A friend posted a link to a fictional letter. It helped me. Benjamin is going through a stormy time, with enough yelling to scare the neighbor's dog. 

The letter on this blog, called Emotional Geographic, describes how deeply this teenager needs his or her parents to hold the line. Even when he or she rebels, and spews hate, and thrashes at rules, what a teen really wants is to find the edges and to know in no uncertain terms that their mom will not bail.

The author says this:

This is the fight that will teach me that my shadow is not bigger than my light. This is the fight that will teach me that bad feelings don't mean the end of a relationship. 

This week the shadow has felt looming. Yesterday I gave up. I didn't have the oomph to wrangle with Ben anymore. Then Zack stepped in. He talked with Ben using metaphors he can understand... cartoon characters. With names I resist learning of heroes and villains, Zack reeled Benjamin back in from his anger. Then he invited him to pray. 

In our dreams, marriage is a parade of affection and fireworks. But if that were the case we would all end the game precisely as egocentric as we began. It is in the struggle that we develop muscles, that we learn what resilience feels like. 

Maybe I will try to learn the names of those cartoons.