Copyright © 2018 Nena Burnette, LPC, Vonda Boston Keasler, LMFT

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-0414-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-0416-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-0415-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905659

Balboa Press rev. date:  05/17/2018

Table of Contents

Nena’s Introduction

Vonda’s Introduction

History of Marriage

Men are a Luxury, Not a Necessity

Brokenness Versus Wholeness

Of the Self

Faith and Spirituality

Vonda’s Journey

Holes in our Souls

Communication

Power

Sex

Break Ups

Peak Experiences

The Collective Mother

Red Flags

Green Lights

What My Assessment Tells Me

Belonging Verses Being Trapped

Our Summary

References

Nena’s Introduction

This book has been rumbling around in my head for about thirty years. I have started and restarted many times. It has been a difficult undertaking. It feels a bit like standing in the middle of town naked, but I feel the need for this book is out there. So, try not to picture me naked.

About a year ago, I enlisted the help of my friend and colleague as a partner in getting this project done. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and also clergy. My purpose for this book is that I have through my various careers come to have much too much information as is comfortable at times about dysfunction in families. Families begin with a couple, and I have seen poorly matched couples create havoc and mayhem within their families that ultimately gets perpetuated over and over.

While I want this book to be utilized by therapists, I also want the general public to seek it out too and relate to the book. Thus, we have intentionally written it at a high school level with non-diagnostic, therapy terminology. It is also important for me in this publication and in my life, in general, to have some laughs along the way. Fair warning: there will also be tears.

Every day I see families, and individuals who, had they been emotionally healthier and shopped more efficiently for mates, would most likely not be in the situations that lead them to my office. In addition, if the parents were dysfunctional, the children show up at my door more often than not as adults trying to cope. I have seen and continue to see the generations of cycles of abuse and of unhappiness that perpetuates itself over and over. I know this to be true because, having worked in similar fields for thirty some odd years, I have seen generations of the same families make the same mistakes over and over, more often than not, passing into the next generations with no end in sight. I am currently a mental health therapist, but I have also done child welfare and nursing. I’ve seen the same in each of these fields; often times I have seen one family across all three fields. I see children of children of children…you get the picture…make the same poor choices over and over making another generation near inevitable. I am not saying that poor self-worth and self-knowledge combined with poor definition of relationships are the only culprits, but they are definitely in the top two.

The idea of this book has been there about thirty years, but the idea, the understanding, has been back there as far as I can remember. I saw the demise of my mother’s first marriage. I caught just a glimpse into how dysfunctional and damaging it was. Even at my young age, I knew there had to be something better.

Then my Mom found my Dad. It was and is still beautiful. They are in their 80’s and 90’s and still are deeply in love, having fun together, and they remain the tightly woven helm of our family. They are still traveling both together and with all of us in big groups. I have had good role models, and I am very thankful for my parents.

I made up my mind during my teenage years to find what they have. I had to experiment like everyone else to find what traits and communication styles fit me best, and of course, someone to have fun with while still having that steadfast, safe, real luxury. REAL knowledge in my gut that this was my luxury.

I was lucky and blessed enough to have a healthy, eccentric family that taught me to love life and always made sure I knew I belonged and was as precious to all of them as they were and are to me.

I did have some issues as all do, but underneath, I knew in my soul that those issues were already worked out. No lasting trauma. Everlasting love and support. I had a healthy base to look for my luxury.

Few find their luxury in their teens, but I did. I knew what I wanted, and I knew that he was it. We were set up, and I knew almost immediately that this ‘redneck’ was for me. Somehow, I knew that he would stick by me. Grow with me. Hold me up and be my life partner.

Some years ago, a naïve teen ager asked me why I would marry a redneck. My response was, oh I don’t know, he worked his ass off to support his family, he grew with me and held down the fort through three degrees, he is a wonderful father, and he worships the ground I walk on. That a good enough reason? She was speechless.

Though this book is meant to be educational and outline a psychological paradigm shift as to how we look for and choose a mate, we both share parts of our personal, and until now, private feelings and information, the reason being that all that we have seen and worked with as therapists is confidential, and we hesitate to put anything in that someone might read and say damn, that’s me. In addition, I know my story better than anyone else’s. Also, I have always looked at and learned the base of the thought process through my own eyes and experiences.

