However, well- versed from the school of hard-knocks and a healthy dose of perfectionism, I am realist. Uncharacteristic for a Piscean, I know!
So I with that in mind I will state this upfront: what you are about to read flies in the face of romance. It is the most unromantic philosophy of marriage you are likely to come across. BUT: it is the stuff of lasting love and fulfillment! If this intrigues you, read on…But if you believe that fairy tales begin with a kiss and end with a ‘happily ever after’, turn off your computer as quickly as you can and go bury your nose in an actual fairytale! For this piece, my friend, details the undercarriage of marriage, or -more crudely- the tail-end of marriage… The stuff they never ever tell you…
There is absolutely no course that can totally prepare us for marriage. Why? Two main reasons: marriage is an entity to itself and we encounter things in marriage that we can never anticipate; and there is no lesson in life that teaches you as much as the one that takes place ‘on the job’, because when we are ‘on the job’ the information is immediately relevant and useful.
You see, hubby and I did ‘Evenings for the Engaged’ before we got married. We found the classes pleasant but fairly useless- adequate at best. We read several books on marriage and diligently discussed each chapter. We talked about family planning and finances and active listening and all the obvious topics of conversation for the pre-marrieds. Having armed ourselves with the knowledge of a few well-known books, being 30+ and already living together, we had our bases covered- or so we thought! As I said, marriage takes you places and confronts you with things you couldn’t have imagined or planned for. This is, incidentally, the pleasure and the pain of marriage.
Even though we have only been married for 13 months, we have had our fair share of wicked surprises, challenges and upheavals. Each situation showed us new aspects of each other that we had not seen before and ways that we both operate differently and outside of what we had expected. You might call these the intermittent series of disappointments which lead me to realize the key to marriage… And here it is:
We each bring a well developed image of what marriage is, does and looks like into our relationships. We bring along a highly articulate job description for our partner and also one for ourselves! For ease, let’s combine these two and call them our ‘marriage schema’.
Our marriage schemas have been developing from birth. They are based on our age, background, upbringing, what we learned from the adults around us as we grew up, and what pop-culture and fairytales dragged into our innocent little heads.Everything we absorb-consciously and unconsciously- from the world we live in develops our marriage schema and everything we have learned and experienced injects data. All of this information is melted down and forms the expectations we set for our marriage, for our partners and for ourselves. Our schema’s are complex and we are usually blithely unaware of the contents!
This is why, statistically, those that experienced divorce growing up are more likely to divorce. Similarly those in violent relationships are statistically likely to be repeating patterns that they learned from a young age about what a relationship looks like and how partners treat each other.
Marriage is a business partnership. As unattractive as it sounds, it is the joining of two lives, two sets of dreams, goals, finances, assets and most importantly, it is two people assigning roles to each other. Roles that each person has clearly defined in their minds- even though they don’t realize it at the time. In this sense, marriage really is 'employing' someone who we love but also who we believe has the skill set to help us build a fulfilling and happy life.
It is these ‘job descriptions’ or expectations that people have built that cause disappointment to arise. Why else would one person in one marriage be happy to manage finances and another person in another marriage resent that same role? Because their schema’s are different. One person expected and wanted to adopt that role, while another expected it to be the role of their partner.
Although we are writing a job description for our partner from birth, we are not aware of the fine detail in which it exits. Much of it is entirely unconscious. It’s like the image of iceberg we have all seen, with a small peak poking out the top, but the bulk of it under the sea. Therefore, there is no way we have examined it fully before we enter into marriage. Our partner will be as oblivious to the finer details of its expectations as we are. Well… that is until the disappointments start to mount up.
Disappointment, in this light, cannot be viewed as a dirty word, because a disappointment provides the perfect conditions for asking the key question to uncover more about the job description we have created. What is the key question: why am I disappointed (angry, upset, disillusioned) with my partner right now?
Take this example: Husband and wife possess a property each. Husband and wife buy new property with the decision to sell their own properties. In addition, both parties agreed to wife cutting down hours at work to build business from home. They articulated this vision together. Wife sells her house quickly. Husband is unable to sell his because he has neglected to property manage his while it’s been leased. While an official property manager had been employed, husband had neglected to follow up on maintenance calls, ensure the property inspections were being done and failed to routinely check on the property, leaving it in an un-sellable condition. The only option is to do minimal maintenance and re-let the property until there is enough cash flow to fix all things that need to be done before the property is sold. As a result, wife is unable to reduce hours at work, unable to begin own business and there is additional financial stress with the existing mortgage and a new, large mortgage. Wife is disappointed. Why? She thinks long and hard about this…
Wife assumed three major things about money and her husband before these events had taken place that lead her to be disappointed when this unfortunate situation arose. Her job was to uncover these instead of focussing on the unpleasant side effects (loss of money and short-term loss of business goals). Here are her beliefs:
• Husband was taking care of his property just as she was taking care of hers. He would have it ‘under control’
• It would feel emasculating to her husband if she were to ‘stick her nose in’ and ask questions about his property
And this is the doosey that really uncovers the job description she had written for her husband:
• Men are meant to take care of the finances.
