The Rain Doesnt Fall Straight Down: A Positive Slant on Marriage Relationships
by William R. Morrow
Category: Fiction

Most of the people who get divorced have never been to a marriage counselor. This collection of creative essays on the complex dynamics between men and women is meant to take the marriage counselor to them and numerous others who could do with a little preventive medicine. What he writes applies equally to persons who are in second or subsequent marriages, because the problems are similar, even if the desire for solutions is a bit more urgent. Most of what he has written applies to couples who have been together long enough to realize that relationships take some thought and some maintenance. Morrow, a career Marriage and Family Therapist, writes with enough clinical expertise to be taken seriously and with enough humor to engage the most hardened couples. He takes up the eternal battle of the sexes with the notion that, if couples will give their relationship a little conscious thought, it will keep them safe from the storms that beset all marriages. Just as the rain doesn't fall straight down, marriage problems do not occur suddenly, without warning. As he says in the lead essay, he addresses a couple's reasoning ability here and in all the subsequent essays. Indeed, it is why he writes. As Morrow states, along with the marital problems, there is time; that is, there is always a period of time between the first hint of trouble and the actual deluge of crisis to call time-out, sit down, and talk things over. Each piece in The Rain Doesn't Fall Straight Down was originally written during a recent four-year period for a local newspaper column entitled simply "Relationships." Each essay provided an opportunity for spouses to take up an issue while being mildly entertained. The therapist in him wanted the readers to reflect and reason about the issue for the sake of increasing awareness. To read and reflect on a typical family event offers its own kind of healing without depending on the usual direct advice. Now that these essays appear in collected form, Morrow's optimism shows through as a pattern. From several points of view Dr. Morrow demonstrates confidence about a couple's ability to seek and find direction from within, and his background as a Presbyterian minister is evidenced by his suggestion that each person has available an inner spiritual force to help solve problems. That force fans a flame of unconditional love in each marital partner. What´s more, individual inner balance is required for truly intimate relationships. The book is divided into five parts. In Part One, Dr. Morrow has gathered those essays that give some insight into how therapy and therapists work. These chapters focus more on the process of marriage therapy rather than on the content. In an answer to the rhetorical question, "What do marriage counselors do?", he offers an imaginary look inside the head of the therapist-on-the-job. Clearly, therapists face a challenge in confronting a counseling situation in which the spouses are obviously at odds with each other. Therapists must have enough presence of mind not to get drawn into a conflict that would diminish their ability to be objective. These chapters make one realize that the therapist has to have perspective as well as a sense of humor. In Part Two, Morrow includes essays about those family relationships that take place for the most part outside the core of the marital dyad: relationships with young children and adolescents. There is an advocacy here for the needs of children. Those needs, for which most family units were formed to serve, can get neglected while mom and dad work out their lives. Part Three comprises the largest group of essays. Here the focus is on the couple, with a trip through the marriage life-cycle. In this part, Morrow emphasizes the normalization of the temporary departures from couple satisfaction. In addition to reflecting on the vast assortment of relationships he has seen over the years of his practice, Morrow also comments on some of the