Cooked Goose

Broken Dream …

I was at a wedding of a friend. One of the most idealistic guys I know. A guy so committed to his dreams, so uncompromising that most people don’t know what to make of him. He’s one of those guys who has a standard for … let’s say friendship for instance, that makes you backpedal calls you a friend. Not because you fear him to be co-dependent, but because you know your idea of friendship is certainly far more casual. So, no, I don’t quite get him either. Admire him, yes. Know what makes him tick, not so much.

Into his early forties, he hadn’t settled on a woman. None could quite get up there and “Ring that bell.” Toll that true sound. And then this woman comes along … well, she appears on a dating website with two boys in tow. Turns out she’s a mother of two handsome boys, gifts of a first go around for her that didn’t go as she’d hoped. She’s lovely. Kind-hearted. Joyful. Ding, Ding, Ding. My friend is smitten. Seeing stars. An elaborate proposal – like I said, this guy only goes one speed – and then a beautiful wedding. I’ve been at a few weddings, never seen a guy go so blissfully.

If years ago, you asked my friend about a dream wife, about marriage, he would not have told you the story that unfolded. I suspect “How” he meets her, “When” he meets her would deviate quite a bit from what really happened. And she’d be different too. The woman of his dreams is not the woman he married. But sure enough, he’s out there right now, living his dream. Gives new meaning to a broken dream, doesn’t it?

Something for the Ladies Part 2

Why not? Now that I’ve gotten the two of you ladies who read this sufficiently annoyed, “Might as well go all the way.” I realize there was no “bright side” to my last post. Nobody wants to hear, “Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.” What can I tell you? You’re in a tight spot; you married a man. Sorry.

If you do not resist the urge to motivate by nagging (I use this word as a very broad umbrella, encompassing everything from masked slights to full-blown browbeating) I say one of two things will happen:
1. Your husband, being so annoyed by the constant barrage will take to flight. He’ll do this in any number of ways – everything from immersing himself in work/other interests to physically removing himself. There’s an ancient Hebrew proverb – something about taking up residence on the corner of one’s roof being a preferable alternative to living with a nagging wife. He’ll take off. In the end, you will not get what you want.
2. The second thing is far worse. He will decide it’s just better to do what you want rather than deal with the relational malaise at home. In an effort to appease the unpleasant voice, he’ll begin to cow to you. “Anything. What do you want? Anything to quiet that voice.” Initially, you’ll get what you want, but in the end you’ll be getting it from a man who will become odious to you. You’ll despise him for being spineless and cold. After gnawing him into submission, you’ll have the gall to wonder, “Why can’t my husband be like him?”

Simplistic? Yes. Descriptive? Gotta tell you, I see it a lot.

Okay, so can I tell you another thing. What your husband needs is you to believe in him. Trust him. I know … I know, Crazy. It’s asking a lot. And to ask it with no guarantees? I have some nerve. But I really do think it’s the only viable path to getting what you really want: A man who loves you sacrificially, willingly. Do it and pray. Really. Pray. Pray that he will be the sort of man who responds to your love for him in kind.

Something for the Ladies

Can I tell you ladies something?
I have this vivid memory of a moment when I was about six years old. I was walking along with some others when I caught in my periphery a reflection of myself in a glass storefront. Letting my companions walk ahead, I stopped and turned to look at the boy who stared back at me. And a singular thought: “I don’t ever want to get older than this.”

In men, this longing to be a boy dies a reluctant death. We play games as long as our bodies will allow. Speaking of games, go to a golf shop and you’ll see the same expression of wonder and longing that you’ll see across the way on the faces little boys at Toys R Us. Like we used to back in the day, we still need to go “run around” with the boys once in awhile – you know, “fart around” and get some laughs. For the life of us, we can’t remember little errands. And yup, the same dude who’ll duck tape a severed finger will whimper like a toddler when hit with a little fever. Boys will be boys, right?

All this is infuriating for you ladies. “Grow up!” You see, you ladies can’t understand all this nonsense ’cause you all aren’t anything like us. When you women became women, that was that. No looking back. Why would you ever want to be a little girl? In fact I think most of you couldn’t wait. You played “Mommy” and fantasized about your wedding day. A Princess and Prince Charming. Boys are Peter Pan oblivious to the existence of “Wendy”.

