Glass Gloves

You guys ever listen to classic rock? I used to when I was a boy and back when I was into various “mind enhancing” substances earlier in my life.  One of my favorites was Led Zeppelin.Taken from here -> Babe, I’m gonna Leave you (108 hits)

Babe, baby, baby, Im gonna leave you.
I said baby, you know Im gonna leave you.
Ill leave you when the summertime,
Leave you when the summertime comes arollin
Leave you when the summer comes along.

I know, I never leave you, baby.
But I got to go away from this place, Ive got to quit you.
Ooh, baby,
Baby, ooh dont you hear it callin?
Woman, woman, I know, I know its good to have you back again
And I know that one day baby, its really gonna grow, yes it is.
We gonna go walkin through the park every day.
Hear what I say, every day.
Baby, its really growin, you made me happy when the skies were grey.
But now Ive got to go away
Baby, baby, baby, baby
Thats when its callin me
Thats when its callin me back home…

Now, on the surface these lyrics sound fairly dorky. What sort of mind altering substance was the author of this song on? It is gibberish.  Add the music though -  listen to the emotion in  Dr. Plant’s voice. I remember listening to this years ago and it being a boring song. Then one party night I was listening to it and suddenly the words touched my heart. Pure raw emotion - a bittersweetness to it. At one point I felt like this towards my wife. Babe, I’m gonna leave you, please give me a reason to  stay. They play all these country westerns songs in Texas that say the same thing. Depression.

Rap can be even better … check this out from my “old school” days…

[Eazy-E]
Cruising down the street in my 6-4
Jockin the freaks clocking the dough
Went to the park to get the scoop
Knuckleheads out there cold shooting some hoops
A car pulls up who can it be
A fresh El Camino rolled, Kilo G
He rolls down his window and he started to say
It’s all about making that GTA

chorus
Cuz the boyz n tha hood are always hard
You come talking that trash we’ll pull your card
Knowing nothing in life but to be legit
Don’t quote me boy, cuz I ain’t saying sh*t

[Eazy-E]
Donald B’s in the place to give me the pace
He said my man JB is on freebase
The boy JB was a friend of mine
Till I caught him in my car trying to steal my Alpine
Chased him up the street to call a truce
The silly cluck head pulled out a deuce-deuce
Little did he know I had a loaded 12 gauge
One sucker dead, LA Times first page

chorus

[Eazy-E]
Bored as hell and I wanna get ill
So I went to a place where my homeboys chill
The fellows out there, making that dollar
I pulled up in my 6-4 Impala
They greet me with a 40 and I started drinking
And from the 8-ball my breath start stinking
Love to get my girl, to rock that body
Before I left I hit the Bacardi
Went to her house to get her out of the pad
Dumb hoe says something stupid that made me mad
She said somethin that I couldn’t believe
So I grabbed the stupid bit*h by her nappy as* weave
She started talkin sh*t, wouldn’t you know?
Reached back like a pimp and slapped the hoe
Her father jumped out and he started to shout
So I threw a right-cross cold knocked him out

chorus

[Eazy-E]
I’m rollin hard now I’m under control
Then wrapped my 6-4 round the telephone poll
I looked at my car and I said, “Oh brother
I throw it in the gutter and go buy another”
Walkin home I see the G ride
Now Kat is drivin Kilo on the side
As they busted a U, they got pulled over
An undercover cop in a dark green Nova
Kat got beaten for resistin arrest
He socked the pig in the head for rippin his Guess
Now G is caught for doin the crime
Fourth offence on the boy, he’ll do some time

chorus

[Eazy-E]
I went to get them out but there was no bail
The fellaz start to riot in the county jail
Two days later in municiple court
Kilo G on trial cold cut a fart
Disruption of a court, said the judge
On a six-year sentence my man didn’t budge
Bailiff came over to turn him in
Kilo G looked up and gave a grin
He yelled out “FIRE!” then came Suzy
The bit*h came in with a sub-machine Uzi
Police shot the bit*h but didn’t hurt her
Both up state for attempted murder

chorus 

Gee whiz - sounds like an awfully angry song doesn’t it. Strangely enough a band recently  covered these lyrics and put a pleasant tune to it. They did so well, that you can almost play the same words at your grandparent’s house with the revised tune and noone would be none the wiser.

What am I getting at? Perspective once again. The same words played to a different tune or viewed under a different point in your life. It is another way to try and understand what your spouse is feeling. Geez, I’m sounding like a broken record player again, but whatever you do though don’t listen to Yesterday by the Beatles.

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I thought I’d take a moment to explain one of the core concepts of resurrecting a marriage with an angry spouse. I’m just getting my thoughts out for now, but this stuff should be going into the promised “free save the marriage” manual I’ve been writing about for a bit. I’ve almost settled on a platform if I can get it to integrate with Wordpress. Probably going to go with phpWiki. Any hoo - back to it…
You see - I’ve stated before that your spouse is not the same person right now. Your spouse is angry or even emotionless / dead inside if you are in real trouble.  Unfortunately for you, until you “get it” your spouse will NOT start to turn the corner. What a lousy selection of words. “Get it”. As best I can explain, I remember my wife telling me that I was guilty of being a control freak. Who me? A control freak? You’ve got to be kidding me… I let you make decisions on most everything we do.

