Musing on Marriage(tm) Marital Cancer

Last year, just about this time as the air was cooling and the trees
were turning from summer green to a duskier color in anticipation of
Autumn's paintbrush, I was diagnosed with the one of the rarest forms
of cancer known to humanity.

For most people, just the word itself is enough to send tremors of
fear crashing through every cell in their body. The world as you know
it comes to an end while you face this intruder and strategize ways
to neutralize its potential to cause harm or even loss of life. No
one would think to suggest that cancer is a benign condition that can
just be tolerated without risk.

What I want to tell you today is that there is an incredibly virulent
form of disease at work in your marriage. One that is every bit as
threatening to the life of your marriage as cancer is to the life
your body. The name of that disease is conflict avoidance.

Conflict avoidance, however, is a myth. The only way to avoid
conflict is to die – otherwise we simply postpone it. And then, it
tends to come back and bite us in the, well…… you get the picture.
When that happens, small issues that might have been worked out with
a little effort and creativity become much larger issues with added
resentment and irritation built into the mix.

Most of us don't really like conflict. It's a natural instinct to
want to avoid having to face it. Most of us don't really like being
ill either, but both sickness and conflict are parts of the human
existence – and as such – need to be addressed. Preserving our
physical health or our marital health means there are things we need
to just do, even when they're a bit unpleasant or even downright
frightening.

Let's take a relatively emotionally neutral subject and look at what
happens when the issue is avoided. Let's say Sally is married to
Manuel. Sally likes to spend at least an hour a day playing euchre on
the computer with a bunch of other women. Manuel's not all that
thrilled with it, but he doesn't want to rock the boat and raise the
issue with his wife.

Some of the excuses I hear for conflict postponement and that Manuel
give are:

"I don't want to hurt his/her feelings."
This is admirable. We should all strive not to hurt feelings. But
that's not really what's behind this excuse. What we're really saying
is , I don't want to face the possible unpleasantness and backlash
that might result in letting my spouse know I'm unhappy. Or, I don't
want to face my own feelings of distress that arise when I talk about
my desires that conflict with my spouse's. That's not kindness, it's
fear.

Manuel keeps silent because he fears his wife will cry and rant at
him and that their weekend will be ruined. It's a great strategy –
for her – she gets what she wants and he suffers silently. The
problems is as his irritation builds he'll begin to snipe at her,
making pointed little comments that will indeed hurt her feelings and
lead not to resolution but to more fighting and more disconnect in
their marriage.

"She has a right to have fun with her friends."
Perhaps. Depends on the friends and the sorts of fun she's having.
The problem is that when one spouse is having a great time and is
offending or irritating the other one in the process the marriage
takes a hit.

Sally does have a right to have friends. But unless there is an
understanding that friendships must complement the marriage rather
than detract from it, where is the line? At what point do friendships
decrease the quality of life by intruding into the most essential
relationships of marriage and family? Sally has a right to have
friends as long as her friends and her activities with them don't
offend or hurt her spouse or her marriage.

Avoiding this issue out of some misguided loyalty to a cultural
construct which does not protect marriages is a dangerous strategy.

"She's going to be really upset with me."
She might. And children are really upset when we deny them the latest
gadget or treat at the checkout. We all understand the need as
parents to set boundaries in the face of a child's upset, the same is
true of marriage. The difference is that as adults relating to each
other in an intimate relationship we need to work as a cooperative
team rather than as an authoritarian figure and a child.

Team work requires complete information. No one in their right mind
would think a task force at work could do its job effectively if one
or more members withheld vital information about the status of the
project. Doing so out of fear of one member of the team being upset
sabotages the efforts of the team as a whole and guarantees greater
upset all around. Conflict postponement.


There are things Manuel can and should do to minimize Sally's upset.
Going at her with guns blazing is not going to helpful. He needs to
remain calm and courteous and approach his wife with an attitude of
cooperation. Saying, "Your priorities are out line, can't you see
that the house and the marriage are suffering while you have a merry
little time playing stupid games," is NOT going to be helpful. It's
going to start a fight.

But, saying, "Gee honey, I know you enjoy your time with your
friends, but I'm lonely and missing you – what can we do to work this
out better?" is going to open a discussion about the time on the
computer, both their needs, and if they work together lead them
towards a solution which eliminates resentment.

"I've already told her how much this bothers me and she doesn't
care." Well, first, we don't know if she cares or not, unless she has
specifically said so – and even then we only have her word for it.
Additionally, feelings change over time and hers may have as well.

