanton. Published by Christianity Today on 13 July 2012.

Bill Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings who served as President Clinton's domestic policy advisor, has explained that an American today must only do three things to avoid living in poverty: graduate from high school, marry before having a child, and have children after age 20. Only 8 percent of people who do these three things are poor, while a stunning 79 percent who fail to meet these expectations live in poverty.

Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute makes important observations of how marital status is related to poverty in his important new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010. In 1960, the poorly and moderately educated were only 10 percent less likely to be married than the 94 percent of college-educated Americans who were married. The comparison between the two groups largely held until 1978. Today, these two groups are separated by a 35 percent margin. According to a recent report from the Brookings Institute, the strong rate of marriage among the highly-educated, top-earning Americans has largely held constant and even seems to be increasing. But the bad news is that marriage is sinking dramatically among low and middle-class Americans, down from 84 percent to a minority of 48 percent today—a dramatic decline over the last 40 years, and no indicators hint at a slowing pace. The stark trend line leads Murray to lament, "Marriage has become the fault line dividing America's classes."

In some ways, the concern about marriage and class mobility is not new at all. In 1965, a young Daniel Patrick Moynihan passionately warned his boss, President Lyndon Johnson, and our nation that the new landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act was not likely to be fully successful because the African American family was dangerously fragile and continuing to weaken. On the first page of his infamous report—which was one of the first shots fired in the modern culture war over the family—Moynihan warned of the consequences stemming from the persistent "crumbling" of the African American family: "So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself" among African Americans.

The problem has persisted: the percentage of all married women in the U.S. is 50 percent (53 percent for white women), but is a tragically low 29 percent for African American women. The wide disparity led to culturally soul-searching books such as Stanford professor Ralph Richard Banks's Is Marriage for White People?, in which he contends that marriage recovery is essential for the socio-economic well-being of African Americans. A larger question could be, "Is marriage for rich people?"

Marriage is not just a personal, sentimental institution, giving couples something to feel good about at each year's anniversary. The scholars at the National Marriage Project working from the University of Virginia offer dramatic evidence in their recent report (page 78) that marriage is a "wealth-generating institution."

All other things being equal, the never-married are 75 percent less wealthy than their continuously married peers. And two people are not necessarily wealthier than one. Cohabitors generally are 58 percent lower in financial wealth than those who are married. And those who divorce and never remarry have a 72 percent lower amount in wealth. The National Marriage Project suggests that those with better financial prospects are not necessarily more likely to marry, but the "institution of marriage itself provides a wealth-generation bonus."

Nobel-winning economist George Akerlof has explained the pro-social influence of marriage upon men and fathers. "Married men are more attached to the labor force, they have less substance abuse, they commit less crime, are less likely to become the victims of crime, have better health, and are less accident prone," he said in a prestigious lecture. He found cohabitation was incapable of providing these benefits, he said, because, "men settle down when they get married and if they fail to get married, they fail to settle down."

And settled-down men work more, earn more, save more, and spend more money on their families than on themselves. Married men are also dramatically less likely to abuse their wives and children than men of any other relational status. Marriage boosts the well-being of women as well in nearly every important measure of well-being.

The evidence is impossible to ignore or explain away. Marriage drives well-being and upward mobility. The absence of marriage drives it down. Any smart poverty alleviation program cannot ignore this.

And for Christians, the research enriches our reading of two of God's earliest and most profound statements about humanity and marriage. First, "It is not good for the man to be alone." Second, "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife." As we are created as an icon of the Trinitarian God in the world, we're made deeply and mysteriously for one another. And just as Jesus yearns deeply for his bride, it is very natural and deep in our wiring for us to yearn for a spouse. It is in our God-imaging nature to do so. No wonder marriage boosts our well-being in such important and diverse ways.  

Such a truth is so evident that even some sociologists grasp it. 

Will the church?

Read more here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/julyweb-only/seeing-family-as-a-social-justice-issue.html?paging=off

Fundamental misinterpretation of the Equality Act (UK)

Published by The Telegraph on 11 May 2012. Reported by John Bingham.

The Law Society has banned a conference on family issues to be addressed by a senior High Court judge because debating gay marriage breached its “diversity policy”.

Sir Paul Coleridge, the Family Division judge who recently launched a new charity to combat marital break-up, had been lined up as the main speaker at the annual event at the Law Society’s London headquarters later this month.

But organisers were forced to cancel it at short notice after the Law Society ruled that the programme reflected “an ethos which is opposed to same sex marriage”.

They accused the Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, of an “extraordinary” attempt to stifle debate on current affairs and warned that the cancellation itself could be against equality laws.

