"As long as we both shall love".....WHAT?!?!?

I saw a wedding on The Today Show a couple of weeks ago (yes, they got married on morning TV but that's a whole other post) and heard the officiate say something that made my head snap up, my mouth drop open and my sensibilities curdle.  She had them promise to be together "as long as you both shall love". 

As long as you both shall love?  Let me tell you something.....you won't always feel that "love" that you feel on the day you get married.  First of all, that's not as good as "love" can be....it's not the deeply committed, fight for it, do anything to keep it love that you will feel after you've experienced many years together.  On the day you get married you "love" one another in the way people do when they are new to love and have fewer life experiences.  It's "love", don't misunderstand me, but it's not what it will be if you hang in there and work at it. 

On the day you get married it feels as though all of life, in it's wonderful glory, is ahead of you.  Possibilities seem endless and obstacles easily overcome.  This is normal and good or else no one would ever get married.  No one, on their wedding day, foresees job loss, sick children, cancer and disease or any other myriad things life can throw your way simply because we live in a fallen world.  And that is the outside stuff!  What about the fallen-ness within?  The pride, poor self esteem, control issues, and lack of self discipline that plague many relationships?  There are lots of reasons and circumstances that cause people to "fall out of love" and then what?  You walk away?  We no longer feel that love so we no longer have to be married?  To quote Weezer, "say it ain't so!"

Marriage takes commitment.....Herculean commitment.  You've married an imperfect person.  And, newsflash, you are also imperfect.  One of my favorite lines in the Broadway play Rent is when two characters are singing about getting together (they have AIDS).  One sings, "I have baggage" and the other replies, "I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine".  I think that's pretty profound.  Acknowledge that we all have baggage.....stuff with which we struggle.  Don't just look at him or her and be irritated about their baggage.  Look to your own baggage as well.  Trust me, it's just as irritating.  Chances are your spouse is putting up with as much as you are. 

One piece of advice I give my kids regarding their own relationships is this....assume there is love between you.  When you look at, listen to, or talk to your spouse you should assume there is love flowing.  Lots will happen in your life that can threaten that flow of love.  There will be times when you can't really feel it or see it but you should assume it's always there.  Love is a choice.  It's really as simple as that in my opinion.  Two imperfect people who live in an imperfect world choose to love one another day after day after day....minute by minute by minute.....come what may.....no matter what.  Trust, respect, forgiveness, mercy, grace.....all must flow freely back and forth between you.  This takes effort but, once again, sooooo worth it! 

Jeff and I have been married 36 years.  We have four kids less than 6 years apart.  We've experienced loss of jobs, a houseful of small children, two miscarriages, broken down cars and flooding houses, a hurricane, jobs that overwhelm us and sometimes keep us apart with travels.  Our marriage is a good one as our baggage is well matched.  His weaknesses are my strengths and my weaknesses are his strengths.  We've found a way to be together that makes us both better people.  A life without him is unimaginable.  Our son recently wrote, "my parents have a strong and enviable marriage".  We do and it all takes effort, good effort, but effort nonetheless.  Strong and enviable marriages do not occur by happenstance.

"As long as you both shall love"......I guess that's okay if you continue to make love an intentional priority in your relationship.  I actually prefer "as long as we both shall live" because I intend to love as long as I live. 

The Hazard of Hyperconnectivity

I feel sorry for kids today trying to develop relationships with all the technology available.  Just think, you are able to know where someone is at all times via the Find Friends app; you can communicate constantly and instantly with anyone on your Contact List; and you have intimate knowledge of your "friends" deepest thoughts about politics, sports, food and so much more via FaceBook.  I'm not sure any of this is a good thing.  It seems that maybe we've lost the ability to have face-to-face meaningful conversations.

