Terrified

I have a very dear friend of mine who is going through something that I really can't imagine going through.  With all the things I have faced in my life so far - THIS - would literally send me to a mental institution.

My friend.

Her husband was unfaithful.

I know that in our very sad culture today, this is almost becoming a norm.  How many movies on the sappy girl network Lifetime are there about this one thing? The story is always the same.  The "good wife" the "happy kids" the "doting husband".  And its not just the men either.  I know that.  I know someone VERY close to me who was unfaithful to her husband.  Its not a man or woman thing.  Its an unfaithful thing. All these relationships started out blissful, happy...

And then it all begins.

The "I've gotta work late" story, the "Go on without me I'll see you guys there" lines, the, "So what I started working out, you want me to be healthy don't you?"...so on and so forth.  It amazes me that its all so similar.  Its almost as if some book gets passed around..."How to cheat 101".

Her story is the same.

I remember hearing once a famous phrase that said, "The measure of a man is seen in the countenance of his wife's face"...or something like that.  There was a time when her face shown a happiness and contentment that was envious.  I remember how much she laughed and how youthful she looked.  I remember how she would often boast with pride of the success of her marriage.  But it was not fake in any way or even came off as her trying to convince herself that she was happy.  I mean, she was TRULY happy and TRULY convinced that her husband was amazing and that her life was great.  She never said they were perfect but she was just...well, damn...happy.

24 years I believe is what they were married for.  TWENTY-FOUR YEARS.  I say that number and its amazing.  That is a full grown adult.  Then when I contemplated the "age" of that relationship that way it made me think.  It made me think about a relationship that was together for that long.  Do relationships grow and develop the way people do?  For example...

 When you first start a new relationship in many ways it carries on like an infant.  It needs to be nurtured and time needs to be spent with it so that it can grow and mature.  As these two people are "making it work" there will be times of "spit up" where things need to be cleaned up and times when there is shit shooting out all over the place.  The couple who wants to "keep this baby going" will become experts at handling all the crap that comes out, just as new parents become confident in the way they handle their baby.  The first few weeks new parents have a newborn at home, they are clumsy, tired and overwhelmed by this new person.  They overreact to every little thing that the new baby does.  They obsess and worry over his/her safety and health.  They baby proof EVERYTHING and take classes and read books and devote so much time to creating the safest and most wonderful environment for their baby to thrive.  They become those people who talk about their baby's poop like its made out of gold! They share stories about what the baby did to their friends and set up online blogs and photo collages of the little ones achievements.  They announce to the world with baby announcements, emails and updates on how the little one is progressing.  They spend thousands of dollars on making sure their baby looks good and is dressed in the best.  They buy every new gadget so that others can envy how well their baby is taken care of.

Isn't this exactly what a new relationship does?  At the beginning.  Think about your own relationship and how it was in the beginning.  How you nurtured it and worked to make it grow healthy and strong.  How much money you poured into it to keep it going.  Gasoline to drive to and from their house.  Trips you went on.  Food you bought to make romantic dinners or restaurants you kept in business for all the dates you went there for.  How many flowers and jewelry and sappy love cards did you buy to bring a sense of happiness and joy to that person?  Think about all the crap you had to clean up during a fight.  Remember all the slammed doors and hang ups you went through that during the make-up after you actually said, "this made us stronger".  Remember how sometimes you felt tired, overwhelmed and clumsy. Remember how you would talk about that person all the time.  Every time you saw a tree you would say mushy crap like, "She has a tree in front of her house".  Or when you heard someone breathe you said, "OMG, he breathes too!".  How many photo collages of your trips to Disney did you force your friends to sit through and watch?  All this you did at the beginning, while your infantile relationship grew in leaps and bounds.

As it developed and got stronger it then became...more...independent.

Now, just as a baby begins to walk unassisted, your relationship begins to walk and then run unassisted.  Now having an anniversary for the first time you wore blue at the same time is not as important.  You don't take as many pictures as before because you're busier...running after a toddler.  Toddlers are interesting creatures aren't they.  They learn to assert themselves and have a freer will...a stronger sense of self.  Now they are not an extension of their parents but they are a person all on their own.  They can be left unattended for small bits of time.  They can play on their own for small spurts.  They are more inquisitive about life out of mom and dads arms.




A relationship is the same.  Now she can go out with her friends a little more without feeling guilty that he is home watching TV.  He plans trips to Vegas with the boys for fun.  But just as a toddler runs back at full tilt and jumps into mommy or daddy's arms when its time to go home, the toddler couple runs back to each other and say things like, "I missed you" after only be away for a few hours.  The couple still enjoys and "needs" the other.  They are still a vital unit.  They still need to be nurtured and taught. And when the temper tantrums show up someone is going to have to be the adult and set the rules.

