Entries Tagged 'relationships' ↓

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When I was in High School, I was a missionary. Very religious, I believed in what I was doing, and I felt compelled that it was my duty to share it with everyone I came into contact with.

Cut to, oh dear, 20 years later? Okay, let’s not be too specific.

But, here I am, considering everything I feel, everything I once held dear, everything I once believed, under a completely different microscope. Religious? Me??? People who know me now would likely describe me as free-thinking, open-minded, probably a little too much swearing….definitely not what you think of when you think “religious”!

But, then I log onto Facebook (Yeah, I know, but it’s good for Networking. Right?) and see all these kids I went to high school with: guys who wouldn’t date me because I was the ‘missionary dater’, girls who snubbed me because I was too ’straight laced’, people who were my friends no matter what, mixed in with a lot who crossed my path but didn’t make a big impact (and probably vice-versa!). And what’s the common denominator?

They’ve all got religious stuff — bumper stickers, prayer groups, church affiliations, etc. And I’m at the other end of the spectrum.

Don’t get me wrong; God and I have an understanding. It’s just not rooted in any church and it’s very personal.

Funny that. Personal. I once pissed off a guy I respected more than most in High School. Why? Because I asked him about his religion. Or rather I asked if he shared mine. He became so angry that I would ask him such a personal question that he stopped being my friend. The irony is, I think he’s now got religious stuff all over his Facebook page. I haven’t even asked if he’d like to be my Facebook friend.

So what happened? Clearly we’ve all changed. But why have they gravitated toward religion while I’ve moved away from it. Is it just geography? They stayed ‘there’ and I’ve moved to a whole other world?

Or is it something else? Is it about bravery? Do some people feel able to explore while others feel the need for something comfortable?

Or is it knowing yourself? Am I okay exploring something unknown, but they need something familiar?

Is it about right and wrong? Have I strayed from the path, while they’ve found it again? I don’t think so, but they might.

It’s strange sometimes the way things happen and how they turn out. Everything in my life has been leading me (pushing me?) to this place. I have to think the same has been happening to them. So who’s doing the pushing? And why such different directions? And who’s really happiest about it?

I honestly can’t say I’d change anything, or indeed, change places with any of them. But I have to think they’d say the same.

Maybe it’s all just about being comfortable in your own skin, whatever form that comes in. I suppose the difference is, I’m not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking now. I’m just being who I am, right here, right now.

Every parent thinks their baby is bright, their child is special. But mine are. Truly! And parenting a child who is intelligent is, in my opinion, a much more daunting prospect.

When my first was born, I was determined that, unlike my mother, I was not going to say ‘because I said so’. I was very careful, whenever he asked me why, to explain all the reasons in as full a manner as I thought he could understand. So what did he do? As soon as he was old enough to figure all this out, he started arguing all the reasons I should do what he wanted instead of what I felt was best. I, foolishly, went along with this for a while, arguing my reasoning back with him, to which he’d counter argue and so on. Eventually, exhausted by the process, I found myself saying to him, “Look, I am the parent, and it’s my job to make these decisions. I have to make the best choice I can in the situation, and hey, it may even be the wrong one, but I can only do my best. And you must abide by my decisions because you are my child.” And then it hit me, that was a very fancy way of saying “Because I said so.” Terrific.

When my second child came along (also bright, of course) I found myself saying more often, “I’m sorry but that’s the way it is. I have to make the decisions and this is the one I’m making.” Still an elongated “Because I said so” but better in my opinion. And if they ask me to explain why, I will. However, I’ve had to be very clear with my oldest child, now a pre-teen, that ‘the why’ is not an avenue to negotiation; He can disagree all he likes, but the decision will stand.

Having said that, I do allow my children a chance to explain if they think I’m wrong. NOT to wear me down — No means no! — but to show me their side if they think either I didn’t ‘get it’ or else that my reasoning is faulty. Sometimes they’re right, and I change my mind.

For example, my oldest child wanted a later bedtime. He is 12 now, and he felt his bedtime should be later. I didn’t want this because I felt he his bedtime was age-appropriate. He said he really felt that he could handle it and wanted me to think about it again. So I let him explain, and he pointed out that he doesn’t seem to need as much sleep as some other kids his age, and he really wanted some uninterrupted time after his brother had gone to bed, so ‘me time’ for him without his younger siblings buzzing around, and only a half hour separated their bedtimes at that point. I thought that was a reasonable argument, so I did change my mind, and gave him a trial run on it. So far he’s been right, and the later bedtime stands.

These kids are definitely smart, and if I’m not careful, they can get the better of me. Not only do I have to make the best decisions possible, I have to out-think him the best I can as well!

