Resolution #6 Update: Irresistible Force Fail

Suffice it to say that marriage is the great equalizer. Just when you think you're capable and competent, marriage comes along an works you over with all the subtlety of a snow plow attached to the front of a rocket sled. You both come into the marriage with different perspectives, a different upbringing and different issues and problems. You also bring different gifts and qualities. It is a mixed bag. Sometimes a scared and pissed off cat gets thrown into that same bag. You get the idea. Ah yes, and there is fighting in marriage. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either visiting our planet temporarily or drugged most of the time. This blog is meant to highlight both my progress and failure. For me, these are consistently unequal stacks, with the latter being at least twice as high as the former.

This weekend was no exception. I got bent out of shape over a misinterpretation of something my wife said (this is not uncommon in marriage, as husband and wife regularly speak two different languages. Wife = english (e.g., "I just need you to understand me."); Husband = Hulkspeak (e.g., "Hulk no understand.")). Invariably, this can lead to some amount of trouble. Unfortunately, for my wife, this oft lack of understanding is also combined with plain dumb anger. I get something into my head and I'm like a lumbering ox running at wall. I'm gonna get through it no matter what. I want to win. I want to be victorious in our argument, but I do it with all the gentleness of piano being dropped out of a 10 story window. Instead of taking the time to ask questions or to take "time out" to cool off, I can fly off the handle and say things I don't mean. Later, after I've calmed down (which typically involves food), she tells me, "I didn't mean what you think I meant.  And just like Hulk's alter ego, Bruce Banner, I can actually understand english when I calm down. So, I hug my wife and tell her that I'm sorry. I take the time to hear her out and we talk. And it's good. We spend the evening together walking and talking about life and I remember everything that I cherish about her. Okay, so I joke about the stupidity (partially, at least) on the part of husbands. Society portrays us that way, probably because we tend to do some pretty hairbrained things. But I don't think most of us are dumb. We're just prideful, stubborn and tend to rush in head first, but the truth is that we are designed to initiate and that means to initiate good things in our marriages rather than react. We are called to gently lead and to love our wives. Now that's masculine, not dumb. Hulk love wife.

Marriage Update: Forecast Calls For Spouse Who Will Obsess About Weather

I grew up with a father who was obsessed (and still is) about the weather. I remember that if there was any forecast of inclement weather, my dad would open the front door and look outside to see if it had started yet. He'd open the door and see the snow coming down and say, "Wow." While my mother was working in the evening, my brother and would regularly sit there at dinner and watch my dad get up and go to the door to check. So, guess what? I'm now the same guy. With the forecast of an impending blizzard, it's just about all I can think about. I've been through some bad ones, too. I recall the Blizzard of '79, when we sledded off the roof of our house and our shed collapsed under the weight of the snow. Think I'm just fascinated by its power. It's the whole "Don't mess with God" mentality. No matter what man builds, there's no stopping an angry storm, tsunami, hurricane, ice storm, etc. Well, aside from this grand respect for God's power, my wife thinks I'm a RWF (Ridiculous Weather Freak). With this new blizzard forecast, I talk about precautions we need to take, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. I just don't want to have to trudge to the grocery store in the snow, so I say, "We need extra groceries." She thinks I'm trying to purchase MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) from the military and hole up in our basement with a space heater. I ask her where the snow shovel is so we don't have to hunt for it. "Is it in storage?" I ask. "Don't worry," she says. She thinks the storm will peter out and we'll get a few inches. I think it will be Snowmageddon. This is just another wonderful example of opposites attracting. I'm convinced it's God's way of letting people know that He likes to be entertained.

So, the running bet between me and my wife is that if we get more than a foot of snow, she has to address me as "Weather Guru" for a full day. If I lose, and we get less than a foot, I have to say, "I tend to exaggerate when it comes to weather," whenever she tells me to say it. Ah yes, the significant milestones in marriage. Apparently, major (or minor) weather events mark some of them in ours.

Resolution #4: Update - Losing Some Traction

Prior to getting married, I learned how to make some, how should I say it? Dietary adjustments. At least once every couple of weeks, my dinner plans amounted to calling one of the local nuclear waste dumps diners to order a full slab of bbq'd ribs splattered on a bevy of french fries. It would come to my home, delivered of course, because walking into the actual restaurant takes energy. I would plant myself in front of the TV and consume in 15 minutes what it take the average human 2.3 days to accomplish. Needless to say, this is not very good for your waistline or your esophagus. I think the term is "extreme duress."

