Tag: marriage

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Making room for Jaden

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect Jaden’s identity

The night started out like many other Saturday nights. I was at work, night shift on Labor and Delivery, when my cell phone began to buzz in my scrub pocket. It was almost 10pm and while I was only a few hours into my twelve-hour shift, it was late for the rest of the world. Peeking into my pocket, I could see that it was daughter calling. Every Mom knows the worry that comes with a late-night phone call and I anxiously stepped off the floor to take the call.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do…. I got a text from Jaden. He said he’s been out on the streets and hasn’t eaten or slept for 3 days. He feels like he’s gonna pass out… he needs a place to lay down.”

 

Jaden was an old friend of my daughter’s. He was a child that I had a compassionate eye on and one that I held a special place in my heart for, for many years prior. I knew that Jaden had a history of trauma and he was always the kid that you saw in the absence of his parents, no matter what event was happening. Whenever I could, I tried to include him.

I remember standing up to take his picture at an event one time and he later asked my daughter why I had done so.  “I don’t know,” was her childish response. But children don’t always see the world the way a mother does. Whilst the kids seemed unfettered, my inner Momma was screaming when I saw that little boy standing up in front of the crowd, holding his certificate and not a soul was standing to capture his moment. “Because every kid needs their picture taken today!” I wanted to say. “Because every kid needs someone to stand-up for them. Every kid needs someone to be proud.” That was the answer I wanted to give, but couldn’t. Instead I blinked back the tears and smiled, “Oh I just like taking pictures… I’ll give you a copy when I get them printed…do you want to sit here?”

As the years ticked by, his situation never improved. “I think my Mom wants to adopt you,” my daughter once told him. “Hmmph… I wish she would,” the quiet little boy mumbled. And as he got older and his traumas started to become evident even to my daughter, she told him, “You know Jaden… if you ever need anything, you can always come to us.”

He was a good kid. He got good grades. He was respectful, helpful and kind. He liked to joke and had the sweetest smile that warmed my soul. But behind that smile, there was pain in his eyes. A pain that he hid well from others. I wanted so badly to rescue him, to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay. I wanted to love him like a Momma and not just in passing moments.

And then life situations happened and we lost contact with Jaden. Before that late August night, three years had passed since we had seen him last. His name would come up from time to time within our family and we wondered where he was and how he was doing.

So when that text came in, it was both an answer to prayers and a nightmare coming to fruition.

“Let him in,” I said without hesitation.

 

“Ummm… who’s going to talk to Dad?” my intuitive daughter inquired. (The fact that my husband was even still awake at this hour was a small miracle. Not to mention, that I’m the risk-taker of the family. I am the “rescuer”. My husband lives with much more caution and direct dedication to the people he calls his “own”. And he hates drama. This could be interesting.)

“Put him on the phone,” I told her.

I explained the situation to my husband, reminding him who this child was. “Bring him inside, feed him and then call me back,” were my instructions. And so they did. From inside the hospital walls, I conducted a plan. When my husband called me back, I spoke with the young man myself to confirm his situation. I explained to him that I’d have to call the police and he understood. From inside an empty patient room, I filed a police report and sent them to my home where my family and Jaden waited.

It felt like forever before my husband called me back again. And when he did, he explained that the police could find no ‘missing persons report’. “We have no recourse,” they said, “He can stay here as long as you guys are okay with it.” At this point it was almost 2 am. “Set Jaden up on the couch, put our daughter in our bed tonight and I’ll deal with this when I get home in the morning,” I told my husband. “You guys need to get some sleep.”

For the rest of my shift, my head spun.

 

Fostering was always something I was interested in. For years my husband and I talked about it and for years, my enthusiasm was met by my husband’s reluctance and caution. My husband has the most amazing ability to love that I have ever seen; but his practical concerns for his family’s safety and security and his own future, as an already not-so-young father of four, impeded him from taking that step. And yet for me, regardless of all practicality, from somewhere outside of my own self, something much bigger than me, was prompting me to take on another child- one who didn’t know the love that we had built inside our home, one who needed to catch a break, one who needed somebody who was willing to stand-up for them.

