Glass Gloves

Apparently, it is a good idea to write a top 10 article to get people to come to your site as I learned from the Top 10 Reasons to write a Top 10 article (6 hits). Since the objective of this site is to save marriages, part of that objective would include getting more people who are thinking about getting a divorce or how to save their marriage to come here. So here is my initial draft at the Top 10 Ways to Stay Married. I’d be delighted to hear others! I’m sure I can do lots of combos on this - Top 10 Reasons to Stay Married, Top 11 ways to get divorced, Top 10 Romantic Ideas, etc. Top 10 Cheesy Ways to Run your Spouse Off when they are thinking about divorcing you, etc. Anyway, here goes.

Shohn’s Top 10 Ways to Stay Married If Your Spouse Wants a Divorce

1. Make a top 10 list of everything annoying or that angers your spouse and stop doing it today.

This one should be a no-brainer, but hey, it was easy, and really is the first thing you should do to avoid divorce.

2. Stop Expecting Hugs and Kisses and anything intimate for awhile.

Yup, you might as well get used to no fun in the sack, no intimacy, and in many cases utter disdain for you as a person. Did you expect horizontal polkas on your first date? Well you can’t now either. You are pretty much in first date mode - anything else will pretty much get you divorced.
3. Get Control of Those Panic Emotions!

Yes panic can and will set in, particularly, if you actually believe in marriage, soul mates, etc. and aren’t just trying to save your marriage because you are scared. That sad part is that panic and crying makes everything worse and causes your spouse to go bye bye. Nature trips, powerful mental images (e.g., your spouse with another person), etc. can help you get those pesky panic attacks in check.

4. Learn Your Spouse’s Love Language and Start Making Them Feel Loved!

Somewhere deep down inside, your spouse still has some feeling for you, but right now it is somewhere out there in the Oort cloud (120 hits). You can bring it back, but I guarantee you better be consistent, and pace yourself otherwise they’ll know this is all the last ditch effort that they are convinced it is! What is the ol’ love language you say? Your spouse has probably repeatedly asked you for the same things over and over and you never took it seriously. For some it may be sex (that’s most of us men) and for others it could be helping out with the kids. That’s right, helping your wife with the kids can actually enable her feelings in some cases. That said, that probably has nothing to do with your sex appeal if you are a guy, as I understand it, that is driven by other forces. Well let’s get to the next item to find out!

5. Confidence, not Arrogance baby.

Confident people are fun to be around right? Arrogant people are not so fun to be around. Do you think your spouse wants to be around this angry crying thing that this mention of divorce has turned you into? Yeah I know, it sucks, but if you want your spouse back, you gotta get your groove back. Don’t be someone you aren’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve yourself, and get rid of all those nasty habits and get some new, more flattering clothes.

6. Education Education Education.

Read and understand the forces that are at work here. Just like gravity, electricity, etc. the relationship world is governed by emotional forces that we still don’t seem to understand completely. Examples, if your spouse has a poor relationship with their mother, that can actually bleed over and mess up your marriage if it goes unaddressed. Huh? If you come to your spouse crying, it actually repulses them in many cases, and can make them angrier. It may be perceived as emotional black mail. There are different kinds of responses to anger. Some folks can’t let it go, while others will sit there in total silence. Learn your spouse’s pattern! Learn everything you can from people who have been married, got divorced, and especially people who almost got a divorce, what worked, what didn’t, etc. For crying out loud read Hosea and the Songs of Solomon in the scripture. I don’t care if you hate God, it will still do you some good in trying to save your marriage.

7. Learn Agape / Sacraficial Love.

You might as well toss out ol’ Eros for now. Time to focus on Agape. This means a nice sacrafice on your part would be good about now. I said a sacrafice, not martydom. Don’t go diving in front of any trains as that will just further confirm that you are an unsuitable spouse in their mind. Do something really really nice, that isn’t going to be perceived as creepy. Here’s a clue - you probably need to not involve yourself in whatever it is, if you feel like you can trust your very very angry mate.

