Meditations on Marriage - The Small Things

"I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty
to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The
world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but
also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." --
Helen Keller

~*~*~*~*~*~*

We look to the big deal in our relationships. The biggest bunch of
flowers, the exotic vacation, the expensive gift. But life is in the
small things -- and marriage most of all. The most heroic spouse is the
one who, day after day, lives his or her Values with compassion.

What humble thing can I do today with the same passion and thought
given to larger acts?

In love,

P

Musing on Marriage(tm) On Being Judged

I got an email this week from a fellow marriage advocate and writer.
I'd initiated a conversation with the person to exchange information,
hoping to grow the village and benefit both our passions in this
business of saving marriages. Early in our conversation I mentioned
that I'd been the one to initiate and force a divorce in my first
marriage – something that haunts me daily when I see the effects on
my kids and on all the kids I see in situations where their families
are falling apart. And, something that I speak of very openly. It's
part of why people relate so well to me as a coach and writer.

As many of you know, this is why I'm so committed to this work. My
personal feeling is that if adults want to mess up their lives and
create a lot of pain and chaos for themselves they have every right
to do so. I feel sadness and compassion for them and will do whatever
I can to help, but as adults in a free society, they have the right
to make those kinds of choices. But once there are kids involved the
picture changes. If you read my Musing on staying together for the
kids you know that I feel very strongly about the obligation of
adults to protect and safeguard our children.

I failed at doing that. I admit it fully – have for years. And those
of you who know me well know how deeply having failed at that hurts
me. It's guilt and a sadness I know I'll never get over. It is the
one thing, the only thing that will make me cry with exactly the same
ease and swiftness as talking about the death of one of my children
many years ago. It haunts me in moments of lightheartedness and it
keeps me awake long into the night. The pain of a parent seeing the
suffering of a child, especially suffering the parent has caused, is
possibly the deepest pain we can endure.

The work that I do with couples whose marriages are not only on the
brink but falling through space brings me into daily contact with
kids whose lives are in the frenetic chaos of falling apart. I see, I
feel, I taste their pain and their terror. I watch from a distance as
they do the things my kids did when my marriage ended – the
rebellion, the failing grades, the adversarial positions they take,
the ending of their childhood. In contrast, I watch other families –
intact families – and their children. The stark difference between
the kids of families falling through space and those whose lives are
stable and secure is more pronounced than the difference between
night and day. Being a front row observer reminds me daily of the
wages of my choices. It hurts – and it makes me more determined to
stand up, speak out, and work to save and heal marriages in any way
possible.

So, this email that I got, in response to a request to combine a
couple of resources for saving marriages said this: "I feel very
uncomfortable seeing someone involved in this work if he/she is the
one who forced the divorce. It's usually the other way around---folks
get into this work because they had a divorce forced upon them."

Wowwww….. you can imagine how that was a knife twisting in my gut.
Not only was I being judged for mistakes of the past, but my ability –
no – my right to move forward and make amends through my work was
challenged, questioned. All the pain and guilt and sadness poured
over me in tidal waves that I hadn't experienced in a long long time.

Why am I telling you this? It's not to gain sympathy or to have you
say, "There, there, P, we know you do good work and we appreciate
it." No, it's to bring to awareness the terrible destruction that
comes of judging another person. At SYMC we are, to the person,
insistent upon and dedicated to the idea that we don't get to judge.
I don't care what you've done in the past – truly. I care about what
you are doing right now and whether your actions are leading you to a
life of more integrity and better choices.

Had an affair in the past? Addicted to some other substance? Anger
and abuse issues? Divorced one, two, three, four times? Sorry to hear
it, it must have been painful for everyone. Now, let's talk about
what you learned and how you can take that knowledge and wisdom and
craft a better life. What can you do to make amends? What are you
doing to ensure you never make the same mistake again? Not just for
you and your family, although you need to start there, but for the
rest of the planet as well.

