For those that have been or are married for any length of time, it's no secret that marriage is hard. It's work. Think of your last roommate and about the simple things like negotiating who is paying for what, who is doing the dishes, who does or doesn't pick their towel up off the floor and who doesn't know the nuances of proper toilet paper installation. Negotiation is a part of relationships that begin when we are kids, siblings, mates of some sort, then a permanent partner.
Knowing this doesn't make it easier to repair a broken relationship especially years after a divorce.
So when I began dating my ex husband without anyone's knowledge and sneaking to counseling with him, I was skeptical at best but felt it was worth the "old college try" for a few reasons as follows:
1) After dating several other men I realized that there was really only ONE man in the world that would love my son as much as I did and it was his father.
2) After dating several other men I realized that the one I'd originally chosen wasn't as bad as maybe I imagined him to be at several points throughout our marriage. I hope you know that the word "several" is an exaggeration on all counts.
3) After time worked it's magic anger was replaced with things like respect, excitement to see him take on responsibility I wished for before and affection. There is nothing sexier than watching a man parent his child...nothing.
It was a very sweet time in our lives. There was no pressure, from each other or anyone else since no one else knew what we were up to. (Keep in mind there was no Facebook or gasp....should I say internet during this time period.)
It was peaceful, restorative and healing.
It was fun and it felt like we were doing something uniquely our own that shut out the world and was focused only on us as a couple and our future as a family.
Joe's work had an annual event in McCall so we decided to go together and while I arranged for Alex to be taken care of by my family, we snuck away for the weekend with his company filled with people who didn't really know that much or care about our history and were not surprised by my presence. It was fun to be incognito and to practice being a couple again. I don't remember the second "first kiss" in our relationship but I remember being nervous about it. Evidently things went as one might expect, swimmingly.
It was just what we needed. We decided to give it another try and still didn't want to tell anyone until we were "sure". It wasn't long after this that my mom said we should take another family photo.
Faced with the dilemma of taking a family picture without Joe who I literally thought might be BACK IN THE PICTURE presented a challenge.
I still didn't feel like it was the right time to tell my family we were giving it another "GO" but by the same token I was reluctant to get family photo's without Joe in the picture because I was filled with hope.
I mustered up the courage to ask my mom if she cared using the excuse that Joe was Alex's dad so would always be a part of his life and therefore he should be in the picture. She fell for this clever ruse and said yes, My siblings looked at us like "what the hell" when Joe arrived and either my pleading looks or my mom's silent "mother" glare that can only silence her own children worked. There were questions after but I still didn't fess up. I just wasn't ready to hear what other people had to say about it.
For a woman who thinks she doesn't have good intuition,my mom's radar was going off like mad. Oprah was a new program on the TV and my mom called me one day and told me about how there had been these divorced couples that wanted to get back together but their biggest barriers were their families. She told me that if I ever wanted to get back together with Joe she didn't want to stand in the way and neither would anyone else in our family. I still didn't say a word.
I'm incredibly grateful for that time together to just focus on us as a couple without the scrutiny of others. While I'm not a big secret keeper unless it belongs to someone else, I kept this one close to my heart. It reminds me of that brief time after my dad died that only our family knew...no one else. It's intimate, precious, without prying eyes, judgement and without the opinions of others or the world crashing in. It was just us, deciding about our future.
In that future we envisioned a bigger family, a happier family and hope for a future yet unborn.
Just three years earlier I'd stood in Alex's pediatricians office in Reno, Nevada and told him we were moving to Idaho because I was getting a divorce. This man gave me a gift that day I'll never be able to repay.
He said, "See that little boy who looks so much like his father? As he grows up and looks in the mirror he will see the reflection of his dad and what you say about his dad and how you talk about him to others is how he'll see himself."
What a gift. Really, what a gift.
My thoughts and anger and frustration and all the things we spew when we end a relationship, Alex was shielded from as much as humanely possible. So when we told Alex we were getting married, while he didn't completely understand what that would mean, he was happy and couldn't wait to be a part of the ceremony.
We set our date for May 31, 1989 which was a Wednesday. We decided that we didn't want two dates to remember and it seemed fitting. When we went to the Catholic church to plan the wedding, we were informed that according to the church we were still married and had only been civilly divorced. Head shaking ensued and we commenced with the planning of our renewal of vows.