And time goes on...




The relationship grows just as the child grows.  The bones get longer...the child gets taller.  The needs change and the wants become different.  But adolescence brings on this state of acceptance and obedience. Hormones have not yet come into play so children "tend" to be more accepting of the limitations imposed on them by their parents.

This is when a man's friends call him "whooped" or "all wifed up".  This is when the woman is known as "wifey" or "a girl that keeps her man in check".  Whats amazing is that they may not even be married.  But it is a sort of "marriage rehearsal".  The couple settles in.

And there is this stage of peace.

And then it happens.

Routine

School starts.  Morning lunches need to be packed.  Waking up, everyday at the same time so no one is late needs to be enforced so the day runs smoothly.  The laying out of clothes the night before begins.  The, "But we always have waffles on Wednesday mornings" becomes the standard.  Kisses at the door in order.  Someone jumps on a school bus while the other takes a car to the office.  The day is divided up into an timed ordered fashion.  Who picks up who? What after school activity is it we are headed to today?  Its Thursday so its meatloaf night has been cemented into our consciousness.  Homework before TV.  DAD'S HOME! Dinner gets served.  "Eat your peas" gets stated at least once a week.  Kisses before bed.  Lights out and dishes done by 9:30pm.  Everyone to bed, showered and perfumed.  And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  

Everyday....just the same....all the time....routine....sameness....exactness.

But "stray from the path just a little" (that's for my LOTR fans)...
And then frustration creeps in.  Something begins to change inside of the relationship.  Routine is a funny thing.  In most cases it brings a sense of order and security.  Knowing what to do when and how makes most people feel good because it takes the guessing and uncertainty out of things.  People who are fans of order and steps LOVE the concept of routine.  But as humans are we really supposed to follow routines?  In a relationship a routine can be helpful but a strangeness comes upon the relationship.

Routine becomes...

Boring

Because as the relationship grows, just as an adolescent grows up into double digits a chemical reaction begins within that child's body.  That reaction breaks the body of its routine and things start to change.  When we speak of children we call this "Puberty".  Now, rebellion, the concept of freedom, the idea that "I'm not a kid anymore so you can't tell me what to do" sets in.  The physical body dramatically changes too.  In the relationship there are drastic differences that begin.  But here we are dealing with two people existing in this teenage relationship.  Now independence is struggled for.  Now eye-rolling and tuning each other out happens more often than it should.

On the great side, sex becomes more adventurous and even more fun to some degree.  A woman feels more secure in the relationship so she may be more open to try new things.  The man is running on sex-drive speed so he's open to getting it whenever and wherever...just like a teenager lol.  But blemishes come with growing up.  Now the teenager discovers girls...or boys....and starts looking around.  Now everywhere they look there are opportunities and experiences.  So much is going on inside of the teenager.  Do they follow these urges?  Or do they practice self-control and learn to just deal with it?  Do they become the rebel and turn their back on everyone and run in different directions? Or do they stay the course?  The relationship suffers the same questions.  I've been with you for a while...we've grown together in many ways....we have so many memories...but now....maybe I'm feeling different.  Now the routine we've been following is not as exciting as it used to be.  Now, the routine means we schedule everything and I don't want to live a life where someone has my day to day doings up on some dry erase board in the kitchen.  Maybe today I wanna do something different.  Maybe today I need more excitement.  Maybe today I want something amazing to happen.  Something.  Anything.

This is a precarious place for any relationship.  After all....remember its two people here...not just one teenager.  This "teenager" relationship is starting to question itself.  If they push through it...adulthood is on the horizon.  When comparing age with numbers I think this can be true of the couple that's together 15 months or 15 years.  Of course the latter would have more to loose wouldn't they? But essentially this "puberty" of the relationship is hard none the less.  Do we blame the routine?  I dare say, yes, to some degree.  I think as women the routine equates to safety with us.  It means to us, "I've settled him down, he's here to stay".  But does he really want to be "settled"?  And if he does, will he feel like that always?  I hate the phrase, "Settling Down".  It's a horrible phrase to use in relationships.  It feels like "tethered down" or "broken down" or "forced into/broken into submission".  We need to find a new phrase.  Because teenagers hate the concept of being forced to do anything.  And if you push someone too hard...they'll run...as fast as they can.  Far, Far Away.  That's what we do when we are teenagers...it almost can't be helped.  The romances of an actual teen relationship are also deep and dramatic and soap-operaesque.  "Teen" relationships (for adults) can be just as dramatic and wild.  Many people in relationships reach "teen status" and it dissolves.  The pulling of strong chemical changes within the body of that relationship pull it apart.  The routine begins to be resented and someone begins to bail looking for spontaneity.

