Is Your Marriage Fireproof?

After complaining to my sister about our everyday small but consistent  arguments, she recommended watching the movie Fireproof. I usually make a mental note when someone recommends me a nice movie or a book, but somehow never get to actually check them out. But a week a after our conversation I happened to have time and a strong craving for anything inspirational and preferably relationship-related. So I watched Fireproof - and WOW! This movie got me into so much thinking and inspired to take a fresh look at our marriage and my role in it. Now I truly believe that Fireproof should be on top of the Movies About Marriage List, and a definite must-watch for couples on the verge of divorce.

Basically, the plot is pretty simple: a once happy, but now constantly fighting couple is surely heading in the direction of a split. Caleb's (the husband) dad interferes and suggests an experiment that can help save their marriage, and even if it doesn't, it least Caleb can live guilt-free because he tried. All he has to do is follow a plan given to him by his dad, which "prescribes" a specific action for each of the following 40 days. For example, day 1 - you can't say anything bad to your wife, day 2 - you have to tell her at least one nice thing, day 3 - you have to do something special for her, etc. Obviously it starts from the easiest and progresses to the hardest.

What appealed to me in this movie is how much I could relate - first to their arguments, where both the spouses seemed to have their point, but wouldn't hear each other, so it was hard to say who was more right or more wrong. Second, to how painful it can be to try day after day but get no reaction. Third, to how sooner or later if you put your heart in it and don't give up, your spouse has no choice but to respond to your efforts.

The most important point for me in the whole movie was that as Caleb thought he was working on changing his wife, he in fact was undergoing the change himself and at the end of the 40-day experiment he was a new person. He also saw all his flaws in the way he was treating his wife, in his unrealistic expectations , in how he was demanding respect without earning it. This is not a movie about how to change your partner,  it's about becoming a better partner which in its turn will bring all the desirable changes to your family.

If you want to fireproof your marriage, that is definitely a movie to watch and learn some lessons from. I hope you will get inspired as much as I did!

Comparing Your Husband to Others

I don't like to compare because of the emotional impact comparison usually has on us. But sometimes you can't help it. Watching someone else's husband who is more involved, sweeter with his wife, closer with his kids creates this unpleasant inner stir that I'm missing out. I do see happy couples occasionally, who are so in sync, so connected. But mostly I see relationships where the two people are ... just together; and you sense a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness beneath the calm surface.

Anyway, I'm always glad when I am presented with the opportunity to compare to someone worse, not better. To get a chance to think about someone else's husband, "thank god I'm not married to that dude" (though I suspect many women think the same about mine). Sometimes this comparison makes you see your partner in a new light and reconsider whether some of his flaws are actually that bad.

We've been having a contractor coming in to repaint the walls in our house. What initially seemed like a quiet, reserved guy turned out to be a nightmarish chatterbox. The minute my husband steps out the door the dude opens his mouth and pours the endless stream of words down on me (my husband normally doesn't talk much - what a blessing). Mostly this guy complains about everyone and everything (my husband does not like to complain especially when he is having serious problems; he keeps everything to himself to spare me from excessive worrying). This guy keeps saying dirt about his ex- and current wives (I know for a fact my husband never discusses me with anyone). This guy keeps making inappropriate jokes of sexual nature (my husband would never talk like that with a stranger, he treats all women with a distant respect).

I now find myself thinking warmer thoughts about my hubby because he is not all those repulsive things some men are. I like how this guy is intimidated by him and shuts up in his presence. Everybody has their vices but we usually choose someone whose flaws we can put up with (even if a different woman would find them unacceptable). Bit this recent experience emphasized my husband's merits and reminded me why I was attracted to him 10 years back: not only for all the things he was, but also for the things he was not.

How Did We End Up Here?

I love reading fiction books where a marital struggle is one of the central plot lines. And every time I come across the question raised by the fictional wife - "how did we get here?" I feel like exclaiming - "Exactly! How?" At some point, at the very conception of the relationship, things were very good, and today they are pretty bad, but how did this gap happened? When? Why did it grow so wide?

A very thought-provoking book on mending the broken marriage that I would recommend to anyone is What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. It's about a woman who falls off the exercise bike, hits her head and suffers a very peculiar case of amnesia, where she loses memories of the past 10 years of her life. She wakes up, thinking that she is a 27-year-old happily-married happily-pregnant woman and is then shocked to find out that she is in fact a 37 year-old mother of 3 on the verge of divorce, whose husband deeply hates her. As Alice sets out to explore how she went from being so happy and hopeful to so miserable and bitter, to look for clues to what went wrong and who is to blame, she gradually discovers that both her and her husband are equally responsible for their woes. However her injury let her take a fresh look at how everything started, how perfect their relationship was at one point, which made her more determined to fight to save their marriage.

If I am to trace back the past 10 years of our life together, I know what I will find. All those moments of miscommunication, lack of patience and support for each other, not enough spending time together, constant arguments about raising our son the right way. We were both wrong on endless occasions and pointing fingers to who contributed the larger share of damage will lead nowhere. I know he was a far worse husband than me a wife, even though I wasn't exactly perfect myself. I tried harder though. But as much as I would want him to admit that I will just be wasting my energy. And it's irrelevant any way.

What I need to recollect is the way we were in the beginning. How we couldn't go on a single day without seeing each other. How I blossomed nourished by his constant adoration. How he made me feel beautiful, desired and so complete. I feel nothing like that these days. I feel more broken but also much stronger, bitter but more realistic. What I know now is that everything in a relationship is a chain reaction. He hurts me, I hurt him in return, he hurts me in HIS return forgetting that he started it. And before you know it it's an endless exchange of blows and no one has any recollection how it came to that. But the same concept applies to the "good deeds", "voluntary acts of kindness" or whatever other fancy name there is for just being unconditionally nice. It causes exactly the same chain reaction but this time it results in a trade of good attitude. The only problem is who will start it, who will swallow the pride, let go of the past hurts and take this first step to being a better partner, a better person in spite of a very strong urge not to.

I write for those who want to try to be happy in a hopeless marriage. I am one of those wives who decided to stay even though it was probably wiser to leave. I get many comments from women like me. We all have our reasons. What I've learned from my 10-year marriage is that there are ways to feel happy in a marriage that is so far from perfect, from what you hoped and imagined it would be. If you bring your happiness with you into a relationship, it will always stay with you, but if you sit back and wait for someone to provide it, chances are you are waiting in vain.

Like any life's ordeal, a difficult marriage provides a platform for a tremendous personal growth. Everything happens for a reason. If we find ourselves in a particular situation, it's either because there's a lesson to learn, or because there's something inside us that doesn't function right and we are stuck until we decide to change. The very first and most important change should take place within, and the external changes will follow.

So the right question is not "how did we end up here?" but "how do we get back to where we were and then take it to the next, more mature, happier level?"

The Destructive Role of Screaming in Marriage

Being noise-sensitive in nature, I am very anti-screaming. I happen to believe that screaming is employed by low-class people simply because they lack proper manners. Kids get to scream because they don’t know how to contain their emotions yet, but we, adults, have more self-discipline and should be able to tackle any conflict in a more civil way than screaming and swearing, right? Yet, I’ve caught myself raising my voice on far too many occasions lately. Those domestic disputes brought to the surface the alarmingly short span of my tolerance. 

The problem is – just like violence causes violence – screaming provokes more screaming. And before you know it, it’s a competition of who can scream the loudest because, apparently, when two people are yelling at each other, they don’t hear much, being too busy thinking of the next accusation to throw in the other’s face. 

Screaming doesn’t get you anywhere, nor does it solve anything. It’s quick to disrupt any sensible thinking and provokes impulsive responses that both parties can later regret. A screaming wife loses respect and affection of her husband, and the more she slips into a screaming mode, the more likely her husband will perceive her as a hysterical woman in general. I doubt my husband will love me more if I turn to yelling on too many occasions, no matter how justified it is. And what’s worse, I will think less of myself, because being anti-something and yet engaging in it on a regular basis causes a tremendous inner conflict. 

