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Our Secret Online Lives

A new problem is emerging as we delve deeper into the online world: Armed with Twitter and Facebook, we’re creating secret double lives without always realizing it.

Mood music:

I’ve watched friends’ marriages and careers come under strain because of this. It’s a bigger problem in relationships, especially if there’s flirting and deep connecting going on between you and someone who is not you’re significant other.

I’m starting to see where I could fall into the trap easily.

On Facebook, Twitter and in the comments section of this blog, I have a lot of exchanges with people. Some are old friends. Some are people I’ve never met and may never communicate with again. Others are friends I’ve made online, where we’ve hit it off over something, but we may have only met a few times at a security conference or tweet-up.

The exchanges are so fast with a lot of people that I don’t really think to bring it up in conversation. I get so many questions and connect with so many people through the blog that it can all become a blur.

I’m starting to see how these things, taken together, can start to resemble a secret life. I always bristle at the suggestion that I’ve built a separate online life because, if it is indeed the case, it’s not a deliberate, lucid move on my part. If I am a man of split personalities, I’d like to think that the personality people see at home, work and in my community is the most real version of me. I’d like to think I’m the same guy online as in real life, especially since this blog is about keeping it real.

But I may also be too dense or naive to see things for what they are.

Let’s face it: When you can go online and post pictures that capture your best side, so to speak, and you can fire off verbiage that’s edgier than what you’d say in person because you’re safe behind the computer, a fake side emerges. People connect with you over common interests and you have banter back and forth. You think nothing of it when you go offline because these aren’t necessarily people you know very well.

There are those who do get into online relationships deliberately because they’re unhappy, lonely, etc. But that’s not me. I’m happily married and love my family. This is usually the stuff I talk about online. I want everyone to know that I’m married, and that no one can compete with my wife. I want everyone to know how smart and bighearted my kids are.

But my contacts are vast because people read this blog or my work sites. It’s especially true of OCD DIARIES readers because if someone is in pain and relates to something I’ve written about, they want to expand on the conversation.

They’ll ping me on Facebook or email and Twitter. These expanded conversations are often the launching pad for follow-up blog posts.

I like to banter with people. To me it’s harmless. But I can see the danger where it can look like flirtation to others.

Why bring this up? Because I often find I have to out myself on real or imagined failings in order for me to make sense of it all and do something about it.

I’m not the only one who should be looking at the dangers. I have many a Facebook friend who acts one way on Facebook and another way in person.  Something about the ability to control your image online that makes that happen. I know people who gush about their significant others online who do nothing but argue with that same person in real life. There are others who talk big and mouth off from the safety of their computer, only to come off as more timid and cowardly in real life.

I don’t think we do this stuff because we’re bad. I think it’s because this online world is still a relatively new place. Those of us who are socially inept in public find we can be who we want to be online. Speaking for myself, I have a hard time articulating myself in conversation. Because I can do it in online writing, I go to town, so to speak. The difference between me and others is that I try to keep it honest at all times. Sometimes, I fail. Not because I’m trying to mislead the reader, but because I’m lying to myself. When it comes to denial, addicts are masters of the form.

I know people who stay off Facebook for exactly these reasons. I know some people whose spouses won’t allow them them on Facebook because they don’t want them flirting with people and leading that secret life.

I like to think I’m easy to read, that those closest to me should have no trouble understanding who I am or what my intentions are. I guess this, like everything else in life, isn’t meant to be easy.

Be careful how you conduct yourselves online, my friends. And whatever you do, don’t try to create a secret online life. It can never replace those in you’re immediate circle and, if it’s a facade, it’ll fall down eventually.

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When Difficult Kids Turn Out Alright

Readers know by now that Erin and I have a big challenge — helping our second child manage ADHD. He’s often difficult. Fair enough. I was a difficult child, too.

Duncan is actually tame compared to the 8-year-old me. He’s never filled up my gas tank with a garden hose. He’s never lit his plastic toys on fire, nearly burning down the house in the process. He’s never stolen money from his Dad’s wallet. He doesn’t bring home revolting report cards. That stuff was all me.

But it’s easy for me to forget those things when I’m the parent. When Duncan leaves a path of destruction around the house, causes scandal in the schoolyard by telling classmates Santa isn’t real or earns a note home from a teacher concerned that he’s not playing well with others, all the worries start about where he’s headed in life.

But I have hope.

