Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

"SAVERS AND THROWER-OUTERS"

Taking a morning walk in my end of town recently, I was several blocks from my own street when I noticed a driveway filled with odds and ends. I knew it was trash day, and most houses had the usual garbage cans set beside the driveway like sentinels posted and waiting. But this house didn't just have the typical trash set out. It had rows, double rows, lined up from the street all the way to the garages. Assorted boxes, rubbish, and castaways heaped up in an assortment that was sure to challenge the pickup crew. I couldn't help but speculate about this overwhelming display as I made my way on down the street. Maybe I'd been reading too many mystery novels recently, but I thought this must be a clue about some earth-shaking event that had fallen upon this household.

I had no idea about the family that resided in that house, yet , as a therapist, felt a certain sadness that some eruption beyond the normal family weekend had spewed out all this unwanted trash. My fantasy was that in that house there lived a couple comprised, like in most marriages I've observed, of one saver and one thrower-outer. Working on this tentative theory, the neatnik must have won out over the collector-of things, and this couple had finally cleaned the storage closets, the attic, and, the garage in one great explosion of a weekend project. Then I knew why my unconscious was nudging me with the feeling of sadness-. The balance between saving and throwing-out had been tilted in favor of the thrower-out advocate. Harmony in a marriage, I believe, is based on keeping a creative tension between the two opposing tendencies. Sure, there will always be a certain amount of push/pull between these different roles, and there will be some tolerance of each other's idiosyncrasies, with at least temporary compromises. But one side of the equation should not prevail over the other. After all, this couple got together based on the attraction of opposites. What they lacked in their own individual personality, they made up for by marrying someone with that missing quality. I don't say this is a consciously calculated thing; it just happens, like marriages made in heaven, and earthlings shouldn't mess with this divine arrangement. What qualities God hath joined together by the mysteries of the unconscious, no man or woman should put asunder by an act of dominance or unfair maneuver. I have heard of one small town in North Carolina where they never have garage sales. The reason, as it was explained to me, is that they never have anything to throw away. I say this is bound to be an unhealthy advantage to the savers and neatniks of that town. Things are out of balance in that place, and the marriage counselors who practice there have their work cut out for them: Get things back in balance. I can only wonder that such imbalance on this scale that involves a whole town must be counterbalanced by some other town somewhere in America where there are households of people who never save anything, no back issues of magazines, no balls of string, no clothing that "we might use someday"! They must have nonstop garage sales, thriving Goodwill stores, and keep the trash man hopping. It's always better , in my opinion, to have the neatniks and the savers working it out within the same household, where its greatly more manageable . If whole towns become polarized, with just one kind of personality predominating, there could be wars breaking out between towns, something marriage counselors don't know how to mediate. No doubt there are opposing mental forces in the universe, but they won't get out of hand if we can resolve the problems of imbalance at the micro level. Every couple has to do their part for world peace, working out the day to day differences over what household items are to be stockpiled and what are to be eliminated . Be tolerant of one another, give thanks for the modulating influence of your differences!

The danger point comes, some would say, when the individual partners in the mariage reach thier midlife transition.

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