The Exceptional Seven Percent. Gregory K. Popcak

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СКАЧАТЬ of Needs, researched self-actualizing people and his findings apply to all the Exceptional couples, especially to Spiritual Peers. They are accepting of themselves and others, are at peace when life becomes unpredictable, are spontaneous and creative, have a good sense of humor, value their privacy, can take care of themselves, are capable of deeply intimate relationships, and have an open, positive attitude about life. They are the couples—indeed, the people—we all want to be when we grow up.

      Can Your Marriage Be Exceptional?

      After reading about Exceptional couples it would be possible to despair of ever achieving such a lofty status, but be encouraged. This book is mostly concerned with helping you find your way into the first of the Exceptional marriages (the Traditional and Modern Partnerships). From that point, every couple must find their own way to actualization and Spiritual Peerdom. Likewise, it is important to note that the majority of Exceptional Partnership couples started out in more Conventional relationships. Only after developing their marital imperative and clinging to it through the storms of life did they find themselves—often unexpectedly so—at a more gratifying level of marital intimacy.

      A perfect example of this growth through struggle would be Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey. They began life together as an average working-class couple with a strong connection to their community and church. Eventually they became parents of their daughter Mikayla and the famous McCaughey septuplets.

      In one book, Seven From Heaven, Kenny McCaughey describes his dramatic walk down the road toward what I would call Exceptional husbandhood through the pregnancy and subsequent birth of the couple’s septuplets. While his wife was confined to extreme bedrest from the earliest weeks of gestation, McCaughey found himself challenging all the comfortable rules of Conventional married life. He was forced to challenge his competencies more quickly and more pervasively than you or I will probably ever have to, and through his labor he developed what I would consider to be Exceptional gratitude toward his wife, whom he reports he always loved dearly, but without really appreciating the full value of her gift to the marriage until their blessed crisis compelled him to walk in her shoes for an extended period. Through that tumultuous pregnancy and the chaotic months following the septuplets’ birth, the only thing the McCaugheys had to hold on to was what I would call their marital imperative, the theme of their marriage, summed up by a line in song they sang to each other at their wedding: “And the world shall know that we are a household of faith.” As the world today can attest, they are.

      Not knowing the McCaugheys personally (and considering that their book was mostly about their children and not their marriage), I cannot say if they would consider themselves to be an Exceptional couple as of this writing, but I can say with confidence that they are traveling down that road, and if they continue to cling to their marital imperative as a way of life, they will surely reach their destination.

      And so will you, because as difficult as the journey to Exceptional couplehood is, it is also the journey for which each and every one of us was made. Every particle of every human being—body and soul—cries out to made whole by love: by being loved by others, by loving others, and by love itself. What better opportunity to pursue this most natural of callings than the opportunity presented by your marriage, which is nothing if it is not a “school of love” in every sense of that phrase.

      The remaining chapters of this book will help you discover the skills and resources you will need to complete your journey up the Relationship Pathway toward Exceptional couplehood. I invite you and your beloved to begin your adventure with the next chapter by developing a vital, compelling, and challenging marital imperative.

      3

      Designing a Marital Imperative

      Marriage... transforms a human action into an instrument of the divine action.

      —JACQUES LECLERCQ

      MAX AND SHELBY have been married for sixteen years. The thing that Shelby says she likes most about Max is his ability to “keep her focused.”

      “When I was in college, I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to do when I got out. Around that time I took a philosophy class that changed my life. The professor tried to make the subject more relevant by asking us to focus on not just what kind of work we wanted to do but what kind of people we wanted to be. He asked us to consider our assigned readings from the perspective of finding some guiding principles—a ‘worldview’ he called it. This way, regardless of what we decided to do with our lives we could define success by how we conducted ourselves. I guess I kind of ran with that assignment. I came up with a list of qualities that were important to me, things that I knew would keep me centered regardless of how much or how little money I made or where I ended up in life. I decided to gauge my definition of success by how well I was living up to my principles, and rather than letting these be pie-in-the-sky ideals, I really tried to keep them in mind as I went through my day. I even weeded out potential boyfriends based on whether or not they brought out more of those particular qualities in me. I wanted a marriage partner who was going to help keep me focused on what was really important.

      “A lot of times, guys would look at me like I had two heads when I would talk about this stuff. They accused me of ‘thinking too much’ and told me there’d be plenty of time to worry about all that later on, and I should just relax. My friends kept telling me that my standards were too unrealistic. I was beginning to think that I would have to choose between my value system and getting a steady boyfriend. I know that sounds hopelessly shallow of me, but what can I say? It’s how I felt. Thankfully I didn’t have to chuck everything because soon afterward I met Max, and he understood me perfectly.”

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