Erin found a blog post from Rick Ackerly — a nationally recognized educator and speaker with 45 years of experience working in and for schools, dealing with kids of every harrowing stripe. It’s about how difficult children often grow up to be enormously successful adults.

He writes about an encounter he had on a flight with a CEO and three other high achievers. They talked about how they were bratty, rebellious children, and how the resulting experiences proved more valuable than a college education. He then says:

I put these stories together like this, not to try to convince parents and other educators that being bad is good, nor that one should hope for a difficult child, but to remind us of three critical education principles:

1) Difficulty, conflict, struggle, mistakes, disappointment and failure are where most learning comes from—usually the most important learning.

2) Difficulty is the life we are preparing our children for. We naturally hope that our children will be happy and successful, but that is a mirage–and we know it. The life they will get is a life of challenge, and the best preparation for challenge is challenges. When it’s harder for us, it might be better for them.

3) Raising difficult children might interfere with the rainbow life we were hoping for, but it might be better for the world. Remember Sarah Elizabeth Ippel, the willful child who started a charter school in one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods when she was 23 and now at the age of 30 is running the thriving, vibrant Academy for Global Citizenship serving 250 students, 81% of whom are low income.

Someday I want to be on a flight from Chicago to Decatur with the Spanish teacher, the CEO, and your formerly difficult child.

Having a difficult child may be difficult, but it is not the worst thing that could happen to you.

If you haven’t seen his blog yet, you need to do yourself a favor and bookmark it. Every parent should read his work.

One would think I don’t need such reminders. Despite my rough patches, I turned out fine. I have a beautiful family, a successful career in journalism and I’m in the best health I’ve been in for years — despite all my self-destructive behavior.

But as I said, when you’re the parent, you forget and need lots of reminders.

Thanks for that, Mr. Ackerly.

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#LulzSec Lesson: Narcissism Will Get You Every Time

In my job as an information security scribe, I find case studies in mental distortion almost daily. Today’s news about LulzSec’s ringleader is no exception.

Mood music:

This morning we’re following the story of how leaders of the hacker group LulzSec  were rounded up this morning, with law enforcement acting on information apparently supplied by the group’s alleged leader — Hector Xavier Monsegur, nickname “Sabu.” What strikes me is how much this guy appears to have craved attention.

There are pictures of him eating a doughnut and smirking for the camera.Hector LulzSecThere are details of how he secretly started working against his comrades months ago, supplying law enforcement with the noose they needed to hang his enterprise from the gallows.

There are reports that he was outed months ago. But outing people like this is easy when they can’t bring themselves to lay low and keep their mouths shut.

This is one of the things that I’m always fascinated about when covering cybersecurity. The industry is full of strong personalities — some very smart, some not so much — who reflect the best and worst of humanity at all times.

The story of Sabu is, among other things, about how narcissism will always bring you down in the end. When you crave the spotlight and are willing to throw your buddies under the bus to get it, everything else will untimately come crashing down around you.

As I’ve written before, I’m not immune to this.

I’ve always wondered if I was a narcissist. I’ve been wondering even more since someone asked me awhile back when I reached a point in my recovery where I stopped being self-absorbed. I had to be honest and tell her I still get self absorbed. All the time.

People with obsessive-compulsive tendencies are basket cases about being in control. Maybe it’s simply control of one’s sanity. Usually, it’s control of situations and people you have no business trying to control.

I went looking for a definition and found this on Wikipedia:

Narcissism is the personality trait of egotism, vanity, conceit, or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others. The name “narcissism” was coined by Freud after Narcissus who in Greek myth was a pathologically self-absorbed young man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

So, let’s see…

I’ve never fallen in love with my reflection. Usually, when I look in a mirror, it’s to make sure I don’t look too fat. I don’t get people who insist on having their bedroom or bathroom fitted with wall-to-wall mirror. I’ve also gone through long periods of hating myself.

But I am guilty of thinking I’m better than the guy sitting next to me. I probably think I’m a better writer than I really am. There are days when I think a little too highly of myself.

We all get that way, of course. Some can bring it under control and keep it from ruining their lives and that of others. I’d like to think I’m doing better on that score. But as the alleged leader of LulzSec demonstrates, the urge for attention can be impossible to fight.

That’s not to say I sympathize with him or the friends he sold out. In my opinion, their antics came at the expense of many innocent bystanders who get up everyday and try to make an honest go at life.