Lawyers, journalists and think tank chiefs were due to speak alongside Sir Paul at the annual conference organised by the World Congress of Families, a US-based non-religious group which promotes traditional family values.

Around 120 people were expected to attend event which this year took as its theme: “One Man. One Woman. Making the case for marriage, for the good of society.”

Sir Paul, who made headlines last week as he launched a new charity, the Marriage Foundation, was due to speak on the effects of divorce on society.

A follow-up event for MPs was being planned take place in Parliament after the conference.

Organisers said the conference had been booked for up to six months and a deposit of around £4,700 has already been paid.

But in an email on Thursday, Adam Tallis, general manager of Amper&and, the company which organises hospitality at The Law Society, informed them that the booking was being cancelled and the deposit refunded.

“We regret the need to take this step,” he wrote.

“I can assure you that it is not something we do lightly.

“However, where an event does not fit within this company’s diversity policy, it is a step we must take.

“The nature of your event has recently been drawn to our attention, and it is contrary to our diversity policy, espousing as it does an ethos which is opposed to same sex marriage.”

Same-sex marriage is not currently legal in Britain, although a consultation is under way on a possible change in the law.

Andrea Williams, director of Christian Concern, which is a member of the World Congress of Families said: “It is just extraordinary that the professional body that regulates solicitors in this country is censoring debate on a major change in the law that will inevitably have massive consequences for society.

“It does seem to be a fundamental misreading of the Equality Act.

“This was supposed to be a genuine open debate on the issues, constructing a case for marriage in the public sphere, and they seem to be closing it down.

“Of all the places in society where you might expect freedom of debate to be protected, the regulatory body of the legal profession would surely be at the top of the list.

“This statement is highly political, highly charged and wholly inappropriate.

“A lot of lawyers will be very alarmed by this and ashamed of their regulatory body.”

But Desmond Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, said: “We are proud of our role in promoting diversity in the solicitors’ profession and felt that the content of this conference sat uncomfortably with our stance.

“Through our events and venues supplier, we have assisted the organisers in identifying an alternative, non Law Society venue.”

Should We Stop Child Placement Programs if We're Required to Work with Same-Sex Couples?

Published by Christianity Today on 9 May 2012.

Don't Quit

Paul Shrier is professor of practical theology at Azusa Pacific University and a foster parent.

Several years ago I facilitated a faith-based luncheon at Azusa Pacific University to promote foster care among faith-based organizations. We invited representatives of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious groups. We encouraged them to promote foster parenting, thinking that children need homes where they can safely live and grow.

A friend disagreed with the idea of inviting leaders of other faiths. He said he'd rather children bounce around between families or stay in group homes than go to stable homes with foster parents of non-Christian faiths. I suggested that since he felt so strongly, he should become a foster parent. He had no response.

The same principle applies here. There has been a lot of solid, reliable research on outcomes for children fostered or adopted by stable gay couples. The studies show that these children are no more likely to become gay than the general population, and they have a somewhat better chance of finishing high school and thriving in other ways than they do even in heterosexual foster homes. Children flourish in safe, stable environments, no matter what the sexual orientation of the parents.

It would be great if Christians would foster and adopt all of the children in need. Since they don't, the safety and welfare of the child ought to trump our theological and social beliefs. As an adoptive parent and a former foster parent who still helps other foster parents and kids, I have a firsthand understanding of children's needs. They need love and safety. The beliefs of those who provide it are secondary; the Bible shows that God can use even non-believing parents to accomplish his ends.

It is also important to consider God's leading to individual organizations rather than making a blanket judgment. Michael Klausman, president of the CBS Studio Center, once told me that when the hit TV show Will & Grace first came out, Christians sent letters condemning him for airing a TV show with a main character who was gay. He said, "I guess I could have just taken a stand if I agreed with them and said to the network, 'Either you don't air that show or I quit.'"

But he said God didn't tell him to do that, so he didn't. When you pray, what is God telling you?

Klausman also noted that if he had quit his job over Will & Grace, he would have lost his influence in the arena.

The same idea applies here: If you're helping dozens or hundreds of kids every year, why would you quit helping them because you might have to work with a couple once in a while whose lifestyle you may or may not oppose? It's your task to determine if they have a safe, healthy home for the kids. You forgo accomplishing a lot of good in the lives of children when you throw in the towel.

Providing good homes to kids is the most important outcome. You ought to pray and see what God has to say about your individual situation. Keep your eye on the goal: helping kids. If you quit helping, who else will?

Take it to Court

Lynne Marie Kohm is a professor of family law at Regent University and author of several books and articles on family and marriage.

Mandates requiring foster-care agencies to work with same-sex couples are unconstitutional, so rather than closing, foster-care agencies faced with such mandates should fight the requirements in court.

