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It has come to my attention that something I wrote a few posts back could be seen as being less than complimentary to my friend Russ and something he revealed about his past.  If you go back to his original 20/20 Hindsight post you’ll see where he talks about having been too patient with problem situations in his marriage.  Then, on January 15th in my Diverting Divorce post I made some observations that could be construed as making an unfavorable comparrison between the way Russ dealt with his relationship issues and the way I dealt with mine.  Someone pointed out to me that I almost appeared to be elevating myself at his expense.

This was NEVER my intent and completely contrary to the deep regard I have for Russ based on 30 years of friendship.  I wanted to go on public record that if anyone felt that I was making such a one sided comparison that it only appeared as such and was due to a poor choice of wording on my part rather than any intent.  I Hope this clears things up for everyone – we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Be well

Bill

Good day gentlemen!  Hope this finds everyone doing relatively well.

Well, as promised on Tuesday I am going to continue in the same basic vein as I was in on that days post.  Remember that these are just some common trends I’ve seen demonstrated by guys I’ve known in their relationships (as well as by myself, but let’s not talk about THAT! ~:?))  So anyway – here goes:

5.         All Work and No Play:  Yeah . . . YOU know who you are!!  Some of us men tend to get pretty wrapped up in our work worlds, even to the exclusion of family and friends.  We tend to tell ourselves (and sincerely believe it!) that we are doing it all to provide for our wives and children.  But, you know, turns out that as nice as all the “stuff” is they would really much prefer to just have YOU.  Now make no mistake – they’ll focus on the stuff and the money and even get pretty greedy about it.  But isn’t that the message we’re sending them?  That working to get “stuff” is more important that our relationships with each other in the family?  Food for thought eh?

6.         Romancing the Drone:  Remember back when you were still wooing your wife?  Roses? candy? Perfume? Nice Dinners?  Romantic getaways?  So are you still doing those things?  If so then please break your arm patting yourself on the back because it’s a really difficult habit  to maintain as time goes by.  But if your idea of romance has been reduced to a box of cheap candy on Valentine’s day . . . well then maybe it’s time to renew those old fires.  I realize that your wife may be pretty cold and distant right now (in part because of the lack of romance) but if you really WANT to make the marriage work, and you’re dealing with the other issues, then reviving the romance might be an excellent place to start.  Get a babysitter for the kids, get dressed up and take her to a NICE restaurant, or a play or movie or whatever would mean a lot to her.  Pretend you are trying to woo her like you did back then – because you are!

7.         Wrong? . . . Who, ME!?!:  Part of resolving conflict is admitting when you’ve made a mistake or when your actions have caused hurt.  It is sometimes necessary to swallow your pride, wash it down with some crow and start working on patching things back up.  Of course we all have a natural human tendency to deny any wrong doing or defend our actions no matter what.  Ever met someone like that?  Seems like no matter what they can’t accept responsibility or ownership for themselves or their actions?   Always a good thing to do a self check on this one as conflict in a marriage just seems to draw this out of us. 

8.         Right? . . . Who, ME!?!:  yep – this is the opposite of number “7” above; isn’t it just so much easier sometimes to accept all the blame?  Been guilty of this one a time or two myself (as well as “7” oddly enough!).  Yes, it does cut down on argument and keeps things from escalating.  But just like never admitting you are wrong kills the conflict resolution process so does taking on all of the fault.  It is self demeaning and robs the other party of the opportunity to take responsibility for their share in the marital problems.

These eight tendencies are just a few of the more common trends, the point here hasn’t been to provide an exhaustive list but one that gets us all thinking about the kinds of issues or tendencies we might be bringing to the marriage.  In the end it all boils down to your willingness to take a long, hard and brutally honest look at yourself (not her – YOU!) and then start working on THOSE issues.  I know that isn’t nearly as satisfying as expecting HER to change but that’s not something you have much power over.  The only person you can change is yourself and once you start to make some positive changes then hopefully she will to.  If not . . . well that’s a subject for another post.

I hope this was helpful – always open to other thoughts and ideas and input.

Be well!

Bill