Installment # 7

More lately Sandy and I have been going in opposite directions in one way: I am less critical and judgmental than I used to be, and she is more so.  As I discuss elsewhere, my natural inclination is to see what is funny about something, and her natural inclination is to see what is wrong with something; and she is increasingly less likely to keep her thoughts to herself.  Since she was around sixty I have been telling her that when a person is in their eighties they can get away with saying anything they want; people just have to deal with it.  But not before that.  She tries to bite her tongue sometimes, but not with much success.  I guess she has always expressed dismay over young men and especially young women who are already visibly overweight, and have most of a lifetime to go.  She knows if they don’t change they are going to be unhealthy, unhappy and huge.  Gaining 2 pounds per year for 30 years = 60 pounds, obviously.  What if you have already gained 5 pounds per year from age 15 to 20, a time when you were probably more active physically than you will be later?  Yikes!  Five pounds per year for 40 more years = 200 pounds more!

She has also, as long as I can remember, allowed a speaker’s voice or a performer’s appearance to distract her from the related content.  I guess a lot of people do that. If a speaker has an annoying voice or accent, it may take me a few minutes to adjust my hearing, so to speak, and then I can ignore the medium and focus on the message.  Similarly, an entertainer may be overweight of strangely dressed or have weird facial hair or something, and I will enjoy the performance while Sandy comments on the “turn offs.”  Even during my more judgmental years, I could separate an entertainer’s performance from their politics or religion.  I was aware of how people like Shirley McClain or Tom Cruise thought – and didn’t agree at all – yet could ignore that in order to enjoy their talents.  These days I hardly give it a thought.  “Live and let live,” I say.

We hear that opposites attract, but it seems that extreme opposites do not stay together very long.  It may be more to the point to say that two people with complementary strengths and weaknesses make a better team, as long as they can accept each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  A young couple may need first to be able to tolerate their differences and then grow to accept and ultimately appreciate their differences.  Some of the differences between a man and a woman are obvious, but some are very subtle and maybe unexpected by young people when they first live together.  I’ve read, and I agree, that a man can never expect to meet all of his wife’s needs.  A young man is generally not even aware of some of his wife’s needs, let alone equipped to meet them. 

We also hear about “givers” marrying “takers.” As with opposites, as long as it is not extreme, the combination should be workable.  For my generation and earlier, it was more the norm than the exception that the woman would be inclined to be more of a giver, and the man would be inclined to be more of a taker.  But this was on the home front.  If the man is setting his alarm every morning to go out and earn the primary or only paycheck in the family and bringing it home, he is certainly doing some giving, even if it does not measure up to all that his wife is doing.  In my experience, if you accept each other’s natural inclinations and express appreciation for what is given, a natural harmony can prevail.  A compatible sense of fair play is of course very helpful, as well.

I’d like to think that the modern trend of marrying later, for example late twenties instead of early twenties, gives young people a better chance of understanding their partner and knowing what to expect.  However, the divorce statistics do not really support that premise.  I should hasten to say that in my parent’s generation and earlier people tended to stay in unhappy marriages, rather than divorce, but not so in my generation or today.  An increase in the divorce rate does not necessarily indicate an increase in unhappy marriages.  But I would have thought that the trend these days of not marrying so young would result in better decisions and better marriages.  It does not look that way.

I’m sure a lot of women would not want to be married to me, and a lot of men would not want to be married to Sandy, but that’s OK.  We don’t want the competition, anyway. There is an old adage: “When is the best time to tell your wife that you love her?”  Answer: “Before someone else does!”  Looking at it differently, I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, “Be kinder than necessary.”  That is consistent with my idea, expressed elsewhere, that we each have our “rights,” but we each have the privilege of subordinating our rights to another, if we want to.  Why would you want to?  One possible answer is similar to the real motivation behind charitable giving.  Doesn’t it make us feel good to help someone else?  Aren’t we the real beneficiaries of our charity or kindnesses?

But there is something else.  Sandy and I had been sharing a Costco-sized container of glucosamine, each taking 2 per day.  We were getting near the bottom of the container, and she would not be going to Costco for a week or so.  I quietly decided to stop taking them so that she would not run out before she could pick up another container. She feels they do her some noticeable good.  I don’t really notice the lack of them, but take them “just in case.”  After a few days I noticed that the quantity in the container was not diminishing.  Wouldn’t you know it?  She had quietly decided to stop taking them so that I would not run out.  That is a good example of the 100/100 attitude.  If my plan had worked, she probably would never have noticed my consideration; if her plan had worked, I probably would not have noticed hers.  It is the difference between “scratching each other’s back” and “having each other’s back,” so to speak.