8. Don’t Talk About the Problems

Talking about the problems usually makes things worse until you have a COMMITMENT from your spouse to stay and engage in making the marriage better. It will take awhile to get that commitment, so until then, if they try to start WWIII, don’t fall into it. Don’t fall into that trap. You just sit there and let them vent or get out of the way until they are done. If they are the type who likes conflict, well you may need to actually engage them for once if you never have!

9. See Through the Anger and Emotional Roller Coaster.

Yes your spouse will say they want a divorce one minute and then something else the next. They will say they hate you. They no longer love you, aren’t in love with you, etc. etc. No big thing man. Teen agers can come up with the same stuff, but it passes! They will flip flop in their decisions. One foot in the pool and one foot out. It is just part of the cycle. Don’t worry about it and recognize it for what it is. Yeah easy for me to say, but believe me I’ve been there, and it got so much easier once I realized what was going on. It can be like being married to a werewolf for a bit! Love your little werewolf, not for what they are doing presently, but what they can become and leave the silver bullets at home. Well except for this top 10 list! Go see the movie What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. That is pretty much what you are up against for the foreseeable future. Then right as you start to make progress, you’ll get angry and ruin all your progress. Don’t be that person when you have this awesome top ten list available!

10. Have a Moment of Clarity.
This one can’t be taught, only described. It just has to happen to you. It essentially means totally giving up and TRUSTING God, Yahuwah, Yahweh, the Great Spirit, Jesus, Yah’shua, Yeshua or whatever your favorite and endearing term for our Creator is, to take care of this. Through tons of research, I think His name (9 hits)is something along the lines of Yahuwah or Yahuweh (77 hits) translitereated to English, but that’s not the name I used when my miracle prayer (446 hits) was answered. It was something more along the lines of Daddy. I just know what I felt and others have described the same experience. It is the same force that causes those medical miracles that all of us have heard of at least once. It is like searching for the enlightement or lost spiritual truths! It is buried deep down inside you somewhere and it has nothing to do with going to church although that can help sometimes. Luke, use the force! You are finally past the check list! You are actually doing this because you now love your spouse more than yourself! You are no longer afraid! Nothing is impossible for this marriage!

Yes I know this is tough man, but believe me, it is worth it once you make it to the other side. Don’t give up. This could take awhile.

11. Repeat Steps 1 through 9 until 10 happens

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One of the things I talked about in the past was how to filter advice, particularly negative advice. I started to study myself and my wife during the rough period of our marriage and noted a couple of phenomenon.

People tend to rationalize their decisions as being correct including me.

People often tend to think exactly like the last person they spoke with when they are under emotional duress.

Interesting. I noted that this was the same for my wife and I; and for other people whose marriages had either fallen apart or had made it through the rough patch. I started interviewing everyone I knew who had both a successful and an unsuccessful marriage to understand what happened. As part of that process, I noted that there were some very common themes that ran through each of the marriage situations even though each situation had its own set of circumstances.

One of the biggest things I’ve noted is that one or both parties tend to get “paranoid” and drive themselves towards a “me me” mode. In every case, I noted that this resulted in a divorce. In other cases, I noted that one of the persons stood up and said “Oh well, If I get divorced I get divorced”, but I’m going to do everything I can to show my spouse that I’m serious about them. At a minimum, I won’t have to look back years down the road and have regrets about not trying hard enough.

I also noted, that one or both partners will go to outside the marriage to get support for their decisions or to get advice on what to do. Sometimes, this support will take sides and only listen to one side of the story. Sometimes, this support will listen to both sides and point out errors that both partners are doing.

In my case, it actually helped me more to listen to support that told me what I was doing wrong instead of making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

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On Monday last week, I “pulled the plug” on communicating with my wife. An old habit I’m trying to stop (see “I promise! Really! (156 hits)“) caused me to lie to her (an issue about selling our house). I took it upon myself to email, confess and ask her her forgiveness. The reply was a simple “Apology accepted”. Even in an age where you only get these two typewritten words, I knew she was seething. (I learned later that my lie was enough to cause her to call it quits once and for all.) I decided to give Mrs. Ray her space, following the tactics of the original “Counterintuitive (213 hits)” post. For most of the week she did not try to contact me. I was really feeling the stretch (”What’s going on in her mind???“).