The out-smarting thing is definitely important in my relationship with my middle son. He is slightly under-motivated in certain areas, like reading. Let me just say here, in my family we are Readers. (Capital letter intentional!) My husband reads a lot (both books and copiously on the Internet), I read every spare moment, and my eldest child is a prolific reader as well, although he came into it a bit late. Back to the middle child, so NOT a reader. He can read, and do it well. He just doesn’t seem to enjoy it. (I still have hope though — his brother was 10 before he started to read for enjoyment.) So, being good parents of a bright child who needs a bit of scholastic pushing, we got him a library card, took him to said library and watched while he checked out books. We instituted reading time, where we all read at the same time, and then we would quiz him afterwards about what he’d read to be sure he was taking it in. He answered the questions, but we noticed that, over time, the amount he was getting through in the allotted time was growing astronomically! Hhhmmmm… Yep you probably guessed it, the stinker was skimming chapter titles, learning the main character’s names, and then reading the last chapter so he could tell us how it ended! Sneaky!

And now we come to the third child, this one a girl. She’s not yet three, so you’d think I was off the hook with the smart thing, right? You couldn’t be more wrong. Not yet three and she knows all her alphabet, colours (even down to obscure ones like ‘beige’), numbers to 12 and she can talk rings around all of us, using very sophisticated vocabulary to do it! It doesn’t hurt that my mother-in-law quit her job as a teaching assistant to keep our daughter from the age of 6 months, but trust me, the kid is bright. And, oh joy, we are to the ‘Why?’ stage of nearly-three. I have explained why about everything from the need to wear socks under shoes, to the justification for her going to Nanny’s house while the boys and I go elsewhere everyday, (Even though she loves going to Nanny’s and wouldn’t really want to go anywhere else!) to the reason that people have belly buttons. Believe me, I have explained just about everything there is to explain! And still she asks ‘Why’!!!

As an aside, I once asked her why she asks ‘Why’ all the time. Her answer? “I don’t know, I just have to.” Profound that.

In my experience, parenting intelligent children is an exhausting and introspective process. I’m continuously having to think about how I talk to them, how to explain things from their perspective (You try explaining the British legal system to an inquisitive six year-old!) and then review how I’ve dealt with them. I’m also trying to think ahead to how the systems I put in place today may turn on me tomorrow! It’s definitely never easy.

But worth it? Oh yeah. Just talking to these wonderful small people who have fresh and amazing insights on the world, who never run out of things to tell me and who regale me with yet a 14th chorus of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ (that’s the little one, mind, who knows all the words and doesn’t seem to understand when a song is over) is a wonderfully enjoyable experience. I just have to remember that during the times when the constant chattering and singing drives me crazy.

I have quite a few female friends, most of whom are married and have been for some time. In the past few years, I’ve heard from more than one of my married friends only to find out that they and their husbands have split. And more than half of the time, the split has been precipitated (notice I did not say ’caused’) by the husband first saying he’s ‘unhappy’ or ‘disatisfied’ or ‘going through something’, and then in the end it turns out he’s found someone else. Sometimes the wife has known said woman because she was ‘just a friend’ or ’someone I work with’ and other times it’s been a shock completely out of the blue. And once ‘the other woman’ enters the picture, things deteriorate rapidly.

I do realise, of course, that some relationships need to end. I think most times that’s down to the individuals, but you can reach a point where there is nowhere left to go, or else there are so many things wrong in the relationship (especially where something like abuse is concerned) that the relationship needs to end.

I have no problem with that. What bothers me is when a person, still in a relationship, decides to ’stray’ with another person. They create a new relationship before their current one is finished, and generally one person doesn’t know what’s going on and ends up feeling really stupid, betrayed and angry as a result.

Now I’m not naieve enough to believe that these people were in perfect relationships (Oh dear, I had trouble even typing that phrase, as I don’t believe ‘perfect relationships’ even exist!) that rapidly fell apart once ‘the other woman’ entered the scene. In fact, situations like this always make me think of a very apt line from the film When Harry Met Sally: “Marriages don’t break up on account of infidelity. It’s just a symptom that something else is wrong.”

While I do believe that infidelity is an outcome, rather than a cause, I find myself asking why so many people, and especially so many men (at least that seems to be the case), attempt to solve their relationship problems by finding a new relationship.

One big reason I think this avenue is so tempting is because it gives a feeling of control. If your most central relationship is threatened, you really feel it. When you find yourself constantly arguing with your partner, or else growing very distant and maybe having nothing to say to each other, it can feel very scary. For a lot of reasons. Somewhere down inside you feel a failure when you can’t make your relationship work. You can also feel afraid of the future, afraid of the unknown, out of control. You may even start to feel worthless.