Yes, we all tend to lose it at one point or another and succumb to an impulsive desire to scream at the top of our lungs during an argument. And I admit, it makes me feel better, providing some relief to the tension and letting the anger escape rather than ‘choke’ me on the inside. But whereas screaming helps me, it does not help our relationship. It’s the least productive way of communicating, and, other than letting off some steam, has little merit. 

So I acknowledge this new flaw of mine. I realize that, if left unaddressed, it will become my permanent attribute. And I think of ways to prevent it from happening, trying to come up with a strategy and program myself accordingly before the next argument takes place, because the rage will get the best of me. From counting to 10 to leaving the room at the first urge to scream, I need to protect myself from myself when I am at my worst, when I lose control. I’ve witnessed enough couples fighting in public to know that there’s little pleasure in observing your enraged beloved losing face. I don’t want to scream even when I want to scream. But I have to stay mindful about it, else my impulsive side will always win and I will ultimately lose.

Father’s Day is Coming: Did you Get Him His Cufflinks?

With Father’s Day around the corner (even though there’s still Mother’s Day before that), I am back to the regular dilemma – what gift I should get him. There are a few challenges that I’m facing every year around birthday/Xmas/Father’s Day time. Challenge #1: he already has everything. And to be more exact he has MORE than enough of everything a modern man should have. Well, maybe except the new BMW he is dreaming about, which I am not gonna get him. Challenge #2: he is very picky. Meaning everything I got him before did not satisfy his taste for one reason or another and ended up in the far corner of his least-visited dresser draw. Challenge #3: he loves shopping. I touched upon his 'shopaholics’ disorder' in my previous post. So even if he does need something, for me to go and get it for him is the same as taking away his most cherished pleasure of buying it himself. 

Here are some ways I go about these challenges. Solution #1: I buy him things he wants but for some reason doesn’t get or postpones getting. For example he’s been wanting to hang a few birdhouses in our backyard forever but could not find them at the local stores. I ended up ordering them online as a gift for him – made him real happy by the way! Solution #2: I buy him things he doesn’t have and doesn’t use but wouldn’t mind having just in case. Cufflinks would be a perfect example – even though he doesn’t wear them, he does have a couple of dress shirts that require cufflinks. This is actually something I am leaning towards this year, and since I very conveniently work next to Macy's, I might as well get men’s cufflinks there during my lunch break (they have some cool ones, I’ve checked before). Solution #3: personalized ego-boosting products. It must have been expert psychologists, who came up with the whole idea of putting “Best Dad Ever” + a photo on a coffee mug. No matter how cliché these things are, they work!!! And what’s more, they never get shoved to some dark web-covered corner of a kitchen cabinet. So cufflinks or a #1 Dad mug? Or ... more birdhouses?

Trivial Issues in Marriage with Serious Consequences

I often feel like in my marriage I gravitate between two opposite poles. One is when things are really good between us, but we seem to be pulled in that direction less and less frequently. The other is when our relationship is a complete disaster and nothing makes sense. Like I said, I barely reach the “coast of happiness” any more, and getting to the wrong side makes me so utterly depressed and miserable, that I try to get away from it as fast as possible and stay in neutral waters, where things are neither good, nor bad, they just are. Unfortunately, lately even staying in the neutral zone has been so much work. Our communication reminds me of playing the Minesweeper: no matter how slowly you move or how well you calculate every step, you are bound to hit the mine and all the previously done work is blown off, and you have to start over. 

I’m not sure I even possess the right level of diplomacy to communicate my point without sounding offensive. He’s been offended by the smallest remarks latterly (since when did he learn to be so sensitive, used to be my thing) and I constantly feel like I’m walking on eggshells. 

