Roof Repair

Roof Repair, Shutdowns, Function, Emotion              Jim Squire                            November 2025

One of the important themes that I learned in becoming a therapist were words spoken to me by a mentor that the best time to repair a roof is not when it is raining. Get help when there is a neutral time and not a time during chaos. This anecdote is found in our government shutdowns at the national and state level as well as in marriages that fall apart, and life in general.

I met with two grandparents several months ago as they were having trouble when their  adult children and grandchildren behaved badly when they would visit them at their shore home. They left things a mess, and grandchildren wouldn’t listen to them. I suggested a strategy they should act now to make things better with their family life and their grown children, and grandchildren when chaos wasn’t present. The problems also exist when the grandparents are with their children and grandchildren any time as they are together during the year as well. Their adult children’s style is to let the grandparents take care of their children when it is convenient for them. The grandchildren fight constantly and create a nightmare for the grandparents as they are often ignored in breaking up the predictable chaos.

These grandparents thought that the problem was with the kids. I shifted the solution that the problem rests in their adult children as, in my opinion, the three couples needed to sort out their relationships which were troubled. The most troubled couple seem to be staying together for the kids. The kids were the identified patient in these family relationships. The best time to handle this issue is to intervene not at the shore, but right now when they had more control of the situation. They left, thanked me, and said they would get back to me with how their intervention went. They never called, but I heard from someone that they talked to a friend who told them that the kids are only at the shore for a limited time so why stir things up. They acted on that advice and didn’t do anything. The conflict remained same. It was the status quo because they didn’t want to risk having the relationships with their adult children put at risk. They were afraid of their children’s reaction if confronted by the problem.

If a troubled couple knows that their marriage is functional more than emotional, how they make each other feel, they need to talk about possible divorce after some family therapy. Kids are not stupid. They will become what they see in their exchanges between their mom and dad. Most family therapists counsel couples that staying together for the kids is a bad idea.

The grandchildren are acting out models that are the psychodynamic of their parents.

Waiting to repair a roof when it is not raining is also the underlying dynamic of the politicians involved in that failure to do the basic requirement to pass a budget. The Democrats and Republicans have known for a time what the issues would be. There was no dialogue on the issues. Picture both parties as a dysfunctional couple with no sensitivity of one group to the needs of the other group. They couldn’t get it done for they chose to talk when it was the worse time. It wasn’t just raining; it was a downpour leading to flooding. The grandchildren in this metaphor would be the American people particularly those who had checks withheld and daily posts of the blame game. The therapist in family therapy can work out what is happening to the couple because he/she would be neutral. I often mention that relationships are about power. Who has it? How do you get that balance of power to a shared nurture of the politics of the experience. It didn’t help that Trump the bully has the Republicans scared of him. Bullies defeat dialogue,

Decision making in groups work best when there isn’t chaos caused by it’s my way or the highway. Ideally the power in the relationship should be to yield to the better expertise of the other. There are things that I feel strongly about, but Vicki not only has things that are important to her, but she has an expertise that I don’t have in areas. Don’t ask me to pick out the paint for the rooms or the interior design. And vice versa.

We built a home on the Chesapeake under the tutelage of a person who sold us blueprints and the materials to build it. The teacher was a church official in his Episcopal Church Parish. It was a grueling process where we learned much. 17% of people who build a home end up in a divorce. When I was asked how we survived, the answer was simple. Vicki made all the decisions about the way the home should look. She is good at that. I made all the decisions related to the function factor of how things should be engineered and done. There were tense decision moments, but when we remembered our respective expertise, things were great.

We are friends with a couple where the husband is a graduate of the Naval Academy and an expert on nuclear energy. His wife is the ultimate mother and spouse. When they had an argument about whether the chimney should be painted in s high end rehab, he indicated that it wasn’t his choice to paint it white, but she has 51% of the power in that situation and he had 49%. They have a give and take relationship, but he is secure in his own leadership ability. He is also quick to add that his wife is responsible for raising their daughters to be the wonderful people they have become. She is the better nurturer of the kids. He indicates that frequently. On my best days, I remember to put others before my own needs. That is something that is absent in divorce, the government shutdown where the best for the American people came a distant second for the American people as both sides wanted things their way.

Chaos in trying to repair a roof in the rain, or in a family, or in the shutdowns of state and national government, leads to a desire to control. It sets up a win/lose paradigm and what we see in decision making which is endemic in the West decision making style. The East chooses a different decision-making model where each person or group attempts to move closer to each other. The people are the winners.

Repairing a bridge when it is raining is a good metaphor. I think about it often when identifying the right time and right attitude to be a mediator and problem solver. Today people are trying to identify who “won” the battle of the shutdown. No one did!

Never forget that the best time to repair a roof is not when it is raining. Picture roofers repairing a roof in a downpour. Rain/Chaos brings control. It never ends well. Trump knows that!