Acceptance

Living with people is hard.

About a year ago my spouse and I were getting along horribly. There were several reasons for it, but a big one was that I could not accept the reality of who my spouse was and some of the decisions Pat had made. It went from the small (household chores), to personal habits, to large issues (money, sex/intimacy). I was unwilling to accept the way things were but was also unable to change them.

I think some of my complaints/concerns were legitimate. I don't think it matters.

My big revelation was that I needed to stop trying. It dawned on me that my spouse is no more able to change who s/he really is than I am of changing who I really am. Besides, who am I to say who s/he should be? That being the case, there is no point in trying to change each other: my spouse and I will either be able to meet enough of each other's needs or not. My nagging and pressuring accomplished nothing except make us miserable. I realized that the only thing I could do is choose to stay or leave, if the situation was truly unacceptable. I had the option. Me. I took ownership of that decision and accepted that leaving really was a possibility. Paradoxically, this really helped our interaction. It allowed me to state what I wanted and let it be. I now have "simple" questions to answer: is XYZ so horrible that I should leave? If so, I should go, if not I should let it go. Simple. This one realization, while not really resolving the outstanding issues between us, has greatly changed and improved the dynamic of our interaction.

Of course it isn't really that simple: do you leave your spouse for insufficient passion or emotional intimacy? (I don't know). But there were other issues where I was able to come to some conclusions: it is not worth leaving over housecleaning issues. It is worth leaving if some basic trust/money issues aren't resolved. This simplified and clarified for both of us what I *needed*. I think it allowed me to also be more honest about what I wanted (but maybe didn't need). I stopped nagging and trying to control my spouse, became a lot less frustrated, more at peace with myself and my spouse and apparently more pleasant to be around, or so I'm told.

The downside is that I think I am much more prepared to leave. Pat and I are both certain that we would divorce if it ever got "bad" between us again. I am pretty sure I would also leave if my basic needs were not getting met, even if we were getting along. I hope that isn't the case, but am willing to contemplate the possibility.

That was a major step forward for me: to be honest with myself. Be honest about what I wanted, be honest about what my non-negotiable items were. It was a major step in self-awareness to be able to state those.

So that was my big epiphany or this past summer, well one of them.

Houses

I had previously posted a lament, well several actually, about how my spouse views marriage primarily as a vehicle through which to raise kids, build houses and make a life together.

There might be some validity to my spouse's view.

I am not saying that I don't miss all that other great stuff: intimacy, romance, (some) passion. I do. Desperately. I haven't yet figured out if I can live without those.

So what am I saying?

Well first some background. Two rather big things happened today:

First, we closed on a house. I guess it brought home the "intimacy" of building a life together. That reminded me that this is "for real" and we are doing something worthwhile here. It isn't romantic, is isn't passionate, but it is a quiet, calm kind of intimacy. Like sharing something important with a friend, or being an important part of someone's life. Exactly like that actually.

The second thing that happened is that one of our old neighbors filed suit against my spouse on completely spurious (invented) grounds. I'm biased, but you'll just have to take my word on this. This has been soul-crushingly painful (and expensive) for us and particularly for my spouse. Some people are just horrible. This elicited two reactions in me: first and foremost anger, even hatred I would say. Secondly, feelings of sincere love and caring for my spouse who is one of the nicest, most giving people I know. This view of my spouse is universally held by everyone who knows Pat. This emphasized the point that another part of marriage is supporting and caring for each other, presenting a united front to the world. We have that. We have been through blindingly painful experiences, I am so happy I didn't have to do it alone.

So I was reminded that marriage has many dimensions to it and all are important. At various times in our lives some are more important that others. For me now, for whatever reason, I am craving intimacy/romance/passion. For my spouse, the parent/roommate stuff is paramount. I don't know if this difference is resolvable, survivable even, from the point of view of our marriage, whether it will persist or diminish with time, but I guess I gained a bit of perspective on marriage about things that I might have been overlooking before.

While it is hard for me not to think about the stuff I feel I am missing, I need to remember the stuff I do have and not take it for granted or forget that it too is important.

To the wonderful and maddening complexity of life, love, marriage, raising kids, building houses and being there for each other... cheers.

Hill Street Blues

My spouse and I were both in grad school when we bought our first house for $26,000. Yes, you read right. 211 East Hill Street, just on the "wrong" side of University Avenue, within easy walking distance of the train station and downtown. The bank wouldn't loan us the money because it was too little to bother. We ended up borrowing from family and buying the house cash. We paid it off in 4 years on grad-student incomes. Gotta love it.

It was a simple two story, 1500 sq ft house. We spent 10 years fixing it: rewiring, finishing the floors, replacing the roof, painting, replacing windows, water heaters. Most of it with our own two hands. We loved that house. When we finally graduated and moved, we were traumatized by the loss of our house.