On the flip side, we all know how it feels to be in a new relationship. You feel good about yourself, desired, attractive, and if you do lose control, it’s in a fun, total emotional ‘rush‘ kind of way. If you’re feeling your relationship with your partner is breaking down, if you feel undesirable to your partner, or if you feel as if everything you do is ‘wrong’, that ‘rush’ can be a powerful temptation. Why work on old issues or bother with confrontation when you can just have a ‘clean slate’ with a new person who thinks you’re wonderful?

Why indeed. And many people seem to think this way.

That brings me back to a book I read a very long time ago, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. Of all the valuable things in it (It’s a fascinating take on life and what makes it worth living, what things we need to do in order to become a person who lives a truly fulfilling life.) the one that stuck with me the most was about love. In a nutshell, Peck believed that real love is a choice. Attraction is biological, as is infatuation. Feelings are important — you don’t want to be with someone you don’t even find attractive! No one should be that self-sacrificing — but they are not the be-all, end-all. They are just the starting point. To truly love someone, you have to commit, you have to choose to be there. You choose to do what it takes to make that relationship work.

The benefits of that choice, that commitment, can be amazing. When you’ve been through real life with someone else, worked on your issues, found your strengths, been a support to that person and been supported by them, that’s a real relationship. You have a friend, a partner, someone to laugh and cry with, someone who really knows you — both the good and the bad — and chooses to still be with you. That is something worthwhile.

Of course, anything worthwhile comes with a price. And, in this case, that price can be hard work, at least some of the time.

There are always rough patches in a relationship, times when you make each other more angry than you thought possible, times when you cannot seem to get through a day without a shouting match. To get past those points can require real work: copious discussion, true listening, compromise, sacrifice, being honest with yourself, sometimes painful things. It definitely isn’t easy sometimes.

So is it worth it? I think so. A lot of my friends and family agree.

But there will always be some who take a different path, the ‘easy’ path if you will. Much easier to just call it quits and start again. More exciting? Yes. More fun? Probably. Better than commiting to your relationship and working through the obstacles? Not to me, that’s for sure.

I guess, like Peck and the poet Robert Frost I believe:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost)

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had not been in England long and I didn’t have many friends. None of the friends I did have were pregnant and I felt as if I had no one to talk to that was going through the same thing I was. So my husband, being the Internet-focused man he was and is, found me a mailing list.

As I was due in May, I joined a list called MayMoms. It was a complete turning point in my life.

At full strength there were over a hundred of us, women all due to give birth in May of 1996. We shared fears and concerns, we asked for ‘reality checks’ over whether we were imagining things that were happening to us, we talked about babies kicking and growing bigger and midwives and obstetricians and birth plans and everything to do with having a baby. And when our babies were born we talked about weights and feeding and poops (It’s amazing how much new mothers can have to say about baby poop!) and milestones. And later we discussed baby blues and postpartum depression and finding yourself apart from being ‘Mom’. And then came siblings and school and so on.

We discussed our lives. Some of us even met in person. We made our own yearbooks, complete with photos of our family members. We knew each other.

I was connected to a whole group of women (admittedly mostly white collar, upper-middle-class, highly intelligent, educated women — not anywhere near the norm of all women and we knew that) that were my friends. I knew these women, cared about them, gave my input when they asked for it, and asked for theirs in return. We talked members through illness, divorces, infidelity, unemployment, buying and selling houses, moving to new countries, you name it.

And just yesterday, one of us died.

I haven’t read the list actively in the past year. I’ve checked in now and then, and one woman in particular has been good to flag up important news to those of us who had become ‘on the fringe’ of the group. It was her email that let me know I’d lost a friend.

A friend I’ve never met in person, never spoken to on the phone, I probably couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. But she was my friend. We met in the virtual world, far from my everyday life, but our connection was real. I knew about her illness, that she had cancer. I knew she went into remission, and then I knew she was ill again. And now she’s gone.

I will miss her.

I hate to cry.

My mother, bless her, is a cry-er. She cries when she’s angry, she cries when she’s sad, she cries when she’s moved, she cries when she’s happy. Do not misunderstand me — I love my mother, very, very much. I also know this thing about her, and I’m honest about it.

I have never been and never wanted to be a cry-er. I look awful when I cry (red face, runny nose, swollen eyes — NOT pretty) and I feel pretty awful while doing it. I feel better afterwards, but I’m still not good at it.

Now it is a woman thing. We honestly can’t help crying sometimes. ESPECIALLY if a woman has ever had a child. That hormone thing is real and it’s weird. And we can’t help it!

So why is it, when nearly every 2nd person on the planet has to do the crying thing sometimes, that men are so flummoxed by it?!

My husband hates it when I cry. Now he’s known me, been with me, lived with me, for more than a decade now. And yet every time I cry, it’s like this totally baffling (and irritating) experience for him. Do they not cover this at men school?