In fact, just a few weeks prior to Jaden’s surprise arrival, my husband and I had another discussion on the topic. I remember telling him, ” I respect that this is not something you are willing to do right now, but I need you to hear me… There is a drive inside of me to do this. It is strong. And I have been pushing it away and trying to ignore it for a long time now. I can’t do this without you, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep denying this feeling. I think there is someone we are supposed to save.”

 

So here I was, on an unusually quiet night in the hospital, consumed by my present situation. While I watched the monitors of new babies heart beats, my own heart was beating faster than before. A million questions and possibilities flooded my mind all at once. Was it safe to have Jaden in the house? I mean he seemed like a nice kid, but it’s been years since we’ve seen him and we know he has a long history of trauma. He is a teenager now and I have a beautiful teenage girl and a young vulnerable little boy. In my efforts to help this neglected youth, have I put my own family’s safety in jeopardy?

But then again, what if Jaden is the child I’ve been called to save? Perhaps because I’ve been ignoring those inner-promptings, the universe has decided “Look, you’re not listening to me… so here you go! Here’s your child!” My non-believing self began to wonder, if maybe, divine hands placed this child on my doorstep for a reason.

And what about my husband? Sure, he sounded understanding and cooperative in these initial moments, but what about tomorrow? What is our end game? If this is the child we are called to save, and he puts him back out, it will break me. But if I coerce him to do something he is uncomfortable with and a member of my family ends up getting hurt, it will break our marriage. All night my mind was clouded with every direction this could go. And inside those cement walls, I felt helpless as my family slept and the quiet of the night echoed my uncertainties. I turned to coworkers and asked for wisdom and prayers and I turned inward, asking for answers.

On my drive home that morning, my eyes welled with tears as I ruminated all the possibilities. In the wee hours of the morning, I had already spoken with a friend who was a social worker. They instructed me that my next step was to call Child Protective Services and to prepare an answer in the event that they asked me if we were willing to keep Jaden. Given the situation, they were sure, the case would meet criteria for “Child Neglect” and finding placement for a teen, a minority boy at that, would be a challenge to say the least. The system where we live is already inundated with kids with no homes.

So … for the first time in 20 years, I prayed. And my prayer was that the universe speak to me through my husband; that through his words and his wisdom, I would know what to do.

When I got home, I found only my daughter in the bed and I tried to prepare myself for my husband’s reaction by first talking to her.

“How did Daddy do last night?” I cautiously inquired.

“Fine,” was her nonchalant, teenage response.

“I mean how was he with Jaden? Did he seem upset?”

“No, he gave him a big hug. And when the cops had Jaden outside, while they talked to him, Daddy said “Well, maybe we’ll just adopt him.”

I stopped the joyful tears before they came and the skeptic that forever lives inside of me, silenced my celebration. My daughter, much like her like mother, is forever trying to save something or someone. And so I concluded, I must take her response with a grain of salt.

And then my husband entered and we excused our daughter. I explained to him that I had spoken with a social worker and what the next steps that we needed to take would be. I also explained a need to prepare an answer for the possibility that they asked us if we were willing to keep Jaden. “What should I tell them, if they ask?”

“What are you going to do-put him out, like everybody else?”, he responded, “There’s nothing else to do. We let him stay.”

“And what about the long-term?” I asked. “What if this isn’t just a day or two…then what?”

“Let’s do your thing” he said.

“What thing?”, the skeptic continued.

“You’ve been saying that there is someone who we’re suppose to save, maybe this is it.”

And my heart sung! But the skeptic kicked in for one last punch…”You know this is ludicrous!?” I told him. “We have a teenage daughter and this is an older, teenage boy with a bad history.”

Without being the least bit shook, he said, “I’m really not worried about it. I feel totally peaceful with him staying here.”

And there it was, the answer that I prayed for, straight from my husband’s lips and not a waver of uncertainty.

Our daughter had gone back to her own bed, our son still hadn’t awaken and Jaden was still fast asleep, mouth open on the couch. I’d later learn that he was a 6 am riser and the fact that he stayed knocked out until noon that day, confirmed his story was true, he’d been on the streets for a long time. He was tired. I told my husband that we’d have a family meeting when I woke up and I turned in to bed. As I pulled the sheets up to my neck, a single tear ran down my cheek and I looked up, “Well…that was fast.” I had my answer, now for the next step.

