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Excerpt Chapter 3You're Absolutely Perfect - Now ChangeStrategy #3: Focus on Being the Right PersonAs a young girl one of my favorite activities was playing board games with the kids in the neighborhood. We loved all the popular ones--Monopoly, Parcheesi, and Risk--and we played for hours in my neighbor's basement. Then as we entered pre-adolescence, our favorite game was Barbie. Feeling a special kinship with this character because of my name, I imagined my future self as Barbie. I would have long flowing hair, a pencil-thin waist, an exaggerated chest and, of course, the perfect man in my arms. In the Barbie game, we played to win a date with the man of our dreams. We would fight over who would get Ken, who was always first choice or Skip, a close second. None of us wanted Pointexter. He sounded and looked like a nerd, and no girl wanted to be married to a nerd, although I now am convinced that nerds like Bill Gates control the world. While I can call it a ridiculous game from my past, looking for Barbie or looking for Ken is not as uncommon as it may sound. Most people form a mental image of what they want in a spouse from an early age. Is that true for you? I always had envisioned myself with a tall, handsome, Harvard-educated businessman, complete with an outgoing personality and lots of charm. If I closed my eyes, I could picture exactly how he would look and act in imaginary love scenes staged on a large open staircase in a beautiful mansion. I think my romantic setting was from Gone with the Wind. But, the man I met was more like Pointexter. Charlie worked as a computer operator, not a CEO. He had a high school education, not a Ph.D. He was very shy, not Rhett Butler. While I knew that he was the right one for me, he did not fit the image that I had constructed over so many years. Of course, I didn't have exactly the pencil thin waist and large chest that fit the Barbie image either. Fantasy and reality can often be very far apart. This became obvious when we traveled across the United States shortly after getting married. We decided to take a van road trip for six weeks and see the Western States. Traveling a total of 6324 miles, we journeyed through the Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, California, Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska. As this was a trip of a lifetime, we agreed to keep a daily journal of our travels and the sites we saw. Each night, we both wrote a paragraph or two on the day's events and any noteworthy details, with Charlie also writing down the van mileage, definitely a guy thing. The entries began innocently enough with glowing descriptions of the Mississippi River and the beauty of the Badlands. We no sooner got to the Black Hills, however, and the record began to offer a glimpse into what really was happening. "We ran out of film at Mt. Rushmore and Charlie lost the extra roll." "We bought insect repellent and a thermos but Barb left them at the wayside." "Charlie keeps taking pictures when I move. They all will be blurry." "Barb is getting testy from sleeping in the van." "Charlie is always hungry." "Barb never wants to stop." You get the picture. We quickly discovered that the journaling reflected our irritation with our traveling companion. Two weeks into the trip, I screamed at Charlie: "You are absolutely perfect, now change." He just stared at me and then quickly ran to write a journal entry. I know, I know, trips are like that. My mother and her husband once went on a trip with their very best friends of over 25 years only to return in stony silence. They never spent time with these friends again. This is exactly the point. Marriage is a trip, a journey. And it is highly unlikely that your spouse will pass the microscopic scrutiny that occurs after six weeks in a Chevy van or after five years in a one-bedroom apartment. He or she certainly will not fit the vision of your perfect mate. No one is that perfect. By the way, I recently found our trip journal in the back of a bookshelf. Everything that we wrote about each other is still true. MythInformation #15 -- Marriage Should Be Like the Honeymoon
This clash between dreams and reality is a major factor in "The Honeymoon is Over" syndrome that I frequently see in counseling. Within a year or two of marriage, couples find that the day-to-day management of a house, career, and family differs tremendously from the excitement and energy of a relationship in its early phases. The illusion of the perfect spouse first fractures and then crumbles to a heap on the floor next to the dirty clothes. One's partner does not look so great in the morning and seems to have acquired thousands of annoying little habits that are certain to test anyone?s sanity. Spouses complain that their counterparts do not do things the right way, i.e. their way. Some express befuddlement as to what they saw in this person in the first place. As one young wife put it: "I had no idea that passing gas was so important to men!" As the relationship settles into a routine, it is both what one wants in marriage -- stability -- and what one does not want -- boredom. When days are very bad, clients may wonder whether life would be easier or more exciting with someone else. Couples are hesitant to discuss these feelings, worried that their spouses will feel angry or hurt. What they do not realize is that one's partner probably feels the same way. Ironically, talking about feelings would help them reconnect and rekindle intimacy, but such discussions are difficult. The couple does not understand yet that mature love not only means accepting one's partner's imperfections, but actually embracing and enjoying each other's differences -- as the French say, viva la difference. |
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