Being married for a second time has been a journey and a learning experience.
I honestly never thought I’d remarry and nothing on the horizon post divorce indicated differently.
It was quite the shock to find myself smitten by a former coworker, whom I went out with on a lark for a nice evening of dinner and a movie.
Her charms many, her wit, honest directness and intelligence insanely sexy and desirable — to the point marriage was a possibility.
Our curtship was fast and intense, all the while still dealing with my children and ex, whom had made it a personal vendetta to make everything difficult.
It’s sufficient for me to summarize that I brought a ton of baggage to our relationship, it was disclosed — but no one had a grasp on the magnitude.
For my part, I have not felt the damage or pain the way my love has, I was oblivious to her fragility and her facades are intricate and strong.
She tells me she has shared this hurt and pain over the last seven and a half years, but as if in a dream I cannot recall with any clarity or understanding of it until this year or two when it has come into sharp relief.
Even now as I write these thoughts I am hard pressed to understand, I just accept that what she is telling me is true for her.
I have, I think, learned a lot about what does not work in a relationship and observed what has in the few I can count on one hand that I felt were truly successful.
A solid relationship is founded on a certain simplicity, it’s different for the working relationships I’ve observed. Sometimes it’s a shared sense of activities or priorities.
Others, it’s as simple as sex. I’ve attempted in all of my relationships to make the foundation of them love and appreciation of my significant other.
I no longer believe this to be workable. Love Is Not Enough. Or rather, it’s not meant for this world and the people in it.
It may exist as a side effect of time or as a party to whatever the core of the relationship is but in the end a relationship is a marathon in life and one that most are ill equipped to run.
I know I am, it’s obvious by the pain I bring to my wife without effort or intent. I found an interesting online article: Love is Not Enough for a Healthy Marriage.
I think the questions are spot on as requirements or an inventory of functional blocks for a relationship. It does not provide insights into the base of a relationship.
Maybe that is so broad and varied it cannot possibly be summarized? As a cathartic process I thought I’d go through them one by one.
1. An ability to know and name your emotions at any given time.
I’ve been terrible at this and it has been my primary focus and struggle to attach names to how I feel when I’m in an argument with the one person that impacts my internal state of well being. I’ve been improving, turn around times are better. In all honesty I’ve got 40+ years of burying these, so it’s going to take the rest of my life to keep working on this, I will because I see the value in it. How I feel and what I’m feeling matters.
2. An ability to communicate your emotions verbally and directly.
As with the previous item, these are hand in hand and I continue the work. Positive emotions and feelings are easier to convey. I am hesitant about emotions I feel will be taken negatively, frankly, they usually are.
3. An ability to manage the full range of your emotions without acting out destructively toward yourself or others. (Acting out destructively means channeling your internal feelings into behaviors that cause emotional or physical damage to yourself or others.)
I would say this I have under control. I do not generally lash out and hold my destructive well honed tendency at bay and to myself to inventory and work through before swinging back around to discuss them. I’m also able to let them go, meaning I do not hold a grudge or a list of grievances.
4. An understanding of what helps you to manage emotions, and a willingness and ability to seek those supports when necessary.
Definitely these things for me are various activities that I can perform in a zen like state while I parse and digest my emotional state. Activities like cleaning, bike riding, dishes, laundry, gaming and sleep.
5. An ability to tolerate feeling a lack of connection to your partner sometimes.
Tolerate being the operative word. I perhaps tolerate a lack of connection when she desires me to fight to connect? I am tolerably unsettled and ill at ease when we are not connecting. It makes me sad.
6. An ability to disconnect from other people, technology, and other types of stimulation, and to be alone with yourself.
I am a rock star at being alone with myself. I feel alone a lot and I am good with it. As The Cure says in How Beautiful You Are, “That no-one ever knows or loves another…”. I have hoped latter was not so, I’ve always believed the form to be true.