Even so, Manuel may be right and he may have repeatedly shared with
Sally his irritation about the game playing. In that case he needs to
reevaluate how he is sharing that information. The first concern is
whether or not he's being honest about his feelings and needs or
whether he's being rude and demanding. If he's expressing his
feelings honestly in a way that is courteous and calm then it may be
that he needs to do a better job of asking for input into change or
for change itself.

"Sally, I'm unhappy about the time playing games on the computer," is
a great start. Honest, calm, courteous. But it doesn't ask for
action. The next step is asking for input, "It's causing some
friction between us and I'm wondering what we can do to find a
solution."

If Manuel does all of that repeatedly over a period of weeks and
months – without losing his temper and without being disrespectful
towards Sally in the process – and there is still no change then he
has valuable information about Sally's willingness to protect the
marriage from her own self-interested actions. Depending on the
severity of the offense (obviously cocaine use is more problematic
than bridge with friends) he will need to decide what actions to take
at that point.

But, if he hides his head in the sand and never addresses the issue
of the computer games he will find himself becoming more and more
irritated with his wife. He is lying to her about himself and he
becomes the threat to the health of the marriage by not allowing her
the opportunity to make changes in her actions in order to keep the
relationship strong and on track.

Conflict postponement is one of the greatest threats to marital
health. Some consider it to be the greatest factor predicting
divorce. If you are concerned about being good to your spouse and
your marriage then you will put away a desire to `be nice' and
concentrate instead on being honesty and courteous.

Conflicted yours,
Penny

Musing on Marriage(tm) It Takes Two

One person can't save a marriage. Both partners need to be on board.
Both need to work at it. Both need to care. Both need to……

Bunk.

One person can make a tremendous difference in the atmosphere of the
marriage – in the day to day dynamics that define what the marriage
is all about. One person, making internal shifts that take
responsibility for one's part of the marital dynamics can (and often
does) make all the difference between a marriage that is happy and
fulfilling and one that is a dismal failure.

Oftentimes when my husband and I are having a bad day (or week or
month) one of us will make a conscious decision to step of the path
of ickiness and move to a better place. More often than not, it's my
husband who does that – he being much less pigheaded than I. He'll
stop midsentence, take a deep breath and say or do something to move
us somewhere less adversarial. It is absolutely a case of one person
making a difference, particularly because I could stay stuck in
pigheaded nastiness for quite some time.

Several years ago, when things with us were stuck and I was blaming
everything that was wrong with our lives on the past misdeeds (real
or imagined) of my husband, I had a moment of epiphany. Out of the
cosmos I was hit with the reality that my problem with the marriage
was nothing to do with what Steve did or did not do – it was entirely
about my regrets about my past choices and how they got me to where I
was that day. How freeing! Suddenly I wasn't waiting for him to
change in order for our marriage to be good. With a shift in attitude
I could let go of the past and focus on today – and only today.

Alright – so I hear you already shaking your head and muttering under
your breath that those are times when both partners are committed to
the marriage and to staying in it. Perhaps you're right. So let's
look at some of the tough case scenarios – anger/abuse, infidelity,
other addiction. Those are times you say when one person can't save
the marriage – when the destructive acts of one are too powerful or
too terrible to overcome.

At some point you are right. But I believe that point is much farther
down the road than most of us are willing to admit. It requires far
less work on our part if we can push the blame off onto someone who
is so obviously trashing the marriage instead of turning toward the
mirror and asking what we can do.

Now, I'm not talking about being nice. This is not about meeting
needs, being warm and fuzzy to your mate, or about biting your tongue
and living with a relationship that is less than desirable. I don't
do nice. I'm talking about deep, internal, difficult, personal
changes. The sorts of things that when I ask you to do them you tell
me you "can't." I'm talking about things like confronting conflict
rather than avoiding it. Being honest when you're hurting or upset.
(No shouting and fighting is not addressing conflict or being honest –
I mean calm, collected, courteous, grown up, vulnerable honesty.)
Intervening in an affair or addiction. Leaving an abusive situation.
Calling 911 and pressing charges when you are threatened or harmed.
Getting a restraining order. Refusing to enable or to play along with
a destructive situation. Tough love. Really really tough love.

When people get courage and the become willing to fully address the
things that are hurting the marriage they can make a tremendous
difference. Alone. When they take a stand for themselves and their
boundaries – when they protect their marriage the way a mother bear
protects her young – without malice and without sentimentality – they
can and they do make a difference.

I'm a big fan of pain. Without pain most of us would not change our
course of action. When we make our partner comfortable in his/her
destruction of our marriage we become as great a threat to the
marriage as the one who is cheating, addicted, or abusive. When we
refuse to enable those things, when we rock the boat, make waves, and
address our own fears of conflict we steer the rudder of our own
destiny. Only after doing so can we say that our actions made no
difference to the saving of the marriage.