Judging people, much like labeling, keeps them stuck. Judging
oneself – refusing to grant forgiveness for the things you've done in
the past – keeps you stuck as well. In fact, it's a wonderful way to
avoid the painful process of growth and renewal. If you take the
position that you did such and such and because of it are unworthy to
do something like --- oh, say marriage advocacy ---- then you're
allowing yourself to stay in a place that is less than where you
should be going. You're enabling a lifestyle of mediocrity less than
wonderful choices.

None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. Some yield greater and
more serious consequences. But, for as long as you have breath and
spark within you, the possibility, no, the obligation to learn from
your mistakes and to use that learning as a stepping stone to
something more exists. The obligation to allow others the same chance
to grow and heal and make amends exists as well.

There's a poem (that half an hour of online searching cannot find)
which talks about our fear, not of failing, but of being truly great.
Don't let your mistakes or those of anyone around you, impede or
dissuade you from greatness. Stop judging and take positive action.
What small thing can you do today on your walk toward greatness?

Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) Woodlands or Fields?

I live in rural western Wisconsin, a bucolic paradise of quickly
disappearing family dairy farms and little towns that have never
heard of Starbucks or Target. (I didn't say I liked it, I said I live
here ….) Anyway, as I was saying…. This is a beautiful spot on the
planet, rolling hills, woods, fields, pastures, and picturesque
farmsteads for miles and miles.

A couple of years ago when one of my boys was in Cub Scouts we had an
opportunity to take a ride in a small plane with one of the other
scout's dad who generously offered his plane and his time. We flew
from the little airport about 40 miles from us up over our little
town and back along the river – seeing quite a bit of the surrounding
countryside.

What an eye opener! Driving along the highways or county roads you
roll past miles and miles of fields and pasture with the occasional
hill of trees in the distance. From the vantage point of a car (or
pickup!) this part of the world is mostly open fields with a few
wooded areas tossed in for good effect. But from the air – with a
larger, farther reaching view, an entirely different picture presents
itself. In reality the woods are enormous, covering more than half
the surface of the earth in comparison to roads, fields, and
pastures. Who knew!? Not being a bird, or having a plane of my own, I
had no reason to think the landscape was any different than what I
saw from the highway. That little jaunt in a twin engine prop plane
changed my vision of where I live.

So what's that got to do with marriage? Glad you asked. The having to
do with marriage part is all about a shift in awareness – of seeing
things from a different perspective and realizing that simply because
you have always seen things in one way or another does not mean that
it is the only way to see those things.

In the early months of my career as a coach, Harvey*, whom I had
mentored on and off over the course of a year, asked me to coach him
through a difficult time in his marriage. His wife had moved out of
the house after having had an affair and she was on the verge of
filing for divorce. Her primary complaint about the marriage was
Harvey's anger and control tactics. She told him that over the course
of their 20+ year marriage she had been mostly unhappy.

Now, if you do work with couples experiencing infidelity you know
that a re-write of history is common, and perhaps that's what
Harvey's wife was doing. However, having mentored Harvey for close to
a year and then working as his coach it was readily apparent that he
did have problems with both anger and control. He would rant at me at
least once a week, twist things around, becoming both demanding and
disrespectful – I could see why his wife complained and I believe
that she had been truly unhappy.

Harvey, on the other hand, just couldn't see it. He said something to
me that since that time a whole host of men have said about their
wives' version of their marital history "When is she going to wake up
and realize that she's wrong and that we had lots and lots of good
times?" Harvey was just like me rolling along in a car across western
Wisconsin – seeing only the open fields with the trees in the
background. He didn't have the point of view to see that the trees
really covered a much greater part of the landscape than the fields
visible from the road.

Other versions of Harvey's statement are – "But I have pictures of
us at where she is smiling and laughing," or "I
remember going to and that she had a good time,"
or "We had lots of times where she was happy," or any number of
versions of the same refrain.

Interestingly, I only get this insistence that the past was wonderful
from men whose partners have left. And, even more interesting is
almost without fail these are men who have demonstrated problems with
control, anger, and abuse – verbal or physical. I have not (at least
as of today) heard a woman say the same thing about her spouse who
has pulled back from the marriage. There's probably a whole week of
Musings on the difference between men and women and how they react to
emotional situations, but that's for another time.