Late Thursday night I received an email. A page and a half. She was torn and not sure what to do (emotionally) next. Ultimately she really did want to see me again.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m posting this here not for boasting or victory, but to show you that this tactic worked for one person, in a very touchy situation. Every situation is different, but consider that Mrs. Ray was actually ready to drop it all and finish the divorce proceedings. I kept the strength (barely, and with God’s help) though the week. Inside, I was depressed and worried about what would happen next. Through God’s grace, I managed to survive, and our marriage still has a chance.

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“Counterintuitive” – what a word! Six syllables made of 16 letters. Split it in half to get a better idea: “Counter” means against. “Intuitive” means something like results being what you expected (like in intuition). So, getting results opposite what you thought might happen!

I’m not changing the subject here, bear with me. Although I’m 55 years old, I’ve bought my first ever motorcycle. (Riders, you can skip this paragraph!) The most surprising thing I’m learning about is the way you steer a motorcycle – if you want to turn right, you actually push the handlebars to the left! (Just a tiny bit, but still you turn the opposite way.) My mind and body might be yelling “We’re gonna crash!” but my eyes and brain manage to make the turn by turning the front wheel the other way.

So, what’s this got to do with your (crumbling) marriage? You work counterintuitively. This is the scariest, hardest thing to do, and, like the title suggests, it can get dangerous. Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family (110 hits) wrote a book called Love Must Be Tough. This web page: Hope for Couples in Crisis (217 hits) has a very good description of the idea. It’s a bit of a read, but well worth it. The upshot is to actually allow the leaving spouse their space! There is a link on that page to the Love Must Be tough book.

Dobson poses three results: 1) Since you have “let them go”, there is no need to fight any more, and your relationship will improve just because you two don’t need to fight. 2) The leaving spouse might consider, now, that maybe there is something in our marriage after all. For the third result, I can’t say it better than Dr. Dobson. Pay attention:

The third change occurs not in the mind of the cool spouse but in the mind of the vulnerable one [that be you – Ray]. Incredibly, he or she feels better — somehow more in control of the situation. There is no greater agony than journeying through a vale of tears, waiting in vain for the phone to ring or for a miracle to occur. Instead, the person has begun to respect himself or herself and to receive small evidences of respect in return. Even though it is difficult to let go once and for all, there are ample rewards for doing so. One of those advantages involves the feeling that he or she has a plan — a program — a definite course of action to follow. That is infinitely more comfortable than experiencing the utter despair of powerlessness that the victim felt before. And little by little, the healing process begins.

What’s in this for you? You have a plan. In the book you will see how you do gain control. (Not in a control freak way, but in a way that makes it easier for your spouse to rethink things and possibly return.) When you have a good idea of what’s happening, you will definitely feel better about your situation, and get your self respect back.

Guarantees? Remember you’re working without a safety net. But consider your alternatives: Your spouse has already (or nearly) walked out. If nothing changes, it’s just “Good bye” anyway. However, by taking the high road here, you still could remain on good terms with your spouse, which makes vital communication all that much easier.

When my wife moved out, I helped her move! I also told her I did want to find some reconciliation. I did the grunt work, driving the truck, setting up her bed, installing the washer – whatever. What did that accomplish? Later that week, when she had some small emergencies, she called me, of all people! And within the week she volunteered that there may still be some way we could work things out. Your mileage may vary, but I know this small break in her attitude would not have been possible if I had not supported her decision in the way I did. My situation (as of the end of 2006) is not nearly out of the woods. But as Dobson says, I do feel much better about things, and, of course, my wife actually came up with the idea of seeing if we might be able to work things out!

Be Brave. Be on your knees in prayer. Stick with it. God Bless.

Check out the update entry (162 hits).

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People change and so can you.

Has she told you this “You’re not the same person I fell in love with” or “I’m no longer the same person”?
Do you know that initial bliss in any new relationship? You know - that stage where you can’t stop thinking about the person you just got involved with? Then at some point it sours - you find out you’re not compatible or whatever. What about the same in marriage though. You married her for a reason and she you. Both of you expressed a lifetime commitment to each other for some reason. What happened? Did you both expect that it would be peaches and cream the whole time? Did reality set in? I’m not saying that it can’t be most of the time, but to get there takes work after the initial bliss has passed.