Saying that it takes two is correct in the end. But as a first step
argument it's nothing more than a way to avoid the pain and the work
of our own internal changes.

P

Musing on Marriage(tm) Death of a Hero

Superman died yesterday. Christopher Reeve, best know for his role as
Superman and later as an activist for spinal cord and central nervous
system research, died at the age of 52 of complications from an
infection. He was a hero not only on stage and film but in real life
as well. After a tragic accident on horseback in 1995 left him
paralyzed Reeve worked ardently as an advocate for research that
would allow not only himself to walk again but the millions of others
who suffer from similar injuries. Reeve became a real life hero of
greater proportions than Superman could ever dream of being. He was
the epitome of grace under duress.

This morning, as I heard the news on the radio, the DJ made a comment
I think was echoed in the hearts of many of Reeve's admirers around
the world, "I really believed he would walk again." Such was the
unwavering faith of the man in the wheel chair. So much so that he
inspired belief in what today is still impossible.

But Reeve was a hero in more than just his faith in the ability to
find a cure or the way he inspired others to hang on to hope. He was
a hero in that he remained, to the end, gracious, upbeat, committed
to life, and committed to living fully. He modeled the kind of
courage and dedication we ask for from individuals and couples when
their marriages are in deep crises or when they face the reality of
the struggle to recover and heal day in and day out. He didn't give
up.

``I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I
don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit
daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery,'' Reeve said of
his determination to walk again and the steps he was willing to take
to get there. Thanks to Reeve's dedication and persistence there is
hope for millions of people that never existed before.

When I worked as an EMT I was so often struck by how quickly life
changes. Between one heartbeat and the next everything we thought was
true about our lives can change. A car crash, a heart attack, being
thrown from a horse, or stumbling across a spouse's infidelity – in
one breath life will never again be the same.

So what do I want to say about this? I want to say that no matter how
terrible it seems, how impossible, improbable, or lost, the cause may
appear until one takes a final breath there is hope and there is work
to be done. Knowing what steps to take and when to take them may be
as difficult as doing the actual work. Overcoming one's own
resistance and habitual thought patterns might be a big part of the
picture. Learning to own our own feelings and reactions rather than
blaming others is incredibly demanding and usually painful. Healing a
marriage rocked by trauma of any sort is a journey of one day at a
time.

And yet – we can look to Christopher Reeve for hope and
inspiration. "Everyone" said he would never walk or feel again. With
an incredible amount of determination mixed in with new medical
experimentation, he was able to breathe for longer and longer periods
without a respirator. He was able to lift at least one finger. He
increased the strength in his arms and legs. And, he regained
sensation in other parts of his body. Every one of those things
was "impossible" before. Call me the eternal optimist but I believe
that had he lived he would have walked.

I also believe that most marriages can be saved. Not by what your
spouse may or may not do – but because of the changes you make.
Impossible you say? The ads for the Reeve's first Superman movie
said "You will believe he can fly." I did. I also believe he would
have walked. Both impossible feats. I believe in the power of thought
and hope and persistence. I believe in you.

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) Staying Together "For the Kids"

Before the "me" generation of the late 60's and 70's married couples
with children tended to stay married for a lot of reasons that aren't
as powerfully present in today's world. Women now make up nearly 50%
of the workforce in the US and we generate more than half of the US
economy. Women are not as likely to stay married due to financial
dependence as they were in the past. Women are also better educated
and less dependent overall. The sexual revolution of the 60's and
70's made it possible not only to remove pregnancy from sex but it
also displaced the idea of sex only within marriage and not until
marriage. Religion, which played a strong role in keeping couples
together has become less and less of a motivating force. Some studies
suggest that the rate of divorce is higher in the "Bible Belt" than
elsewhere. The Catholic Church, once the last holdout against
divorce, now takes a circuitous route to acceptance with the
annulment process – claiming the marriage was never valid to begin
with. And even those Catholics who divorce without seeking an
annulment find acceptance – if not in their home parishes in
neighboring Christian communities. The untouched factor for many
years continued to be staying together for the sake of the kids.

We've all known couples who were passionately unhappily married but
who gritted their teeth and stuck it out. For the kids. The parents
who couldn't stand the sight of each other but who sat down to dinner
each night as a family, celebrated holidays as a family, attended
school functions as a family, and created a stable home – as a
family – from which the children would inevitably move away from and
into their own lives as adults. These parents stayed together,
sacrificing the best years of their lives – pouring the hearts and
souls into their work and their hobbies to avoid the pain of their
failed marriages – mostly because they believed doing so was in the
best interest of the children.