What I want to highlight today is the need to accept and validate
what the other person is saying about his – or in these cases her –
reality. Harvey's wife and the wives of many other men are seeing the
marriage from the air. To them, the good times are tiny open fields
edging the highway but the overriding picture of the marriage is a
forest of hurt and sadness. When they look back at their years of
being married they see little pockets of smiles, mostly at events or
activities maybe on holidays, and endless miles of tears.

If these husbands want to change the tide of the marriage – if they
hope to have a chance of enticing their wives back they need to stop
arguing about whether or not she was happy. A dozen (or a thousand)
pictures of a smiling woman do not a happy marriage make. Instead
they need to accept that her reality, although different from theirs,
is as real to her as his is to him. Instead of waiting for her
to `wake up' these husbands must accept at face value what she is
saying – she was unhappy, the marriage was not a wonderful place for
her, and then he needs to do something about it.

Changing one's vision of reality is often difficult. Unless we can
experience what someone else is experiencing it's virtually
impossible for us to know what it's like. We can imagine – but we
struggle to hold in our consciousness a point of view different than
our own. This, I believe, is why I see this phenomenon in men with
control problems. Control and the ensuing anger come from the idea
that our way is the only way and that we have a right to insist on
getting our way at any cost to the other person. Tunnel vision. The
inability to understand that there is a way to view something that is
different from our usual position. Rigidity.

Today, three or four years after my eye opening ride in that plane, I
sometimes forget that there are vast expanses of woods beyond the
fields and pastures that line the highways of rural Wisconsin. But
when I stop to think about it, I know they're there. In my minds eye
I can envision the hills and bluffs covered with trees. If your wife
is telling you she's unhappy – that she's been unhappy for a long
time – don't argue! Just because you see things from the front seat
of the car doesn't mean that another reality doesn't exist. Fly with
her – ask her to tell you about her reality. And then ask her what
you can do to make the next leg of the trip one that is much more
satisfying for her. And then, do it.

Happy Flying,
Penny

*Name changed to protect privacy and confidentiality

Musing on Marriage(tm) R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Respect, gratitude, admiration, appreciation…. We all need it in some
form or another, and in intimate relationships the craving to be seen
as someone special can make or break the relationship. Shirley Glass,
the late expert and researcher on infidelity, talked about the
powerful attraction of seeing oneself reflected in the eyes of
another in a way that showed that self as attractive, desirable,
adored human beings.

I love movies in general and particularly as a way to see human
dynamics at work. I've been known to suggest viewing films as diverse
as "Winnie the Pooh" and "Miracle" in order to highlight something
we've talked about in a coaching session. Recently I've been
suggesting love stories where the chemistry is good and asking that
special attention be given to the way people look at one another when
attraction is in the air.

There are lots of things that we talk about as needs in marriage.
Conversation, sex, engagement in the marriage, commitment, money,
help with the home, parenting. All of these are things that we choose
to give to our partner of our own free will. Certainly a partner who
is meeting needs for us as well and who is avoiding hurting us in the
process is likely to make us more motivated to meet those needs, but
we can (if we choose) meet those needs regardless of how our mate is
acting.

The same cannot be said of honor or esteem – the acting out of
respect. Meeting that need requires that our mate be or do something
to earn our estimation. It's a concept we understand well in business
and even in other personal relationships. If we want someone to think
(and act as if ) we're pretty cool, then our actions need to be
congruent with the respect we desire.

For example, most of us would not expect glowing reviews and daily
pats on the back from our boss if we spent the greater part of each
day surfing the net, playing solitaire, or chatting up our coworkers
at the water cooler. We don't expect teachers to hand out A's and B's
to students who consistently lose their homework to the "dog," blow
off tests, or sleep through class. We don't vote for public officials
whose record of achievements is spotty or who have betrayed the
public trust with unethical acts. Nor do we opt for the second date
with someone who shows up late, dresses like they're ready to do
garden work, behaves rudely, and ignores for the greater part of our
time together. We don't admire people whose actions and behaviors do
not engender our respect.