For years after moving, and up till now, 10 years later, my spouse and I periodically share exactly the same dream, a couple times it even happened on the same night. Here's the dream:

We go back to the house. The new owners are out. We sneak in, often go to bed, then realize that it isn't our house anymore. Sometimes there is a reason why it's ok for us to be there, sometimes we talk to them, but usually we end up sneaking out the back door as they come in the front door. It's exactly the same dream every time, for both of us. We call it our "Champaign dream", so named for the town we lived in.

At first is was an unpleasant dream, always leaving us somewhat disturbed. Now it is a happy reminder of a place we loved, where we had friends, life was simpler and we were happy. Well that's what I remember at least.

Freaking weird isn't it?

Happy dreams, y'all.

Stranger

One of the interesting things about my experience of the last year is discovering this new person I have become. This is always interesting, but perhaps more so when this happens well into adulthood and comes completely unexpectedly. I thought I knew who I was, what I liked or didn't care for, what values and rules I adhered to, what was important to me, what wasn't.

Life is full of surprises.

How does that happen? How is it possible for your entire world-view and specifically your view of yourself to completely and radically change in a few short months? How can this stranger have emerged, fully formed, like a moth from a cocoon, in such a short time? How is it possible to live all this time and never have seen this person before? I mean really, how does that happen?

I don't think I know myself better than I used to. I don't think it is so much that I discovered something new about myself, I think I actually changed. I want different things than I did before. I act differently. I speak differently. I think differently. I no longer fear some of what I used to, but now fear other, new things.

This opens up many new questions. Who will I be tomorrow? What views and values will I adopt or drop? What will be important to me next year and what will I be thinking? What will I be capable of, or newly incapable of? Will I be yet some other person, yet another stranger I haven't met? I wonder who that person will be.

It will be an interesting year.

Thanksgiving

So it's almost Thanksgiving. I know it's a bit corny and unsophisticated, but here's a list of things I am thankful for:

- I am thankful for my family: a group of people to come home to who think I am special and important, despite my foibles, weaknesses, failures and genuine (real) deficiencies as a person, parent, spouse.

- I am thankful for a spouse who cares for me and treats me with respect and loves me in so many ways.

- I am thankful for beautiful children who look at me with adoration and for who I am everything.

- I am thankful for a job that allows me to provide for my kids.

- I am thankful for living in a wonderful place that I have come to love.

- I am thankful for friends who genuinely love me, and value me as a wonderful person. People who look at me and see me as a glorious individual instead of seeing the above-mentioned foibles and weaknesses.

- I am thankful for my parents and siblings who value me as an individual and remind me of where I come from and that I am not alone in the Universe.

- I am thankful for having had a chance to have lived in many places and experienced many different things and people.

- I am thankful to the Universe, or Fate, or God, for giving me the privilege of being human, being self-aware and being able to enjoy the indescribable pleasure, pain, joy, sadness, companionship and loneliness of being human.

- I am thankful to have had so many hard experiences and always have had people around me help me get through to the other side.

Thanks.

Options

Lately, perhaps because I have stopped asking for them, my spouse ("Pat") has been really wanting and asking for us to have our nightly Happy Hours on the patio. That is good, it is the first sign of any desire to be with me that I've seen in a long time.

On the other hand, during one of our recent happy hours, Pat and I had a lengthy conversation about our marriage, as we often do. I explained to Pat that I missed the passion and intimacy that our marriage had for the first 10 years (!), and that I didn't know that I could live the rest of my life without it. I really want that with Pat, and said so. Pat's response was that if I really needed that, I should just have an affair, but keep it secret. This was not an angry statement, quite the opposite, just a statement of fact. Pat is a very jealous person and knows it, as do I. It would destroy my spouse if s/he found out about it, and Pat knows it, whence the request for secrecy.

I am still trying to process that statement. No small part of me wants to take Pat up on the offer, I so want to experience a connection with another person, I'm freaking dying here. On the other hand, I just don't know that I could do it: I'm imagining going out, or going online looking for a partner and the thought is just not appealing. I don't see myself as someone who could do that, in addition to the logistical difficulties of such action ("bye honey, I'm going... hum... out for the evening, have fun putting the kids to bed"). The bigger problem is that it isn't sex that I most want, it really isn't. I most want to be intimate and romantic, playful and flirtatious with someone. I want to be wanted, flirted with and kissed, I want joking and silliness and knowing glances. I want what we had for those first 10 years.

I explained to Pat that I didn't know if I could do it. Pat's response was "then do it for me"(!). I don't know if I believe my spouse though, do they mean that, or is Pat just saying that because at some level s/he cares about me and figures that this is what I need? No matter what, it is a nice thing to say, I just don't know what to do with it.

Another part of me is very sad, because Pat's statement is an admission that s/he sees no way of ever rekindling any kind of passion in our relationship. Pat would rather give me permission to do something that would be deeply hurtful, if s/he found out than give credence to the notion that s/he could recover some desire for me. It seems like the last nail in the coffin of this perhaps unrealistic notion of an emotionally fulfilling marriage.

I would love for Pat to have a fling, be it emotional or sexual. First I would love for Pat to have that experience just for it's own sake. The idea of Pat having fun makes me happy. I wouldn't ever even need to know about it. I would also hope that it would wake Pat up, the way it did me. It might not, but Christ anything is worth a try. I however am a very different person than my spouse. I am not jealous. At all. At some point many years ago, Pat had decided to leave me for someone else, we had been fighting a lot and I was in a stress-induced depression and decidedly not fun to be around. Pat had an apartment picked out and everything. I argued successfully that s/he should stay. I didn't want to lose Pat, and felt hurt that Pat wanted to leave, but I never felt jealous. Pat has remained friends with this person and communicates occasionally with them. I have encouraged this because this was a good friend of Pat's and good friends are precious. Pat has had several other flirtatious emotional "affairs", and they never bothered me because I knew s/he was coming home at night, no matter what happened. But I digress, I am not jealous, so it is easy for me to give Pat permission and mean it, Pat can't, which makes me question the sincerity of my spouse's offer, or the wisdom of taking Pat up on it.

God am I confused.

I'm not alone

I found this really great web site which hosts a lot of very interesting and affirming discussions about marriage, sex, intimacy, relationships, monogamy. It is so comforting to know that I am not alone. I don't know that it really resolves any questions, but it was so cool to see other people have the same doubts, frustrations and questions I do.

http://www.tdb.com

This thread was particularly good:
http://www.tbd.com/group/75/discussion/19466/view

Funniest video ever

This is probably the funniest song I have ever heard. If you are a parent, you get it. If you are not, I won't even try to explain.

http://www.pcplanets.com/videoyoutube--b-Pachelbel-b-Bedtime.uISuvTiTYJA.shtml

Monogamy, part III

Ok, I promise I'll get off this monogamy topic... eventually. Here is another (humorous) take on the issue:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/study_casual_sex_only_rewarding

One of the joys of this process I am going through is how it is forcing me to question everything. It is fun... mostly.

More on monogamy

Not sure exactly what I think about this article, but it made for interesting reading and thought it would be a good follow-up to my last entry:

http://nymag.com/lifestyle/sex/annual/2005/15063/

The fact that I came across this article was a freakish coincidence: Immediately after I initially posted it I had the chance to go out with some friends and hear stories of sexual adventure, interspersed with downright eloquent and seemingly genuine stories of devotion to S.O. and children. The only way to describe it is that they live in a different world than I do, with different rules. They are moral in that they follow their rules, but they have a different rulebook.

I don't know that one can change one's rulebook though, can one? Or are we stuck with the rules we bought into when we were 15, just like we are stuck with our taste for music.

It would make my life easier to be able to re-write my own rules, I just don't know if I can do it and still like what I see in the mirror in the morning.

Monogamy

So God has a wicked sense of humor. That's good. I look for that in a goddess, god or other deity. See here's the deal: (s)he made us monogamous... mostly.

When animals are looking for partners, they "fall in love" in a very real biological way involving all kinds of neurotransmitters and hormones, the upshot of which is that they want to seek out a mate. Their brain makes sure they do. The ones whose brains didn't, never bothered reproducing. Why reproduce when you can lay down in the savana, eat fermented fruit, laugh at the funny monkeys and sleep. Those ones aren't around anymore.

A monogamous animal (I think I recall hearing that geese were such) has a brain that "falls in love" until they find a partner. Once they pair-bond, their brain simply no longer responds that way to new potential mates. If their mate dies, they simply live alone the rest of their lives, lacking the basic biochemical motivation to find a mate.

A polygamous animal, as most mammals are (think "dog"), is generally always looking for new partners with whom to share DNA. Their brain is always (subject to fertility for females) responding favorably to new potential mates by dumping neurotransmitters and ordering up some yummy hormones to drive the body to do its thing.

Both of the above groups of animals are perfectly content.

We're in the middle. Our brains order us to fall in love, we dutifully do so and remain in that state long enough (6-7 years I've read, they've done studies it seems) to reproduce and get past the most vulnerable age of a child. During this time, most people who are really "in love"are not interested in other potential new mates. Yes I know, there are exceptions. They gaze lovingly into their partner's eyes and gush the kind of sappy stuff of my last post. Hey, they mean it too. Then eventually, the feelings go away and they are left with a roommate, friend (hopefully), partner. Their brain then again becomes open to the suggestion of falling in love and will happily dump it's happy-juice when the opportunity seems right. The survival advantage from our DNA's point of view is indisputable.