Regardless of our differences, you’re right, it is an ugly thing when a man fails to become a man. Agreed. There will likely always be a boyishness in a man, but a man he must become. Now, the thing I wanted to tell you ladies is that the temptation will be to try to thrust your husband into manhood by nagging him, frowning upon his games, his friends. By pestering him. Don’t do it. It will not work. I wish I can tell you that if you do not nag, he’ll snap into manhood. I really do. I can’t. What I can say is nagging, though it may seem like the only course of action available will not work. That unpleasant sound will not call him into manhood.

I got home yesterday and my wife says, “I read your post. It was confusing … didn’t really make sense.” So, I read it. Yeah, it was a bit hard to follow. Can I take another shot at it? Maybe if I give a real example.

On a Saturday morning, early in our marriage, I went for a surf. When I left, I gave her a general time frame: “I don’t know. Not too long. Late morning?” Look, I’m trying to get out. I’m not going to say, “It’ll be four hours.” We’re different that way. My wife likes set times, clear expectations. I like options – last minute options. To her, “Late morning” meant 10; to me, “Late morning” had in it room for interpretation. Sure enough, surf was “firing” (Good). So I pushed “late morning” to as late as possible. Driving home at 11:30, I thought my interpretation is going from liberal to wrong. I walked in sheepishly, to find the apartment empty. A note on the kitchen counter read, “Took kids to swim at ‘so and so’s’ pool.” Cold, flat. Yup, I was in trouble.

That feeling of walking into the empty apartment and then being in trouble got me angry. Okay, right here, if you’re a woman you’re probably thinking, “What?! What are you angry about? You were wrong. She was justified and you deserved it.” Yes. Agree. But the point isn’t what is justified and who deserves what. Many a marriage have dissolved over words like justified and deserve. I rushed over to the pool. My kids, two of them at the time were thrilled to see me. My wife? Not so much. At that point, I was done. I did not want to wade through it. I did what I did best back then; I checked out. “You’re going to punish me with your vibe, okay. I’ll hit you right back with withdrawal, with rejection.”

I wrote yesterday that I believe our communication struggles are representative of  a general pattern. Then I offered my guess as to why women seem to tend toward an indirect route, and why men have the tendency to withdraw, to run from the challenges of intimacy.

After about ten years of failures, we’ve experienced in the last few years some real breakthroughs. And an important step was our agreement that my wife would try to be more direct. And I would try to stay engaged, not run.

Today, we might handle that morning this way. My wife would still get pissed. But she’ll think, “Picking up and leaving. ‘Coming home to an empty apartment will show him'” approach isn’t going to help. She’ll sacrifice her plans and wait. When I walk in, she might tell me, “You’re later than ‘late morning’. When you do this, it puts us all on hold, and being on hold with two kids 3 and 2 is hard.” Hopefully, my response to that would be, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I knew I was pushing it. Sorry.” Then she would have to forgive me. There’s no justice in the person wronged bearing the burden of reconciliation. But we’ve decided that for the sake of our marriage, we’ll suffer injustices. Having forgiven me, she’ll release me. And I’ll look over at her as we head over to the pool late thinking, my wife is cool.

Indirect Run

Early in our marriage, I experienced that feeling. I’d walk in the door and something was off. She wasn’t exactly mad, but something had changed from that morning. “Hmm … what happened?” I was meant to feel bad, and I was feeling bad. And I didn’t like being made to feel like a child in trouble. It didn’t take me long – like five minutes – before I was resenting the punishment. My reaction was anger and withdrawal.

I think this is a common communication problem between husbands and wives. A wife is indirect and a husband withdraws; a wife nags and a husband runs. My guess is that it arises from the intense power dynamic that is at work between men and women.

Women in relation to men have historically and otherwise been relegated to a position of powerlessness. From this position, they look “up” at men who mostly look to them like overgrown boys and think, “Who put this guy in charge?” They are in the unenviable position of having to run things ’cause God knows you can’t trust this dude to run it, but having to do so through the dude. It’s like having a clueless boss who you have to move all the while making him think it was his idea. The only way to do it is to develop skills in indirect communication.

Men are in a fight. The world is in a unique way scarier for men. They have to overcome, succeed, be somebody, do something. We’re hounded by doubts and fears. At every turn, “Geez, I’m outta here” is at the tip of our collective tongue. The last thing a man wants is to find a fight with their wife. A wife in his mind is a home – a shelter from the storm.