This time, Sabu’s narcissism seems to have worked to the benefit of the good guys.

Of course, a few months from now he’ll probably be working for a security company and writing his memoir. Life is twisted that way.

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Obama Killed Andrew Breitbart? You People Are Stupid

Many of us are shocked this morning to hear that Internet publishing giant Andrew Breitbart is dead. He’s had plenty of haters over the years because of his conservative zeal.

But when folks start suggesting he was murdered by the “liberal,” “socialist” President Obama, I find myself contemplating the idea that the human race may not be smart enough to survive. Also revolting is that some people are celebrating his death because they simply don’t share his ideology.

Mood music:

Personally, I’ve always been indifferent about Breitbart. He passionately expressed his opinions and that was his right. When passion oozes from a person’s pores, someone will inevitably get uptight about the smell. I have my own haters, and I know that’s just the way it is.

But the suggestion in this article that Obama had him offed is human idiocy at its worst. The post displays 25 tweets from people convinced that this death was a White House job. Some examples, taken from the post:

“Does anyone else think this is foul play? Did Obama send his Chicago goons to murder Breitbart?”

“Andrew Breitbart must have been getting too close to the truth about Barack Obama so he was offed! Typical Obama move!”

“Andrew Breitbart threatens Obama at CPAC with a video then suddenly dies? This must be investigated as an assasination Obama. WTF?”

I won’t speculate on how he died. I’ll just wish him a peaceful rest and extend my condolences to his family. As for the conspiracy theorists, I’ll just end with this:

Being stupid on Twitter is your right. You enjoy freedom of speech like the rest of us.

But don’t think for a second that your mindless drivel makes you look like the thoughtful intellect you think you are.

That goes for those of you who think the death of a human being is worth cheering.

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Recognizing Cries For Help In Your Friends’ Online Posts

For all the drama and groan-inducing crap we see on social media every day, there is a very redeeming quality in the social networking site.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/l8T-KZMED00

It’s a good early-warning system for identifying friends in need. I’m not revealing anything you don’t know, but a New York Times article my wife sent me really drives the point home.

Written by Times reporter Jan Hoffman, the article points out, among other things:

For adolescents, Facebook and other social media have created an irresistible forum for online sharing and oversharing, so much so that endless mood-of-the-moment updates have inspired a snickering retort on T-shirts and posters: “Face your problems, don’t Facebook them.”

But specialists in adolescent medicine and mental health experts say that dark postings should not be hastily dismissed because they can serve as signs of depression and an early warning system for timely intervention. 

As obvious as this seems, it can be hard to swallow all the same, since we all love to get annoyed with people who over emote online. I’ve certainly written my share of posts making fun of the whole thing (see “I am the Facebook Superstar. Hear me whine“). I don’t regret it, because I think there is some fun to be had in how people carry on.

But reading that article has me wondering about a couple friends from childhood who took their lives: Sean Marley, who I’ve written of a lot, and Zane Mead. Had Facebook existed then, what might have been? Would these old friends have posted  hints into what they were feeling? Would it have made a difference in they did?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I have seen cases where someone posted about being depressed and angry, and other friends filled the space below the post with comments of support and love. I think that would have helped Zane. Sean was a much more complicated person, so it’s harder to imagine.

All of this wondering is a pointless exercise on my part. Facebook wasn’t around in 1988 and 1996, so we’ll never know. All we can and should be doing is honoring their memories.

But for today, Facebook gives us an opportunity to help someone else who is in a mentally dangerous place. I’ve heard a lot from authority figures in my community about how Facebook is bad for kids, kind of like candy and drugs. But they miss the point. Like it or not, this is where our kids are going to be hanging out from now on. This is for them what hanging out in the park or under the bridge was for our generation.

The difference is that if we’re connected to them, we can see what they are saying and doing. That’s not always a good thing if you value your privacy. But if someone is in deep pain, we might be able to notice sooner and maybe make the difference.

That article is a good reminder to keep a close eye on what our friends and family say, and to not take every annoying comment lightly.

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The Changing, Frightening Face Of Plagiarism

Plagiarism used to be such a simple thing: If you stole someone else’s work and passed it off as your own, you were a liar and a thief. But in the cyber world, it has become something much grayer, though no less sinister.