Wait a second… I “let” you make decisions. Meaning ultimately it is my decision, but I relinquish control when I feel you won’t mess it up. OOOOooooooh. Perhaps I am a control freak from your point of view and that IS what matters right now is your point of view - especially since I’m trying to figure out this whole “agape” thing. So I stopped making decisions for her for a couple of reasons. One was to give her a feeling of control and I tell you there was a part of me that was afraid that she’d mess up our whole family’s life the way she was acting, but I just “let go”. You want a new car? Sure… go price it out - let’s see what is available. She prices it out and discovers - “yep we can’t afford it”, but it sure made her feel better having that control back.

As usual, I’m going to relate this to a movie scene. If you have ever seen Star Trek VI - the Undiscovered Country, there is a scene where the humans and klingons are sitting down to a luxurious dinner of blue food. The humans go on to talk about how they believe everyone is entitled to inalienable human rights. To which our idealistic klingon princess replies, “Inalienable”, “Human Rights”. If you could only hear yourselves. The very terms are racist. Righto.

It is all about point of view. Now getting back to it. Her point of view is that you are now an alien. You are no longer entitled to horizontal polka rights. You are no longer entitled to a kiss. You are no longer entitled to anything having to do with “us”, because it is no longer us, but now just you and me. Your rights have been effectively demoted to premarital levels of not worse. That means you must treat her as though you were trying to secure a first date. You can no longer be that big talking monkey walking around the house with nothing but your hanes showing. In fact, if you happen to get a date - guess what - you can’t even talk about the marital problems because there is no marriage to talk about. That part of your spouse is dead………………………. for now. Every time you “expect” a kiss or a hug or an “I love you” you are pushing her away. You are in a position to demand NOTHING after the way you have acted. Remember, this is her point of view and if you don’t get into her shoes and understand this - there is no way you have a fighting chance at saving your marriage. You still haven’t changed just like she said.

But you say, well I know I’ve done this and I’ve done that, but I wasn’t that bad. Yes - not that bad from your perspective. She snapped okay. It happens to the best of us.  So you may ask… what can I do then? Well - when you are around your spouse. You are on first date behaviour. If she fell for you because you were fun and are no longer fun - then guess what you better be fun again. If she fell for you because you were fun at first, but now have become as annoying as a table of monkeys drinking round after round of bananna daiquiris then guess what - time to stop drinking bannana daiquiris and focus more on what matters to her. Do you even know?

Ahhh yes, but you say it is a two way street and you can’t continue this way. It takes two to tango. No it doesn’t - you just need to quit getting on edge when you are around her. She can smell your fear and it is repugnant to her - not unlike that girl or guy you may have turned down for the homecoming dance back in high-school. You are actually no better off than that guy who couldn’t get a date (that was me at one point so back off . Don’t be that guy. See it from her point of view. She is building a case against you and every time you come to her expecting a kiss, or demanding this, or stating your case, or just being flat out annoying and selfish -… guess what you just lost a couple of points for the team. Keep it up and you’ll be benched for good or she’s going to find someone who IS willing to play ball.

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These two articles seem to sum up just about everything I wish I had actually practiced better before my wife and I went through the near divorce experience. Perhaps someone else will find them of use.

For the guys - Support your wife…..

http://wherewearebound.typepad.com/where_were_bound/2007/01/support_your_wi.html (225 hits)

For the gals - Support your husband

http://wherewearebound.typepad.com/where_were_bound/2007/01/support_your_hu.html (167 hits)

Some of this may be hard to implement for those whose spouse could care less whether you are alive at the moment, but I think it may help understand some of the basics you may have forgotten.

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Everybody pray for Ray’s marriage - he seems to have headed back into the danger zone.

I’m going to describe a related situation so that you guys can get some understanding here. First of all let me describe the situation.

Ray and Mrs. Ray each had computer of their own. Mrs. Ray was moving out. Mrs. Ray asked Mr. Ray to sell her computer (~3 years old). Instead of selling it, Mr. Ray exchanged the computer for the services of someone to help them move from their local church. Mrs. Ray found out that Mr. Ray had exchanged the computer instead of selling it.

I asked my wife about this to better understand Mrs. Ray’s anger and I also asked several other women about this. Mind you these are southern women so I’m not sure if there may be some cultural differences here that could skew the opinions a bit.

Any hoo, I asked my wife, if I had exchanged the computer instead of selling it - would she be angry with me. She responded - it depends upon the agreement that was made. So I asked her, the thing has no value for all intents and purposes - it is an old computer, it might as well be this here bananna on the counter. Would that make a difference if it were this bananna? Again, she said it depends on the agreement that was made. Mrs. Ray may have intended that the bananna be used for a desert later and if he just got rid of it he would be being an inconsiderate butt. But, it is just a bananna right?