7. An awareness of your physical needs and a willingness to make choices that optimize your physical health.
Left to my own devices I do cultivate habits over time that optimize my health. I am also no saint, as I will binge from time to time on things that would be considered unhealthy. My process post divorce and prior to my final marriage I had a very decent routine of cleaning, exercise and healthy eating (aside from Soda, which I’ve now discontinued for over 6+ years).
8. An ability to be emotionally present for a loved one even when you are unable to do anything to fix his or her pain or suffering.
This is a bit hit or miss for me. If it is pain unrelated or not inflicted by me in some way then no problem. If I am declared as the source of the pain the best I’ve been able to manage is silence and limited apologies, which I don’t think qualifies as emotionally present. At worst I struggle with acceptance and am angry and this adds to the pain.
9. An ability to laugh at yourself.
No issues at all. I don’t take anything very seriously in general and certainly not myself. I’m a dork.
10. An ability to see how your actions, even when well-meant, can sometimes negatively affect others.
I can. It hurts, but I can.
11. An ability to apologize and take responsibility for the way your actions affect others.
As with item one and two I continue to work on this. I have definitely improved upon my apologies, both in the rapidity with which I can offer them meaningfully and in taking responsibility for my part. I continue my work in this area.
12. An ability to communicate verbally, directly, gently, and respectfully to others when their actions affect you negatively.
I’ve worked HARD at this and I feel that I’ve improved greatly, it has not yielded any significant change in outcomes. This is probably due to the fact that if after performing this activity the issue persists I can be goaded into older habits.
13. An ability to receive critical feedback without blocking it through defensive tactics such as denial, shifting of blame, playing the victim, or bullying.
This is an interesting item for me. My wife tells me I deny, dismiss and diminish. This places me in a very odd state as I am very busy focusing on communicating (output) and assuring I share how I’m feeling or approaching situations. I think that the problem is that my communication is being received as the above. I will have to ponder and discuss this with our therapist as there must be some happy medium where the other party provides the critical feedback and the offending party can discuss their approach to the offense. Certainly for me understanding how someone developed or chose a course of action helps lessen the offense and offers insights into how to avoid or view potential issues in the future.
14. An ability to identify what you need or want from others and communicate that verbally and directly.
Honestly, I don’t do this much. I have had very negative experiences needing and wanting things from others and I find the amount people disappoint me on some many levels and ways in this regard I prefer to not need or want from others to an extreme, even my wife.
15. An ability to tolerate feeling disappointed by others without acting out destructively toward yourself or others.
Yeah, no problem. Every day.
16. An ability to tolerate the experience of having others disappointed in you, without acting out destructively toward yourself or others.
Tolerated, not enjoyed or handled perfectly. Certainly not in Chris’ top ten worst capabilities.
17. An ability to step back, gain perspective on any given situation, and see it in the context of the big and complex picture of life.
I feel I’m extremely good at this, damn near Zen. However, this begs a question if in the big picture a loss or letting go is the right choice, why does that have to feel wrong in the immediate? That is to say if you have felt the last eight years have been challenging but successful and mostly positive with bumps in the road, but your partner has experienced as a series of damaging and painful events leading to a feeling of wanting and lack of positive? How do you reconcile that? Big picture me says you don’t. That time and perspective have to operate on both parties and provide new contexts for understanding. Big picture me says if you love someone and they’ve been hurting like that while you’ve been loving them and you haven’t experienced it like that you are not the one.
18. An ability to step back and see the whole picture of yourself or another person, in all of its complexity, shades of grey, and seemingly contradictory parts.
As with the previous question, I have a firm grasp on understanding the whole picture. I get the insane calculus of relationships, including the contradictions. I can say this because I do not feel the need to adjudicate another persons perspectives or feelings. Most people I can understand and see how they’ve derived their whole picture (prism) and at worst I can just accept that I do not live anywhere near their position. The only person that I take special care to attempt to orient to has been my wife. I love her, I work hard to work towards her and be in the same space.
