Category: Until Death Do Us Part (and to the Death it will be)

Marital bliss and blues, all wrapped into one relationship.

Marvin Gaye, This One’s for YOU!

I’ve often felt make-up sex was kind of a chicken-egg thing – which comes first? Does a forgiven, healed relationship beget sexual intimacy? Or does marital intimacy help draw you into a place of healing?

I’m learning that sometimes it’s important to just take a step of faith, to extend grace, to do something completely selfless and not expect anything in return. That is, after all, a biblical principle, right?

In considering this, I assumed there would be nothing in it for me, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. An effort made in Faith and Love – even if done with heaping skepticism – brought about a change in my heart.

Story Telling the James Frey Way: Everything you are about to read is true – except I didn’t actually see it happen.

I have a friend who is going to massage school.

We all love to have friends like that, friends who give great massages for free. I love that.

She came over last week to teach me how to give Bryan a back massage as part of her student project. While demonstrating, she noticed a large lump on his back that turned out to be a huge ball of knotted muscle tissue. She also noticed Bryan’s left shoulder was tense, as if he was holding it tight, though she couldn’t get him to release it and relax.

She investigated the knot for awhile to see if the two were related.

Gently, she worked the tissue with the heal of her hand, explaining that she was exploring the direction of the muscles, loosening things up, and so forth. Slowly, the knot began to loosen until – POOF! – Bryan’s shoulder dropped. She had finally triggered something in the knot of muscle tissue that released the tension in his shoulder and it relaxed, right there in front of our eyes.

This week I’ve had the distinct feeling that I am holding on to something I should be letting go of, but in my confusion I don’t know what that is, and therefore I don’t know how to let it go.

I am fighting something inside of me, and like Tyler Durden, I am taking that inner battle and turning it outward, releasing my aggression onto others – making them hurt as I hurt, in hopes that their pain will release me from mine.

As I ran my errands this afternoon I thought about that knot in Bryan’s back, and I wondered what pressure was being put on me so I could be released from my own tension.

Not to overdue a good analogy, but having the tension worked out of your back hurts so good, don’t it (insert twang)? I mean, think about it:

How many times during a massage have you groaned, “OOWWWW!”

And the masseuse says, “Is that too much pressure?”

And you say through clenched teeth, “NO! IT FEELS GREAT!”

I have been frustrated. And I’ve said some things. And I’ve said some more things. And now I can’t remember some of the things I’ve said. And the things I DO remember I’ve said, I can’t tell if I really meant them. Was what I said based on a Lie I believe? Or is the confusion over what I said distracting me from the Truth of what I said?

So basically at this point, if you’re just tuning in to my blog, you’re thinking to yourself, “This chick’s not so much fun. I’m going back to reading Dooce.”

But I assure you, Dooce is a little crazy in the head herself. She just uses the delete button more liberally than I do.

Here is the Darkness that is my heart

Yesterday I said some very hurtful things to Bryan – very specific things that cut his heart out. Yet, I am so bitter right now that I can’t bring myself to say I didn’t mean it, because I think I did mean it.

My vision is very clouded right now. I am confused, and can’t see the difference between setting healthy boundaries for myself vs. spewing out spiteful threats.

What lies am I believing about myself? My situation? My perception of the way things are?

What are the Truths I’m standing up for? And is it my place to stand for them?

When is the time for grace and patience, and when is the time for Tough Love?

All I know is that I am so very tired of the way things are right now, and my filters were taking a coffee break, and I said some hurtful things in the heat of the moment.

I am surrounded by women who struggle in the same ways I do, with deep seeded bitterness that lashes out at loved ones. We strike hard at our lowest points of despair because we want to make our loved ones hurt as much as we do inside.

Misery loves company, I suppose.

Yet, as I listen to these women who struggle, and read the things they write about their struggle, I can’t help but notice I’m not feeling the same conviction they feel about their bitterness. I see women who are coming into the light, who struggle still, but see their healing as it washes over them.

But here I sit, looking at my situation, wallowing in my justification.

A friend recently wrote about an argument she had with her husband, saying, “So tonight, rather than holding out until I got an apology, I took his hand and chose to show him love and grace regardless of if he ever admitted his sin.”

How far and for how long am I to extend love and grace into a relationship?

I probably know the answer to that, but right now I am unwilling to acquiesce. Right now, for a little while, I am holding tight to my justification.

It’s Not My Fault I’m This Way… right?

“It is a terrible catastrophe when I am rejected, treated unfairly, and things aren’t as I would like them.”

Also known as The Victim Mindset, which I scored 9 out of a possible 10 on a ‘beliefs inventory’ questionnaire given by our marriage counselor, making me a champion of victims.