 

When I awoke that afternoon, so had Jaden. With my cup of coffee, I took the teen outside and we talked. I needed to know what had happened to land him here and what had happened in the years leading up to this. I needed to know if he was an unreported runaway or if he’d truly been “put-out” like he claimed. I needed to understand what I might be up against and I wondered what brought him to us. As much as I wanted to help him, I also had to consider the abilities and safety of my family.

Some things he answered honestly and easily, and others, he’d avert his eyes and say “I don’t really like to talk about it.” He was a child of trauma and the evidence of such oozed from every orifice.

By the end of our conversation, I learned that his story of abuse started as early as he could remember. That despite his lack of detail, his life, as predicted, had been riddled with abuse, neglect and loss. That he’d been fighting to not become the dysfunction that he’d been surrounded by. And that now, that fight had brought him to living on the streets. For twenty days, he walked and used his change for bus fare to reach his old familiar neighborhood where he house-hopped until he ended-up at ours. I told him that I’d do whatever I could to help him and that he was welcome to stay with us.

“You’d have to share a room with our son and it’s a small room. We have rules. And we don’t have much to offer in the way of space and fancy things…” “That’s okay”, he replied.

“But we do have a happy home and we do have fun,” I added.

“I’ll take it,” he said. And right then, I accepted Jaden as one of the family, just as he was, as my son.

I also explained to him that in order to protect us all and to do things the right way, I’d have to call CPS. He agreed to cooperate.

 

The story behind my experience with CPS is not one that I will elaborate much on, but I will say that it was both maddening and disheartening. The recommendations from CPS varied from “take him back home” to “work out an agreement with his family on your own terms” to “drop him off at the CPS office”. Instead we loved him and made him part of our home, hoping that the state would investigate, intervene and give us the graces to continue to care for him. After four days with us, Jaden was removed from our custody when his parents signed him over as a ward of the state and we were deemed “unfit” for no other reason than we did not have a foster license.

Four days … that’s it. I thought I was prepared for this foster thing. And yet we sobbed when he left.

That weekend, we used our grief as motivation and we started to prepare his room…we started to make room for Jaden.

Removing the carpet from my son’s room, the kids helped to pull the staples out of the wood floors. And my angst gave energy to my arms for polishing the floors. Boxes of belongings were packed up and sent to Goodwill to create more space. And furniture was moved around.

It became clear then, that our journey with fostering was not over, it was just beginning.

 

The first step in obtaining a foster license was to attend a mandatory 3-hour information session. In that session, they explained what would be required to obtain a license, what challenges you might encounter and the basic “do’s” and “don’ts” of foster care. To say that the information was overwhelming would be an understatement.

A typically resilient and zealous person, I sat there in silence and thought…”We can’t do this. This is too much! I’ve got four jobs and two other children-both of whom require a lot of me.”

I felt defeated and I wanted to cry. Consumed by my feelings, I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and make eye contact with my husband. For over an hour, I avoided his glance; because I was so sure he’d give me the confirmation that I didn’t want-that it was just going to be “too much” and that we were going to have to walk away. And I just didn’t want to see that same defeat in his eyes. I didn’t want to walk away but I didn’t know how we were going to do this either.

Finally, I braved the glance. I turned around and our eyes met. In a dirty state room, amongst a sea of people, a silent conversation of a lifetime took place in a few seconds between our two sets of eyes. “Defeat” wasn’t what his eyes spoke and yet he must have read the hesitancy in mine.

“We have to do this!” he said after a few silent moments, ” We are perfect for this. We have everything we need to make this work!”

And there again came the wisdom from my husband that I had prayed for. “Ok,” I said. My confidence instantly restored by his, “Let’s do this.”

Two nights a week for six weeks, we’d race home from work and after-school pick-ups to go to class. Still in our work clothes, oftentimes with our dinners in Tupperware, sitting on hard chairs in a sketchy room, in a state building in a rough end of town 40 min away from home, we’d attend 3-hour sessions on the horrors, challenges and needs of foster care. And every time my husband was energized and excited. We made friends. We learned. And we became even more impassioned to love another child.