There is solid theory behind the aforementioned paradigm shift that I will share. However, I want this to read as a thoughtful, educational book but also with real life and humor. Let’s face it; we have to have a sense of humor to engage in any relationship and in life. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and laugh.

My goal for you in the book is to think over the proposed paradigm shift, learn whether or not you have positive self-worth, self-esteem, and learn how to be emotionally healthy. It is from this base that you learn whether or not you can visualize what your luxury will be. Learn how to treat, communicate with, and appreciate your luxury on all levels. Also, it is important to me that you have a laugh, even if it is at my expense.

Vonda’s Introduction

Several years ago, my dear friend, Nena, asked me to read part of a book she was writing with the catchy title Men are a Luxury, Not a Necessity. She wanted my input as to whether or not I thought I was a worthwhile pursuit. I loved what she had written and encouraged her to complete it. In the work that we do over and over again, we see generational dysfunction, relationships that just happen and the result often being, children who just happen, and thus repeats more the same poor or self -destructive choices.

I was honored when she asked me several months ago to join her in bringing this book to fruition. It has been an amazing partnership in which we have played off each other’s ideas and suggestions. Throughout the course of writing and sometimes just talking about writing, we have shared each other’s own personal stories. We have grown in our partnership, friendship, and have touched each other’s lives in ways too numerous to even share. We have each shared personal experience in this book in hoping that each of our readers might reflect on their own life experiences as they journey toward self-enlightenment, journey to their luxury, or with their luxury. Once again, thank you, My Friend, for inviting me on this journey. Friends are a necessity, and a luxury.

History of Marriage

There are many things that Nena and I have in common. Many core principles that we share have allowed us to develop a friendship, first as colleagues with the Human Services sector of the State of Arkansas, then as working mothers married to Arkansas born and bred men who worked hard for a living and supported their out spoken, compassionate wives as they returned to school to get social work Bachelor’s degrees, and Master’s degrees in Rehab Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy.

Among our differences, Nena grew up in Arkansas, part of a close, blended family. Her parents were both professionals, a public-school educator turned long-term administrator of a local factory in Paragould and a retired nurse.

I grew up in rural Michigan, my parents, laborers in local factories, later my father a local union steward, promoted to union president. Then he was a union laborer in asphalt construction. Later, my mother worked in the health care sector as an aid and then private music teacher and a college music student. She had the capacity as an eighteen-year-old young woman to have a career as a professional musician, a three-octave soprano. She chose marriage and children instead. In the 1950’s, women could not have it all.

The men in my family on both sides worked hard in demanding, physical blue-collar jobs. I come from a long line of carpenters, machinists, and auto industry workers. Throw in some lumber jacks and road builders and your mind’s eye sees dirty, hardworking men who could fix anything, who unionized, who were part of what we call the rust that built America.

The women in my family worked hard, often times in health care or hospitality. They changed beds, cleaned bathrooms, and cared for the elderly and sick of their families or of the community. I come from a long line of maids, nurse’s aides and bar workers. My mother, her mother, and her sisters all worked in the local state facility for the mentally retarded. One of my first jobs was a weekend house parent to the group home for the mentally retarded adult men three blocks from my home.

I was born in the middle of the 20th century. Many things were worse at the start of the 20th century than they are today. In the early 1900’s, thousands of children worked full time in mines, mills, and sweatshops. Most workers labored ten hours a day, most often six days per week, which left them little time or energy for family life. Race riots were more frequent and often deadlier that those experienced by recent generations, although we certainly have seen race riots in our lifetimes.

Wage riots and union organization saw their beginnings as workers began to find ways of gaining a voice. Women couldn’t vote, and their wages were so low that prostitution was sometimes the only way a woman could support herself and her children. In 1900, a white child had one chance in three of losing a brother or sister before age fifteen, and a Black child had a 50-50 chance of seeing a sibling die. Children’s aid groups reported widespread abuse and neglect by parents. Men who deserted or divorced their wives rarely paid child support. Only six percent of the children graduated high school, compared with eighty two percent today.

Much nostalgia for the 1950’s is a result of selective amnesia- the same process that makes childhood memories of summer vacations grow sunnier with each passing year. The superficial sameness of 1950’s family life was achieved