When was the last time you two did something fun together? Did you get caught up in the business of life? Or is it worse - did she give up? I don’t care if she has - you can bring her back if you try hard enough. I did.

Until you can get past this stage that you both are in - that “love” thing you are searching for will be elusive. It is only a stage. This too shall pass if at least one of you is willing.

If you are on this site, you are most likely at stage 2 of marriage as explained by this save the marriage ebook (244 hits) that I read from another site. Please note - the ebook is good for understanding what you are up against - but you should also supplement it with other resources. Are you at the Fight Fight Fight stage or have you been together so long that you’ve forgotten and become complacent and never made it to stage 3. I can’t speak to the latter because we were at the fight fight fight stage.

What I did learn from people who have been married for much longer that I have been alive is that it is founded on commitment, acceptance, and forgiveness. The raw emotion of love is some kind of reward that your brain gives you for doing those things.

She has lost that emotion, because you have not showed her love in a manner that she can understand (14 hits). Just like many of us guys equate sex with love she will have other things that she needs.

Does she say that she can’t forgive you? That is a crock too. She has only convinced herself of that. I know my wife did, but she eventually forgave me after I started acting right for an extended period.

I had to really forgive her after some of the things she did once I had pushed her too far.

Love is also a decision when it comes to your spouse. Period. You will never be able to meet all of your expectations and you hers until years down in the marriage. Do you think these people that are happily married after 50 years never had a rough period like what you guys are going through? Why don’t you ask around and you may be surprised.

Did you or her get this expectation out of a movie ?

It is like a river man! The marriage relationship will change as you or your wife changes. If you are truly committed to this woman, you must adjust to her changes and only then can she adjust to you.

What is different about her? Do you know? Have her needs changed?

Food for thought.

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It’s Thanksgiving day and I’m sitting here watching Divorce Court on television. It is amazing some of the things that people going through a divorce do to one another. The really sad thing is the impact that a divorce can have on the generations that follow. It is a statistically proven fact that persons from broken homes are more likely to have a divorce themselves. There are other behaviors that we may pick up from our family of “origin” as well that can be just as destructive to a marriage.

As I was watching divorce court I watched this husband who totally expected his wife to wait on him as though she were his maid. No doubt he learned this from somewhere, possibly his family of origin.

To illustrate this concept let’s start with the following joke:

A young woman is preparing her first thanksgiving dinner. As she gets everything ready for thanksgiving day, she very sternly reminds herself to let the turkey finish thawing in the sink overnight. She puts it in and places the dishrack over the top of the bird. Her husband walks into the kitchen and sees this. “Why are you doing that?” he asks.

“My mom always did that to help the turkey thaw” she told him.

The next day Mom calls to see how everything is going. “Fine, Ma. I have everything ready to go in the oven. I even remembered to put the rack over the turkey last night.”

This seemed to confuse her mother a bit. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Oh, I remember you always put the dish rack over the turkey when it was thawing in the sink,” she said.

There was a pause on the end of the line. “Yes, but honey, we had cats!”

Got the idea? I can relate this to my own personal experiences and how it affected my marriage.

I grew up in a small town where a great deal of the male population inherited a number of behaviors from their immigrant forefathers. To outsiders, many of these behaviors would seem a bit harsh by today’s standards; however, within that subculture it is the norm. They are good men - just a bit misguided by today’s standards.

As I approached my own marriage I realized that I did have some inappropriate expectations based on the culture I grew up in and furthermore within the immediate family that I was raised. Every family has its share of secrets and so does mine. The trouble is that if you believe that any poor behavior towards your wife is appropriate because that is the way you grew up. If this is the case with you, perhaps you need to investigate whether the way you grew up was actually correct. I know this hurts, but it is something that you need to at least think about. “Your way” may truly be the best way, but you need to realize that your spouse didn’t grow up in the same family and possibly culture as yourself.