On the last class, the instructor went around the room and asked everyone for their “one takeaway”. “I had no idea there were so many children who needed homes,” my husband offered. “I’m just really excited to be able to help some of them.” Another affirmation.

Three-hundred and seventy to be exact. Three-hundred and seventy children, the resource worker told us, who currently have no placements, no “home.”

 

As for Jaden, he maintained communication with us for the seven months it took us to meet all of the requirements to obtain a foster license-30 hours of classes, background checks and fingerprinting, home inspections and home revisions, interviews, references and applications. It wasn’t easy, but it was a journey that we continued to feel compelled to take.

By the time we finished, he was settled where he was. He was settled at his school, with his new friends and with his current foster parents. And he elected to maintain his current placement instead of coming back to us. It was hard at first, to say another good-bye to the little boy I committed to loving like my own. But Jaden’s happiness and safety was always the goal. It was never about me.

“I can never thank you guys enough for what you’ve done for me,” he said. “And you’ll always be my family. I’m ok here, I’m going to stay here. But you guys made me smile during a time in my life when I had nothing else to smile about. And I will always remember that.”

So why then did Jaden come? Why on that late August night did he knock on our door? Why did we go through all of this just for him to choose to stay somewhere else in the end?

As it turned out, Jaden wasn’t our end game. Yes, we had a hand in his reaching safety and happiness, but he wasn’t the only child we were suppose to save. As I thought about the journey that my husband took and how his reluctance turned to commitment, literally overnight, I realized, he needed a face to fight for. The idea of sacrificing for an imaginary child wasn’t in his realm of possibility; but fighting for Jaden was. I realized too, that had we known from the beginning, that Jaden wouldn’t come back, we wouldn’t have ever taken on the arduous seven month journey of getting a license. My husband’s world never would have been opened up to the great need of the children of our city, without those seven weeks of classes, without the stories and the statistics and the many, many faces like Jaden’s. And in turn, I wouldn’t have continued to fight without my husband to push me along.

Jaden wasn’t our destination, he was our catalyst – a catalyst for a journey I’d been called to take for a long time. And he was is a very special little boy, who opened up our world and pushed us to greater things. “You’ll always be family to me,” Jaden says.

You’ll always be our life-changer, Jaden.

And now with our well-earned license in hand, we wait…we wait for a placement… we wait for the universe to speak to us again and to send us the next child who needs our love- be it for four days, four months or forever.

Oh, what an adventure it is going to be… an adventure that all started when we decided to make room for Jaden.

 

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Navigating our way to a happy marriage

sailing-ship

“A successful marriage is like an elegant ship sailing through the waters and storms of life. The problem with all ships is that they get barnacles, ugly little unseen monsters that attach themselves to the bottom of the boat. Soon the vessel is stuck dead in the water-like the marriage that is going nowhere as the partners peacefully coexist. Little things, like the irritations of misunderstanding that come with wrong expectations, build up.”-Hans Finzel

 

My marriage is my most favorite expedition yet … and no one gave me a compass.

Fernando and I are often teased about our constant state of “being in love”. We don’t apologize, instead we accept it as the compliment that it is. Having both come from broken homes and given our life circumstances, it’s a small miracle that we’ve done as well as we have. But it didn’t come without a ton of hard work, sacrifice and forgiveness; no happy marriage does. Still, it can at times feel awkward with so many of our close friends’ marriages ending in divorce and still others who continue to look for their perfect match.

I’ve eluded before to the fact that the success of our relationship, while certainly a product of hard work, is also due in-part to sheer good luck. And I still maintain that stance. You might call it God’s grace and I’ll say the universe cut us a break; but sometimes science and psychology simply can’t explain why a particular circumstance was met with so much success, while others, who have what seems to be the perfect sailing conditions, end up shipwrecked. The sea of life is full of so many obstacles and weather conditions and each brings unique challenges that couples must navigate. Sometimes, despite a couple doing everything right, there are just too many stressors or differences for the marital vessel to stay afloat. With so many factors that may influence a relationship, it is impossible to truly predict its long-term success … even my own.