Such mandates are designed to close agencies and make them recoil and plead under political pressure; they are designed to drive faith from the public square and from children. They are bad for children and un-American.

The first adoption law in the United States, in Massachusetts in 1854, considered the needs and "best interests" of the adopted child. This innovative doctrine mandating care and protection for children above all established a new legal standard. This standard is now applied in every adoption court in the nation.

Regulations requiring same-sex couples be allowed to adopt are designed to give adults the right to adopt. They suggest that any persons should be legally qualified to be parents, particularly when children languish in foster care. These regulations, however, represent a fundamental shift away from the best interest of the child toward the interests of the adult.

Some states, building on the findings of social science research, require adoption and foster-care agencies to favor heterosexual couples as potential parents. Faith-based adoption agencies generally work under the presumption that children deserve to have both a father and a mother. They seek to place children in ideal environments where they can have the benefit of both parents.

To require any agency to place children for adoption without the benefit of both a father and a mother instantly disadvantages the child. It does not provide for the child's best interests, but places the interests of the adult above those of the child. When states move from prioritizing the best interests of the child to prioritizing adult preference, children are intentionally deprived of a parent.

This is also a question of law and ethics. When faith-based agencies are required to place children with same-sex couples, they simply cannot ethically do so. A Christian ethic requires the agency to place children with parents who provide for their best interests and to not deprive them of a father or a mother. It is not a question of whether such agencies should work with gay couples; they simply cannot. And the U.S. Constitution protects them.

Leaders of faith throughout history have held that when law demands an action contrary to conviction, that law cannot be obeyed. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement and Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the Nazi regime had to obey their faith convictions. When laws require Christians to act in a manner contrary to their faith, they cannot obey. Regulations that require agencies to provide adoptions to same-sex couples work to defy religious freedom. Christians must follow their consciences and faith.

The issue, then, is not whether Christians should stop adoption/foster-care programs if required by law to work with same-sex couples. Laws requiring faith-based adoption agencies to act contrary to their faith are laws they cannot follow and must challenge in court.

Stand firm

Ryan T. Anderson is editor of Public Discourse, an online journal of the Witherspoon Institute.

Christians should not stop their adoption and foster-care programs, but neither should they comply with laws that would force them to place children with same-sex couples. Christians should continue operating their charitable organizations according to their principles, and they should continue serving the least among us until the state coercively shuts them down.

They should do this because when Jesus commanded us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and care for the widow and orphan, he meant it. He meant it when he said we should love our neighbor, but he didn't mean that we love them according to secularist liberal values or the dictates of the state. We should love them as Christ loves them.

God created us to be loved and cared for by a mother and a father. Knowing this truth isn't peculiar to Christian revelation—it's inherent in human nature. Not surprisingly, the best social science confirms the biblical truth that children do best when reared by a mom and a dad.

This isn't to denigrate anyone, but it is to say that two people of the same sex are not the equivalent of a married mother and father. Any law that says that they are gets the family wrong. This does a great disservice to children, and the church should oppose this injustice to children. Christians should challenge such a law in court.

Christians should continue to serve children and society according to their convictions because, beyond getting the family wrong, these laws get the relationship of church and state wrong. Provided religious actors aren't harming anyone or violating others' rights, there's no compelling state interest in coercing religious charities to violate their principles. Christians aren't seeking to bar same-sex couples from adopting from other agencies. They are just asking that they not be forced to place children with same-sex couples themselves.

The truth of the matter is that long before the state of Massachusetts or Illinois existed, long before the United States existed, Christ's church was ministering to the poor. Christians should continue to stand on biblical principles in the face of laws that unjustly usurp the authority of voluntary charities and grant government power to regulate their activity even when they cause no harm.

Such a law would be deeply unjust. Christians should recognize, following Augustine as cited by Martin Luther King Jr. in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," that an unjust law is no binding law at all. As King explained, referencing Aquinas, "an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law."

To witness to the truth of Christ's commands to love and care for the least among us, to God's designs in creating the human family, to the truth that while we should render to Caesar what is Caesar's, we should render to God what is God's, the church should neither stop her charitable activities nor comply with this law—but should continue operating her charitable services and force the state to take action.

Marry a Lawyer? Proceed With Caution

Updated 6:12 PM, February 12, 2009

By Dr. Fiona Travis

In recent years, some of America’s most popular TV programs and films depicted lawyers winning in court but losing in love. A distortion of reality, or do lawyers really have problems building and sustaining relationships? Regrettably, the image is accurate.

It’s not that lawyers lack relationship-building skills. But, overworked, overburdened and squeezed by time – and now, the worst downturn in two decades – lawyers do exhibit communication and intimacy breakdowns peculiar to their education, their professional training and work environment.