It gets worse though. I know many people in the Christian “family” who tend to rationalize poor behavior and then source it to the Bible. I was one of them. For instance - us guys tend to love the passages about women being required to be submissive to their husbands “according to the Bible”. We always seem to miss the other part to that though. We are required to love our wives as Christ loved his Church. How did Christ love his Church? He died for it and that is exactly how you need to love your wife.

Side Note - I recently found out that this same logic was used to rationalize the owning of slaves in the 1800s by “good” Christians. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

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There is a scene in the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” where the patriarch in the family believes that since he is the head of the family things should be his way. There is no way his daughter is going to marry a non-Greek agnostic. His wife slyly retorts - the head can not move without a neck! His wife managed to convince the patriarch otherwise about the approval of his daughter’s suitor. Before the movie was complete the non-Greek agnostic actually goes through the Church ceremonies.

How lucky for this woman getting married that they could begin to agree on such a significant religious issue well before the marriage had commenced. Others are not as fortunate. Some of us are confronted with situations where we think we know our spouse’s spiritual leanings, but over a period of time we learn the truth or our spouse’s faith begins to waiver as was the case with my wife.

I discussed this subject with a friend of mine having some marital problems of her own today. Apparently her husband doesn’t believe in praying and is a bit on the agnostic side. In effect - he either never believed or has become so lost that it as though he never did. I decided to refer my friend to some Biblical passages that I uncovered during my own search to save my marriage. 1 Corinthians (130 hits) 7:13-15 discusses the subject of divorce. For those who have never read the Bible - this is an excerpt from a passage from one of Jesus’ disciples, Paul, written to the Greeks of Corinth about many topics including marriage.

I believe the intent of these specific verses is that if you are Christian and your spouse is not, you should lead by example in your marriage and hopefully your spouse will eventually turn to God. It also indicates that if your spouse is not a believer and decides to leave, then as a Christian you should let them. It seems that this may be a bit of a Biblical loop-hole for Christians married to non-believers.

I doubt a loop-hole is what you need if you are reading this though. I imagine you really want to save your marriage, even if your spouse’s spiritual leanings or lack thereof, are different from your own. I imagine that somewhere deep down inside you really love your spouse and would prefer not to exercise some Biblical loop-hole, but instead save your marriage. There are plenty of people who have done it. Let me tell you about one.

A family member of mine told me about his mother in law who waited 30 years for her husband to stop being an abusive alcoholic. As the story was told to me, this guy was agnostic as well. At some point, this man had what alcoholics sometimes call “a moment of clarity”. He felt the presence of the Divine and never drank again. What dedication to the marriage that woman must have had to wait that long. If he had ever wanted to leave, and I imagine there were times that he did, then his wife would have been fully justified in releasing him if she stuck strictly to the letter of the law in what Paul wrote. Instead, she waited patiently for him to change. That kind of strength is rare in our 24X7 (157 hits) society. Most of us would just waltz on down to the court house and get a divorce.

The hope is that through the assistance of the Man above, your unwaivering faith, and unconditional love, that you may eventually help save your marriage and your spouse’s soul to boot! If you are a believer just remember, you are not alone in this. For those who don’t believe in Jesus- getting your spouse back may hurt as bad as crucifixion but it is still possible. It will take a different kind of love from you, one that you may not be used to.

Did you know that the Greeks actually had several words to describe the different kinds of love? Is the mysterious concept of creating a working marriage Greek to you? Fortunately for you - there is a book (12 hits) that talks all about the different kinds of love as they relate to marriage.

I’ve observed in my own search that many of the secular resources out there actually borrowed many of the concepts from the Bible. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but I think it is ironic that there are timeless truths written in the ancient Hebrew and Greek Biblical texts. They have been translated and repackaged into something even the modern divorce “trigger happy” sophisticate can understand.

Even if you don’t believe in all this Bible stuff you can still learn some valuable lessons.

Check out the first three chapters of Hosea, and especially 1 Corinthians (130 hits). For those of you who can’t seem to say the right thing to your wife - check out James 3.