Somehow that understanding of what it takes to be admired disappears
when romance enters the picture. If it the outcome wasn't so
important I would be tempted to laugh out loud and the sheer
disbelief at some of the things I hear. Husbands and wives who bend
over backwards to excel at parenting, their career, or other aspects
of their lives seem to believe that marriage requires little or no
effort on their part. And, that their spouse should show them
appreciation, admiration, and esteem simply because they're there.

Respect, the pre-requisite for honor and esteem – for that look of
delight in the eyes of a partner – must be earned. These are a few
actions guaranteed to make sure that doesn't happen:

• Coming home from work and plopping in front of the tv while
your mate takes care of the cooking and the homework
• Knowing the intricacies of setting your vcr or cable
recording device but claiming to be incapable of running the
dishwasher
• Refusing to have sex for months on end until everything in
the marriage is "just right" (it can't be "just right" without sex)
• Lack of attention to personal grooming, health and fitness
• Irritating habits - anything from smoking to knuckle
cracking to poor table manners and spending habits
• Breaking promises and commitments
• Anger, control, abuse
• Putting the job, the in-laws, the car, the yard work, the
kids' activities ahead of the marriage and your spouse

The list is, of course, endless and unique to every couple. But the
concept is the same. If you crave the admiration of your mate, if you
need to see yourself reflected in his or her eyes as someone special
and wonderful, then YOU need to act the part in order for that to
happen. In order to be respected and admired, one must first be
respectable and admirable.

All the best,
Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) Life Altering Changes

At least once a day, and often many more times than that someone
says to me, "People don't change." Sometimes I hear it from a worn
out and hurting spouse who has given up on their own marriage. More
I often I hear it second hand – someone is advising someone else to
ditch their marriage and making that statement as if it were cast in
stone. Many times it is a straying spouse justifying to themselves
and to the world their choice to abandon their vows in favor of
someone outside the marriage -- "My husband/wife was so terrible to
live with and I know he/she will never change -- I'm only pursuing
my own happiness."

So, what I want to know is who on earth came up with this statement
that `people don't change,' and what special power do they have that
allowed them to convince what seems to be an entire society of
something that is so obviously not true? Obvious to the point of
being ridiculous – like saying the sun will not rise day in and day
out when we can all see quite clearly that it does.

Everyone changes. And every one of us experiences profound life
altering changes. Or perhaps I should say life altering events from
which we cannot help but to emerge changed.


A parent dies
A child in born
A child is born with significant challenges
We go to college/get our first job/buy a home
We get fired from a job
We lose all our money
We win the lottery
We move from the place we have called home all our lives
We get a dog
Our children go to school/grow up/leave home
We recover memories of abuse in our past
We learn that we are adopted
We find out a parent had an affair many years ago
Parents age
We age
We find unexpectedly that we have some disease
Our child has a drug problem
Our child is gifted
Fire/flood/storm destroys our home
We discover a spouse's infidelity
We are unfaithful

The list could go on for pages. Forever. For several years, long
ago, I worked as an EMT in a small rural community. I saw heart
attacks, accidents, deaths, children born beautifully whole who
became profoundly ill, strokes, and suicides. Week after week the
thought would hit me that all of us go about our daily lives doing
what we do, and then, between one breath and the next, that life is
changed forever.

I also saw extraordinary courage. People who did what they had to
do, in the face of difficulty and pain, because it was there and it
needed to be done. Men and women who looked inside themselves, saw
only fear, and yet who behaved with courage that was inspiring. They
changed as their lives changed. We all do, from the time we are born
until the day we leave this life.

So when someone says to me that `people don't change' I have to
struggle to keep from snorting and rolling my eyes and asking who on
earth convinced them of something so obviously untrue (Which only
goes to show that having learned not to do that I CAN change my
instinct to be disrespectful). Look around!!! I say, change is
everywhere all the time and every person you know has been forced by
life to change over and over again.

People do change. As humans we are incapable of not changing. The
real question is what will it take to choose to change rather than
simply being forced to by the circumstances life tosses at us. What
will it take to claim our own empowerment and direct the course of
our lives?

