Usually I am in a pretty good mood when I write these things...as you can tell by the previous blog...but not today. I have discovered I have become too old for the baby having stage and I am now on to the divorce stage. I am convinced of this after learning about what appears to be a rash of separations and divorces of my peers over the last month. No it isn't the hot weather that is doing it, if it were that simple we would all buy air conditioners.
Here's what I figure. No one is immune. A relationship can never be neglected and must always be maintained. Because this whole divorce thing can get you when you least expect it; like a mosquito at a bonfire. Whether you have been married for 30 days or 30 years.
I don't claim to be an expert. I get bitten by mosquitos all of the time, so feel free to add your own advice to this list. But if you are getting married or if you are married and believe you are happily married here's something that might help you take inventory of your marital bliss - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
1. Have things you like to do together and things you like to do apart. Both are necessary, but don't let the apart things overshadow the together things.
2. Have friends of your same sex outside of your marriage relationship. This is good and healthy. Do not spend more time with these friends than you do your spouse. Don't talk to these friends more than you do your spouse either. It is good to have friends who will be totally honest and give you a swift kick in the rear when you need it.
3. If you are planning on getting married, then store in your mind the hints from those who have done it already. Don't take them too seriously but keep them around for the time when you need them. When you need them, you will remember them. Never think that you know all there is to know - That's like going to the bonfire feeling pretty proud of yourself for thinking ahead by wearing your Deep Woods and then realizing you forgot to spray your ankles - woops too late.
4. Don't ever talk about divorce. If you talk about it, it will happen. This is a statistically proven fact - proven by the people I know who have divorced. Even those who joke about getting divorced, have a higher chance of following through. Treat it like the most offensive bad word you know, and just don't say it. Once you start talking about it, it is only a matter of time.
5. If your spouse says that you work too much, then you are probably on really thin ice (pobably a lot thinner than it even appears). Time to make some adjustments - nuf said.
6. Talk about your day. Even if you really don't feel like it, do it anyway. You need to know what each other is up to. You don't need to comment on what the other person says, in most cases you probably shouldn't. Just ask a lot of questions and listen.
7. Don't let yourself go. No I am not talking about continuing to look like Ken & Barbie. Not letting yourself go applies more to behavior and is probably the most important thing on this list. It is not how hot you look that will keep your marriage strong in the end. Old age catches us all - but ignorance and disrespect does not. It is very easy to let ourselves go with someone who knows us the most. We stop paying attention to what we say and how we say it. We have proabably all seen the sarcastic couple who is kind of mean to each other but still in love. They are the exception, not the norm. Those people have always been that way, even when they were dating. It's their way of communicating. They didn't get married and then become that way. Things we say can hurt people. Our mouth can be a weapon of disrespect and abuse. If we wouldn't use a certain tone with people outside of the house, then why should we use it inside with people we say we care about? It's all about respect.
8. Discover that respect and commitment are the two pillars of relationships. Without respect you have a crappy suffering marriage and without commitment, you have an amicable divorce. Without both respect and commitment, you have nothing so just forget it. So if you are planning on getting married, then think about whether or not both of you have respect for each other and commitment for the long haul.
There is something weird about marriage. We maintain our dating relationship because we want to keep someone interested, but often we do nothing about our marriage relationship. When we are dating, either party can decide they don't want to be a part of the relationship anymore and move on. The same thing happens when people live together. There is always the chance to get out so we must work harder to maintain what we have if we want to continue it. But, as soon as people sign on the dotted line and are pronounced husband and wife, there is no way out that doesn't lead to checking the "divorced" box on your income tax forms. It is the commitment of marriage that causes people become slack in their relationship.
I think commitment is great (as I said above, it is one of the two most important things) but if we are going to go for it, we need to get back in the game. If we value the commitment we made and truly respect the person we are married to, then marriage should actually cause us to up our game. It should cause us to go to the bonfire wrapped in mosquito netting and screaming "They'll never take me alive!!"