Yes, we are seeing a marriage counselor, and I am not ashamed to say so. Bryan and I have such vast ways of communicating, showing love, and receiving love, that some serious intervention was needed. I recommend it for everyone who struggles with communication in their marriage – it has been a lifesaver for us.

Back to me.

I think most people, when he or she seeks a mediator to bring clarity to a relationship, expects that mediator to straighten out the dolt he or she is married to. Why don’t we ever learn that this is rarely how the scenario plays out? For me, it was eye opening to learn how my tendency to blame all the circumstances in my arsenal for why I didn’t get X, Y, or Z done was making Bryan want to pull his hair out.

Not that his behavior is my fault, or that my behavior is his fault, but that we are both responsible for how we love each other. I’m trying to focus more on my own issues, rather than focus on how to change Bryan.

I was just talking to a friend this morning about how self-righteous we can be when our husbands get sick. When they puke, they get to skip work and lie in bed all day and have their chicken broth spoon fed to them by a loving and doting wife. When a stay at home mom gets the pukes we lay on the couch, half dead, ignoring our children as they watch movie after movie and eat potato chips for every meal, and they’re lucky if we don’t beat them out of sheer frustration in the process.

How does THAT happen? My inner victim begins to tell me that life is SO unfair, and why the hell don’t *I* get a day off when I’m puking???

I don’t have any answers, nor do I know how I’m supposed to respond (hence the counseling). I just know that I’m not supposed to act like a victim.

One of the scripture verses suggested to me in contemplating my victim mentality is Matthew 5:11 “Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me (Christ).”

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find this verse very helpful to my situation. For one thing, I’m not an ACTUAL victim (i.e. the receiver of insults or persecution), but largely a PERCEIVED victim (one that just doesn’t like to take responsibility). Secondly, it’s just not realistic that I would feel blessed in any victimizing situation, whether real or perceived. Sometimes the Bible just doesn’t make sense to me.

The Tongue, it is for speaking.

Who knew that simply communicating could be so useful.

I’m feeling a little melancholy about Christmas this year and haven’t been too excited about shopping or decorating. This is highly unusual for me, so I figured I would regret it down the road if I ignored Christmas this year.

I began feeling bitter at the thought that Bryan might wait around for me to do something, instead of just being excited about it himself and getting me into it.

Then I realized how ridiculous it was for me to become bitter about a hypothetical situation that hadn’t even come to fruition. Yet.

Then I realized that (duh) the best way to head off this hypothetical situation was to just TALK to Bryan about how I was feeling (thank you, Jenny, for pointing out the obvious to me – Have you ever thought of talking to him? She asked. She knows me well, that I would rather steep in the bitterness of unmet expectations than communicate my feelings).

So I IM’d Bryan at work and said, I’m depressed and not really into Christmas this year, but I know I’ll regret that decision later so I really need you to be into it this year for my sake.

Know what he said?

He said, Let’s get a tree tonight, then.

I so love him.

And I’m a dork.

The Life Cycle of a Procrastinator

Bryan says my procrastination turns him into the enemy, that it defeats our missional purpose as a family.

This got me thinking about the life cycle of my procrastination. Since Bryan is so into Pattern Recognition as a way of life, I thought he would appreciate the following confession:

    1. I feel overwhelmed by something
    2. My fear paralyzes me and I do nothing
    3. I feel guilty about dropping the ball, and I hide the problem from Bryan
    4. When Bryan discovers the problem, he confronts me, and I react in bitterness
    5. And it makes me feel like a failure
    6. And I become angry
    7. And blame circumstances or other people without taking responsibility for myself
    8. Which causes me to throw things in the general vicinity of Bryan

So… if admitting you have a problem is half the battle, NOW what do I do?

Foiled

I used to get up every morning at 6am to have coffee with Bryan before he went to work, then I would have time to write or pay bills before the kids woke up. I haven’t done that for awhile for various reasons, including the baby I had who woke for night feedings.

Sunday night after a long, difficult, fruitful conversation, I decided I was ready again for a dose of Bryan in the morning. So I set my alarm for 6am.

Damn if I didn’t predict in the back of my mind that Ruthie would do what she did that night. Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy or a freaky coincidence?

Not only did Ruthie stand at her gate at 3am demanding a snuggle, but after snuggling and putting her back to bed again SHE WOKE UP A SECOND TIME at 4:45 demanding ANOTHER SNUGGLE.

Because of the night I had to shut my alarm off, and I managed to get an extra hour of sleep, but I missed my coffee time with Bryan.

When I told him what happened he said, “You POISONED it!”

I think he may have a point.

[Did you hear that, Bryan? I conceded to the possibility that you may be rrr… rriii… correct.]