19. An ability to have another person see all the different parts of you, even those parts that you dislike or detest.
Not my best ability. I do share all the parts I have with my wife, albeit with a functional similarity of a special needs child.
20. An ability to tolerate sometimes feeling misunderstood or inaccurately perceived by others.
Check and double check.
21. An ability to allow space for another person’s thoughts, ideas, perceptions, or feelings, even if they seem wrong to you.
Yes. Though, in reading through this list and processing each of these there seems to be a missing component. I keep trying to share myself all the time. Several of these questions infer that there’s an additional mode or two I need to develop.
22. An ability to ask for space for your own thoughts, ideas, perceptions, or feelings, even if they may cause conflict or upset others.
Nope. Terrible at this horrendous. Fuck no I’m not going to tell you my harsh inner voice of your bad idea.
23. An acceptance that there are pros and cons to any choice, and that there is no way to avoid sacrifice, compromise, and dissatisfaction.
Boy don’t I know it. Sometime just have to let it be and see what comes next.
24. An ability to move beyond your own thoughts, ideas, or fears, and truly understand how another person is feeling.
Improving. I often times can move past my own head space; The big hurdle is being able to perceive how the other person is feeling in a timely fashion. I do not feel I succeed in this.
25. An ability to verbally and directly show that you understand how the other person is feeling.
No. Given that there is not a safe space for discussion during the charge moments regarding T’s feelings and that I often cannot even derive a clear understanding of the state. This is a no until #24 gets to a true understanding under pressure.
26. A basic competency in navigating the world professionally, socially, and practically.
No issues here.
27. An ability to face your aging and death, and the aging and death of others, without acting out destructively toward yourself or others.
Yeah aging, check. Death, check. No destruction or negativity, check. Still sucks.
28. An ability to let go of pain from the past, forgive yourself or others, and refocus on the present moment.
Not an issue. I’ve learned to forgive myself, which was the hard part for me for a long while. It was all my fault. I’ve always forgiven other people. They’re just people.
29. A basic level of competence in organizing your daily life and managing time.
Competent. Super powered when hurting inside emotionally. Look at all the shit I cleaned and fixed with just one day of hurt!
30. An ability to tolerate feeling bored and dissatisfied.
Going on 6+ years of that at the office. So yup.
31. An ability to seek and explore ways to grow, expand, and change.
Always! I’ve been working hard at changing my approaches and improving my understanding of self and of my baby. I’ve continued to learn new skills and read voraciously. Always looking to expand.
32. An ability to set limits and boundaries with others and with your environment in order to take care of your own emotional, mental, and physical health.
Yes. I think this has continued to improve. Not there yet but I do try to focus on what’s best for me and remind myself it’s not my job to make sure everyone has got what they need.
33. An ability to recognize the experiences of feeling powerless or out of control, and to tolerate those feelings without acting out destructively on yourself or others.
Oh, I’m getting a PHD in this. I can’t fix relationships, people or feelings.
34. An ability to respect and accept other people’s boundaries, even if they upset you, without acting out destructively toward yourself or others.
Not an issue.
35. An ability to tolerate the possibility of being rejected or abandoned by your loved ones without trying to ‘close off their exit door’ through controlling behaviors, inducing guilt or threatening to be destructive to yourself or to them if they leave you.
No issues here. Doors are wide open for all.
36. An ability to remain reasonably calm during difficult discussions or conflicts with others.
Imperfect. I say that because remaining calm does not improve outcomes thus far and further I am accused of being cold or treating people like employees. It’s disheartening and frustrating as it’s obviously a skill that’s supposed to help.
37. An ability to agree to disagree, make compromises and create solutions to conflict.
Not a problem for me. It’s okay not to agree and compromises are needed to get to a good state for everyone involved. I no longer need to win and while I don’t do it right I just try to talk and share to get a better level of understanding.