survivinglife

I would like to thank all of you who have responded to my post “Friends of a Gender” Feb 20, 2009.  The comments have been great.  Personally, I agree that couples can have friends of the opposite gender when they are in a committed relationship; but, you might be surprised just how many people, men and women, that don’t agree.  Just today, in our local paper’s advise column, there was a woman who was concerned because her boyfriend was still friends with his ex-wife, and saw or talked to her about once a month.  She was insecure about their friendship and felt they had no reason to continue a friendship because there were no kids involved.   

In my previous post, I touched on the covenant marriage contract that 17 states are offering to engaged couples.  I have to admit that I am torn on this issue.  I think that sometimes too many young couples rush into marriage, and don’t really understand the extent of the commitment and compromise that is required to maintain a healthy marriage, therefore ending in divorce.  On the other side of the issue, I don’t believe that any group or organization should have the ability to say whether someone can or can not get married, or divorced if that may become the case. 

With a covenant contract, a couple must go through counseling first, either with a counselor or a member of the clergy.  It then becomes up to the counselor/clergy whether or not the couple should be married.  If the counselor/clergy refuses to agree to their marriage, then what happens?  Can the couple still get married?  The answer to that is yes, they still can get married, but they may not be able to get married in the church that they wanted to have the wedding at, and they won’t be able to have a covenant marriage contract. 

On the plus side of the covenant marriage, counseling can help couples learn how to handle some of the stresses that marriage can bring about.  It can help couples learn positive ways to handle disagreements, disappointments, as well as how to compromise in tough situations.   Theses are just some of the positive points for having a covenant marriage contract.  I want to warn you, though; there are also some negative points about the contract that I would like to talk about in my next post. 

What exactly is a covenant marriage license? 

Designed to reduce the rate of divorce, a covenant marriage license has certain guidelines that a couple must agree to and follow in order to be able to get their marriage license and get married.  So far 17 states have introduced legislation to have some kind of covenant marriage agreement for couples wishing to get married.  None of these states require a covenant marriage license to be able to get married, but they are using tactics to try and encourage couples to choose the covenant marriage over the standard marriage license.  One of the ways states are trying to encourage couples, is by making the covenant marriage license less expensive than the normal marriage license. 

Will this type of marriage license catch on?  So far; it doesn’t seem to be, even though 17 states have enacted legislation for this, the number of couples opting to have a covenant marriage is still extremely low.

So, is love an emotion, something that you have no control over?  Or is love a decision, something that you decide to do, share, or continue with everyday of your life? 

Many feel that love is an emotion, something that you can not control, something that just happens.  In actuality, love is both, it becomes a decision when things get tough, and you have to remember why you married your spouse in the first place.  It’s a decision when there becomes a gap in the relationship, when it feels like you two are growing apart, going in two different directions, or stagnating.  That is when you have to make a decision of whether or not to continue on your current path, or too make time for each other and choose together which path should, or will be taken.

Love is an emotion when you just look at your spouse and remember exactly why you married them. 

Should couples only have friends of the same sex while they are in a committed relationship?  (Men have only male friends, women have only female friends.) 

First, why would you want to “get rid of” friends of the opposite sex that you may have had for more years than you’ve know your current partner?  Are your friends so disposable, that you can send them out of your life just because you are now involved with someone new?  And, do you think that since you now won’t have any friends of the opposite sex, that there will not be any chance of an affair?  This whole line of thinking is preposterous.  I would expect to see this type of thinking in high school kids, not grown adults.   

Second, let’s understand that affairs do not happen because you have friends that are of the opposite sex.  Affairs happen because one partner feels that they are not getting what they need out of the relationship.  Whether it is communication, intimacy, or maybe just the fact that they feel trapped or confined.  It doesn’t matter what gender your friends are, if your partner is not feeling wanted and fulfilled, the chance of an affair increases dramatically.  

We can’t blame anyone but the two in the relationship when problems arise.  Usually there are more underlying problems than the one that blows everything open.  Open, honest communication and a lot of hard work is what can make relationships survive, no matter what gender of friends either partner has. 