Mood music:

In the security community I write about for a living, sites such as Attrition.org have vast sections devoted to those who plagiarize. To be called out for such an act is to be given the kiss of death. Once you’re exposed as a plagiarist, your career is pretty much over, though plenty of busted people have gone on to fool others in their new careers as “consultants.”

I was talking about all this with a friend, Dave Marcus, yesterday. Plagiarism is seen as a growing pandemic in the 21st Century, the result of everyone’s ability to post someone else’s content in their blogs without giving proper credit. In most cases, the plagiarist gets away with it because in the tidal wave of content in the digital age, it’s damn near impossible to keep track of what everyone is doing. I have a lot of respect for sites like Attrition.org for at least trying to keep watch.

But here’s the thing that scares me: These days, you can be a serial plagiarist and not even realize you’re doing it. It’s so easy to find information on sites like Wikipedia and copy and paste. Some call it research. But when you use it without sourcing it, it’s plagiarism.

I’ve been in journalism for 18-plus years and I’ve always lived in fear that at some point I might falter and forget to adequately source someone. Staying clean from that was already difficult enough before the Internet became the fast and easily-switched-on fire hose it is today.

In my day job, I write about a lot of research reports. The name of the game is to take the complex detail and break it down into language most of us can understand. In this blog, I draw from a lot of studies about mental health, addiction, etc.

I do a ton of cutting and pasting. In my security blog, I’ll use chunks straight from the horse’s mouth, first identifying who it’s from and then italicizing the borrowed passages. It’s my way of keeping it honest. I do the same thing here.

Other times I’ll copy and paste and then convert something into my own words. In those cases, I tell you where it’s coming from. But it’s also easy to see how simple the careless omissions of credit can be.

In the push to get a piece of writing finished, oversights will happen — no matter how hard the scribe tries to avoid it.

The result of all this is that plagiarism is becoming something that’s no longer black vs. white, good vs. evil. It’s becoming something more like sleepwalking. You get up in the middle of the night and walk around the house. Someone else in the house might see you and make note of it. But the next morning you wake up with no memory of it. As far as you’re concerned, you spent the entire night in bed.

It’s more forgivable when you don’t know you walked into a priceless vase in the middle of the night and sent it crashing down the stairs in a million pieces. But it’s still a sorry state of affairs.

The point of all this is that I never want to steal someone else’s work. But I’m awake to how easy it is to slip up.

If I ever do, I won’t feel evil. But I will feel terrible, all the same.

I can promise you that I’ll always do everything I can do get it right.

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Anti-Authoritarianism As A Mental Illness

A friend sent me an interesting article by psychologist Bruce E. Levine that poses the question: Would we drug up Albert Einstein today for displaying traits outside the norms of an obedient society?

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/zmw9dd9UgRQ

Let’s see what Levine says, then I’ll weigh in…

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by 1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians; and 2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.  

Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.  

Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society’s most oppressive authorities.  

Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance with authorities, even those authorities one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one. 

I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience. And it also has become clear to me that the anti-authoritarianism of their patients creates enormous anxiety for these professionals, and their anxiety fuels diagnoses and treatments.  

A 2009 Psychiatric Times article titled “ADHD & ODD: Confronting the Challenges of Disruptive Behavior” reports that “disruptive disorders,” which include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and opposition defiant disorder (ODD), are the most common mental health problem of children and teenagers. ADHD is defined by poor attention and distractibility, poor self-control and impulsivity, and hyperactivity. ODD is defined as a “a pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior without the more serious violations of the basic rights of others that are seen in conduct disorder”; and ODD symptoms include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.” 

Psychologist Russell Barkley, one of mainstream mental health’s leading authorities on ADHD, says that those afflicted with ADHD have deficits in what he calls “rule-governed behavior,” as they are less responsive to rules of established authorities and less sensitive to positive or negative consequences. ODD young people, according to mainstream mental health authorities, also have these so-called deficits in rule-governed behavior, and so it is extremely common for young people to have a “dual diagnosis” of AHDH and ODD. 

Do we really want to diagnose and medicate everyone with “deficits in rule-governed behavior”? 