So here's our seemingly trivial issue - his obsession with shopping, which is driving me crazy. I try to under-react when he buys more shirts or pairs of socks than he could possibly wear, but I totally lose it when he brings home 10 shopping bags full of stuff for the kitchen. I hate clutter and fight with it relentlessly. And considering kitchen my kingdom, I hate seeing it cluttered with stuff we never use. Yesterday I exploded when he bought another veggie grater for me – because it’s the 4^th grater he has got this year. And four graters take up half the shelf in my kitchen cabinet. But when I asked why would I need yet another grater, his response is - to replace the old one. And that’s what pisses me off, I love my old grater! (since when 1 year is considered "old" for a stainless steel item like that?) I am used to my kitchen utensils, and pans, and dishware and I don’t need them replaced until they are fully worn out or damaged.

I also hate when stuff piles up and takes up all the space in the cabinets, so occasionally I undertake the task of decluttering. I take all the items we don’t use, put them in a box and give it to him to discard or donate only to find the same items mysteriously lurking again in the far corners of the shelve I cleared out just yesterday. Now that is truly a mad-stuff disease: new stuff comes in and old stuff doesn’t come out. And if only those were the things that we needed: for some reason his focus is on a specific group of things (pans, silverware, dishes), whereas there are items for the house that were on our to-get list for years.

The problem is we see it differently. What is cluttering to me, he perceives as “buying things for the home”. So I come out as a bitch, complaining about my saint of a husband who works so hard to make our kitchen a better place. I tried to go nice about it, thank him for “the wonderful purchases” and hint that maybe we are good for now only to be presented with a new set of pans a couple of weeks later. I tried to be honest and bring up the issue of clutter but he would get offended and won’t talk to me for days because I don’t appreciate his efforts. I tried to divert his attention to other areas, such as a hole in the ceiling from a leaking pipe that has been covered with cardboard for 1.5 years now. But the issue remains, and so does the ceiling hole. And of course he refuses to acknowledge that his shopping spree takes place on days when he is especially stressed out at work and finds his refuge at the local Kohl’s store. 

I try to stay calm and tell myself that at least he doesn’t go to Atlantic City or a fancy electronics store to seek a few hours of oblivion (and part with a few hundred if not thousand dollars). I just hate to see my favorite kitchenware gone, replaced with new alien items that take getting used to. And since I’m the one who does all the cooking, I see it as intrusion into my sacred realm. It’s just one example of gaps in our communication, when no matter how I approach it, he doesn't get my point. So at the end of the day I’m always the bad guy unless I thank him profusely for yet another grater added to my expansive collection… Should I consider turning them into lanterns like in that photo I found?

Do Men Feel Guilty?

I know he is feeling guilty after an especially bad fight when he stuffs the fridge with all the things I love. There’s literally not a single inch of vacant space left on the fridge shelf. That is his way of saying “I’m sorry” when he is afraid to approach me with words. And I appreciate this remorseful act, I’m relieved that at least he is still capable of compassion when he hurts me. Because nothing is worse than the cold brushing off, moving on like nothing happened after penetrating my heart with long thorny insults and accusations.

Men don’t like living with guilt, they are a poor match for the feeling. When forced to acknowledge, accept and apologize for their wrong doings, they get all defensive and twist facts to leave the battle field unscathed. “You provoked me! If you don’t like it, it’s your problem! I am what I am and I’m not going to change”. Yet somehow it is important for me to get through his defense shield and make him face the aftermath of the damage he caused with his careless words and attitude. I need him to know I’m hurting. If I hide my feelings, swallow all bitter pills he feeds me without complaining, he will think – it’s not a big deal, she is not that frail so no need to treat her with care.

I find my ways to deliver the message, to make him feel guilty but also leave the door open for him to fix what he broke. I know that the guilty feeling will soon enough transform into anger so once he “gets it”, I soften up and let him make it up to me. And I appreciate every step he takes forward, and thank him for the treats in our fridge, and for being nice and gentle to me just the way I like it. I help him deal with his guilt as long as he acknowledges it first. I’m not pressing too hard so it’s his turn to feel grateful. I grant him my sweet forgiveness so next time he is less stubborn and apologizes sooner. Or better, thinks more carefully before hurting me again.