More to the point, the same traits that bring lawyers success in the workplace also interfere with their achieving meaningful, intimate relationships in the home. And the profession works a special hardship on women lawyers. According to an ABA study, a third of all women lawyers have never married as compared to eight percent of male lawyers, and nearly half of the women lawyers report being unmarried, compared to 15 percent of the men. Furthermore, compared to female physicians and college professors, women lawyers are less likely to be married, have children, remarry after divorce and are significantly more likely to become divorced.

As a psychologist who has counseled lawyers and their families for more than 20 years, it seems to me that lawyer marriages are in trouble … perhaps even moretrouble than other professional couples.

There is no one explanation, but when one combines the lawyer personality with the lessons learned in law school, the combination makes for great courtroom drama … but is also counter-productive in an intimate interaction with one’s spouse. The biggest obstacle is the so-called lawyer personality.

Individual lawyers may not have all the characteristics, but – when they’re honest – they will recognize that they possess such marriage-straining attributes as ambition, narcissism, skepticism, defensiveness, perfectionism and the need to be in control. Furthermore, on personality tests, most lawyers score high on the “thinking” scales and low on the “feeling” scales. And it’s not something that happens only after a lawyer passes the bar. It goes all the way back to law school, where one learns to argue, cross examine, stonewall, delay, outwit, and avoid showing weakness to opposing counsel.

According to Susan Daicoff, author of Lawyer, Know Thyself, “Some of the traits compromising the lawyer personality appear long before law school, suggesting that those who are suited to practice law self-select into the profession.”

In short, a disproportionate number of people who are less emotionally astute gravitate into the legal profession. Ironically, it is this same personality type that creates great lawyers.

Let me repeat, the same qualities that persuade juries and win cases can also work like acid on marital relations.

For example, a prosecutor or defense attorney comes home on Friday nights all hyped up and argumentative, as if they were still in court. Or a corporate or real estate lawyer engaged in intense negotiations finds it hard to switch to a different mindset at the end of the work-week. But regardless of the environment in which lawyers work, the demands on their time put even the strongest marriage to the test. In the words of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, “ … Lawyers who work harder (to make partner, to earn more money), and then tell themselves they don’t have time now for family and friends, are on a very slippery slope. They may think they are only postponing the opportunity (to be a better parent, a more loving spouse), but in fact they are sacrificing that opportunity.”

Non-lawyer spouses have their tasks, too. They must learn to deal with the sacrifices of time and intimacy that the spouse’s law practice demands. Such sacrifices may include cancelled or postponed vacations, time spent with the children and involvement in child-rearing decisions, minimal emotional support, lack of deep conversations about feelings, and little patience for working through emotional problems. Of course, another major threat to lawyer marriages is substance abuse, and many an attorney’s filial difficulties begin with after-hours drinking with colleagues. It’s a lawyer’s way of dealing with the high stress, but the practice also creates more stress for spouses.

Lawyers who choose not to become aware of how their work interferes with having a healthy intimate relationship at home are at a higher risk for becoming a divorce statistic.

So, how can lawyers be better spouses?

– Listen with interest and without interruption. Don’t be a lawyer at home. Marriage should not be adversarial. It is not about “win at all cost” and “hardball ultimatums.”

– Become aware of your style of argumentation. You do not have to win at home. Take note if your critique of spouse and children comes across as if your belief is the only truth, and there is no other way to view the issue at hand.

– Make room for emotional support (especially if your spouse is a non-lawyer). Most lawyers are great problem-solvers, and they tend to rush in to solve family problems without considering their spouse’s feelings. This results in a disservice to the spouse, who feels that he or she hasn’t been heard or understood.

So, how do you leave certain behavior patterns in the office and adopt a more conciliatory behavior at home? To begin, it would be helpful to acknowledge that certain lawyerly goals and techniques are at cross-purposes with the behaviors that foster good marriages – for example, win (compromise), doubt (trust), cross-examine (discuss), argue (admit error), attack (accept fallibility in self and others), avoid vulnerability (concede), think for others (respect partner’s opinions and ideas), deny weakness (allow for vulnerability), hinder and delay (cooperate).

Lawyers, take note: Be aware that the adversarial, argumentative style that works at the office and in court works against you if used with your spouse and children. Awareness is the first step to successful change. So, practice taking a deep breath at the midway point between home and office, and as you exhale, let go of that lawyer style until you inhale it back again tomorrow on your way back to work. You are good at practicing law, try practicing love!

Dr. Fiona Travis, who practices in Ohio and is married to a former prosecutor, is the author of Should You Marry a Lawyer: A Couple’s Guide to Balancing Work, Love & Ambition. To order a copy, go to www.LawyerAvenue.com, and click on Bookstore.