 

Now, before you go all "she's-too-old-and-doesn't-get-it" on me let me direct your attention to a piece of an essay written by my oldest child.  Adam is 27 years old and this is only part of what he has to add to this discussion:

 

It is perhaps the most sinister aspect of what feels like a uniquely technology- and post-9/11-informed brand of alienation to someone of my personality profile that two of its most debilitating manifestations – a general lack of focus (traditionally blamed on ADHD or ADD or Starbucks or whatever the latest study picked up by USA Today reports) and a weakened ability to express oneself eloquently and meaningfully due to the reduction in time and effort required to produce a message and the gradual shortening of the message length itself – have so effectively prevented me from elaborating on its causes, its markers, its miseries, and its possible solutions for so long. Rather than confront and develop a strategy for dealing with a phenomenon that I believe has adversely affected every last one of my relationships – romantic or otherwise – since early high school, I have spent over ten years struggling, suffering, and occasionally acting out jealously, angrily, and irrationally due to breakdowns in technological communication, communication otherwise affected by a critical reliance on technology, or the existence of virtual “other lives” we all must now maintain and keep separate and selectively private if we wish to be kept in the ambiguous loop of various goings-on.
 

Paradoxically, another part of what has made confronting the phenomenon so difficult has been our insistence that supposedly meaningful communication via the various media in question is not something to be taken seriously. I hold that it is and almost always has been: “Facebook is no place to get political;” “I don’t want to hear about your latest text message fight;” “I’m tired of reading blog posts about arguments on Twitter;” all of the above are the dismissive mantras of a people in denial that their most raw, emotional, and meaningful exchanges no longer take place chiefly in person, where body language, eye movements, hand gestures, accents, and tone of voice contribute to better and more humanized understandings of messages and viewpoints, but rather safely behind a hazy screen of "anonymity" through which messages are rendered into a series of digital dots and beamed down to our little devices and computer screens for us to make sense of with all of our (or all of my) attendant neuroses and hangups about the minutiae of human communication.
 

Since my mid-teens, I have spent countless nights staring at my ceiling waiting for a text. I have spent more tense moments than I care to remember sitting nervously across the table from a girl, wondering to whom she is sending a message, and whether it is okay to ask (I have learned the hard way that it is not). I have had to repeat myself thousands of times, and others have had to repeat themselves for me. I have wondered nervously about what this or that text means. I have wondered why a period and not an exclamation point. I have wondered why one exclamation point and not two. I have wondered why no emoticon, or why not a more emotive one. I have missed sunsets, unforgettable scenery, faces of passersby, oncoming cars, beautiful songs, and hilarious jokes. I have screamed and cried. I have been tempted to pry where my eyes do not belong, and I have succumbed to such temptations. I have been at the end of my rope, I have cursed the age in which I was born, and I have begged and pleaded to be taken back to an earlier time. Never, I realize, has the anxiety paradoxically plaguing and propelling my existence had a more tangible face than the one that stares up at me blankly from my lap in a dark movie theater or begs me to check it while I write this essay.

 

Trust me, he is not alone.  Many young people suffer with this phenomenon or suffer from it and are unaware of how hyperconnectivity affects their relationships.  So, what's a person to do?  This oldster has a few ideas:

 

1.  Use FaceBook as a way to inform people about the common happenings of your life.  That means pictures your family might be interested in or updates for those who live far away and want to know how you're doing.  No politics, no angst, no over-sharing.  Please.

 

2.  Never, ever, ever have an important conversation over Text Message, FaceBook, or even E-Mail.  Important conversations should be face-to-face if at all possible.  That is all.

 

3.  When you are with people who matter to you put your phone away.  Turn your phone off if the temptation to look at it is too great but at a minimum put it away.  The message you receive, the game you play, the update you are looking at cannot possibly be more important than the actual people you are with.  You are saying something when you have your face in your mobile device during a conversation.  Be aware of the messages you are sending to the people actually in your presence.