One other idea comes to mind: I am thinking of a young couple (well, fortyish is young to me) that is not together any longer.  A few years ago, without discussing it with her husband, the wife went out and spent $1,000 or so that they did not have on something rather frivolous – at least in his opinion.  His reaction was to go out and buy the motorcycle he always wanted (no doubt frivolous in her opinion), thus making matters worse financially.  I don’t know how they should have handled it, but being spiteful, selfish and irresponsible will not do much to sustain a relationship.  Speaking of spite, there is a word of wisdom that says that negative feelings such as spite, hate, animosity, bitterness and so forth do more harm “to the vessel in which they are stored than to the object on which they are poured.”  Get over it.

Sandy and I recall that during times of difficulty, we always put the relationship first.  Whatever the problem, we would instinctively protect our relationship and not allow anything else to become more important, which can easily happen when you are raising children, buying homes, focusing on a career, etc.  I have a picture in my mind of a scene from the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, where they are outnumbered in a tight shoot-out scene and they stand back-to-back, moving as one unit, firing their automatic weapons at the bad guys.  I think there was a scene like that in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, too.  Post script: Mr. & Mrs. Smith were still alive at the end of the movie; Butch and Sundance – afraid not.  Nothing works all the time, right?

One other habit of ours is to call each other by a few terms of endearment, some of which, like “Babe,” no one else calls us.  I see couples while raising children call each other “Daddy” and “Mommy” whether the kids are around or not.  I’m no child psychologist, but I would think it would be more comforting and reassuring for your children to hear you call each other by special terms of endearment, emphasizing the bond and the love that exists between you.  I wonder what happens after the kids grow up and leave the nest, when you have been calling each other “Mommy” and “Daddy” all those years.  Is it easy to revert to a sweetheart relationship?  I heard a woman about twenty years older than me call her husband “Heart.”  It was clear that it was shortened from “sweetheart,” but it was such an intimate, special term.  She was reminding him and herself that he was her “heart,” and presumably she was his.

After saying that we don’t know what we did right and don’t know what to advise other couples, I seem to have offered some ideas.  So…one more: Awhile back I looked up from a Readers’ Digest article, I think it was, and told Sandy that I was reading about the importance of saying “Thank you” to your spouse on a regular basis.  She promptly said that I am very good about that; that I probably say “Thank you” to her at least several times per week, if not daily.  I really wasn’t that conscious of it.  She said that, come to think of it, she really appreciated my expressing thanks and that she felt she needed to be better about saying “thanks” to me.  And guess what…she has been good about that ever since, and it gives me a chance to say something in response like, “I’m happy to do it,” or “Anytime – you bet” or something.  Helping your spouse feel loved and appreciated is a wonderful thing to do, and in this example doesn’t take much time, effort or expense; just thoughtfulness.  It helps if you really do appreciate each other, by the way.

We hear often that a woman appreciates a sense of humor in a man.  But people vary widely in what they think is funny.  My sense of humor can be dorky and downright corny, and I try to make adjustments based on the feedback I get.  For the most part, my sense of humor is in Sandy’s wheelhouse, so to speak.  Sometimes she needs to tell me that what I just said is stupid, not funny, but even then she usually can laugh at me, if not at what I said.  But I’m sure that several times a week Sandy will have a good chuckle and say, “You make me laugh,” and mean it in the right way.  For example, just the other day we were at a stop light behind a vehicle with the license plate WNG FTHR.  I said to Sandy, “Maybe that is his Indian name, Wing Feather,” and Sandy laughed.  Then I said, “Or maybe the car belongs to a Chinaman they call Wang Father.”  She laughed harder.  Finally I suggested that it could refer to a genital ornament like “wang feather”.  That really cracked her up.

On the other hand, as I retrieved some prescription medicine from the mailbox the other day, I announced that her birth control pills had arrived.  She didn’t think that was very funny, so I said what I need are girth control pills (she is always trying to motivate me to reduce the size of my belly).  She didn’t laugh at that, either.  Finally, I tried mirth control pills, with mirth loosely referring to enjoyment, and the subject of birth control pills alluding to how men in general and I in particular are a little too “quick on the trigger”, if you know what I mean…so men need mirth control pills in order to be the best lovers that they can be.  Still not funny, apparently.  But in the meantime, I quite amused myself with my own original thoughts. 

Similarly, I was telling Sandy how my Dad used to use the phrase, “six of one; half a dozen of another,” and I always wanted to know why “nine of one; three quarters of a dozen of another” wasn’t an equally valid expression.  It may be one or two syllables longer, but it is more fun to say.  And if an economy of syllables is the goal, why will people start a sentence with “Being as how…” or “Seeing as how…” when the word “since” means the same thing and is a lot shorter?  See what I mean?  While I am thinking of it, I enjoyed the poster that admonished us to “Never use a big word where a diminutive one would suffice.”  Never mind.