Were they right? I don't know that there's a definitive answer to
that. What I do know is the carnage I see day after day in the
divorced families where staying together for the sake of the children
no longer is an option. In fact, the concept itself seems to be
disappearing from our consciousness. Now we hear about the need for
self actualization. The need to find oneself or to pursue one's
passions (often that translates to the person waiting in the wings).
The need to realize one's own dreams, even if that means shattering
the lives of the people closest to oneself. We don't talk much,
anymore, about staying together for the sake of the children, and
when we do it's in pitying tones for those who choose that route. As
if they've somehow failed the rest of us by their dedication to the
wellbeing of their offspring.

The pendulum has indeed swung in the other direction. Which of course
raises the question of whether there is a middle ground – a place of
balance between self and other. At what point does one sacrifice too
much of self for another, even ones' own child? And at what point is
one being selfish is pursuit of personal fulfillment? Is staying in
the marriage purely for the sake of the children something to be
looked down on or even feared?

Should we stay in a miserable marriage solely for the sake of the
children? I think the question needs looking at in a slightly
different light. Would I ask someone to stay in an unhappy marriage
just for the children without doing anything proactive to change the
marriage? No, I don't think so. But then, I wouldn't advocate going
to work just for the paycheck without actively participating in the
job one was hired to do. Both seem to be a recipe for frustration
verging on madness.

So let's change the question around a bit. Is the welfare of the
children reason enough to stick it out and work on an ill marriage,
even if there seems to be no feelings and no hope? To that I say a
resounding, Yes!

I'm really not picky about the reasons why people choose to stay in a
marriage, giving it another shot at recovery. In fact, it seems to me
that honoring one's obligations as parents, guardians, and nurturers
of the next generation is one of the better reasons to do so. What I
don't want to see is the old paradigm of staying for the kids and
enduring a life of misery. Stay for the kids – and then work hard and
work smart to effect positive change in the marriage.

Musing on Marriage(tm) A Wedding

I went to a wedding this past weekend. It was a beautiful event. The
bride wore her mother's wedding dress, the flowers were a colorful
array of wildflowers and roses, the ceremony was elegantly simple
without all the pomp and hoopla that distract from the solemnity of
the day, and the couple seemed truly and deeply in love with each
other. It was one of the most delightful weddings I've ever attended.

I sobbed internally through the entire ritual.

Those of you who know me know that I cry at the drop of a hat. I
cried watching the riverboats make their way up the Mississippi for
the Grand Excursion this July. I cried at the series finale of
Friends. And I cry every year just watching Independence Day
celebrations. But this was different. This was more than emotion
running over at the eyelids; this was tears of loss and sorrow and a
feeling of impending doom.

See, what I know is that no matter how beautiful the wedding or how
deeply connected the couple seems as they stand there at the altar or
dance their first dance their chances of "forsaking all others til
death do us part," is pretty slim. The numbers are not in their
favor. Sixty to eighty percent of marriages in the US are struck by
the ravages of infidelity. The incidence of wives having affairs is
increasing drastically with the ease of emotional connection via the
internet. Sexual addiction (a form of infidelity) is at epidemic
proportions.

Every day I talk to clients or receive email and phone calls from
people around the world telling me the stories of the tragedies which
strike their marriages. And as I watched this young couple, so
obviously in love, I wondered how long it would be before the wedding
pictures and video would be the source of greatest pain rather than
joy. And the tears fell silently in my heart.

As I watched them exchange their vows and I listened to the priest
speak about the covenant of marriage (lifelong, exclusive, and
created) my mind went to a dear friend who was experiencing his 21st
wedding anniversary – newly divorced after his wife's multiple
affairs. And I cried.

As they cut their cake and walked among their guests I thought of
someone close to me whose husband has left her yet again for another
woman – caught in the horror of his addiction and unable to break
free. I saw her internal strength and commitment in the face of this
betrayal. And I cried.

As I watched them dance their first dance, laughing and smiling into
each other's eyes I thought of my own first marriage. So many years
and so many lost dreams ago. And my heart felt as if it would never
be happy again.

Infidelity is a catastrophic event that wreaks destruction every bit
as great as hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. The internal landscape
of all whom it touches is changed forever. People recover, some go on
to contribute to society in a way that they might never have done but
for the loss in their lives. But none of us would ever choose such a
path willingly.

With all my heart I hope and pray that this young couple will never
experience or even know of the sorrows I see and hear daily. I wish
them many years of honesty, friendship, love and companionship. And I
grieve for those whose dreams of such are shattered.