Albert Einstein, as a youth, would have likely received an ADHD diagnosis, and maybe an ODD one as well. Albert didn’t pay attention to his teachers, failed his college entrance examinations twice, and had difficulty holding jobs. However, Einstein biographer Ronald Clark (Einstein: The Life and Times) asserts that Albert’s problems did not stem from attention deficits but rather from his hatred of authoritarian, Prussian discipline in his schools. Einstein said, “The teachers in the elementary school appeared to me like sergeants and in the Gymnasium the teachers were like lieutenants.” At age 13, Einstein read Kant’s difficult Critique of Pure Reason—because he was interested in it. Clark also tells us Einstein refused to prepare himself for his college admissions as a rebellion against his father’s “unbearable” path of a “practical profession.” After he did enter college, one professor told Einstein, “You have one fault; one can’t tell you anything.” The very characteristics of Einstein that upset authorities so much were exactly the ones that allowed him to excel.

My thoughts:

Einstein probably would have been deemed an ADHD-OCD case and given medication. I’m not convinced that the medication would have obliterated his intellect  or altered his work. But who knows.

I only know that as someone with OCD and ADHD, I take medication that allows me to move along without getting brain locked. It doesn’t make me smarter or dumber. It doesn’t numb me to discomforting situations. I still feel and think everything. The worry and anxiety simply doesn’t incapacitate me like it used to.

Are psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals too quick to prescribe medication for the sake of making sufferers more obedient and less troublesome in their surroundings? Probably. I think that’s especially problematic with children.

It’s hard to paint every situation with the same brush, though. There are bad therapists and excellent therapists.

Some get just the right treatment. Others get disastrous treatment.

I’m just glad Einstein got to live his life on his terms.

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A Rebellious Catholic’s Analysis Of Rick Santorum

That Rick Santorum really sets people off. He doesn’t like gays serving in the military, or women for that matter. He thinks Satan is taking over America through rock music. People either love him or want to see him vaporized.

Mood music:

Is he really THE presidential candidate for true Catholics, as some of my church friends suggest? Is he really the evil, hateful soul some of my non-Catholic friends make him out to be?

The following is my take on the former Pennsylvania senator, who is giving Mitt Romney hell in the fight for the Republican nomination for president. It’s how I, as a devout Catholic, see him.

Let me be honest up front: I never liked Rick Santorum when he was a senator. I always found his passion for mixing church with state maddening. I even hated that smirk of his.

As I’ve gotten older and found my faith, I still don’t like him much. But I don’t hate him like I used to. He’s fighting for his beliefs, which is the right of every American. I still think some of his rhetoric is zany, but he’s as free to engage in stupid talk as everyone else.

In my opinion, he would be a disaster as president. But that’s just me.

As a guy who goes to church every Sunday, takes his faith seriously and spends a lot of time with people in his church community, I see Santorum as a reflection of the people I mix with every day.

I have some close friends that are far more socially conservative than I could ever be. Mine is a much more rebellious brand of Catholicism. I refuse to view homosexuality as a disease or a lifestyle choice for two reasons: I don’t think people choose to be gay, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them for being gay. I reject the idea that your vote for president should be solely based on whether the candidate supports Roe V. Wade. If you have to label me pro-life or pro-choice, I’d have to say I’m pro-life. Abortion as birth control is evil to me. But I also think the labels are stupid. Pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion as a lot of my friends make it out to be. And hating abortion certainly doesn’t make you pro-life.

But I’m not voting for someone on that issue alone. You can share my views on abortion but be incompetent in every other way. I’m voting for president, not bishop.

Like I said, I’m a rebellious Catholic. All that matters to me is that I have Jesus in my life. The rest is politics perpetuated by human beings.

Santorum is like a lot of my church buddies. Gay people make him squirm. He also gets self righteous and points his nose down at people who are not 100 percent like-minded. But I don’t think he’s evil.

A lot of the friends I disagree with on these issues would give you the shirt off their backs. We look after each other’s children and have complete trust in one another. We even like a lot of the same music. Some of the most religiously devout people I know are Metallica fans.

We don’t really discuss politics. We talk about our jobs, our families, Boy Scout activities and cigars (though I don’t smoke them anymore). We have deep discussions about addiction and mental illness, because we all have it in our families. On the rare occasion politics enters the conversation, we bust each other’s balls, laugh and move on.

I suspect Rick Santorum is pretty much the same way when he’s not in front of the cameras. He’s probably a decent human being who would help his neighbor in a time of need.

But if any of my friends ran for office, I wouldn’t vote for them.

It’s nothing personal. I just find some of their ideas zany, and they feel the same about me.