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Okay - I’m a fan of Star Trek. Yeah I said it. That’s not to say that I go around wearing Vulcan ears and attending “trekie” conferences, but I do enjoy the movies. In a weird way, they seem to much more in tune with some of our own internal struggles than do many of the other outer space genres (e.g., Star Wars) and the premise just seems much more plausible to me. I believe George Lucas has actually stated that the target audience for his Star Wars movies are kids so go figure.

My favorite Star Trek character has always been Spock. This guy struggles with his own humanity. In retrospect, maybe the reason I like this character is that I could relate to his struggle. Some of you guys may be very much in touch with your inner woman or whatever, but I certainly wasn’t and it lead me to a very dangerous place with our marriage.

Logic vs. Emotion

Women seem to possess some sort of instinctive knowledge of relationships that us poor fellows have to learn over time or through very traumatic experience like having divorce papers filed. I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but I think as general rule most of us guys struggle with this. The bad news is that though women may have these built in skills with emotions / relationships they may not always have the analytical skills to go with it. I guess guys do have a purpose after all. Now there are some very analytical women out there and I have certainly met many of them in the corporate world; however, most that I have met are more intuitive than logical until they reach a certain age. This is based on just my personal experiences so please don’t accuse me of being some kind of chauvinist or woman hater because I’m not.

The point to all of this is how do you reason with someone whose analytical skills aren’t as strong as your own, and furthermore how do you reason with someone who wants a divorce? It doesn’t work that way my friend. You have to show her by your own example, not talk her to death.

Many guys think that once their woman has decided to leave that they can “talk her out of it”. It didn’t work that way for me and I’ve heard plenty of other folks agree with me. There are some interesting points about logic that I noticed during the war to save my marriage.

• I thought I always “won” any kind of reason / logic based debate with my wife, but in reality I was winning the battle at the expense of the war. You know this has happened to you if you get a sarcastic variation of “of course honey, you are always right” in response to winning a debate. I later learned that this was one of my wife’s biggest issues with our marriage. She could never win! Don’t be like I was. Throw her a bone, man!
• I learned to respect her wishes even though it made me personally vulnerable. I agreed to some of her wishes that were illogical. I had to really trust in God on this part, because my brain was telling me that many things I was agreeing to would hurt me. There was one point where she requested that I sign the papers. I had planned on stalling her out on the divorce, but finally said “Yes Ma’am - if this is what you want show me where to sign.” I respected her wishes even though her wishes would hurt me. I did tell her that I did not want this, but was reluctantly agreeing to her wishes if that is what she wanted. In essence - being selfless. You can’t do this just to “Call her bluff”. Now let me caution you on this part, my wife was a Christian who was fast heading towards agnostic so I was able to trust in God on this one. If she started out as a non-believer I’m not so sure I would have done this.
• I realized that once she was in the “divorce is the only option” state of mind that I could no longer reason with her. I needed to call in backup and that’s what I did. A friend referred me to an awesome Christian marriage coach (139 hits). This coach had been doing this for 30 years and really understood that divorce was not the right path for my family. He also had enough reasoning tools and prior experiences under his belt to reason with my wife on “our” behalf.
• My “backup” asked my wife to remove all the emotion to her decisions and confirm that a divorce would actually be harder than her life at the moment. She agreed that it would be. He then turns to me and says “Shohn - she knows that divorce will be harder on her, but she’d rather have that than you.” Wow. Deep revelation for me.
• My “backup” used the following argument. He said - “A divorce will affect you (my wife) for the rest of your life. Give me 30 days to work with Shohn and see if I can turn him around. 30 days is a small amount of time compared to the rest of your lives. I can’t turn him around in a day - I need at least 30.” He then promised her that he could show us the best marriage we had ever had and could ever have if she would just let him work with me for 30 days. Powerful stuff. He then turned to me and said Shohn most of this will rest on your shoulders since she is the one who wants to leave. This person had no reason to help either of us so it made it twice as powerful in her eyes.

• Note: I later asked my wife why she agreed to give me 30 more days and she said it was because our marriage coach was so persistent. Haha!

Good stuff from a very wise man. Now that we’ve covered this I hope you have learned some lessons from this. You’ll need help, but it needs to be the right kind of help. Perhaps there are some pre-screening questions you can ask your counselor or marriage coach.