Your spouse is working through their addiction, they have gone through treatment, AA, and whatever else they have been ordered to do, or felt that they should go through to regain control of their life.  Now what?  Where does the relationship stand, and most of all, where do you fit in with all of this? 

This can be a very confusing, tumultuous time for all involved.  First and for most, you must remember that their addiction is not your fault, no matter what they may say, or try to get you to believe.  They took the first step; they made their decision all on their own. Granted, circumstances beyond anyone’s control may have played a part, but they still took the initial step toward their addiction.  Second, just as you did not make them an addict, you can not fix them; you cannot make them not be an addict. 

So how do you get your relationship to survive?  Remember, it takes two to make a relationship.  Both parties need to want the relationship to continue.  Open, honest communication is extremely important at this time.  You may not be able to fix the other person, but you can listen, and you can try to understand what they were feeling and going through that led them to their addiction.  If you want the relationship to survive, you must also show support.  Let them know that their feelings are valid, and that as a team, you can work through anything. 

You also need to realize that addiction is not a black and white issue.  A person doesn’t go through treatment and such and never ever have a relapse; this line of thinking is just setting everyone up for failure.  Also, be aware of what your needs are as well as theirs, there are plenty of organizations around that offer counseling and help for spouses and family members of addicts.  Realize, though, that sometimes these organizations might not be the right choice for your situation. 

People everywhere seem to enter into relationships with the misconception that they can “fix” or “change” the other person.  This always reminds me of the old joke, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?  Just one, but the light bulb has to really want to change. 

With Valentines Day approaching, I hear many people saying that they are looking for someone to love them.  First I want to point out that that is the wrong approach to finding a relationship that has any hope of lasting.  You first have to love yourself before you can love someone else, and you defiantly can not enter into any type of relationship hoping or expecting the other person to fill what ever void you may have.  This idea is just a failure waiting to happen, and it will. 

A question for you, if you are in a relationship with a person who you feel you need to fix, are you actually avoiding the things in yourself that you should be fixing?  Are you ignoring your own inadequacies and problems and focusing on the other person so you don’t have to look at yourself and fix yourself? 

We can’t fix anyone else.  We can’t change anyone else.  We only have control over ourselves, our emotions, and our actions/reactions.  Anything other than that, we might as well just sit back and enjoy the ride, or get out of the relationship and move on.  Remember, in the case of relationships and other people, changing them is not an option.

I grew up seeing my mom and dad show affection to each other.  I would always tell my mom that I wanted a marriage just like theirs when I grew up.  My mom would tell me that marriage was not easy, it took work, and that it was not 50/50 like so many try to sell but more like 80/20, sometimes you give 80, and sometimes you give 20, but by that it all works out. 

I have to admit, my first relationship was definitely not a good for me relationship.  I adored this man.  Actually, I was obsessed with this man.  I decided that he didn’t know who was right for him, and that it was my job to show him, no matter what, that I was the one for him.  Thank God that he was wiser and, although it took me about 5 years to realize that fact for myself; I did finally come to that conclusion also.

By looking back and analyzing that relationship, I learned a lot about myself, my needs, and my wants.  I learned how to enjoy my own company, and most important, I learned who I was.  Ironically, this is when I met my husband to be. 

My husband and I started as friends, just talking and spending time together.  One thing that we both expressed when the relationship did move forward was that neither of us needed the other.  We wanted to be with each other, but if something were to happen, either of us could move on, on our own.  I think that this was a very important point.  I personally didn’t want to feel responsible for how someone else might feel if I decided that I didn’t feel the same way. 

By each of us being independent enough to move on without the other, the trust issue was practically nothing.  I was comfortable enough with myself and us, as a couple, that I could declare that I was friends with my ex-boyfriend, and that I intended to stay friends with him.  Nineteen years have passed, and both my ex’s family and my family are best friends; in fact, we all play darts every Friday night. 