Nevertheless, I do believe that given the right mate – hard work, true grit, and a selfless heart are the most vital components to any marriage. And that age, money and even shared interests have much less to do with it. My husband and I have a significant age difference, grew up on different continents, in different generations and started our relationship with nothing-not even an air mattress. Be it luck, hard work or mere compatibility, the man I fell in love with fifteen years ago still very much holds my heart and he still calls me his “Queen”. We are an unlikely match who have managed to not only keep our marriage alive but to stay ridiculously in love doing it. And that is the measure of a marriage’s success … it’s not merely staying together. What good is a marriage if you’re simply tolerating one another? Life is too short to spend with the wrong person, but a marriage is certainly worth fighting for.

So I thought I’d take the opportunity to share the things that I have noticed have helped us to remain successful in our marriage. Many of these things seem to be missing in other relationships that I have seen fail, but it doesn’t account for all of them and it certainly doesn’t account for the sheer good luck that we’ve had. It’s not a simple formula or the end-all-be-all … there’s no such thing! It’s not the viral internet list that says “Never go to bed angry” and “Always kiss good night.” It’s not about how you met or the silly little rules girls in particular try to make (like “If he doesn’t propose in two years, he never will.”). Love is just not that simple. Instead, I’m sharing what I believe has helped us to not only stay afloat but to sail the rough waters of life in unison, with humor, grace and strength.

 

⇒ Take your time saying, “I do”. Fernando and I caught a lot of flack that we had been together for five years and had two children before we finally took the plunge. And certainly, other couples with a much shorter history have been beautifully successful. However, my stance is and always has been – if a person is your soul mate today, then they’ll be your soul mate in five years. Waiting for marriage won’t change that. But, if a person is deceiving you, time will usually reveal this. Allow your relationship to have that time.

Marriage is a life-long commitment. We took that commitment very seriously. Which meant waiting until we had no doubt about our decision. And by the time Fernando and I said our vows, we knew exactly who we were committing too. Making that final commitment too soon could be a painful and expensive mistake. Most of the marriages that I have seen fail, have been ones that were rushed into. Be it pressure from life circumstances, a pregnancy or simply youthful eagerness to take the next step … had they taken their time, they would have seen the fatal habits and character traits that ultimately led to the marriage’s demise. It’s a promise of a lifetime … don’t rush it.

⇑ Aside from time together, conquering life’s challenges and stressors together is another “must-do” before marriage. I’ve known couples who courted for 2 years and went to take the next step and it was a disaster. Why? Because in those 2 years they never took on any challenges together. They each lived in their own homes, their finances were stable, nobody close to them died, the seas of their lives were calm. And then suddenly, the waves started rolling in and the person they thought they knew, was someone else entirely. Stress does that to you. The five years that Fernando and I spent prior to our marriage were filled with so many challenges that by the time we said “I do”, there was no question who we were marrying. Divorce, death, poor finances, an unplanned pregnancy, working four jobs and going to school … we knew that if we could survive all of that … we could survive just about anything. You can’t plan for misfortune; but I’d be extra cautious if I was making a life commitment to someone who I’d never seen under high stress. Again, take your time!

⇐ Just like you’d never embark on a journey without studying the waters that you are about to sail upon, we too must study our partners. Take every opportunity to know them and understand them. When you understand someone, you can better attend to their needs and provide for them. My husband isn’t a talker. When he is upset, he wants to be left alone and likes to process his problems quietly before he cares to share them with me. I on the other hand, want to talk about my issues ad nauseam. This took some learning on both our parts. He had to learn how to be a listener and I had to learn how to leave him alone when he came home upset. Had we not taken the time to study one another, we might have assumed that each one processed our stress the same and we would have been grossly unsuccessful in supporting one another.

⇓ When you embark on the journey of marriage, you are co-captains. I am no one’s first mate. Together, we navigate and explore and build. If I submit to him, it is because he made the better call and on another day it will be him submitting to me because I had a better view. We are both equally responsible for the condition and path of our ship. The old-fashioned idea of “my husband is the head of the household” is often times used as a cop-out to blame him for his failings and to avoid conflict and responsibility. If my husband is making the wrong call, it is my obligation to speak up and fight for what is best. I will not let him make a fool of himself or do detriment to our family. And he too, is equally obligated to respectfully inform me when I am out-of-line.