In realizing she held this last belief, she admitted that she had been hoping to sell her property, and leave the rest of the financial planning and management to husband. To quote from wife: “I just want to worry about making things beautiful. I don’t want to have to worry about all that stuff. I got married so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
It was through this process of reflection that wife was able to pinpoint the cause of her major disappointments instead of focus on the symptoms of the situation. Her disappointments didn’t lie in the financial losses (which were considerate) or having to stay at work as people might believe if she retold this story. No, she was upset that husband had proved incapable of one of her major job descriptions- at least for the time being.
Why didn’t they discuss this before marriage? I hear you asking. They had. At length. All decisions and planning were done together and she assumed he had the skills to see things through and to realize all the micro details that ensured the macro plan would work. He simply didn’t. And neither of them realized until this opportunity/disappointment reared its ugly but fruitful head.
It is only when confronted with situations we never knew we would face that we realize things about ourselves and others. Marriage is the ideal grounds for this to occur, as it happens regularly!
So what happened with husband and wife? Wife realized she had three options: fire the business partner and walk away; take over the financial planning herself; or use the experience to teach husband how to better manage things and to provide him with the opportunity to rectify his mistakes, miscalculations and mismanagement. She didn’t want to walk away. As managing the finances was something she was capable of but didn’t want to do for the rest of her life, she didn’t take control either. She chose option three, knowing that the financial losses might be greater, it may take longer, but husband would learn from the opportunity should he choose to take it. He did and with prompting, careful planning and discussion, rectified the problem in the short term while they built the funds to bring the property back to its original, saleable self.
I asked wife, after this experience, to write a job description for husband based on what she had learned that she wanted or needed or expected in her last year of marriage that she never would have realized before marriage. Just the things that actually ‘being married’ has provided her with the opportunity to learn. Here is what she wrote, and you’ll notice I have added a ‘job description’ at the side of each one (imagine what writing to a selection criteria like this would be like!!):
1. Remembers/celebrates birthday (program planning skills)
2. Plans for occasional romantic gesture (program planning skills)
3. Helps with the cooking during the week- and remembers to include vegetables! (Program planning skills)
4. Can think of things and see things that need to be done before being told or asked (initiative and drive)
5. Manages finances- or at least his own finances and assets (experience effectively managing a budget and property)
6. Helps save money by looking for cheaper options, not just reaching for first item on the shelf (enterprising)
7. Creates change for his life where he knows he needs it instead of staying in a comfortable rut (initiative and drive)
8. Assisting with planning and creating fun activities or social events (initiative and drive)
9. Doesn’t leave things to me even though he knows I will think of it, manage it, or do it anyway (initiative and drive)
To be fair, I asked husband to do the same exercise. Here are his results (printed as written):
1 – Patience: employs patience in situations and when dealing with dickheads, including me.
2 – Forthright: knows when to ask for what she wants even to my detriment
3 – listens to what I’m saying when we fight – lets me clarify the issue and doesn’t get more upset when I say something stupid accidently – giving me the benefit of the doubt on what I mean, not what I’ve said.
4 – Does not resort to personal insults when arguing – argues the point in question, not the person
5 – is open and honest about how she feels and when, letting me know when I’ve done something good/bad
6 – Doesn’t worry so much, not all issues are big issues
The most amazing things result from doing an activity like this one. Not only are both people forced to reflect and uncover their own beliefs and expectations but this provides the opportunity to see that ‘disappointments’ are really the best way to communicate and improve the marriage. The couple above discussed their job descriptions and got into the minute detail about why certain words were chosen to help decipher meaning. Sometimes a description had to be re-written to most accurately reflect the intent behind it. The exercise helped them to reflect on their own expectations, learn about each others’ and have a good laugh while doing it.
A Few Tips:
• Even if your partner doesn’t want to do it, engaging in this activity can help you get really clear and articulate why you are disappointed. Being armed with this info will make you much clearer and less emotional when working with your partner to find a solution to an issue
• This can be done regularly. In fact every time a disappointment crops up is a great opportunity to review and add to your lists! You can even keep them on the fridge as a loving and gentle or joking reminder for each other!
• Stay as focussed as you can and get as clear as you can on the ‘bigger picture’ and try not to focus on symptoms of an action like loss of money. Dig deeper. Ask yourself: what do I believe about marriage or my partner or this situation to make this hurt so much?
You see, although my theory lacks fairy dust and sparkles, over time, it keeps the ‘sparkle’ alive because it encourages the calm examination of the bigger picture of a situation, the beliefs behind it, and tangible and reasonable steps that each partner can take to make situations better again. What’s better than that in a marriage? Except having your own real-life Fairy Godmother who could wave her magic wand and ensure that our marriages encountered no issues. However, we all know of one Fairy-God Mother who also believed in finding things out for ourselves... So maybe this is a fairytale after all!
Dorothy
Oh - will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda
You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy
I have?
Scarecrow
Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda
Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Tin Man
What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy
Well, I - I think that it - that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. And that it's
that - if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard,
because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?
Glinda
That's all it is!
Scarecrow
But that's so easy! I should have thought of it for you.
Tin Man
I should have felt it in my heart.
Glinda
No. She had to find it out for herself. Now those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds!
Dorothy
Oh! Toto, too?
Glinda
Toto, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment