Tuesday, April 6, 2010
I hate MAP testing. It’s the state standardized tests we have to give at school every Spring. It’s always a stressful time and I can’t wait until it’s over. Ceecee is hating life and I can understand why. She has to test the behavior disordered students in a one on one setting. I don’t envy that, but I don’t like what I’m doing either.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Well, the Easter Bunny came and today has been a pretty nice day. Ceecee liked her stuff and she also insisted that we get a basket for our grown daughter Angie, even though she’s married and has a husband who should be doing these things. That’s the Mom in her not wanting to let go and that’s ok.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Ceecee thinks she can’t swim, but she can. She was an army brat growing up and never had swimming lessons. Now she wants to start swimming, but she always says she doesn’t know how. Back when we lived in Dodge City, KS, I took her to the pool and she said she didn’t know how to swim. I showed her the basic strokes and she swam just fine, but today when we went to the pool at the Meyer Center, she said she didn’t know how to swim again.
I showed her again and she swam, but she could only do one length of the pool without stopping. Now we’re home and she’s filling out job applications. She got a teaching license by taking some exams, so she has a certification in science and she wants to have her own classroom next year. That would really help us out financially and would give her more of a sense of fulfillment, I think.
Tomorrow is Easter and it’s not really a big deal, but we’ve always celebrated it and my wife is kind of silly about these things. I always get her a basket with candy and usually a little gift and I put them out at night when she’s in bed. I’ll do the same tonight, but I don’t really know if it matters this year.
Friday, April 2, 2010
We do this thing called “family night” on Friday nights. Well, not every Friday, but pretty often. We got the idea from this other family at church and we just kind of stole it. We make homemade pizza and watch a movie on DVD.
When the kids still lived at home, it was more of a big deal, but now that only Taylor is here, we try to get Angie, our married daughter, and her husband to come over, or we let Taylor invite one of his friends, even though that isn’t really “family.” Each person gets a ball of dough to make a crust and they put their own toppings on. Then we eat them while watching a family appropriate movie. That brings some groans from the kids sometimes, because they say the movies are boring, but we figure if it’s going to be family night, we need to keep it family themed.
Anyway, it just didn’t feel right tonight. Ceecee and I sat together on the “mushroom.” It’s this weird couch/loveseat thing that said “mushroom” on the tag when we bought it, so that’s what we’ve always called it. The kids sprawled around the living room like usual, but Ceecee was texting or something on her phone on seemed distant. I asked her who she was talking to, but she didn’t want to tell me, and she seemed irritated by me in general. I can’t help wondering what’s happened to our marriage.
Wednesday, March 31. 2010
I’m really starting to get concerned. Ceecee goes through phases where she’s upset for a while, but it usually only lasts a couple of days and everything goes back to normal. This has been going on for quite a bit longer and she doesn’t seem to be snapping out of it. I don’t know what to do. When Taylor comes home, a lot of the time he asks, “Is Mom in a bad mood today?” If the answer is yes, he pretty much hides out in his room. He’s been spending a lot of time there lately.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Rough day today. Ceecee is angry at the world, it seems. Taylor and I are tiptoeing around trying not to get in her way. Taylor is her son from a previous relationship, so he’s my stepson. He lives with us and is in his senior year in high school. Ceecee really hates her job right now, so I suppose that’s where her frustration is coming from. She’s a paraprofessional at the same junior high school where I teach. That’s a fancy word for a teacher’s aide, and she works with the behavior disordered special ed. kids. The worst of the worst. That would wear on anyone, I suppose, and she hardly gets paid anything.
I teach math and am pretty happy with my job overall. I’ve been teaching for 14 years and I really like it on most days. Not too many people are really in the career of their choosing, doing what they enjoy, so I feel blessed. I wish I could figure out what makes my wife so angry, but we’ve been through this before, so I’m sure it will pass. She’s going to Zumba with one of her girlfriends in a little while and that usually cheers her up.
Friday, June 25, 2010
My stepson is sitting beside me as I simultaneously force myself to wear the brave face and quell the overwhelming desire to break down and cry. I can’t believe I am doing this. Right now, I am driving the truck that contains all of my precious wife’s belongings that will go with her to her new apartment. Yes, I am helping her leave me.
Early this morning, we went and picked up the keys to her new place and she was excited. I was devastated, but she didn’t seem to get that. We’ve been married for about thirteen and a half years and I still have no idea how it came to this. Well, actually I do, but I’m still struggling with that. Yes, I messed up, and yes, I hurt her, but that was a long time ago. Why this? Why now?
She finally caught that I was upset and told me not to be. She said I should be happy for her and that she wants to celebrate. I knew she wanted to celebrate, but I couldn’t imagine what that would have to do with me. I said something to that effect and she told me that she wanted us to share the Champagne and strawberries together. That made me feel a little better, but it also confused me to no end. Why are we doing this? She says she needs time. She says she needs space. She says she needs to find herself and figure out what she wants.
I’m not stupid. I know that’s the kind of thing women say when they are having an affair, but that can’t be what’s happening here. Ceecee and I spend almost all of our time together, so she can’t be seeing anyone. I would know. Besides, she promised me years ago that would never happen and I believe her.
Anyway, we went and got the truck, loaded all her things, and now we’re getting close to the parking lot of her apartment building. How can I do this? Why am I doing this? Who helps his wife leave him? A guy who is crazy in love with her and has had his heart radically changed, I guess. That’s me. The guy who loves her more than his own life and would do anything for her.
I’m not sure if they are nationwide, but if you live anywhere in my part of the country, I’m sure you’ve seen those “We buy ugly houses” billboards. They offer quick cash (at very low value) for houses that are fixer uppers, or for people looking for a very fast sale.
Yesterday, I passed one of their billboards that said across the top, “Don’t fix it, sell it.” I couldn’t help thinking how that very attitude is such a large part of the problem we have with so many aspects of our modern American culture.
We’ve become such a throw away society. We buy inexpensive, low quality goods and just replace them when they wear out or break. There’s no reason to value them.
We do the same thing with our relationships – even our marriages. We fall in love, we promise forever, and then we toss it away when it doesn’t make us happy.
“Don’t fix it, sell it” implies that it isn’t worth fixing. That it will take too much work. It will be too difficult. It will take too long.
Just get out and find a new place is the message. Except that nothing other than the physical address will have changed.
Because if you didn’t value the home you had enough to maintain it and to fix what needed fixing, you won’t value the next one either. You’re not solving any problems, you’re just creating a cycle that doesn’t change.
The problem with ending your marriage when it isn’t going well is that you bring the same issues and even more baggage to the next one. You can find another person to take the place of your former spouse, but when you look in the mirror, the same person’s still looking back at you.
So don’t sell it – fix it! When you do, a lot of good things happen.
First of all, you value that person you pledged your life to enough to say, “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.” That will bring about a change in the other person, although it may take a while.
Secondly, the time and effort you put into fixing your marriage translates into a much higher level of committment in the future. Easy come, easy go, but when your blood, sweat, and tears have built the house, you don’t just walk away.
Third, and most importantly, you change yourself. You learn to stay and work instead of cutting and running. You break the destructive, “things are never going to change” cycle.
All of these things together add up to both of you getting what you’ve always wanted in the end. This is not a pipe dream, it’s the truth.
If you don’t know how to do this, there are plenty of us who do and will be more than happy to show you the way. Don’t sell it, because you’ll be selling yourself short. Fix it instead. Write me at therestorationtour@gmail.com
My wife just finished reading a historical novel called, “The Paris Wife,” by Paula McLain. It tells the story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, and it’s a tale of a marriage doomed by Hemingway’s insatiable lust and infidelities. In it, there is speculation that he may have been financially supporting a lover at one time during his first marriage.
The reason I bring this up is that the lack of honesty and transparency in their relationship was what made that situation possible. When Ceecee was telling me about the book, it was that story in particular that caught my attention. I thought of the way our marriage is today compared to the way it was a few years ago.
Today, each of us has full access to the other’s email, Facebook, and cell phone. We are both on all of the bank accounts and we share checkbooks and debit cards. We know each other’s passwords and there is an understanding that either of us can look through the other’s phone any time for any reason.
This might sound like we don’t trust each other. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s because we do trust each other that this works. It’s also because of what we previously lost and had to regain that we chose to implement these measures into our relationship.
A few years ago, we had our secrets. Secrets around birthdays and holidays are fine, but emails, texts, and other communications with people of the opposite sex that are intentionally kept confidential can be quite destructive indeed. Both of us dabbled in the virtual world, and while I’m sure we never intended it to cross over into reality, it opened the door for much of what caused our separation.
Because of where we’ve been and where we are now, we are both extremely protective of the love that we have. These “security” measures are not designed as a means of checking up on each other, but as a protection from ever opening that door, even a crack, again.
Just recently, I was in my wife’s Facebook, updating some information in her timeline for her. It never even crossed my mind to open her messages and see who she’s been talking to. We do trust each other, and we show that trust by saying, “Here is everything, open and available for you to see. I have nothing to hide, and I want you to know that.”
Is there any harm in flirting or is it all just harmless fun? If you’re married, it depends.
Flirting with your spouse is not only fun, it’s a highly recommended way to increase the romance and intimacy in your relationship and keep things from getting stale. Flirting with anyone other than your spouse is an absolute no. As in, it’s never ok.
Some of you won’t like that, but I’m not trying to make friends here. I’m trying to save, heal, and restore marriages, and that requires some straight talk. Just because something is passed off as “normal” doesn’t make it right, and saying “everybody does it” is not only a cop-out, it isn’t even true.
The question you should be asking is, “How does my spouse feel about it?” More pointedly, “How would my spouse feel if he or she could see me right now flirting with someone else?” The reason I ask that second question is that people in relationships that are less than what they should be often don’t tell the truth, even to each other. It’s not uncommon for someone to say, “My wife/husband doesn’t care if I flirt,” when the truth is, there isn’t enough trust or intimacy there for the other person to feel that he or she can tell the truth about how it makes him or her feel.
The bottom line is, you can either love your spouse the way he or she was meant to be loved, or you can be selfish and not experience the type of fulfillment that a great marriage brings. You really can’t have it both ways.
If you want a happy, fulfilling marriage, your actions – all of them – have to be motivated by love. Love is something you make. Love is something you do, and if you do it right, your spouse will know that there is no one else on your mind or in your heart. A person with that level of security will open up and show you the kind of love in return that makes playing games with anyone else utterly unappealing.
Does a little “harmless” flirting hurt anything? You bet it does. It hurts the one you’re supposed to love, and it hurts yourself by working against the very thing you should want the most; a marriage characterized by closeness and outward expressions of love for one another.
The Restoration Tour 