⇒ Being co-captains means that our obligations lie in one another. As a result, some of our other relationships will suffer. It’s an unfortunate but inevitable price that a good marriage has to pay. Fernando is my best friend. And I have best girlfriends too. However, I have a lot less friends than I used to. Most of our friends are other couples and I have even fewer single friends and male friends. This is the opposite of what I had when I was single. I always hung with the guys and rarely hung-out with any couples. But now that I have a marriage to protect, the relationships I choose to hold onto must also cherish my marriage. I cannot engage in any relationship that would pose a threat to us. And so my best girlfriends are the ones who fight as hard for my marriage as I do. They’re the ones that remind me how wonderful my husband is and tell me to “take it easy” when I’m pissed off and come to them to vent. They’ll never be the ones that say, “Forget him, come drinking with us”. And my guy friends must also be good friends with my husband. If at any point one of us says, “I’m not comfortable with you hanging out with that person,” we are both obligated to comply; lest our marriage pay the price. It feels tragic at times, the relationships that have fallen by the wayside … but in order for your partner to be your number one, I think its inevitable to lose others. Being married has made me “picky” in a way that I never was before. I have a treasure that I must protect and only those who have gained both our trust are privy to it.

⇓ Marriage, like parenthood, isn’t for the selfish. It means putting another person before yourself. It means swabbing the deck and sending your partner for a well needed nap. It means preparing the dish that they like, exploring the places that they wish to see, and loving them the way they liked to be loved. And if the marriage is balanced, the other person does the same. My husband once told a friend of his, “I don’t worry about myself, all I worry about is Amanda. And I know that I’ll be fine, because it’s Amanda’s job to worry about me. All I have to do is love her the best that I can. She’ll love me in return.”

Sure, we all need to indulge ourselves here and there … a pedicure, our favorite snack. “Me” time is important and a sense of “self” and accomplishment is certainly a necessary component in life. One can not lose themselves completely in an effort to serve others. Having a profession or a hobby that provides a sense of pride and accomplishment fuels self-satisfaction which in turn fuels the relationship. But I believe that if we’ve picked the right person and we put our efforts into loving them, then we will need to do very little for ourselves; because our partner will see all that we have done for them and they will be eager to love and support us in return. If they don’t, then they aren’t the right partner. You don’t have to be compatible in all things … you have to be selfless.

⇑ And being selfless means sacrifice. It’s a leap of faith. It means doing things that make us uncomfortable because it is good for our partner and trusting that they will do the same. It means attending someone else’s work events, following through with a request even when we’re really freaking tired and giving up that thing that we’ve been saving for because another expense came up that is more important to “us”. It means working really hard for a long time and maybe not seeing results yet, but continuing to work. It means giving up your night-out with the boys because your wife is sick and overwhelmed (not because she told you not to go). And it means telling your husband to go, even when you’d rather have him home, because you know he deserves it and you can handle it.

We’ve all seen that marriage that ended because someone had an excessive buying habit for things that they enjoyed. And we’ve also seen those couples who’s spouse bought them their dream car after 25 years of wishing, because they knew that they’d never buy it for themselves. Which couple understood selfless love and sacrifice? And which couple suffered from selfish indulgence?

⇐ Along with selflessness and sacrifice comes another point that I feel very strongly about. As marriage partners, we should make every effort to say “Yes” to our partners requests – so long as it is not to the detriment of our self, our home or our family. Guys, that means letting her have a night-out with her girlfriends, so long as those girlfriends are not a disrespect to the marriage. Men need to understand the value of female camaraderie. Ladies, that means giving him sex when he asks for it … and enjoying it! Convince yourself that you’re a high paid escort if you must, but play the part. It’s simple. Keep one another happy and the marriage stays happy.