In communication, we’ve learned that she has to try to be straight – tell me, don’t make me feel it. I have to stay in it; I can’t run.

Shut up and Listen

You seen that Klondike Bar commercial? The one where a scruffy, slightly overweight guy turns away from the TV to actually listen to his wife. His face contorts under the strain of listening to his wife talking about painting their foyer yellow. Sweat beads on his forehead. There’s a 5 second clock ticking off. When it hits zeros, the dude jumps off the couch like he just hit a game winner, green confetti rains down and two cheerleaders jump into the living room dancing to that familiar tune, “What would you do..o..oo for a Klondike Bar.” I think it’s my favorite commercial. I’ve seen it countless times – still makes me laugh. My wife laughs too, but she shakes her head disapprovingly as she does. “You guys are jerks.”

Yes, the dude represents us well. And so I get it when my wife throws us all in a pile with Klondike Bar dude as our captain, and paints us all as jerks. Listening to know my wife does not come naturally to me. I want to know the point. Why are you telling me this? I’ve discovered there is not always a point. In fact, she sometimes doesn’t want me say anything at all. She doesn’t want me to offer an answer, give a suggestion. No. Just listen. I think my wife wants me to know her. And part of knowing her is experiencing something she experienced. Or letting her talk about something she’s been thinking.

I can tell sometimes she feels silly. She’ll say things like, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this” or she’ll sheepishly say, “Can I just tell you what I saw at the thrift store?” She knows I’m not interested in the thrift store, and so when I’m attentive she knows I’m interested in her, in knowing her. And do it for more than 5 seconds, alright. You’ll get a lot more than a Klondike Bar. And no, I didn’t mean you get that. Geez, we are jerks. Hehe.

Running Reckless

Where did I hear this? I think I heard it on Oprah. Yeah, I’ve caught an episode or two of Oprah. I’m not proud of it. It was a long time ago. Geez. Okay, I’m sorry, alright!

Anyway, I heard something along these lines, “You have to take care of yourself first before you take care of someone else.” I also heard that the key to any meaningful relationship is compromise. You know, “Give and take”, “Meet me halfway”, “You scratch my back …” Wrong!

First of all, you don’t want to tell somebody like me that I need to think about myself first. Bad idea. Like I was telling a friend recently, I’m a prolific thinker of self. In fact, we’re all world class thinkers of self. If you put me on a golf course with Tiger Woods, it would be ridiculous; I feel silly even writing it. Put me in a competition with him in thinking of self, I’d like to think I’d lose, but … hmm … I don’t know. It’d be close. In that competition, we’d be walking down the eighteenth; I’d be on the leaderboard. Sadly, in the human race, there might be a gap between the neurotically narcissistic and Mother Theresa, but it’s slight – definitely contestable.

Secondly, that whole compromise thing might work at the office or in foreign affairs, but not with your wife. You’re not supposed to trust people implicitly. The very nature of marriage demands implicit trust.

To become one, you have to run at her with crazed self-abandonment. You can’t be thinking about yourself. You definitely can’t be keeping score. I’m not suggesting you be spineless. Not suggesting you give her everything and anything she wants. That’s not love. And yeah, you’ll probably get hurt. You might end up putting more in the pot. Is that so bad?

The point of marriage isn’t a relationship that works. A relationship that works is nice, but for marriage it’s not ambitious enough. Think about it. In the end, do you want your hopes to hit the ceiling at “Well, it worked.” The point is oneness. Don’t let Oprah tell you any different.

Strange Love

There was this co-ed sleepover. It was back in ’79 or thereabouts. I was nine, maybe ten. It was innocent enough. I can’t remember everyone in the room – my older brother, couple/three girls, I think. The oldest was maybe twelve. At some point that night, talking in our beds with the lights off, I confessed that I had a thing for one of those girls. Her name was Nancy. If I remember correctly, her response to my confession was less than reciprocal. Nancy screamed and dove under the covers. I should’ve known right then that love is a battlefield.

