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Average, Stuck-In-A-Rut Couple Seeking Phenomenal, Fantastic Marriage...Does It Really Exist?
- Nov 20, 2009 at 2:27 PM
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- Comments (4) Total Views (153) Everyone can see this journal post.
Monotony, boredom, excuses, and blame; this is not the life I signed up
for. Insecurity, self-doubt, financial hardship, and despair; not
exactly what I had in mind. Excitement, adventure, passion, and love; yes, that’s what I meant, that’s absolutely what I want.
In
all fairness, I’m sure my husband didn’t expect to marry a loony bird
wife either. Up down, high low, scattered and erratic; yeah, not the
way he intended to roll. But that’s where we’re at, and that’s why
we’re here.
Welcome to our very own “Marriage Experiment”.
Six months of our lives (we’ll probably need more), devoted to
transforming ourselves as individuals and as a couple. We want to
succeed, we don’t want to be a statistic, and you have a front row
seat. Who knows, maybe you feel the same way? Maybe we can help each
other? Boy, this is overwhelming. This task is huge.
I
have a feeling this won’t be easy. We can’t afford counseling or
therapy. That’s no excuse. When you decide to really take control of
your life, your path, your destiny…sometimes you have to think “outside
the box”.
Our “outside the box” therapy sessions will be
held every Wednesday night, 8:30pm…..at our dining room table. Therapy,
or “lessons”, to be led by us! Come on, we’re both teachers, at least
we used to be. We’ve written so many lesson plans, we should be able to
do it in our sleep. The topic for each week? Well I guess we’ll have to
see where this goes. The first step is just simply reopening the door
to communication. We may just sit at the table and laugh at each other.
Would that be so bad? A good laugh is always therapeutic.
My husband
has obviously agreed to this experiment. We’ve watched both sets of our
parents destroy and tear each other apart. We’ve been the children
involved, we know how it feels. A long time ago we vowed we would never
do that to each other or our kids. The time has come. Now we put our
money where our mouth is, and get to work.
This may get so good, I might even have to miss General Hospital. Yes,
the soap opera. Yes, I watch it every night at 10pm on SoapNet. It is
totally my guilty pleasure. I do love good old Port Charles, Jason
Morgan, Sonny Corinthos, and of course, the legendary Luke
Spencer…….but if it really comes down to it fellas, I gotta choose my
husband.
I am not a writer. I am also not a therapist. I am simply
an average American woman, leading a very average life. Here’s the
problem; I don’t like average. Never have, and by now I definitely
know, I never will.
My husband and I are both thirty-something,
married 7 ½ years, 2 adorable little girls, a small home in a nice
suburban town, cute little puppy, an aquarium filled with 5 fish that
are, unfortunately, still alive from the county fair…. He’s a teacher
and coach at the local high school, I’m a former teacher turned
full-time mom, part-time everything else. Many people would say we’re
lucky. And yes, there are many parts of my life that I’m thankful for.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate my life and the experiences I’ve had.
I know my problems pale in comparison to the problems many others face.
I have a good life.
The problem is; I want more. Good is nice, but GREAT would be better. I want to feel like I’m truly LIVING my life, and not just SURVIVING someone else’s. I want to do this with my husband, with my family. But first, we need help.
We’ve
drifted apart. It happens. He goes to work; I throw myself into our
kids. He comes home too exhausted for any kind of emotional bonding or
talk. All I want to do is reconnect. All he wants to do is relax. As
you can probably guess, relaxation, in my husband’s mind, does not
involve an in depth conversation about the universe and our place in
it. So we do our own thing, working our way through the evening and
into the night, passing by each other, until it’s time for bed. We
might be intimate, we might not. We will definitely turn on reruns of
Seinfeld and Friends. We’ll fall asleep. Repeat, repeat, repeat……
If
I had a choice would I be so boring?!? Of course not! But I do have a
choice, and why did it take me so long to remember that? Have I been
that detached? Why didn’t somebody, ANYBODY, tell me to wake up?!? Why?
The answer’s quite simple. So many of us feel this way. So many of us
have simply accepted the place that we’re at, good or bad, and we’ve
decided this is it. We probably don’t even realize anymore that we
possess the power to change.
I’m
hoping that by writing and blogging (I still don’t even understand how
this works), I’ll be helping our cause. You have to understand, I just
learned how to text a couple months ago. I don’t use social networking
sites, I don’t even know what Twitter is. Tweet someone? Are you
kidding? Sounds kinda perverted to me.
Maybe my writing
will help me really examine myself; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Maybe someday my girls will read this and laugh. At any rate, this
should be interesting! I must admit, I can hardly contain my
excitement! I do love a challenge, and if you knew my husband, you’d be
in hysterics right now. A challenge? Yes, he’s a challenge. But he’s a
good man, loyal to a fault, and a wonderful father.
Our first
session is tomorrow night. Wednesday, November 18th, 2009. Mark your
calendars, the first day of truly the rest of our lives together.
Maybe. Or I guess we could end up tearing each other apart. Hmmm, I
guess we’ll see.
The first topic? Dreams, goals, ambitions……. You
know, those things we used to think about? The driving force and
motivation behind change. The reasons you strive for more. The part of
your life you forget and leave behind when you’re stuck-in-a-rut,
detached, emotionally and spiritually empty.
Yes,
this will be a challenge. Will we fully embrace this experiment, this
phase of our relationship? Or will we crash and burn? This should be
good. No, let me rephrase that. This has the potential to be GREAT. Let
the games begin…..
PS - This is a re-post! My original was deleted, and I've had some inquiries as to what happened to it. :) the follow up post: My Marriage Experiment, 1 Session Down, 26 To Go ~ was posted yesterday......... thanks for your reading and your support! Until next time.........
Comments:
Oh gosh, I'm so glad you wrote this! I've been married for two months, but with my husband for 2.5 years. It's a struggle to keep things happy and moving forward sometimes. I guess not everyone is happy and lovey dovey 100% of the time like you see in the movies. We know we love each other, and we know we're happy with each other...but we can act like children sometimes xD
Good luck! One email newsletter I get that you might like is the Marriage Geek newsletter put out by Maureen Campion - a really cool therapist in our area. If you go here http://www.marriagefriendlytherapists.com/maureencampion.php you can sign up for her newsletter - I highly recommend it!
Oh - one more thing I thought of - one GREAT book is The Love Dare. It really helped my DH and I for a while until I forgot all about it and we fell back into our rut. But your journal post has inspired me so i'm going to dig that book back up and get back at it :-) It's full of great ideas and do-able missions to improve your marriage.
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Good for you! Don't become a statistic.
We've been married 7.5 years too! Here are a couple suggestions from me, if you want them :)
1. Work on changing YOU not him. He'll change when he starts wondering where his old wife went and where the new amazing wife came from!!
2. I heard somewhere that every day a couple should share at least one 10 second kiss :)
- Melissa823
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