 

4.  Write a letter.  Yeah, I said "Write a letter".  This is quickly becoming a lost art.  The summer before my daughter got engaged she and her future fiancé worked in separate states and he did not have Internet access.  Their only way to communicate was one phone call a week (when he came out of the mountains and had cell phone service) and the letters they wrote to one another.   Can you imagine what you might say in a letter to someone  you love if that were the only way to communicate?  I bet you can't imagine it but give it a try and write it down in a letter.  Seal it with a kiss.

So, the big walk away point of this blog?  When it comes to relationships, technology has it's place (what on earth did we do to find one another in the mall before we had cell phones?) but nothing can replace a face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball conversation with someone you care about sans distractions.  Don't use technology to stalk, bully or be fake.  Keep it in its place.....it's a tool so don't be one. 



 

Pithy and Personal

Found this pithy cartoon in my photo album.  Just wondered where Jesus is dragging me on this rainy day.  You?

Marriage 101.....or the advice you didn't ask for

This post will fall under the category of "Marital Advice".  My motivation is several conversations I've had in the past week with couples working hard to keep their marital ship afloat.  I've been married for 36 years and while it's not a perfect marriage (because no one has a perfect marriage) it's a pretty nice arrangement.  We have mutual love and respect for one another, we have fun together, and we enjoy one another in various ways (can you just hear my children saying, "ewwww"?).  I tell you this so as to improve my credibility with you, the doubting reader.  I've been at this marriage thing a while and thought I would share some advice.  If you're not into advice stop reading now.

I see people (including myself) do three things that are communication blockers.  One, and in my opinion the worst, is expecting your partner to read your mind.  You may be thinking, "I don't do that!" but I bet you do because it's human nature.  If you've ever thought, "If he really loved me he'd fill in the blank", you've expected him to read  your mind.  If you've ever wanted an apology from someone who has no idea they have wronged you, you've expected that person to read your mind.  If you've told someone you are hurt and their apology isn't what you expected so you hold onto your hurt, you've expected an ESP experience.  It happens.  Own it.   I used to think that if I have to ask for the apology (i.e.  "I'll feel better about this wrong you have perpetrated upon me if you'll just say you are sorry") it isn't worth as much as an apology that comes from his heart because he feels the wrong he has done me and spontaneously bursts into apology.  As one of my favorite fictional characters is fond of saying, "Bollocks to that!".  An apology is an apology and should be accepted.  Grace should be extended and we should all move on.  I know....easier said than done but it is easier done when it is done often. 

The second communication blocker may not seem like a blocker because there is a ton of talking but the problem is there isn't much listening going on.  You are communicating your little heart out about something and he or she doesn't seem to agree.  You don't feel heard.  So you say what's on your mind again and you get more of the same back.  People are talking but no one is listening.  When my husband and I have a disagreement I often find, when I stop and really listen to him, that we are often arguing about the same thing!  Maybe from different viewpoints or with different motivations (which can make you feel at odds) but we are basically in agreement.   It can be very difficult to stop trying to make your point so that you can really listen to what the other person is trying to tell you.  Ask clarifying questions or restate their point to be sure you've truly understood.  Listen more than you talk is a good rule of thumb.

The third communication blocker is that fearful little voice that creeps into your head telling you that the current moment of anger or resentment is due to lack of love.  Shut that down immediately in a take-no-prisoners fashion.  I have found that reminding myself that there is love between us helps me to reposition my thinking and be more open and honest as well as listen better.  The Beatles said "All You Need is Love" and while that's not strictly true it has some merit in this discussion. 

Let me close by saying that not every disagreement is due to the above blockers but I have found that 99% of the "energetic discussions" we have are settled in one of these manners.  Either I tell him what my heart needs (an apology or a hug or simple reassurance) or I really listen and try to understand his POV which leads me to realize that we don't actually disagree.  Most important of all, I assume that there is love between  us.  No matter what our discussions, differences or doofus behaviors, there is love and that really does conquer all.