Most importantly, the truth I tell husbands and wives every day is
this – If you want your marriage to change, you need to change.
There is an indescribable spiraling of energy in a marriage – for
real change to occur within the relationship both partners need to
make very primal changes. And yet, the responsibility for that
change lies one hundred percent with each individual.

I wonder if when someone says, "People don't change," what they are
really saying is, "I don't like where I am and I don't want to do
the hard work of change." It is much less frightening to push the
blame for a hurting relationship onto our mate's shoulders than it
is to face our own internal labyrinth.

All the best,
Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) Stop Trying to Save Your Marriage

Over the past couple of weeks I've had similar conversations with
more than one person on the subject of trying to save a marriage. And
each time I came away troubled with the concept in general. Trying to
save your marriage? Trying? A terrible word that gives the person
permission to fail. Trying implies that you'll give it a go, but
you're not really all that committed to success and if it doesn't
work… well, you tried.

In one of the earlier Star Wars movies Luke Skywalker is deep in the
wilds of the swamp planet Dagobah working with the Jedi Master Yoda.
Yoda tell Luke to raise his crashed and sunken ship from the muck
using only the Force. Luke looks doubtful at best and replies that
he'll try. Yoda responds, "Do or do not. Never try."

Ok, so I admit I was young and impressionable when Star Wars first
hit the big screen, but those few words of wisdom spoken by Yoda have
stayed with me over the years. As I began my career and as I became
more and more interested in the field of human potential and
development this was a theme I heard over and over again. I attended
numerous seminars, workshops and training sessions on motivating for
excellence. I subscribed to more than one publication that was
devoted to effecting change in oneself or facilitating it in others.
Everywhere I went, the message was the same. Do or do not. Never try.

The phrase, "self-talk," has been big in pop psychology in the last
twenty years. One of the things we know about the human condition is
that the way we speak to ourselves and the words we use have a
powerful influence on our behavior. It's the concept behind the use
of affirmations which became very popular in the early 80's and
continues to be used effectively to create change to this day.

So where am I going with all this and how does it relate to marriage?
Here's my thought. In order to create real and lasting change in
marriage it requires not only work, but commitment. Success is
measured by results. In daily life no one really gets a lot of credit
for tying. If you tell your family that you tried to make dinner, but
no food ever appears, they are not going to grant you any big points.
If you tell your boss you tried to get to work on time but just
couldn't do it day in and day out, I would suspect you wouldn't have
a job for any length of time. Our relationship with our spouse is
much the same.

The result – the success or failure of your marriage – depends on
what you do, not on what you try. Make a commitment to do the
fearless work of crafting a marriage that is open, honest, caring,
courteous and respectful. Every moment affords you the chance to make
choices which move you closer to that goal. Just Do It.

May the Force Be With You,

Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) The Danger of Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales, or folk stories, have been part of our human existence
for time out of mind. Anthropologists tell us that the ancients made
up stories about the world around them in order to explain the
phenomena they observed. Millennia later the brothers Grimm made a
family project out of collecting the folk stories popular in small
part of the European continent put them together in a cohesive manner
and voila! the era or modern fairy tales was born. Once Disney got in
the act with all those darling animated versions the threat to
marriages was guaranteed.

Is there anyone among us who didn't grow up with tales of Snow White,
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and more recently for the younger crowd,
The Little Mermaid and Belle the Beauty half of Beauty and the Beast?
There's a whole week's worth of writing on the role of men and women
in relationships portrayed in those fables but that's not today's
focus. Today I want to talk about how each of those stories end.

"And they lived happily ever after. The End."

As if the wooing and winning part was all there is to creating a
relationship that works. As if once the attraction is recognized and
the obstacles overcome (evil stepparents, poison apples and tentacled
sea witches) the rest of life will take care of itself. As if happily
ever after is guaranteed. And therein lies the danger of fairy tales.

Every day in my coaching practice couples confide in me that there
must be something fatally wrong with their marriage because they
disagree on some issue. That their marriage is doomed because they
have days when they don't feel connected. That they must have married
the wrong person because things were going so well and then they had
a fight. They tell me that there is no way they can possibly get it
right with their spouse because no matter how hard they try or how
much progress they've made things are still not perfect. They don't
have "happily ever after."

