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I Can Be Hell on the Marriage

Erin and I have a strong marriage. But every marriage requires constant work, and ours is no exception. That work often requires me to look in the mirror.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/E7xUZkKd58c

For Erin, it means seeing my bad days for what they are and helping me work through them. For me, it means doubling down and fighting back the demons that make me difficult to live with sometimes.

Having experienced all this, an article in Communication Monographs caught our interest. It explores depression and the uncertainty it can cause for couples.

Depression is a chronic condition for me, so it certainly applies.

The article notes that depressed people withdraw from negative situations or social challenges. Feelings of futility and inhibition come into play. Couples where one or both partners experience depression try to preserve the relationship by avoiding conflict.

“This behavior is detrimental to relationships, causing lack of problem resolution, missed bonding opportunities, lack of closeness and questions over commitment,” the article says.

From my perspective, it’s true.

I used to carry around a deep fear of loss that made me avoid painful, truthful conversations we needed. I feared Erin would run out of patience and kick me out.

When we argued, I clammed up. Eventually a wall rose up between us. A few years ago we decided to go to marriage counseling and work through it. The experience drove home that I needed to speak my mind and be honest about my feelings — and that I needed to be a better listener.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve done. That new side of me was no fun for Erin, either. But it was a huge step forward.

My demons have made me less than honest in the past, especially when my addictions were running wild. When you lie, you’re essentially taking a hammer to the trust you build as a couple. It takes a long time to build it back up. Sometimes, the trust never comes back.

I’ve worked damn hard not to let my issues take us there. I’d like to think I’m better than I used to be.

Meanwhile, we’ve developed routines to keep our marriage strong despite the challenges:

  • Once or twice a month, we have date nights. Date nights are critical. If we don’t occasionally focus just on each other, we can lose that original spark.
  • Most days, we stop after work and share the experiences of our day. When the weather cooperates, we do this during walks.
  • We try to never go to bed angry. If the day ends and we have a disagreement, we discuss. It’s not always pretty, but it’s necessary. As an extension of that:
  • We always try to argue well. We don’t call each other names. We don’t threaten each other. We work through things.

We love each other and have found the struggle worth it. We know the struggle is never over.

We know my depression will always be a threat and we must confront it as a couple.

Heartsign, by EddieTheYeti
“Heartsign” by EddieTheYeti
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Sometimes, a Sex Song Is Just a Sex Song

Columnists have gone nuts since Beyoncé and husband Jay Z performed “Drunk in Love” at the Grammys. The song is about them having steamy, drunken sex. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet we can’t help pontificating about what it says of their marriage.

Here’s the Grammy Performance:

http://youtu.be/LaVeoJt0jfI

Here’s the official video, which is dirtier:

Debate over this song illustrates how we tend to overthink things.

Alyssa Rosenberg raved about the powerful case Beyoncé and Jay Z made for marriage in a Think Progress article:

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Jay-Z got on the Grammy stage last night and did what conservatives have been dying for someone to do for ages: they made marriage look fun, and sexy, and a source of mutual professional fulfillment.

Missing here is the fact that marriage is about much, much more than sex. It’s important, to be sure, but it’s not enough to make a marriage go the distance. Have all the steamy moments you want. If two people can’t fill the gaps in each other’s souls, nothing else matters.

On the other hand, New York Post writer Naomi Schaefer Riley declares that Jay-Z is a shitty husband:

For years, these award ceremonies have pushed the envelope; Beyoncé’s booty-shaking was certainly no worse than Miley Cyrus’s twerking or any number of other performances by Madonna, for instance. But there’s something particularly icky about doing it while your husband looks on approvingly.

“Honestly, I didn’t want to watch Jay Z and Beyoncé’s foreplay,” says Charlotte Hays, author of “When Did White Trash Become the New Normal?” Indeed, the happy couple seems to have completely blurred the line between what goes on in their bedroom and what happens on national TV. So much for the woman that Michelle Obama has called “a role model who kids everywhere can look up to.”

Too much information? Maybe. Does it prove Jay Z is a pig whose idea of a strong marriage is exploiting his wife? Not really. Long before these two hooked up, they were performers who never shied away from controversy. Riley suggests Beyoncé is a victim. She doesn’t give the singer nearly enough credit for controlling her image and destiny.

Another line of debate concerns this lyric from Jay Z in the song: “Eat the cake, Anna Mae.” Beyoncé joins in on the rap, which alludes to a scene in the 1993 Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It? where abusive husband and musical partner Ike Turner forces cake on his wife in the prelude to another violent blow up:

http://youtu.be/DadlLq2yrBw

Is one line of a song proof that he espouses domestic abuse? Hardly. Since the beginning of time we’ve heard musicians sing of love publicly while being abusive in their relationships. We’ve also heard musicians talk tough in song and be anything but offstage.