Well, with the combination of a change in eating habits (rather than dieting) and the quad-exploding P90X DVD series, I was able to slough off 25 lbs and pretty much keep it off for the past year and-a-half. Granted, I know people who can drop 10 lbs just by thinking about it, but for most of us, it's a struggle. The consumption of smaller meals and healthier snacks and actually eating slower really helped, but it was cooking at home that made all the difference. I got to see what went into my meals rather than just cramming it all in without knowing that a carton of butter was deployed somewhere in the process. Well, my resolution to step up my fitness level this year has been sidelined by a very busy schedule. I'm still on my quest to 100 pushups, but that number still seems very far away. I'm trying to cook more, but our weekends have umpteen social obligations, so we spend a fair amount eating out. So, the button on my pants isn't gonna fly off and careen off someone's eye anytime soon, but I feel the ever-so-slight slippage on the discipline scale (get it, scale?). I've got to get back in the game. First it's, "I can eat this half a bag of potato chips. I'm still thin." And then, before you know it, it's "Is this door frame shrinking?" We all get in ruts now and then, but as long as we keep trying, it's a winning game.

You Got Your Chocolate In My Peanut Butter!

What comes to my mind when I think of marriage? Old TV commercials. Let me explain. Did you ever see the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercials in the 80s... the one where two people are heading toward each other around a corner, one is eating a chocolate bar (normal), the other is noshing on a jar of peanut butter (not normal) and they collide (well, at least their desserts of choice do). "Hey, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" "You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!" (Keep in mind, the writers of this commercial might have had some leanings toward the food/sex combo). Then, they take a bite and realize it's perfect. The commercial ends with, "Two great tastes that taste great together." So idyllic. The truth of it is that marriage is kind of like that. You bring new things to the other person's life. My wife does that for me, in more ways than I can count. But you also bring the junk that everyone has from years of growing up in dysfunctional and nutty families. It's like the saliva on the chocolate bar and on the peanut butter spoon that never gets mentioned in the commercial. "You got your chocolate AND your disgusting glob of spit in my peanut butter! Blecchhhh!"

That stuff is all true, but it doesn't mean that the combination of two very different people can't be wonderful and transformative. But, do two people come together and magically turn into beautiful and sweet people who coalesce perfectly after the wedding day? Does Oprah have to think about whether or not she can afford to buy a 2nd Frappuccino? About 85.7% of the time, I clamor after my own needs. I want her (not Oprah, my wife) to think about me. I want her to be mindful of my needs and, yes, I even want her to read my mind (my friends will say that this is because I am metro-sexual, and I will get violently defensive after making sure my hair has enough product in it). Then, I throw in all of my expectations of her on top of that. Stuff from my childhood, ways I learned how to do things, ways my family did things. Frankly, it's a pretty big hill to climb, and rather than making that hill flatter and flatter for my wife, I expect her to climb it with flip flops and no rope.

It's not often that I realize that I can be a pretty tough person to live with. It is always easier to fault find than it is to self-examine. That's why everyone thinks he or she is a good driver. I also think I'm easy to get along with most of the time. My wife is an amazing person, I and it's all too often that I forget that she is uniquely made, a different person from me. She is wonderful in ways that I could not possibly be. She is hilarious in ways I never think of, She is organized and good with information that I don't even think of processing. She is a great planner, financially, for our extensive vacations and for the future ("No, cable TV is probably not good for us. Let's buy some books on things we want to learn about."). She is also sweet and selfless and typically surprises me in new ways all the time ("Look, honey. I bought you that $10 issue of Car Magazine!"). These are just some examples. I married her not because I thought she would make me happy or because I thought she'd fulfill all my needs. I married her because she is my best friend and because she brings beauty and goodness to my life that I could not find in myself. She made me see things as I needed to see them. Perhaps that process has only just begun. Now, where's my peanut butter?

Resolution #6:  I will strive to place my wife's needs above my own, each and every day. I will take the time each week to sit down and listen to her, rather than talking to her.