Santorum doesn’t strike me as evil. He does, however, strike me as the wrong guy to put in the White House.

Rick Santorum (Credit: Reuters/Brian Losness)
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The Future Of THE OCD DIARIES

After lots of feedback, I’ve decided to change this blog rather than kill it. Erin is going to be my partner in crime in this endeavor. She’s my soul mate and has lived through much of what I’ve written about, so it makes perfect sense.

We’re in the brainstorming stages, but here are some ideas we’re kicking around.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/pAzyeA9-ib8

I kicked around the idea of changing the name, but most of you have advised against that. The blog is rooted in my desire to raise awareness of OCD and other illnesses of the mind, and readers have suggested I should keep the name as a reminder of where this all started. Others pointed out that it’s become a brand name. When you change the name of a known brand, you confuse the audience.

The tagline of the blog will definitely change, though. It started as the blog that kicks all those demons in the teeth, but the topics have expanded so much that it’s really a blog about dealing with life. Maybe I’ll hold a contest for new tagline ideas.

I think the banner will have to change in other ways, but we’ll see. If my cousin Andrew, the artist behind my banner, is reading this and has any ideas, get to work!

I’m going to switch platforms from WordPress.com to WordPress.org so I can further customize the blog and allow for ads. There are many great organizations out there that can help people with their demons, and I want to offer them a place to get known.

I also want to invite more guest writers in.

Erin has a good idea for readers who have followed my no-flour, no-sugar posts: A section with recipes for those who want to live it without getting bored by the same old food.

Since my love of hard rock is an ongoing theme, I want to devote a section to exposing new and local bands I think you should know about.

Faith has been another main theme, so maybe we can create a special section for that.

The possibilities are endless.

This thing is still in the planning stages, and we welcome your ideas.

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In Marriage, Communication Gets Tougher As You Get Older

I’ve never been good at the Valentine’s Day thing. Maybe I’m fulfilling the male stereotype, or maybe it’s because I feel more pressure to express myself. I do fine with written words. In person is another thing. When the holiday passed I Iet out a big exhale.

Mood music:

The fact of the matter is that I have a lot of love in my heart right now. I don’t need a holiday to feel it, though Valentine’s Day is as good a day as any to express it. And as my cousin Faith put it, there’s nothing wrong with setting aside a holiday for the good things in life, like love.

I’m in love with Erin more than ever. She gives her family everything she has and props everyone up when they’re having trouble standing on their own. She makes the kids’ Halloween costumes from scratch every year. She started a successful freelance business from nothing. The person she is makes me want to be better still.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve gotten much better at communication. In fact, I’ve gotten worse. So has Erin. This shouldn’t surprise any couple that’s been together for a lot of years. When you have kids everything becomes about them and it’s easy to forget that the family started with husband and wife.

Some married couples stop talking about these things and drift apart. Erin and I have decided it’s time to face the issue head on. Not because we’re mad at each other, because we’re not. Ours is not a marriage in trouble. But we know that when a couple stops communicating long enough, the relationship can deteriorate. Since we love each other, we’re not going to let that happen. Pure and simple.

We’re accepting that as we get older, we need more maintenance. That goes for how we talk to each other and how we connect on a spiritual level.

We’ve both changed a lot. That has contributed to the communication challenge.

Recovery over addiction, fear and anxiety has been a miraculous, beautiful thing. I thank God every day. But when a man changes, a whole new set of problems arise.

It’s a confusing, frustrating thing when your spouse acts one way for a bunch of years and then, suddenly or not so suddenly, ceases to be the person you married.

I’d like to think I’m still the guy she married in the most fundamental ways. My heart and most of my passions haven’t really changed. But as the priest who married us said: “You marry the person you think you know, then spend the rest of your life getting to know each other.”

As far as that goes, I’ve been a moving target, tough to nail down.

Erin used to get anxious in big crowds. Now she’s a lot more at ease. She used to struggle to show patience toward my often dysfunctional family. She’s better at that now than I am. The prospect of public speaking used to rattle her. Now she’s got a couple talks behind her and many more ahead. While all that internal growth goes on, she gets more beautiful by the day. She’s always been beautiful. But lately it distracts me. Call me sappy, but there it is.

Still, those changes, while awesome, require me to rethink how I communicate as an older spouse.

And so goes this adventure called marriage. Truth is, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Besides, as my friend Linda said the other day, love endures.

love