Virtual Soul Mate

I love reading Maryam Scoble’s blog. I find so much comfort in knowing someone else out there is married to a geek with tunnel vision. It’s downright creepy how much her life parallels my own.

I especially love how ornery she is. Half the time I can’t figure out if her tone is bitter or dry wit. She’s that good.

In Search of…

I’m still in ‘pause’ mode. The things I’ve been writing and thinking probably shouldn’t be posted on the internet – not because I’m plotting someone’s death or because I’m hiding something or because I’m suddenly not interested in showcasing my highly imperfect life in plain public view, but because I think hashing out our issues via my blog would be disrespectful to Bryan and very unproductive for both of us.

However, in the meantime I will entertain you because we all need a few laughs to lighten the mood when squabbling with our husbands.

Here are a few of the words and phrases people have entered into search engines this week that have resulted in traffic to thispile.com. My site’s rank in the search results is in parenthesis:

1. free sex stories that involve foot massages (10th)
2. sexy longs toenails (9th)
3. how does it feel to be always together yet forever apart+mint royale (9th)
4. sprinkles teenage (4th & 5th)
5. Christian Song about waking up in the morning eating Captain Crunch (5th)
6. Until Death Do Us Part like a child (14th)
7. lammott quotes (6th)

There has also been some fun and curious traffic to my site from people searching the word ‘fuck,’ but this occurred several weeks ago, and my traffic meter doesn’t have archives. Sigh.

Pause

When I was a kid I kept a journal in fabric covered blank books. I would write the day’s events before I went to bed, recording what I did, who I saw, and on occasion, how I felt. I’m not sure why, but I always felt compelled to write, to record my life for posterity.

Perhaps this compulsion was linked to my belief that there were video cameras lurking around every corner, recording my life like The Truman Show.

[That movie brought validation to every twenty-something who grew up suspecting their life was a sit-com.]

If I missed a day, or a series of days, I felt overwhelmed by the task of catching up my adoring fans on the events I had missed writing about. And oh how exciting those events seemed to me.

Sometimes I would go weeks without writing. At some point I would attempt to start the chronological recap, only to give up or get tired before the task was done. Discouraged, several more days would pass, and I would be even more behind in my event recording.

I felt traumatized that whole gaps of my life had not been recorded for posterity, though now, as an adult, I feel no lesser of a person because a few pages were left blank.

I have been distant from my writing this week.

Many things are swimming in my head – too much confusion to express in printed word. This is where my introversion takes over, my tendency to process internally, then express in writing what I have come away with.

I once read a book, I can’t remember the name, but in it the mother processed her stress while keeping busy. If there was tension in her home, or if she was upset about something, she would wash dishes.

Washing dishes kept her hands busy, kept one side of her brain occupied so the other side could muddle through all the confusion. If there were no dishes to wash, she would empty out the cupboards and rewash all the clean dishes, just to go through the motions.

I SO related to her. I have never read or seen a fictional character with a quirk SO identical to my own. She is me.

My house is moving toward spotless this week. I have occupied my mind with dusting and sweeping and decluttering and rearranging of decorations. Lord knows it needed a little overhaul.

I have needed this break from writing. I have needed to tap into something more internal this week. There are some things only the Holy Spirit can reveal, and I need to be listening carefully.

The Missing Piece

I picked a fight with Bryan last night, and quite honestly I can’t even remember what my point was. I don’t think I had one. I think I was just being dumb.

As I was processing through said stupidity, though, I had an epiphany.

There are a variety of things Bryan tells me that I don’t believe. I don’t trust what he says, or I question that he really knows what he’s talking about.

When he says to me that the rules have changed and one is no longer required to put two spaces after a period, I ask him to site his sources.

When he assures me he doesn’t think I’m stupid, I repeat back to him my twisted version of what he said to make me feel stupid.

When he says I’m a good writer, I make him list the specific good things he liked, just to be sure he’s not floating me platitudes.

I honestly wish I could trust him more when he tells me things – not that he’s not trustworthy, but I am not trusting.

Today I realized that THIS is my baggage. THIS is the legacy handed to me by events of my childhood.

As a child of divorce I may not have the side effect of wondering when Bryan’s going to leave me for another woman – I have always trusted him in this way and have no fear or jealousy of his relationships with women – but I DO have the side effect of wondering whether he’s telling me the truth or blowing smoke up my ass.

Is he telling me what I want to hear? Is he speaking one thing with his words and displaying the opposite thing with his actions? Is he smoothing things over? Does he speak in platitudes?

I spent my whole life deciphering my father’s words, trying to distinguish their meaning and his intent. I felt guarded around him. Even as a young child I sensed the difference between words and actions, even if I didn’t have the maturity to understand it.

How does one trust a father who says he’s always there for you, when he says this to you over the phone from another state?