So what's the problem? Well the problem for us humans is this strong societal notion of monogamy as a really important and inviolable rule. It makes sense: if couples stay together, it leads to more stable and thus successful societies. Survival rates are higher for the members of those societies. Everyone wins. Regrettably, society has only been around for a few tens of thousands of years. Our brains missed the memo. Our brains are still trying to maximize the individual's reproductive advantage.

So here we are, we're screwed (ha!).

Rebirth

So why am I asking these questions now? I had gradually gotten used to the reality of my marriage, I had even accepted that whatever level of conflict we were experiencing was normal and unavoidable.

What happened was that the universe looked down on me and again gave me a gift of life, rebirth as it were. In short I fell hopelessly, madly, passionately in love with someone else. I connected emotionally with this person in ways I had forgotten existed, if I ever knew. I was reminded of what it is to forget to breathe when you see them or to find oneself staring at them unable to stop. I was reminded of what it is to look in someone's eyes and instantly "get" them and feel like they "get" you. To want them and feel wanted in every way. To count the minutes until you see them or hang on every word coming out of their mouth. To notice all the little features of their face and love every one of them. To think of seeing them and have your chest tighten. To think of not seeing them and wonder who just put a rusty nail through your heart. I know how hopelessly ridiculous this sounds. I know this is all ephemeral and fleeting. I know that if I were "with" this person for even a few weeks things would change. I know that it is because they were new and because I just didn't know the things I would hate about them, and they me. I know that if I left my spouse to be with them, in a few years the same play would be repeated with one casting change. I don't care. The fact is that the overwhelming power and reality of that experience was like nothing I ever remember experiencing (though I might have and just forgotten). It was real, it was good, it was pure and beautiful. It was overwhelming and all-consuming. It felt like so much more than sexual desire. It felt like it was about that most precious commodity: real intimacy.

The upshot of the above is that I suddenly remembered. I remembered what it was to feel and I wanted more of it. Wishing to use that flame of passion for good, I focused on reigniting that with my spouse. It worked, for a while. As long as I was willing to put in the effort and make things happen, they mostly did. We started a nightly after-kids-are-in-bed happy hour out on the patio, the Best Idea Ever. I started initiating sex and making it a great as I could. The sex was good, if somewhat dispassionate. We had long talks about our relationship and what was good or bad about it, about the nature of marriage: what is it, what can it be, what should it be. It was great. The problem is that I got tired of always being the one to put out the effort. I always seemed to "want" my spouse more than they did me, sexually but also in all the other ways that one can "want" someone. Eventually, I got burnt a couple times and kind of gave up. So now we are back to the way things were... except that I still remember.

So now what? I am in a good, even great, but passionless marriage, with this raging thirst for intimacy, romance, sex and just a little passion. All I want is for someone to occasionally be really excited to see me, eager to talk to me, hold me and kiss me like they mean it. What I wouldn't give for a passionate kiss. My spouse seems to not share those desires and is content with raising kids and building houses together, being friends, roommates, business partners.

I know my choices: stay, leave, cheat, and none appeal to me, not really. I am begrudginly constrained by a lucid view of reality, a latent sense of moral responsibility and a strong desire to not hurt or lose my spouse or kids.

God has a cruel sense of humor, but that the next post's topic.

Hello World

Hello out there.

As my profile says, I am going through an interesting time in my life. In the last year I have moved, gotten a new job, my spouse and I are currently buying and selling houses, moving again, and oh yeah, having serious questions about our marriage. Nothing big, you know, just the stuff of life.

I have been married since infancy, well right after college actually, and now have lovely kids. I had a substantial period of time being married without children. My kids are now in elementary school. My marriage has always been characterized my a fairly high level of strife, although we recently seem to have gotten past that. My spouse "Pat" and I are getting along well now, very well really, but have entered a very strange period where we are both questioning the point and nature of marriage in general and ours in particular. I would like to explore those questions for myself as well as with whoever happens to read this.

While I love Pat and Pat loves me, the simple fact is that our relationship is "only" that of close friendship. co-parenting, being roommates, partnering in the areas of finance and running the household. Gone are the feelings of passion and romance. Our intimacy can best be described as that between two good old friends, not that that is bad, but no more. I understand that the butterflies, passion, romance and excitement diminish markedly with time, fine, but when you start counting your last sexual or romantic moment in weeks or months, or when going to bed at 9 seems so much more interesting than staying up talking, it seems downright tragic. Doesn't it? So here is my question to the blogosphere: Is this it? Is this the most I should expect out of marriage after some time, or can there be more?

And here's an even better question: if this is it, is it enough for me? I want more, but do I need more? I don't know.

There is a back-story behind this, but that is for the next blog.