The thing is, sometimes a sex song is just a sex song.

beyonce and Jay Z

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5 Reasons Not to Share Relationship Troubles on Facebook

One of the things I enjoy about Facebook is seeing who is hooking up with who. When I see friends and family basking in the glow of a new love, it makes me happy. But even on Facebook, love is a double-edged sword.

Mood music:

At some point, every relationship needs work. When that happens, Facebook becomes the last place you should share your feelings. Tossing laundry stained with the blood of your busted heart onto your wall for all to see has several bad effects. Not the least of which are:

  • It’s harder to make up when your anger goes viral. Once you say something in anger to your significant other on Facebook, it becomes a lot harder to take those words back. By the time you think better of it and press the delete button, most people have already seen it.
  • It’s harder for people to take your feelings seriously. This may sound cruel, but it’s the truth. When you take to Facebook at every rough turn in your relationship, friends and family become desensitized. One friend once Facebooked a live, running commentary of a fight she was having with her husband. Every time he said something that made her mad, she got on Facebook. I eventually called her out on it and she unfriended me. I hate to say it, but I don’t miss her.
  • Nobody likes drama kings or queens. This is an extension of the second point. If all you do on Facebook is complain about how wronged you feel, people are going to get tired of you. You become that annoying sound in the back of the room when people are trying to watch something on TV.
  • You shouldn’t be telling us about your problems. Remember that we’re not the ones you are having a fight with. If you’re telling all of us about your romantic problems, you’re clearly not present to talk through it with the person who matters most.
  • Today’s Facebook venting is tomorrow’s court document. Let’s say your relationship crumbles and you’re headed for divorce. Once that happens, the lawyer representing your estranged spouse will scour the Internet for every shred of anything you’ve ever written online. Depending on what you’ve said in the heat of the moment, those words will be used against you.

Having said all that, I’ll go on the record and admit that I’m not a perfect follower of these points. I’ve written blog posts about difficult relationships, and I certainly won’t be getting a prize anytime soon for mending all the fences that deserve my attention. What I post here goes straight to Facebook. In my defense, though, I’ve typically described things that happened deep in the past. It’s written long after I’ve had time to process the emotions and lessons.

And I always have my limits. If I’m having a disagreement with my wife, I’m not sharing it on the social networks.

She’d kill me if I did, and rightfully so.

I posted all my drama on Facebook and no one commented

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Punch-Drunk Love

In one of those bizarre flashbacks triggered by someone’s bad singing, I remembered something amusing about my maternal grandparents yesterday.

During a Cub Scout overnight on the U.S.S. Salem, someone in our group started singing the jingle for The Clapper. You might remember the commercial with old people clapping their hands to turn lights on and off with the song, “Clap on! Clap off! The Clapper!”

Mood video:

I remember Nana and Papa having a Clapper. Whenever Papa got Nana wound up and she started yelling at him, it would set off The Clapper and the lights would flick on and off repeatedly.

Those two always seemed to be fighting, and it was amusing to watch. Papa would say something he knew would wind her up, and she’d let him have it, f-bombs flying. “Fuck you, Louie!” was a popular refrain.

When that response came, he’d usually look at me, twinkle in his eye, and chuckle.

They were madly in love with each other, though I didn’t always see it that way. As a kid I didn’t understand that their arguments were actually a playful banter. He enjoyed setting her off and I think she enjoyed being set off. I enjoyed the spectacles all the same. All of us kids did.

It’s not how Erin and I carry on. It’s not how most couples I know carry on, for that matter. But for them, it worked.

They had been through a lot in their marriage. Papa was on active duty in the military a lot. Children died. Children married and divorced. Children got sick. Later, a grandchild died and others were always sick, myself included.

And my granparents had a lot of health problems. In their final years, they were in and out of the hospital all the time.

You could say they were punch-drunk from all that adversity, and the shouting matches were a way to blow off the steam.

It worked. They loved each other until the very end, and when Papa died in 1996, Nana was devastated. She lived on until 2003, but I don’t think she ever got over it.

There’s something to admire and learn from in that kind of bond.

Nana and Papa

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14 Years, and She Still Turns My Heart to Jelly

You would think that after 14 years of marriage, I’d get over that gushy feeling you walk around with when you first fall in love. But the truth is that I still get that way. All the time. Because I know how blessed I am to have Erin as my wife.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:6NQDxrvhCvKfbH9jLELav9]

Everything about her makes me that way. Her hair. Her smell. Her relentless drive to do right by God. She’s my best friend, lover and guiding light.

Like any marriage, we’ve had our issues over time. I’m not the guy I used to be. Not even close. She’s not the same person I married, either. But as the priest said at our wedding on Aug. 1, 1998: “You marry the person you think you know, then spend the rest of your lives getting to know each other.”