My head hurts just thinking about all that this means to me, how it sheds light on so much of my dysfunction, how it clouds so much of my communication with Bryan.

I love my father. Eight years ago he moved closer to me, and a couple years ago he retired. We see each other more than just on holidays, now. We have lunch, he plays with his grandkids.

Despite the past, despite his limitations, despite his failure to live up to what I expected of a father, I love him dearly. This has not always been the case. I have been bitter, I have been angry, I have wished he never existed. But I can honestly say that by the grace of God I am over that, and I truly love him for the father he is.

I feel relieved to have this piece of the puzzle, this piece that was missing, that fell under the table. I found it – or rather, God showed it to me – and I worked it into all the other pieces I’ve been putting together in my mind, the pieces that show me who I am.

I know, now, why I doubt everything, and because I know this, I can start to believe again.

How To Deflect a Weekend-Long Fight By Inserting a Little Humor & Humility

Bryan: (Accusingly) “Ruthie got into the box of crackers you left on the stairs.”

Jen: (Lighthearted) “I’m sorry that happened. What was Ruthie doing on the stairs, Bryan?”

Bryan: (Smirking) “Okay, good point.”

Jen: (Smiling) “I’ll clean up the cracker mess.”

[Kissing]

The Timer

This is the kind of post that will get me a whole lotta love. Not that I would strategically post nice things about Bryan in order to get something nice in return (because that would not be prudent), but the most significant lesson I’ve learned this month is that affirmation and thankfulness softens the jagged edges of a marriage.

This is also one of those posts that says, You Were Right, without actually having to say it. Out loud. To his face.

If I apologize to Bryan on the internet does it count?

I just finished a laundry cycle of Bryan’s work shirts, which I was able to pull out of the drier while hot and hang them up without ironing.

This is a big deal and worthy of prime real estate on my blog because I fought him long and hard over the timer he bought me so this could happen.

My drier doesn’t have a buzzer, so most of the time I forget about my clothes until hours later when they’re wrinkled and cold. Bryan bought me the timer to remind me when the clothes are dry, a gesture I was not excited about to say the very least.

I’m not sure why I was such a bitch about the timer. Maybe just because it was his idea, and we were fighting a lot at the time, and I was depressed, and it made me feel like I wasn’t Getting It Done.

At any rate, I love the timer.

There, I said it.

Shut up.

Birthday Eve

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Since I can never remember how old I am I had to actually count out the years to remind myself. I’ll be 34, by the way, which is a relief since I first thought I was going to be 35. Gotta hang on to every year I can.

I’ve been a complete dork about my birthday this year. A few months back Bryan emailed me from work in a craze of all caps saying something about a concert he wanted to go to for a band I’ve never heard of. I said, Sure, Why not, since he is usually successful in connecting me with great music and movies.

Somewhere along the line, though, I developed a really pissy attitude about the whole thing – mostly because it just happened to fall on my birthday. I started to feel bitter about the fact I was spending my birthday listening to music I’d never heard before preceded by dinner with another couple I’d only met once. Small talk was not my choice for a good time.

What I REALLY wanted to do was gather my peeps around me, put on some lipstick, and find somewhere that serves pink drinks in sexy glasses.

So I quietly seethed about it in silence for several weeks until I finally had the nerve to bring it up with Bryan.

I tried to be delicate: “Would it hurt your feelings if I wasn’t really into the show in September?”

I instantly knew he was hurt – partly due to my lack of enthusiasm, and partly due to his own baggage from a past life. We talked it through, he gave me his reasons for wanting me to go, and I knew it was important to him that I go, so I decided to go.

In an ironic turn of events, late last week Bryan’s friend emailed him saying he wouldn’t be bringing his wife, so Bryan told me I was off the hook, I didn’t have to go either.

You’d think I would have instantly taken out an ad in the Seattle Times for all the complaining I had done: PARTY GIRL BUYS OUT THE PINK DOOR FOR BIRTHDAY BASH – ALL ARE INVITED.

But there was no fanfare, no screeching, no panic shopping for the perfect going-out attire. I said nothing, I planned nothing, and I simply continued feeling sorry for myself.

Isn’t that COMPLETELY REDICULOUS???

In retrospect, I think it came down to the simple issue of my selfishness. I think I just wanted to get my way, and as I continued seething about how I wasn’t getting my way the bitterness grew stronger. Never mind that I could have listened to the music ahead of time to learn the new band, and never mind that I could have planned a ladies night out on a different night. No, I had to be a bitch about Bryan wanting to see a show on a night he had no control over scheduling.

Oh well, all is not lost. Bryan and I are still speaking to each other, and I may get a drink or two in after all.

Happy Birthday to me.