Wow this year is flying by… I am it is only 2 months until we journey to the mythical land of GSA (greed, sex and alcohol) – yes, I mean Las Vegas.
In two short months my youngest will be 21 years of age. I just can not believe it. Heck, in 8 days The hubby and I will have been married for 22 years. I can hardly believe that either.
These are my revelations about Marriage
I think the most important concept of marriage any relationship is communication which encompasses two actions.
1. Clearly getting the information, your points or ideas, and feelings across.
2. Listening to what your partner is saying – not just listening to the words but trying to understand what was intended.
Without this freedom to express yourself and the assurance of your partner listening, you start to keep secrets; feelings, ideas, and actions. If you can’t talk to your partner about the things that are bothering you, then you find someone else to talk to. You start to do things and hope they don’t find out. In effect you put a wedge in your relationship that will widen as you go.
Nostalgia:
We came from two different backgrounds.
My family was loud, boisterous and ethnic. We all talked at once, passionately, waving our hands around in the kitchens. Everything we did was over the top and full of fire.
His family was quiet, reserved and polite. The house was immaculate and they took turns talking (This is what left such an impression on me. – you start to talk and suddenly everyone is looking at you. Talk about a shock.)
Our first real fight.I had fixed a dinner of lemon pork chops, fried potatoes and a salad and he was late. The food went into the oven to wait. As the time ticked by I started to get nervous. I turned on the radio to hear about a 20 car pile up on his route home and the nervousness turned to fear.
When I heard him climbing the stairs I was soooo happy and rushed to his side.
After a giant hug, the glad-to-see-him feeling died down and I asked “Where were you? What happened?”
He was working….
Concern turned to annoyance…
“You couldn’t call?”
He looked at me strangely and repeated, “I was working…”
“Next time.. Call.”
(first area of non communication – we did not resolve the issue there)
We moved passed my mounting anger and I heated his food and put it on the table.
He fiddled around letting it get cold and my anger increased.
(second area of non communication – In my family food was served HOT and you ate it then. Neither him nor his father liked Hot food and let it cool down before eating. )
Finally he took a bite of the pork chop and pushed the dish away… “I can’t eat this.”
The anger that I had been stuffing through out this entire interaction bubbled to the surface and once it started to vent there was no stopping it.
“FINE!” I said, picking up the plate and all and tossing the lot into the trash can. “Don’t”
and I locked myself in my room.
In reality – Because I had been heating it and reheating it, I kept adding lemon to try to keep the chops moist, giving the end result a very intense lemon flavor. But that is not what he said.
His response to that first fight was, “Okay note to self -don’t tell her that you don’t like something.”
My response to that fight was “Fine.. fix your own dinner!”
It took a few days to really work through the issues and we figured out it was a bunch of misunderstandings.. But that was the hard part. Getting down to the real reasons the argument got out of control and a conscious effort on both our parts to avoid those things in the future.
Gratitudes:
I am grateful for my husband and our ability to communicate. It took a lot of work and effort, sometimes there were a lot of tears and yelling but we’ve worked through it and have made it to 22 years. I love him more today then I did when I married him and I hope to have another 22 years with him.
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Riflessioni della mia Anima 