Marriage is not about happily ever after. At least not in the sense
of nothing will ever intrude or cause conflict again. Life is messy.
Marriage is messy. Conflict is inevitable. It's not the conflict that
causes problems, it's how we handle the issues which are bound to
arise. Are we honest about our feelings regarding whatever the
problem might be? Are we willing to put our emotional reactions on
hold and craft a solution that works for both partners? Are we
willing to endure the discomfort of making no move until we find one
that can be supported by ourselves and our mates?

Do we really think that Cinderella, who spent her days in comfy worn
out clothes singing with the birds and chatting up the mice, was
really all that thrilled to dress in rigid haute couture and abide by
rules for royal behavior? Do we believe that Snow White's Prince
Charming welcomed not one but seven single men with odd personal
habits into their home to spend time with his new wife? Is it
possible that Sleeping Beauty's narcoleptic tendencies, not to
mention her meddling godparents, caused a little friction in their
newly wedded bliss?
Fairy Tales are fabulous stories. And if you love mythology the way I
do the older less sanitized versions are spring boards for wonderful
introspection. But defining the success of a real life flesh and
blood, perfectly human romantic relationship using the concept of
happily ever after is a recipe for failure. Happily ever after is
possible, but to achieve it you'll have to grab onto a hearty dose of
empathy, an even bigger measure of courage wrap it all up with a
sense of humor and be willing to make the right choices in the
present moment. Every moment. And if you blow it this time you pick
yourself up, dust off the debris, figure out what needs to change,
grab onto that courage and do it all again.

All the best,
Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) If it Feels Right ... It's Probably Not

In my coaching practice I specialize in helping couples in all stages
of infidelity.
From discovery where the faithful spouse is devastated and usually
working alone with me through recovery where both spouses and I craft
a strategy to pick up the pieces left in the wake of the affair. For
as long as I've been doing this I've insisted that saving a marriage
rocked by infidelity requires that both partners do things which are
counter intuitive.

Over the last couple of years as I've added more and more non
infidelity cases to my list of clients I've come to the conclusion
that this is true of all marriages. Crafting and maintaining a happy
and fulfilling marriage requires that we check our instincts and
intuition at the door and create patterns which go against the grain.

If like me, you grew up in the seventies and eighties… a product of
the "Feel Good," and "Me," generation much less the nineties where
new age thought and getting in touch with oneself really blossomed,
the whole idea of not acting on our instincts and emotions can seem
like downright blasphemy. For the most part couples nowadays are a
product of a philosophy that puts how we feel above any other
information. If it feels right then we must do it, and if it's
awkward or uncomfortable then it must be wrong.

Unfortunately if we adopt that attitude in marriage we'll find
ourselves in a mess pretty quickly. In romantic relationships our
instincts and emotions will take us on a wild see saw ride in short
order. Instead of speaking honestly about how we feel and what we'd
like we'll pretend that everything is fine, because we don't want to
cause conflict. Or if we are to the breaking point by too much
pretending (or not enough sleep) we'll tell our spouse exactly what
they need to do and what we think of them if they don't…. neither of
which is being honest, it's simply being rude.

And heaven help our spouse if they choose to be honest and we are on
the instinct and emotion path. He or she will most likely be in for a
heft blast of defensiveness topped with enough irritable intimidation
to make them back off. None of us wants to hear that everything we do
isn't perfect; our first instinct is to defend against the idea of
change with whatever weapon is handy.

The idea of setting aside those emotions, speaking honestly and
negotiating to a solution that is good for both parties is so counter
intuitive that virtually no one does it without a serious learning
curve. Wherever you are on that learning curve, just becoming aware
of the patterns or making real progress toward change pat yourself on
the back for getting there. Marriage, like life, is a journey. This
moment offers you the option of making the best possible non
intuitive choice for creating the marriage of your dreams. If it
feels wrong, it may very well be the right thing to do.

All the best!
Penny