What is love anyway? For a nine year old kid, it was a strange feeling I had. For whatever reason, I liked this girl. I noticed her – wanted to be around her. And as I got older, the definition really didn’t change. Love more than anything was a wanting: To have someone. And the “better” she was the better off I was. If she wanted me too, then yeah, I must be somebody. Cheap Trick sings, “I want you to want me, I need you to need me, I’d love you to love me …” It’s the anthem of the co-dependent, infantile conception of love. It’s the one I confessed to Nancy back in ’79, the one I held into most of my adult life.

A couple years ago, I was sitting in Southern California traffic. I looked around at all the people sitting in their cars around me, and thought, “Everyone wants something … real bad. Everyone.” Then I thought, I live on a planet of 6 billion and change of people of wants. Most of us can hardly spare a moment from our pursuits to consider what another wants, what another needs. It’s no wonder that love is a battlefield. Hell, it’s a wonder that love exists at all.

I had mistaken this wanting as love for so long that love strikes me as strange. “Wait, you mean, love is surrendering my wants to give another what they want, what they need? This is love? I don’t know. Hmm … strange love, man. Strange.”

The Disappointment

I think the thing that gets you in the end is the disappointment.

Wants are often presentably disguised demands. What a husband wants, really what he demands of a wife? No way she “cleans and jerks” that kind of weight. She doesn’t know it at first, but eventually a day comes along when she realizes she’s standing on stage, holding her breath, violently quaking under the weight of your demands. Looking across at you, your unwilling hand hovering over the “approval buzzer”, she wonders “How the hell did this become an evaluation anyway?”

Listen, what you want, what you think you’re entitled to in a wife, no woman can lift. The whole she’s the ONE – the savior (I refer to this in the post, If you want to live, let go). The “You complete me …” mythology, that’s already a load. Heap on it fantasies spun by everyone from knuckleheads like Nicholas Sparks who pander “love” stories of forever young, beautiful people doing other worldly things for love, for amor to fools like Hugh Hefner who demean something as beautiful as sex down to a vice – using for pleasure. Then the weight is just impossible. Man, fantasy is heavy. But that’s not all; it’s plenty, but there’s more. The worst yet is comparison. And it’d be bad enough if the comparisons drawn were remotely fair; they’re not. In this day of unprecedented access to info, the line of women to which you compare her is endless: Photos, film, internet, Facebook, … everywhere. Population density. Google Earth. Real life has no chance against snapshots, vignettes, and hypotheticals. You end up with the law of probability saying, “Good chance you missed The One. There’s got to be somebody better.” Now, she’s done.

The disappointments I’ve experienced in my 14+ years of marriage have very little to do with my wife. She’s nobody’s disappointment. I came to this thing with a lifetime of inability to look squarely at what marriage was. Inability? Unwillingness? Probably both. Now, along with those, I deal with a good measure of reluctance. And not just marriage, but with what love is. Really, what life is.

Ah, to be able to look squarely. Then I’d remove the weights; I’d escort her off the stage. Then I’d live in the truth: “‘Disappointment?’ No. She’s the One.”

If you want to live, let go …

Awhile back, a friend, a former Los Angeles County lifeguard told us a harrowing story. He was on duty at a beach notorious for attracting a heavy crowd of inexperienced swimmers. During his shift, he saw two large women in trouble. According to him, once you swim out, the prudent thing to do is to take a moment and assess the situation. The reason being: A drowning adult is a dangerous person. On this occasion he could not because he was alone, and one of the women was already going under. He threw his flotation device at the one above water, and went under to grab the submerged woman. As soon as he got to her, she clamped onto him like a hungry octopus. When he tried to tear away, he discovered not only was the woman large, she was strong. He tried to swim up for air. The drowning woman instinctively latched onto the part of him pointed toward the surface – his head. With the large woman wrapped around his head by an adrenaline juiced death grip, he was now fighting for his life. Fear drove the woman to try to drown the one man there to help her.

It’s a good picture of so many marriages. You’ve waited all your life – a life, let’s face it, that often feels like you’re barely keeping your head above water – for someone to come along and rescue you. While dating, you hide your fears and your need for a savior so as not to spook ’em. “Oh, I’m fine. Look, you see. I can kinda swim.” And then he/she swims in, puts a hand on you, and “BAM!” The death grip. Save me! That’s fear talking.

Your husband cannot save you. Your wife cannot deliver you. Your spouse is not the answer. No one can swim with you wrapped around their head. No one.

If you want to live, let go.