Resolution #3 Update: Train vs. Car

Let's get this out there. I love driving. I started drawing cars on dot matrix printing paper that my dad brought home when I was probably three years old. Speed Racer was my favorite show as a kid. I study new cars and their specifications, performance, pricing and features every year. I read Automobile Magazine cover-to-cover each month, and I take my wife to the Chicago Auto Show every Valentine's Day (yes, romance is not dead). I love cars. I really do.

So, my recent decision to take the Metra to work has been somewhat emasculating. I don't get to row through the gears, punch the gas or hit an apex on a turn, anymore. I hop on the train with the other four hundred lemmings on the 7:20 each morning with my coffee, my iPod and my Evo 4G. It's disheartening, but oddly quite convenient. It takes me probably 45 minutes door-to-door and driving takes about as long. But with the insane construction on Lower Wacker these days, which probably adds another 15 minutes, along with the risk of blowing a flat tire and getting yelled at (again) by a construction worker for driving 17 mph instead of 15, it no longer seems worth it. Plus, you can't exactly exhibit road rage while on a train ("Go faster, dammit!), so it helps me with my resolution. I have time to read, time to think about life, time to figure out how to be a better man. Frankly, it calms my nerves. So, I guess we both benefit--me, and the general public, I mean. We'll see how this train thing goes over the next several weeks. Just don't let me turn into one of those people who has to have my seat and has to be the first one out the door. Road rage in the car is fairly anonymous. Train rage can be somewhat public.

Anger Management

Slow and incompetent drivers anger me. People who park their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store anger me. People who don't say "please" and "thank you" anger me. Clearly, I have a problem with anger. As I talk to more and more of my guy friends, I find that although they don't succumb to the same acute version of anger with which I am plagued, they do find themselves struggling with anger issues. Most of the time, I'm okay. But when I'm in the car of when I'm dealing with the general public or having an argument with my poor wife, I genuinely have to grapple with my anger problems. I think some of it stems from issues of control, having to deal with things I cannot control (like traffic and, uh, generally other people).

I don't want to pass this on to my kids, and I don't like what it does to me. It causes me to be preoccupied with minor things rather than focusing on caring for others, showing kindness and love at every opportunity and making the concept of grace a reality in my life. Geez, sometimes I relish my anger. What's that about? Perhaps it is a feeling of power and control, when really there is no power or control to be had. Granted, there are times to be angry. When there is injustice or the innocent are being harmed. There is righteous anger, but those times are rare and should be chosen carefully. Like Bruce Lee, learn to be calm 99% of the time. The other 1%, watch out.

Resolution #5: I will strive this year to process my anger issues in an educated fashion and strive daily to renew my perspective. I will show kindness and grace intentionally when and where I can.

Resolution #1 Update: Man Time

So I previously wrote about my commitment to keep in touch with my closest guy friends via phone or face-to-face. One of my closer friends, Michael, is a former Major in the Marine Corps, loves cigars, motorcycles, cars, good Scotch. You get the idea. He's a man's man. He's married with three kids, so he likes to engage in the manly stuff now and then and we get to ride motorcycles, shoot guns and smoke stogies when we meet up. But he's in South Carolina and I'm in Chicago, so other than a visit or two during the year, we talk on the phone. Keep in mind, I don't really like to talk on the phone that much (even though I am quite the wordy one in person). But for some reason, I find myself calling Michael disproportionately often, compared to anyone else. Driving home from work, I'll ring him up to chat about the Ferrari I'm trying to catch up to or the next watch I'm trying to procure for my small collection. We don't necessarily communicate any deep things, but we do chat for 10-15 minutes at a time. My wife thinks I have a man-crush on Michael, but I deny it (at least to her face). Heck, the guy likes the same things as I do (except he truly is not much of a talker). I have begun to actually worry that I'm calling him too much, that he may find me high-maintenance. It's like Jerry Seinfeld and Keith Hernandez, to my everlasting shame.

So, in my quest to maintain my resolution to keep in touch with my friends, I may have gone off the deep end this week. I think I called Michael three times. Geez, what is wrong with me. I'll find excuses to call him, like, "Ooh, I need to ask Michael what he thinks of the last Gear Patrol article I wrote." Maybe another resolution should be to stop annoying my friends.