“Do you believe in divorce?” for starters.

Now since we are on the subject of Star Trek and Spock and all I thought I would help relate the feelings I had as I was going through this rough time.

There is a scene from Star Trek V where our beloved Captain Kirk and Spock are being lead into the very scary “Great Barrier” by Spock’s zealous brother, Cybock. The Great Barrier was a wall of star dust and stellar stuff that separated the center of our galaxy from the rest of the galaxy. There comes a point where everyone is freaking out - “Oh nooo.. not the Great Barrier” to which Cybok replies “It is an illusion - full speed ahead”. Turns out it was just a bunch of dust. This is kind of like the way I felt once I placed my trust in God with regard to my marriage. It felt illogical to place that much trust in someone I couldn’t see, but man did it work! Get out of the driver’s seat buddy - let Him drive.

Go get the movie if you haven’t ever seen it or if it has been awhile so you’ll feel what I’m talking about.

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My grandfather shared with me a simple truth about marriage that I’d like to share with you. My grand parents have been married for well over 50 years so the man must know at least a thing or two about the subject.

If you don’t go to your job or place of employment what happens? You’d get fired right? The same applies to your marriage. It is a job and if you don’t work at it you will get fired i.e., divorced.

Simple.

I think this also has another lesson that my grandfather may not have seen. At my job we like to say work smarter not harder. I believe this also applies to a marriage. You can give her chocolates every single day of your life, but if chocolates are meaningless to her what good are your efforts doing? Food for thought!

In addition, I have learned not to compare her to my grandmother. This applies to other “model” marriages from those bygone times. This is not the 1950s so don’t expect your family to be like the Beavers. I have noticed that as a general trend women’s tolerance for the “bohemian” male has gone down tremendously with each generation. The bohemian male is that guy who props down in front of the TV in his underwear and asks his wife for a beer and then refuses to help her out some. If you don’t believe me - just ask your mom about some of the stuff she put up with, and then ask your grand mother. You may be surprised.

Unfortunately, depending on which generation you grew up in - you will have to live up to a different standard of behavior from what you may have grown up with and the reality is that the ideal standard of behavior has become lost.

The standard is simple though - love her more than you love yourself. If you follow this principle to the tee, she has no choice but to follow, but it may take time. Love is patient.

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Who was that famous American hero who had a flag with a snake. The flag said “ Don’t tread on me (117 hits)“. I forget, but I’ve always wanted one of those flags:

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As my marriage was falling apart a wise woman from an unlikely source came to me. This is a person I really didn’t like so much at the time because I viewed her as a threat to my marriage and to my family. She was one of my wife’s new found “friends”.

This was a person who I had helped out some through some financial troubles she had been having, but at some point her and my wife became friends. My wife was spending a great deal of time with this person and in my mind was probably receiving counsel from this “friend” to divorce me. It didn’t matter to me at the time whether she was or wasn’t encouraging my wife to leave - what did matter was that it was an unknown and therefore a threat in my mind. If there was a threat to my family I would do anything to stamp out that threat. Think of it this way - if your child is near a snake - do you take the time to ask whether it is poisonous or not? I didn’t either. Soon word began to spread around town about this person - she was being called a “home wrecker”, etc. In retrospect, this wasn’t what should have happened, but alas we make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time.

At some point she came to me and asked about what was being said. She and I discussed what was being said and had what lead into a very thought provoking conversation for me.

I left the conversation with one main theme. I can work as hard as I want to bring good things to my family, but what if I have no family to bring those good things to? This point really hit home for me. If you are a work-a-holic like me, just ask yourself why are you doing all this? If it is for the family, then you better not run them off with the long hours or else all your efforts are for nothing! Working for the family is meaningless if you lose your family. Some more irony at its best.

This friend of my wife and I did reconcile and I think it also helped my wife somewhat because I was no longer seen as the “evil” husband by her friend, but rather as a person with some faults who was actually trying to do the right thing. If you have contact with your wife’s friends - don’t creep them out, but let them see you as the good man that you are.

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