⇑ If you don’t do constant maintenance, your ship is gonna spring a leak. I think a lot of people, make the commitment and think “That’s it!” They’ve found their person and they no longer need to go through the tedious work of courting anymore. They stop suppressing their bad habits, stop wearing make-up, stop opening doors and bringing home flowers. The routine of the everyday creeps in and frozen meals replace the home cooked ones that we used to make to impress. We all get comfortable … and we should, to a degree. We shouldn’t be marrying someone who we can’t be ourselves with. And let’s be honest, we all put on a few pounds post nuptials! But we should never stop trying to impress.

Burps and farts, while an understandable part of life are still gross, even when you’re married. For the benefit of your partner, you don’t need to belt them out. And date nights are a-must, even if it’s a date night at home. Find a way to make it special. Open a bottle of wine, bring home a fancy dessert, cook a favorite meal, put on a clean shirt. Make-up, a sexy dress and some stilettos gets my husband fired up every time. And when he holds me by the small of my back and opens the car door or pours me a glass of wine without me asking … I swoon all over again.

Your viewpoint going into a marriage shouldn’t be “Shewww … now I got ‘em … now I can relax.” Or worse yet, “He/She’s lucky to have me.” It should be “How lucky I am to have this gift, how can I be sure to have it always?” Not a day of my marriage goes by that I think I am immune to its failure. There are women prettier than me, smarter than me, and kinder than me and if I thought for a second that someone wouldn’t scoop my husband up if given the opportunity, I’d be fooling myself. Possessiveness and jealousy aren’t the solution. Everyday I must strive to be the best partner for him so that his eyes never feel the desire to wander. And, if they did, if he strayed and left me anyway… he could never say that it was me, the marriage would end on my clear conscience because I gave him everything that I could.

⇐ Sticks and stones can break my bones and words can ruin a marriage. No one respects a captain who doesn’t respect his first hand. I know a few couples who would argue this point but I’m going to maintain my stance. Your spouse is to be cherished and your words should reflect that. Even if you think it’s being done in good fun, the moment you begin to disrespect one another through your word choice, is the moment your marriage begins to crumble. It may crumble very, very slowly but it inevitably will crumble. And if you manage to stay afloat anyway, congratulations! You just taught your children how to tolerate someone disrespecting them. Words can build-up or tear down. You can’t call names. You can’t tell one another to “Shut up”. You can’t make false accusations. We all have our moments and we are all human, but there must be a conscious effort to exclude these things from our homes. They’re toxic. All great feats are won by compromise and reasonable discussion, not screaming and name calling.

This was a skill that I had to learn, as my upbringing modeled all of these negative behaviors. And it required that I learn how to de-escalate and calm down before I could talk about something. It was Fernando who taught me that. Sometimes, that meant that I had to go to bed angry and once in a blue moon it meant that I had to take a drive. But when I returned, or in the morning, after some sleep and some time to process, we could reasonably talk-things-out without using hurtful words and saying things that we didn’t mean. The “I feel”s and the “I am concerned because” make for much more effective conflict resolution than the “You always” and the “F**k you”s. And it doesn’t take an expensive therapist to learn this skill either. While paid therapy is sometimes necessary and is certainly a viable option; a good couples book, the desire to improve and continual practice are oftentimes all you need to learn healthy communication.

⇑ Unlike toxic words, humor is the salve to most things. Not hurtful humor, not selfish humor or inappropriate and untimely humor … but a simple ability to laugh at ourselves when life flops a big ‘ol cod up on our deck or we find ourselves accidentally standing on the sail ropes. Mistakes happen, life happens and it helps if we don’t take them too seriously. The best couples are the ones who laugh together!

And in my bag of marriage tricks, one trick that I think few people utilize, and it works like a charm, is complimenting your partner in the presence of others. Try it! Their head will swell and they will love you for it!

 

I don’t know what the seas up-ahead have in-store for us. And I don’t know how long life will allow me to have a co-captain. But as long as he’s here, my hands will be next to his on our ship’s wheel. And together, we will fight the angry waves that come. We’ll shift our sails when the winds dictate a change in course. And we will continue to look onward towards our next adventure and our newest discovery. And with some grit and good luck, we’ll do it with grace and confidence and humor. Our course is endless and our love is our compass. The universe gave me a sailing partner and with him, I’m having the expedition of a lifetime!