Breaking up isn't just hard to do. It can be nearly impossible for unmarried couples who find themselves "heart married," a term coined by former Memphis City School Board members Lora Jobe and Barbara Prescott, in the new book they co-authored, "My Heart Got Married And I Didn't Know It" (Wipf and Stock Publishers: $18).
The women call heart marriage a profound bonding of two people who behave, in many respects, like a married couple. They are sexually intimate, monogamous and may live together full time or part time.
"They think they're avoiding the heartache of marriage by not getting married," said Jobe. In reality, they're setting themselves up for a world of hurt and wasted years.
By naming and defining the relationship, the two women hope to offer couples, their family and friends, a way to recognize it and deal with it more effectively.
Jobe, 51, is a registered nurse who served on the school board from 1996 to 2005. In 2007, she received the James G. Hughes Community Advocate Award from the Memphis Child Advocacy Center for helping ban corporal punishment at Memphis schools. She now serves as the West Tennessee field representative for Sen. Lamar Alexander.
Prescott, 59, served on the school board from 1991 to 2002, has a Ph.D. in counseling and human systems, has operated a private counseling practice for more than 25 years and conducted seminars on marriage and family issues for local churches and other organizations.
Jobe and Prescott met and became friends through their work on the school board and found they had more in common with both having children at White Station High School. Jobe created the concept of heart marriage through the relationships she observed among friends and the children of friends. A young woman thinks moving in with her boyfriend is a step toward marriage, while he often thinks of it as a marriage try-out. They make a life together without ever discussing their relationship or its future because no one wants to rock the boat. A Knoxville friend of Jobe's said he knew within 30 days it was a bad idea to move in with his girlfriend, Jobe said, but he spent the next 10 years trying to break up. Or couples may become involved in a long on-again, off-again relationship, come to think of being together as inevitable, and marry. They walk the aisle with doubtful hearts and end up divorcing soon afterward as a way of finally settling things. "They marry to get divorced," said Jobe. Jobe and Prescott met at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, about halfway between their two homes, two years ago and created a table of contents. Jobe wrote the first chapter explaining the concept, "and then it just took off," said Prescott. They traded their work in e-mails, edited each other and ended up writing about an equal number of chapters.
In the book they offer strategies for avoiding heart marriage; how to determine if it can make a successful transition into a legal marriage; and steps one can take to dissolve a heart marriage. In heart marriage, there is no judge to swing a gavel or papers to sign that put an official end to the relationship. So the authors suggest ways people can create their own symbolic ending. An agent helped them make the book more marketable by adding quizzes, bullet points and action plans, but was not able to place it. The women eventually found a publisher themselves in Eugene, Ore., that does mainly academic and trade books but also some self-help books, that liked their proposal. "My Heart Got Married," is not a Christian book but "we come from that perspective," said Prescott. The two anticipate holding half-day seminars and workshops based on the book at churches and for other organizations. "We haven't had anything quite like this before," said Katy Spurlock, director of education for The Urban Child Institute. "But we're interested in whatever helps people understand relationships. So much of a child's success depends upon parents and caregivers." Heart to Heart Talk Are you "heart-married"? Positive answers to the questions from myheartgotmarried.com could mean you are deeply ensnared in a relationship that may be going nowhere. Do you feel uneasy when friends ask when you and your boyfriend or girlfriend are getting married because you have no answer?Do you anticipate getting a ring from your boyfriend on a holiday or birthday, yet it never seems to happen?Do you decline to break up because you've invested so much time already, or you fear being lonely or starting over with someone else?Is sex the one thing that seems to get you and your partner through difficulties and doubts about the relationship?Do you think, "We've been together so long, I guess we ought to just go ahead and get married"?