Well I guess we have turned our for argument sake bananna into a bananna split. I really had a hard time understanding how it would be possible for someone to get angry over this, but then I asked my wife what if the situation were reversed. Would I be justified in my anger if the situation were reversed. Yes. Yeah, I don’t buy that, but okay. Do you mean that if I got angry over a bananna I would be justified. Yes. Okay, I’ve got her backed into a corner - she’s not making sense anymore so I better ease up. She then countered with - well what if it were a computer program and you had some other programmer come up and look at your program and he added all this code that blew away the original purpose of you computer - would that make you angry. Hrmm - I’m starting to get it now. Value is relative. Perception is reality.
Well, let’s ask Mom about the subject. My mom is divorced so what does she know about this stuff right, but I figured she has been around longer than me so let’s give it a try. Mom agreed with me for the most part, but did point out a few things. She indicated that some women who have been house wives do not always understand the value of something. Okay, I could see that - surrounded by kids all day long, not out there in the business world, that makes sense.
Depending upon Mrs. Ray’s point of view she may have expected to receive much more than what the computer was actually worth. For those not in the know - computing equipment typically depreciates at a rate of 40% per year - so after 3 years this computer (assuming it was purchased for $1000) may have been worth about $200 provided that you could get someone to pay that much. You can now get a new computer for about $200-$300 bucks so I’m not really sure that a buyer could be matched to this particular seller. I think Mr. Ray understood this, but did Mrs. Ray or perhaps she was intending on using the money to buy her a new computer if she could find a buyer foolish enough to pay $200 for an old one. Mr. Ray values the computer at about $75. My wife understood this part once it was explained to her, my mom got it right away because she was responsible for procuring computers for my dad’s business when I was growing up. Did Mrs. Ray have this explained to her and more importantly why jump to the conclusion that the seller of this particular computer is an inconsiderate butt - it sounds like he was trying to do something good here, but again it all depends upon the agreement that was made and the perception of value on both sides.

An even bigger question though is this - look at this little bitty thing. We are turning a mountain into a mole hill. It is just a $75 dollar computer, but for some people that is a lot of money and perhaps it is for Mrs. Ray in her new planned single life style. That will be enough to buy her a new blender and make some bananna daquiris  with those crazy little umbrellas or perhaps is it that she is torn between divorcing Mr. Ray and staying with him and if he can’t respect this simple agreement then how can she trust him with something bigger? Is that her point of view?

While I was on the phone with my mom she was telling me a story she had heard about another woman who didn’t understand the value of a $. My mom explained that this man was purchasing a house, but they were getting a horrible interest rate. 11%. I was floored. 11%. This is the year 2007 after all. That is highway robbery.  They might as well rent a house.
The man cheerily responded - yeah, well she wants this house and if Mama is not happy then nobody is happy - and besides after two years we’ll get it refinanced. We’ll rebuild our credit from this hit, but our marriage must survive. I learned that after losing my first wife and I’m not going to let it happen again.

I did almost the same thing this time, but I certainly didn’t go for an 11% interest rate. I got her the best house we could get. It was wild - I knew it was the one when I saw it and when she walked in about a week later - she said we had no need to look at any other houses. Well, I’m glad we share the same taste in houses, but this raises and interesting point.

I asked my wife - would you be willing to live in a tent with me? Yes, of course, if I had to. So… you always say that you don’t want me working as hard, etc. But let me ask you this, would you be willing to live in a tent if I was able to be around more instead of working? I could be here all the time if we didn’t have to worry about the ol’ mortgage payment - I priced one out. We’ve got our land paid for - we could just live in a tent and make the paltry payment of about 100-200 a month and I’d be home all time. We could live village style with a nice thatched roof hut. Would you be up for that? No. So you’d rather have me work and not be around as much than live in a tent. Yes. Interesting. It seems there is a balance in there somewhere and as a married couple we are to spend our whole lives fine tuning that balance and making it better. Whoever said this was going to be easy? I was going to add another cheesy punch line about bananna splits or something, but just wasn’t feeling creative enough today to forge anymore puns. Feel free to finish with a cheesy pun….

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At our Good Friday service, I was constantly in prayer about my marriage, even when we were supposed to be contemplating Jesus’ great sacrifice. Then I thought, OK, my marriage is breaking up, but in relation to Christ’s Work, it’s almost inconsequential. I forced myself to offer the Sacrifice of Praise – giving up my own problems to honor Jesus. My point here is that though our world seems to be breaking apart, God’s actions are so much greater than our puny problems. We still need to Remember our Savior.

Later, in “real” prayer time, I looked at my wedding ring. Then I began to think about what it meant. In our culture, most married couples wear rings as a symbol of their marriage covenant. I held my left hand in my right, contemplating the simple gold ring, and began praying not for me or my wife, but for the bond God gave us in marriage. Acknowledging to God his Gift of marriage, and how important it is to Him, I began a short time of the most powerful prayer I’ve experienced since my wife left.

I take my ring off only at night, going to bed. From now on, in my marriage (good times and bad) I will place that ring on my finger in the morning thinking of God’s gift to us, and say a short prayer for my marriage that day.

I have explained to my wife why I can’t give up on us: I know there’s something of value in our marriage, even now. Tonight, while remembering the great work of Jesus Christ, I realized just how valuable marriage is, and I will specifically remember this each morning.

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