The big day arrived and as I walked down the aisle toward my two fella's standing on the alter I was struck by how lucky we were to have a second chance. How lucky we were for forgiveness and grace and for the love we just couldn't deny. How very lucky.
When Joe and I clasped hands to renew our vows, this little person came up and stood between us, looking up at us. There is not a picture of this anywhere I know of other than my mind. The audible gasps and aww's from the crowd gathered to bless us that day echoed what was in my heart. Perfection. A little family restored.
Our second marriage began that day and we now count from the first date, not the second. We call those the growing up years that helped us grow together again. If we hadn't had that time to work on ourselves it might never have happened.
I'm not sure I have any sage advice on how to keep a marriage strong, or going or even how to avoid a divorce. All I know for sure is even the second time around, it's still hard, it's still work and it's still terribly rewarding and wonderful all at once.
For us it's a matter of knowing we CAN live without each other but daily choosing not to. It's not something we fantasize about, it's not something we imagine, it's something we lived and by living it made a choice that we are better together than apart.
My friend Janet's mom has an assortment of sayings that resonate with me. The one that perhaps is the best piece of advice, if you will, goes something like this:
"A successful marriage is one where you don't want to get divorced on the same day."
Getting remarried didn't and doesn't make us immune from wondering sometimes why we did it again. It's that choice that is made every time one has the thought that they may want to throw in the towel.
We both know we can throw in the towel but we both know what life is like without our matching Mr. and Mrs. towels side by side. It's been 34 years since that first vow taking and I'm planning on at least 34 more if he'll have me.
I am a firm believer that ALL kids are kids at risk. No matter what sort of household you come from the possibility exists that you might experience toxic stress of some sort throughout your childhood that can result in a poorer outcome than if you didn't....and we have no control over that stress as children.
In my 27 years of being lucky enough to be a part of many families lives I've met countless families raising children that experienced toxic stress such as homelessness, drug or alcohol abuse, domestic violence, poor nutrition, limited brain stimulation, hunger, poverty, death in the family and sometimes a combination of several of these. Young children's brains develop differently when toxic stress is experienced and almost comes to virtual standstill in terms of development.
Watching it happen is heartbreaking.
We cared for the son of a former prostitute that we eventually reported for child abuse.
We cared for the daughter of the meth addict that came close to death due to an elective surgery.
We cared for the daughter of the heroin addict who got her act together and made their lives special and she is now in college.
We cared for several kids whose dads landed in jail off and on throughout their young lives yet some of them were able to be insulated from the chaos around their lives and have recovered nicely, some of them not.
We cared for the families with children with special needs who were hungry, not because they had special needs but because they didn't have enough money for food.
We cared for the families with foster children who experienced unspeakable physical & mental abuse as little people inflicted by their own mothers and fathers.
We cared for the little girl who was sexually abused by her step-father and other males in the house. There was more than one of these little girls and boys.
We cared for the homeless children who never got enough sleep at the shelter and were rarely bathed.
We cared for the special needs child who's mom didn't know she had a special need until we told her.
We cared for the baby who's mom was experiencing postpartum depression.
We cared for the sons of a single mother that lost her battle to cancer.
We cared for the children that had to learn to live in a new home frequently due to divorce or general chaos in their parents' lives.
We cared for the girl who needed thousands of dollars in dental care but couldn't get it as her parents had no dental insurance.
We cared for the little boy who only had one pair of socks that he wore every day.
We cared for the little boy who's blanket smelled like a meth lab.
We cared for the babies of teen mothers who can lack emotional strength and maturity necessary to raise an infant as a separate being.
Sometimes parents don't have a
clue about what is happening and one cannot tell them because for the
most part there is very little they can do in the moment except fix
their life and that of their child's one day at a time as solutions and information is obtained.
Therefore our job is to support the family through difficult times, focus on the child and their intense and unspoken needs, connect the parent with needed services and wait and watch.
The hardest part is letting go.
They often move on from us due to the endless chaos in their lives, but for that short time, we do our best to impact in whatever ways are possible...then we have to learn to let go.
That's the part I hate. That's the part that keeps me praying. That's the part that is the hardest.
But sometimes, we make a difference. Sometimes those kids and their parents overcome seemingly insurmountable problems in their lives and achieve a life of normalcy where the child thrives and so do the parents. We don't always have a key part in helping that happen but more often than not, we do.
These real life examples all didn't happen to low-income families. They didn't happen to just people without a college education. They didn't happen to unlucky or undeserving folks. They happened to people just like you or me.