A big Rocky fan, this priest was. And he quoted the Italian Stallion in the wedding homily. In the first Rocky movie, the boxer starts dating a quiet, shy, plain-looking girl named Adrien. Rocky’s best friend is Adrien’s brother, Pauly, who asks Rocky what he sees in her. Rocky explains, “Because she has gaps! She’s got gaps and I got gaps, and between the two of us, our gaps meet and we sort of fill each other in.”

It doesn’t always work out that way. I have friends who had seemingly unshakable marriages that crumbled in the end. These divorces have scared us, because they show how easily a marriage can fall apart.

It’s also true that as couples get older, communication gets harder. You get comfortable and set in a routine. And once children enter the picture, there’s precious little time to focus on each other.

Some married couples stop talking about these things and drift apart. Erin and I decided several months back 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.

In some ways, those gaps Rocky spoke of grew wider over the years, and we’re just now getting the hang of filling in each other’s gaps.

That’s OK, though. Everything happens by God’s timetable.

This past year has been a lot of work. I’ve been trying to break down my wall with everything I have. I’ve knocked a lot of bricks loose, but new bricks seem to grow in over time.  Meantime, Erin has been giving her all to confront her own issues. Some might see that as too much to take, but not me. There have been a lot of beautiful moments in the journey. In many ways, I feel like we’ve reconnected in ways we haven’t seen in a very long time.

The work will never be done, and that’s fine with me. Because it’s a labor of love.

Happy anniversary, Honey.

Hands in a Heart

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A Death Survival Guide For Novices

A friend is reeling from the death of a grandparent. Outliving your older family members is considered part of the natural order, especially if it’s a grandparent. But if it’s your first taste of death, it’s got to be pretty devastating.

Having experienced more than my share of friends and family dying, I figured a few words are in order.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/z1yUvdQnERk

I got my first taste of death the hard way, losing my brother Michael when I was 13. I knew of family deaths before him, but I was far removed from them. My grandfather — who I was named for — died some nine months before I was born. My parents wanted to name a child in his honor, and so here I am.

Losing a brother was not the natural order of things, obviously. The grief from my parents wasn’t the normal grief I later came to expect with the passing of grandparents and 70-something uncles. It created dysfunction that haunts the family to this day.

So when my great-grandmother died in 1994 — a few hours shy of my 24th birthday — I thought it would be easier to deal. It was, but it still sucked. Two years later, my other grandfather was gone, followed less than two years after that by my paternal grandmother. By maternal grandmother was gone a few years later. In between all that, my best friend died, followed a few years later my another friend.

I’ve learned a few things from all that death. I hope the following takeaways will be helpful to my friend:

1.) Let it suck. Don’t be a hero. If you’re feeling the pain from losing your grandmother, let it out. You don’t have to do it in front of people. Go in a room by yourself and let the waterworks flow if you have to. Don’t worry about trying to keep a manly face around people. You don’t have to pretend you’re A-OK for the sake of others in the room.

2. Don’t forget the gratitude. When someone dies, it’s easy to get lost in your own grief. There’s even a self pity reflex that kicks in. Try to take the time to remember how awesome your loved one was. Share the most amusing memories and have some laughs. The deceased would love that. And you’ll feel more at peace when you remember a life that was lived well.

3. Take a moment to appreciate what’s STILL around you. Your girlfriend. Your friends. If the death you just suffered should teach you anything, it’s that you never know how long the other loves of your life will be around. Don’t waste the time you have with them, and, for goodness sake:

4. Don’t sit around looking at people you love and worrying yourself into an anxiety attack over the fact that God could take them from you at any moment. God holds all the cards, so it’s pointless to even think about it. Just be there for people, and let them be there for you.

5. Take care of yourself. You can comfort yourself with all the drugs, alcohol, sex and food there is to have. But take it from me, giving in to addictions is nothing but slow suicide. You can’t move past grief and see the beauty of what’s left if you’re too busy trying to kill yourself. True, I learned a ton about the beauty of life from having been an addict, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever wish that experience on others. If there’s a better way to cope, do that instead.

6. Embrace things that are bigger than you. Nothing has helped me get past grief more than doing service to others. It sounds like so much bullshit, but it’s not. When I’m helping out in the church food pantry or going to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings and guiding addicts who ask for my help, I’m always reminded that my own life could be much worse. Or, to put it another way, I’m reminded how my own life is so much better than I realize or deserve.

This isn’t a science.

It’s just what I’ve learned from my own walk through the valley of darkness.

I’ve learned that life is a gift to be cherished and used wisely.

I’ve also learned that it hurts sometimes.

That’s OK.