Love Is Ridiculous

I’m a flipper-outer.

For example, yesterday morning we were about to head out to meet friends at a nearby wildlife refuge for a lovely summer morning meander, and I was running a little late. The sock in one of my shoes didn’t feel quite right so I had to take it off and start over. The dog’s e-collar was giving me fits. The handle on the fridge needed wiping off so that our friends wouldn’t think less of us if they happened to open the door to grab a beer. I couldn’t find my water bottle. I dropped my phone. It was one of those days when every step of trying to get out the door came with some sort of hitch, and I could feel the inner tension growing. The faster I moved, the worse it got.

Putting a cup of coffee into the microwave I knocked the cup against the side of the door, slopping coffee on the counter………….

Fuck!!!!! I hate having to hurry, I yelled at no one.

Dumping my now hot coffee into the travel mug, I slammed the microwave door. For good measure, I slammed the open cupboard door next to it (because along with being a flipper-outer, I’m also a door leaver-opener). Turning around, Tom was simply leaning against the sink with his cup of coffee, a slight smile on his face. He is unmistakably not a flipper-outer because (A) he simply isn’t wired that way, and (B) I do enough flipping out for both of us.

“Thank you for never (well, hardly ever) making this (me flipping out) into a teachable moment. It feels like you are just watching me thinking ‘God, I love that girl’.”

Pretty much, he said.

And the ridiculous thing is, he means it.

It’s quite a thing to be loved not only in spite of my messiness, but because of it too.

God, I love that guy.

Bouncing Off Ideas

What is your idea of marriage?

This is a question posed by a good friend of mine when he is providing pre-marital counseling to a couple. Each person has the opportunity to share their answer out loud with the other. In other words, they take the opportunity to bounce their ideas off of one another before actually getting married.

It’s a brilliant question to ask, and an equally brilliant practice to hone .

Because the truth of the matter is, marriage isn’t just two people coming together. It is also the joining of two ideas about what marriage means. What marriage looks like. Which is all well and good until we encounter something where our ideas don’t match up. Which is where the rubber meets the relationship road.

My hunch is that the healthiest, most resilient marriages, or relationships of any sort for that matter, aren’t those where both people see everything the same way all the time. Rather, over time, they have honed the skills to uncover how they each see things, and then use what they discover to better navigate the road ahead.

After 26 years together, my husband and I are still honing these skills.

We had talked about getting our Christmas tree today. Which for us means tromping out onto our property to find a tree that will have to be cut down eventually anyway because it is in our view corridor.

So.

In my mind, we were going to bundle up, take our time, meander here and there, find the tree, cut it down, drag it back to the house, and set it up. Twinkle lights, a few ornaments, candles on the mantle, and a Christmas movie in the background.

Which was all well and good until Tom came downstairs ready to get out there, cut it down, drag it back to the house, and get back up to his office as quickly as possible. Because we hadn’t bounced our ideas off of each other, we found them butting up against each other instead. Thankfully, we stuck it out as we’ve learned to do, talking it through from both of our angles, and combining my idea with his idea to come up with our idea.

Tom headed back up to his office, and I bundled up and headed outside for a good long walk with Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle, looking over a few of our tree options along the way.

The same thing happens to all of us all the time. We have an idea about something. About what whatever it is looks like. And the other person, our partner, parent, friend, relative, co-worker, teammate, neighbor, manager, service provider, teammate, has an idea too. Which is all well and good until we discover that our ideas don’t match up.

So.

What is your idea of fill-in-the-blank?

Now, go bounce your idea off of whomever it is about whatever it is. And invite them to do the same.

(Shout out to Dane Anthony for the brilliant question and equally brilliant practice.)

Photo by Rodolfo Clix from Pexels

Is This The ______________ That I Want?

Tom and I had been married about eight years when he spent a couple of weeks teaching at a remote retreat center in the North Cascades, while I stayed home minding the fort. During those two weeks it became clear to me that there was no question that I wanted to be married to Tom. However, that wasn’t the real question. The real question was—Is the marriage we have the one that I want?

It wasn’t.

Those aren’t thoughts one can keep to oneself if one wants things to change.

After he returned we were out running errands one day, and stopped at a Starbucks. I can still see the table where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. I’m sure he was expecting just a nice catch-up visit, so when I quietly told him I wanted to talk about our marriage, a deer in the headlights about sums up his initial reaction. Thankfully, unlike a deer he didn’t disappear into the woods, but leaned forward, and leaned in. That conversation, over lattes, on a sidewalk outside of Starbucks is the conversation that changed the trajectory of our marriage.

Together we began to give voice to what was working, and what was not. We needed plenty of help along the way from therapists who could help us navigate all of the issues that could derail us if we let them. After 25 years together, we still hit brick walls and have to talk about scary things. On any given day, we work hard to bring the best of what we have to each other, with varying degrees of success, but always with the commitment of building the kind of relationship and life we want. Our conversation over coffee that started all those years ago is one that we will probably be having for the rest of our lives. At least it should be if we want to keep building the marriage we want.

The changes in our marriage all started with a hard question, as most hard changes do, and, it is a hard question that can help any of us get to the heart of any matter that matters to us.

Is this the…relationship, parenting approach, community, fitness level, body, friendship, career path, communication pattern, story emotional health, financial reality, team culture, family dynamic, belief system, outcome, home-life, fill-in-your-own-blank…that I want?

If the answer is yes, then we keep on keeping on.

If the answer is no, maybe today is the day to figure out what it is we do want and how to go about getting it.

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

25 Years And Counting

August 27, 1994

Yesterday we celebrated our 25th anniversary. I never knew love could be this big, or life this good, which is not to say that it has been smooth sailing or easy going. Far from it. It has however been worth every single minute that we’ve spent learning to create the life we share. Like most things, we’ve learned as much by what we got wrong (plenty) as by what we got right (thankfully plenty here as well it seems), and in honor of each of those years, and in no particular order, here is what my geologist and I came up with…

1. Love by listening.

2. Assume good intent.

3. Do your work and expect them to do the same

4. Don’t do their work for them and don’t expect them to do yours for you.

5. Play together.

6. Learn to laugh at yourself and with one another.

7. Talk about it, no matter what.

8. Learn to speak one another’s love languages.

9. Get a therapist.

10. Create at least one daily ritual that connects you.

11. Be active together.

12. Own up to what’s yours in real time.

13. Go on adventures.

14. Stay curious.

15. Be authentic.

16. Tell the truth even when it’s hard…especially when it’s hard.

17. Be courageous enough to be vulnerable.

18. Make your relationship the priority and move out from there.

19. Have the conversations that you don’t want to have.

20. Cook together.

21. Create lives of your own that strengthen the one you share.

22. Set boundaries that protect your relationship.

23. Identify and learn about each other’s enneagram numbers - really!

24. Love generously.

25. And because it bears repeating…do your work and expect them to do theirs.

I can’t wait to discover what we’ll learn over the next 25…