But what about those relationships that keep going.  They make it out of that wild confusing time and make it to adulthood.  Now marriage and/or future begin to be discussed and the couple embarks on a different journey.  If the couple was actually married and came out of the transitions their "teen" relationship encountered they probably are deep into their routined life.  Hopefully it remains strong and continues to blossom.

 But what about people like my friend?

What happened in the 20's?  Well, think about your twenties.  You are legal baby! You can drink, go clubbing, live on your own, invest, get bank loans, get credit cards, travel without parental consent...you are all grown up.  Now, no one can tell you what to do.  No one has a hold on what you do with your life.  You are your own maker.  In a relationship this "adult" relationship changes once more.  The sense of adult entitlement has crept in.  "Why does she always have to tell me what to wear?  I'm an adult. Who does she think she is, my mother?" Or how about "Man I miss being single and doing all that stuff I used to do".  I've also heard married people say, "He's so boring and doesn't like to do anything!"  Debts begin to accrue - emotional and financial.  Things change.  But the routine is so in place and the things we've become "used to" are so ingrained that you'll hear things like, "That didn't bother you before!" or "But we've always done..."

All this thought about how the relationship changes is not meant to be linked to the literal age of the relationship...I hope by now you can guess how this is a metaphor for what takes place in different stages of relationships and not the chronological and/or numerical age of the relationship.

It just makes me wonder if the routine we embraced and needed at one point of the relationship created the environment where boredom was bred.  What if what makes a man want to leave a wife of 24 years happened because he just got bored?  Not necessarily of her...but of the routine.  Yes, the female inside of me is yelling at me saying, "THAT IS NO EXCUSE".  And I wholeheartedly agree.  What about love? What about commitment? What about honoring your words and your promises?

Removing all those questions can't you see how perhaps routine and sameness bred a place that became stagnant and unchanging?  Anything that is stagnant can become suffocating.  A dark muddy puddle of gross water.  There is no air...and no escape.  What if someone spoke up and said, "I just need to go back to the place when this was about fun and laughter and not bills, soccer on Thursdays and mowing the lawn every other week happens."  What if women still dressed up occasionally and wore sexy things every now and then like you did in the beginning?  What if a guy showered and shaved and bought stupid flowers and took you out dancing on a Tuesday? What if we tried to keep things fresh and new?  As best we could.  Is it practical to ask these questions? I mean I get that growing up means taking on things like "responsibility" and all that crap.  It means you pay bills and have rents and mortgages and blah freakin blah...I get that.  But when did responsibility and routine translate to boredom and sameness?  Does it HAVE to be that way?  Does it? Well...DOES IT???

I am a realist, I know that even with the best of intentions things can still fall apart.  What's that famous saying..."The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Ultimately it takes work.

Hard work. Keeping two people together through the "growth spurts" of life is hard.  There is no exact recipe.  There is no "right way".  And that thought terrifies me.  I am not married.  Looking around, there are not many good examples of married people in my life.  Unfortunately marriage is just not looking as appealing as it did a few years ago to me.  But I still want it.  I still hope for having that one person grow old with me.  I still believe deep down in my heart that it CAN happen.

I just can't shake that terrifying fear that after you invest so much of your heart...dammit and your freakin life... into someone...they grow up....and grow away...and want someone or something more exciting than you.  You can't spare yourself from that possibility. You can't save yourself from that.  It might happen even if you are the one on the side of the relationship that thinks things are great! Shit, it might happen even if you think you have done all the "right" things!

I weep for my friend.

Her body is frail now.  She looks sad.  She is thin and weak.  A breeze might knock her over.  She looks like a woman who has lost her love.  And she did.  She misses their routine...and he is running from it like a mad man.  He refuses to return home.  She can't understand why.  I think because he's tired of the routine.  He's become a different person.  That's not her fault.  She is not to blame.  No one deserves being deceived in such a manner.  But can a person who is ready to be that "adult" in the relationship, who is diligent and committed, be with a person who is longing for a "teen" approach to their life?

I don't think so.

I worry about her future.  I know she is scared.  After so long with the same one person how or why would you even conceive of being with another?  Its like starting your life all over again.

To my married or "in a relationship" readers all I can say is that I pray you hear my words.  That you rethink the routine.  I mean it couldn't hurt to try.  Try going back.  Back to the time when you had no routines and things were fun.  Remind each other why you got together in the first place.  Be the "new" he or she is looking for.  I mean after some time we all want a new pair of shoes....a newer car....a newer house....yes, I am aware that these are things...not people.....I realize that people matter more than those things.  But can't you see what I am saying?  Can't you see that being the "new" means you are always fresh always exciting.  I don't know if that will save anyone.  Or save a relationship broken apart.

All I'm saying is that through constant prayer for yourself and for you partner and the occasional breaking of your routine....well....maybe, just maybe it might do something....

New

As for me...here's hoping.