Because we have open communication, we have been able to overcome anything that pops up in our marriage.  We started out by making boundaries for our communication, no name calling, no interrupting, and most important, do not bring up past issues that have already been dealt with.  These are our boundaries, the ones that we feel are most important in keeping our communication healthy and open; but each person in a relationship might have different boundaries or needs that they should be able to enforce in their relationships as well.  Both parties have to feel that their limits are safe, and respected. 

We have all been hurt before, by someone who we trusted, who we loved, someone who we thought would never let us down maybe.  Either way, we all have been let down at some point in our lives.  Does this mean that we shouldn’t trust anyone any more?  Too many times people use that as an excuse to not get close to the next person they become involved with.  By not trusting, or by holding on to the hurts of the last relationship, you are instantly putting up a road block, stopping your current relationship from moving forward. 

I know it’s hard, but each new relationship we enter, we must enter it free and clear.  We have to realize that the person we are involved with is not the person we just left.  They are a new beginning, and therefore, deserve to be treated as such.  They have not hurt you or lied to you, so you should give them the benefit of the doubt.  Now this is not to say that you should keep your eyes shut to everything they say or do, but it does mean that you shouldn’t be too quick to jump to conclusions or assumptions. 

How can you do this when you were hurt so badly you ask?  Well, first of all, you have to take stock of your last relationship.  You need to realize what went wrong, and what your part of it was.  Many times we want to place all the blame on the other person, not admitting any of our own faults.  Very rarely is that the case.  Maybe you were too controlling, or maybe too demanding of their time.  Maybe the two of you just grew apart.  No matter what the reasons, you need to be aware of your role in it, and then decide what you want to do differently, if anything. 

The next thing you need to do is be aware of what you learned from that relationship.  In every relationship of every kind, we learn something, even if it is just that we don’t like who we are with that person.  We are always learning, and our relationships offer no different.  Remember, if we don’t learn, we are doomed to repeat our same mistakes until we do learn.

The last thing is to decide what you want yourself to be.  Take what you have learned, and put it to your use.  Evaluate yourself, and become what you want to be.  When you have done that, you can enter into your next relationship free and clear. 

I remember when I was young, sitting around the table after dinner, and talking with my dad; my mom finally getting up to do the dishes while my sister and I kept dad talking by asking question after question.  He was great.  He would take the time to explain things that we didn’t understand, or at least try to explain, all the while; mom was doing the dishes that my sister and I were supposed to do.  Don’t worry we didn’t get away with this too often, but even every once in a while is needed.  I think about my family now, my dinning room table is a catch all.  If we all eat dinner at once, it’s a miracle and a holiday if it’s at the table.  When I was growing up, the only time we didn’t eat dinner together was when we were teenagers, and we were eating out with friends; if we were home, dinner was together; and if you weren’t hungry? You still had to sit at the table, so you might as well take a little something.  I’m sure there are still a lot of families that maintain this ritual, but I know there are a great deal of those who don’t.  I could come up with a bunch of excuses as to why, like we don’t work a normal schedule or the kids’ schedules with sports and all is too erratic, but the truth of the matter is, I was never very domestic.  One of the first things I told David (my husband) when we got together, (one of those rules) was, “I cook for a living, I don’t cook for myself, I’ll be damned if I’m going to cook for you.  But I do know where all the BK’s and McDonald’s are”.   

Sometimes I miss that “family dinner”.  I know there are still families out there who all sit down at once to eat their meals, but I know quite a few that don’t.  Sometimes I think that this is one thing that has led to losing communication amongst the family unit.  Other things become more important than talking.  Watching TV, playing on the computer or video games, all these things seem to take priority in our lives, and the communication goes away.   

We have to realize just how important communication is.  We need it to be able to understand what the other is feeling and thinking.  If we stop communicating with our partners, or if we don’t even start, how can we expect to stay together?  We can’t just co-exist, we have to tell each other how we are feeling, how we perceive things that are going on, even how we expect or hope that something will happen or not happen.  In too many relationships, one just sits there, not saying anything, and then gets upset when things don’t go their way.  But because you didn’t say which way you wanted them to go, how can you expect them to go that way?