If you’re a guy, let me give you a small piece of advice. (And trust me, this will take you far, with the ladies I mean.) When a woman cries, this is what she wants: 1) Have a sympathetic look on your face, 2) put your arms around her and hold tight and 3) this one is your choice — either rock slightly with her in your arms, or make soothing noises (words like “It’s okay”, or “I know” or other similar phrases are great), or heck, BOTH at the same time. You can even rub or pat if you feel so moved (BONUS POINTS), but these aren’t totally requisite. The first three, non-negotiable. Must be done.

The sympathetic look doesn’t have to be real. You can fake it. Trust me, we don’t care. We just want to see it. We want to believe you get it. That you understand. You don’t. You probably can’t. You are a different species, after all. On some level, we know that, but when we’re crying we want to believe you get it. Don’t make any other kind of face, even if you’re feeling it inside. Feed the fantasy.

The hugging thing scores major points. Don’t walk away, (or worse, run) although we know, again at some deep level, that you want to. Don’t pretend you don’t hear us sniffling or sobbing. Don’t suddenly get absorbed in a fascinating article on the Internet. Approach and hug. Believe me, it will have payoffs for you. This is worth doing.

As for the sounds/rocking, we don’t know why we need it, we just do. It just helps. Don’t tsk. Do not, under any circumstances, roll your eyes. Do not sigh. Rock or make soothing noises, or do both. (Depends on a) how believable you can be with the noises and b) how much credit you want for this!) That’s it. Don’t improvise and don’t let us know you don’t really want to do this. It will go much better for you if follow these rules, believe me.

Now there may be a woman out there somewhere who doesn’t like this. But chances are, even if it’s not how she wants her crying to be handled, she’ll still appreciate the attempt.

So do us, and yourself, a favour. Ignore your natural instincts. Follow the three rules as laid out.

And then our crying will be over sooner, and you will benefit from being seen as such a “wonderful, understanding man”. See? Everybody wins!!!

I’ve decided relationships are not about what people say. They’re not even about what people do. They’re about what people want.

My husband and I have been together a long time now — 13 years in August! And yet, I just realised, TODAY even, that I don’t really understand what he wants.

I thought I did. I thought I knew what it meant to please him, make him happy, be supportive. I don’t. And in return, he doesn’t seem to know what I want either.

The reality is, we each do what we think the other person wants, and that translates into doing what we each want individually from the other person. In other words, I’m doing what I want him to do for me and vice versa. Not exactly a recipe for success that, is it.

Bummer.

What do I want? I want him to talk and I want him to talk in a way that shows he cares about me. I want him to ask about my day and really want to hear the answer. I want him to chat with me on car journeys. (I am a driver married to a non-driver. That means I drive everywhere, and somewhere along the way the thrill of driving ceased to be a thrill. TALK TO ME! Driving is boring now — talking is not.) I want him to tell me I’m important to him.

I also want him to do things I want done. I want him to put pots away when he’s cleaning up in the kitchen. (Everybody has their ‘thing’. Pots left out on the stove is mine. I hate that.) When he’s washing up, I want him to wash the backs of the dishes, not just the fronts/insides. (Why do men not do this? I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.) I want him to change the sheets on the bed instead of waiting for me to do it — I want to come home one day and there are clean sheets on the bed. Surprise! (Yay!!)

So what do I do?

I ask him, every day, how his day went. (Or in this case, night – he’s been working nights for nearly a year now. We both hate it.) I try to chat with him on car journeys. I try to tell him in words, phone texts, emails, that he is important to me. I am trying to make him happy by saying what I want him to say to me.

I get it a bit more right with the doing — I know a lot of his ‘dos and don’ts’. I try to be tidy because I know he hates it when I’m not and when the house is not. I try to wear clothes I know he likes on me when we go out, because I know he thinks his taste is good and mine sucks. I try (VERY HARD) not to ask questions with obvious, or given, answers because I know he hates that.

And I also put the pots away on the stove, wash dishes inside and out, and change the bed sheets unexpectedly. Trying to please him by doing things that would please me.

And you know what? I could be wrong, but I honestly think he does the same thing in reverse. I know I hear him say, “I thought that’s what you wanted” often enough, and yet the ‘wanted’ thing is usually, very surprisingly to me, far outside my scope of even thinking about.

How can we get it so wrong? And how, after all this time, can we still think the other person wants what we ourselves want? And can we ever get it right?

I suspect getting it right would involve those taboos of “asking for what you need“, where ‘mind-reading’ is SO much more romantic, and “communicating honestly and openly” about what works and doesn’t work for you in a relationship, where guessing and basing your reactions on your own wishes is SO much more natural.

No wonder people say relationships are hard work. It seems to me it’s not the other person who’s hard work — it’s dealing with ourselves: our own preconceptions, misconceptions, interpretations, explanations. I have always believed, and still do, that the benefits are so worth it, but I gotta tell you, the work (which mostly seems to involve working on myself) is sometimes very hard.