There are no guarantees when a baby enters this world that if born into the right circumstances their lives will turn out better. There are statistics that support this theory however there are no guarantees.
Kids are a risky business and even with it's continual challenges I'm glad it's my business and that I get to be a part of reducing that risk even if only for one child.
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." Mother Teresa
"Love is not a choice, it's an ability." Name that movie.
It's one of my favorite lines but it's also a bunch of malarky. I believe that we are all born with the capacity to love beyond belief but that things can go haywire and we're left broken and confused about how to love or what love really is.
It's a big club we belong to. I'm not sure I know anyone that truly knows what love is all about other than Mother Teresa. I think some people are a little bit better at it than others, perhaps because they had good examples but even people from the same family seem to have different abilities (okay, there it is again.)
People, namely children, can't even see beyond themselves because they are the center of the universe until they are about 3 or 4. They have to be taught to think of others and to consider their actions in the world.
My first real act of love that I can remember is when my mom was in the hospital and my dad found himself alone at home with 5 kids. My brothers went to school and my sisters were taking a nap so I had much coveted alone time with my charming father. He suggested we eat lunch and included me in the process.
I stood almost at eye level with the cupboard he opened full of canned goods (lower cupboard mind you) and he asked me which soup I wanted. I wonder if he thought I could read or he just thought I'd recognize the can?? When I pointed to one, he said are you sure? I wasn't sure at all I was just drawn to the label for some reason.
He let me stand on a chair watching the pot boil next to him while he prepared our lunch. Then he lovingly poured it out into a bowl and as an afterthought included some saltines to the mix. The look of anticipation on his face was so endearing as I took my first sip.
My first bowl of cream of mushroom soup as a pre 4 year old was an act of love. Like any little kid I hated it. It was the first time I had my dad all to myself that I can recall and I was not going to reveal that this meal was a failure....so I plodded away, soaking it up with the tastier saltines and pretended I liked it beause what I really liked was him and having this special time together.
I was priveleged enough to see this same phenomenon when my son, Alex who was an avid brussel sprouts lover, so much so that he helped me plant and grow them in our very first garden, eat our first harvest. After several weeks of watching them grow the long awaited moment came. To this point we'd only ever had frozen brussel sprouts slathered in butter, grown by farmers that evidently knew what they were doing.
He was barely 4 years old. I cooked them up and slathered them in butter and salt and we excitedly sat down and took our first bite. His look of anticipation had to have matched mine as we prepared to be wowed!
Slowly savoring that first mouthful with joyful noises we both were horrified to discover that they were incredibly bitter and tough and not at all like the ones we were used to. His face crumbled in disappointment while his mouth puckered up and he shuddered. I said, "They're not very good are they?"
He looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said, "They're okay mom, dont' worry, I'm just not very hungry." A little tear escaped his eye. And there it was. That same moment. That same act of love.
Wanting so badly to share a special moment with our parent and having that moment flop. He knew I would be sad that he didn't like the brussel sprouts we'd painstakingly grown together, so he tried to mask his extreme dislike.
Was he born with an ability to love greater than anyone elses, was I? Or did we learn somehwere along the way that we can make choices that show we love others. We can put ourselves in someone elses shoes and have compassion for them. We can show our love through sacrifice because maybe that's how love was demonstrated to us.
Have you ever read the book, The 5 Love Languages? If not, you might take a look. What I've learned about it is that I want Acts of Love. I want people to show me they love me, not tell me. I trust actions more than words. As a result I've been speaking that language all of my life, from my first memory of love forward.
Is love a choice or an ability? Perhaps it's both. Growing up truly feeling loved has got to be key to being able to not only learn to receive it but to give it. I was lucky. I knew I was loved. My parents were demonstrative and told me often and if they didn't they told me through their actions enough that I was secure in that knowledge.
I now know that my dad knew I didn't like the soup. Not because he's around to tell me that anymore but because I am a parent and I know he knew every expression of my barely 4 year old face that hadn't learned to mask feelings yet and must have been able to read my thoughts in a way only a daddy can.
I wonder if he was as delighted by my denial that it was okay as I was by Alex's. My guess is yes. I'm guessing he knew I loved him.
The quote from the movie:???..... Dan in Real Life I'll let you decide if love is a choice or an ability and in the meantime I hope your Valentines Day is filled with people you love speaking your "love language" and that you choose to be able to love them in return.
