The Secrets of Successful Families. Артем Толоконин

Tolokonin

      Reader’s Note

      We all come from a family – whether a wealthy one or not, a happy one or otherwise. We initially know what a family is and what it should be. What in fact is this knowledge: the truth or a parent scenario which will ruin your own marriage if you follow it? In this book the author studied fundamentals of a family. He is sure that each and every family relationship can be improved, restored and built on under the laws of unconditional and mature love.

      Author’s Note

      This book is a result of my years-long practice of helping people to resolve their family relationship issues and of family experience: my family helped me understand simple principles of building balanced relationships. I wish each reader of this book would find harmony and family happiness and see a way to resolve their family issues if there are any, to decrease the number of divorces and increase the number of happy families. To my mind, love is the reason for building family relations and the relations themselves are the consequence. Love is the only right shining beacon for your thoughts, feelings, and actions. The main secret of a successful family is developing the feeling of love in an individual during all their life.

      I would like to express my gratitude to Aleksandra, my beloved wife, to Eva, Alla and Artem, my children, as well as to my clients for their trust, and to God for the gift of love!

      Introduction

Opponents or Partners? A Dismal Trend

      Nowadays, the issue of family culture is essential. Books about adultery and dissipation have grown popular, their authors scavenge marital mistakes, put human vices on show, turning problems within a family into an essential attribute of married life. At its core, this is literature for teenagers that stirs emotions and disturbs mind. It is eagerly bought to experience these emotions. People escape to a fictional pathological world instead of facing the truth.

      To realize that a family is not a domestic tyranny, not a prison, not a code of prohibitions and restrictions, a different, evolutionary view of family relations is needed. Leo Tolstoy’s famous quote “Happy families are all alike” gives rise to a controversial and, in fact, incorrect conclusion in modern public eye: all of them are equally boring. Nevertheless, at my psychotherapeutic sessions, almost all my clients admit dreaming of a happy family life and love. This book is exactly about love, too! It is about what most people are truly concerned about: how to create a happy and balanced family!

The Waiting Room: self-fulfillment or love?

      A lot of people buy yellow press to look for the answer to their problems there, “Oh, and that one has already had an affair? Has Abramovich left his wife, too? Why, I am doing fine, actually. I am normal.”

      The Author: This mass trend shows how global family problems are in modern society.

      The Reader: You mean, anybody can save their marriage?

      The Author: Of course, they can, given the will. This is exactly the situation you have to work out. There is no wish to do so because a tradition to fight for the family has not been developed in our culture. People get divorced because this is the easiest way.

      Young people who are getting married do not usually think about the deep meaning of what they are doing. Then, as children and grandchildren are born, they pick up the family scenario, and a chain reaction happens. Only a change in the way of thinking will help overcome deep-rooted family problems.

      The Reader: It seems that family members used to be very closely economically-linked with each other. The woman was absolutely dependent on the man, she did not have her own money, she had nowhere to go. There was no even need to. Accordingly, people considered marriage necessary and somehow even inevitable, while divorce was the last resort. Now there is no such dependence. Neither the husband nor the wife feel bound or consider it necessary to conceal their dissatisfaction with each other. However, dysfunctional relationship within a family serve as a constant source of stress, take away a lot of energy, that you would prefer to invest in self-fulfillment or in something else because you only live once and…

      The Author: What does such “self-fulfillment” provide for love?

      The Reader: Well, I don’t know. The self-fulfillment opportunity is the chance of the same self-enrichment, development.

      The Author: That’s it. Some people plunge head over heels into such spiritual practice and forget about reality. They lose track of life.

      The Reader: Can’t work or activity become a spiritual practice? Doesn’t an individual expand their horizons this way?

      The Author: Your craving to self-fulfillment indicates that deep in your soul you want to have a family.

      The Reader: Everybody wants it, for sure!

      The Author: Then what are you afraid of? Go ahead and build a family relationship. You need to get out of the power of the scenario you are now ruled by. Analyze accurately, consider what comes from what and change yourself – that’s it. From my point of view, family life is the most powerful spiritual practice!

The Waiting Room: Love Is a Support Field

      I have wonderful friends, but there are very few married women among them although they all dream of a family. It appears to me that not everything depends on a woman in changing her lifestyle and creating a family. I am also saving a collection of those who are happily married…

      The Author: Is it a collection of rudiments?

      The Reader: No, this is a collection of family relationships that have all the features of a successful family you named. The husband and wife are friends, they have good sex, it is clear that they are in love just by the way they look at each other. Although they are already way older than 40, they give birth to their second child just for pleasure, simply because the first one has grown up… However, I know only three families like that, and in one of them the husband died after ten years of such a happy marriage. Alas, most examples of family life around me do not inspire me to get married. The husband and wife do not understand each other, they annoy each other, fight, and, as a rule, one of them completely subordinates his or her life to the needs of the other. A lot of women say, “I’d rather be alone than like this – I’d be merrier, healthier, happier.”

      The Author: First of all, any situation within a family can be changed. The thing is that when one of the partners starts changing, the other keeps up with him or her. People communicate with each other at the subconscious level much more than consciously. If you are trying to get something from your partner believing that he or she should do what you think is right, this is not love but an internal racket. When you accept a person the way they are, when you love them, they begin to brighten up, surrounded by your energy, and start changing.

The Waiting Room: Suffering in Sympathy

      Today, when talking with my daughter, I recalled a case from our friends’ life. When it was revealed that the wife had high blood sugar and the risk of diabetes appeared, all carbohydrates were excluded from her menu. The husband also gave up eating sugar and carbohydrates in sympathy with her and even grew more handsome and lost 10 kg. My daughter says, ”So, what surprises you? Can it be any other way? I don’t need a family where one doesn’t share the life of the other!”

      The Author: So people must be sure: if one in the family suffers, the other must resign to suffering too?

      The Reader: Yes, share it…

      The Author: I think this is a somewhat slanted position. It has a right to be, but it is not necessary. Each family member should feel comfortable. Nobody has to suffer.

      The Reader: Even if it means to agree to some restrictions to support their spouse?

      The Author: Yes, it happens so, only if there is a sincere desire, a drive and no one is forcing anyone. Then, after going around this circle, the relationship breaks new ground.

      The Reader: I think the husband did it precisely