Marriage is a rubber band—there—I said it.
And not in a “suffering the welt of a pop” kind of way.
This
is not meant to be a deep discussion of marriage. It’s born out of my own day-to-day
experience as well as the experiences of interacting in several dozen marriages
of friends and family. Some of these observations have been of ongoing successes.
Some of them have been of failures.
Ok,
I’m already treading on dangerous territory because you might infer from my
statement of “some have been failures” that I’m about to leap into a twisted
rant about the eViLs of divorce and the uNhOliNeSs of giving up on a spouse.
That
is NOT my direction. Far be it for me to determine what is best for all
marriages under all sets of circumstances. The only marriage I can speak with
any kind of authority on is my own. And even that analysis is one-sided. My
wife invariably sees things from a different perspective than I do.
Ok,
I’m tiring of the disclaimers. Infer what you want. Marriage is still a rubber
band—deal with it.
The rubber band binds us together. It is flexible (thank
God) and it smells like rubber (which is completely irrelevant).
The tension of the rubber band is caused by 1 of 3 different
scenarios:
- Spouses
are moving in opposite directions.
- One
spouse is moving away while the other stays anchored.
- A
third force (work, kids, inappropriate relationship, finances, etc.) pulls at
the band.
We are dealing with the forces of tension daily. It’s one of
the reasons that sex is such a critical part of managing the rubber band.
Whether it’s romantic and exciting or routine and boring, when we are sexually
active with our spouse it’s the only time that we put the rubber band aside for
a moment and come together. Everyone needs that tension release whether it’s
for 5 minutes or 45. If it takes you more
than 45 minutes then you aren’t doing it right.
Also, let’s define “sexually active” just for kicks. Someone
that engages in physical activity only twice a month is not, under any
circumstances, considered physically active. Similarly, if sex with your
partner occurs about as frequently as a full moon then you, my friend, are NOT
sexually ACTIVE. Get with the program!
Also, if you or your spouse always seems to be waiting for
the tension of the rubber band to
subside in order to value or enjoy the sex, you’re missing the point. You’ve
got the cart in front of the horse. Again, get with the program!
Spouses Moving in
Opposite Directions:
What’s your example?
Mine is when my wife says, “I’d really like to have my
entire family here for Thanksgiving.” My response could should be, “Okay,
honey, let’s talk about what that would look like.”
More than likely my response is more like a scene from the
move “300”—“Let them come! For in the end, we all must die just as we have lived!
On that day, I will either hold my shield or be carried upon it!”
I am a very transparent individual. You always know where
you stand with me. I don’t often hold back. I can put severe tension on that
rubber band very very quickly. I suck…
One Spouse Moving—Other
Spouse Anchored:
Maybe the anchoring isn’t a choice. Kids can anchor one
spouse while the other moves freely. Work can anchor. Finances can anchor.
Extended family can anchor. Lots of things (both good and bad) can anchor. Some
anchoring can be healthy. Some anchoring can be unhealthy.
Either way, the tension of the rubber band can be managed as
long as the freely moving spouse doesn’t pull too far away from the other. Some
pull away might be good, but stretching it to its limits for prolonged periods
of time weakens the band.
Remember, one spouse doesn’t want to maintain appropriate
routine for the kids while the other is running all over the place or doing nothing at all. This
situation can play itself out in a myriad of ways. Use your imagination…this
affects both men and women and is NOT a primarily male disposition. We all do
this in one way or another.
My example? First year of marriage my wife and I worked
different hours. I was a 9 to 5’er. She was 2 to 10. So, what? I’m supposed to
come home and wait on her for 5 hours pining away the minutes until my darling
wife returned home to my loving arms? Uh, no… I would hit the pool hall,
baseball game (we lived 2 miles from a MLB park), or favorite watering hole
with my buddies. I was always home by 10. On a good night, I was mildly buzzed.
On a not-so-good night, well……
Again, I sucked. I pulled tension on that rubber band 5 days
a week and expected our time together on the weekends to be blissful and
joyous. This was going to be great if I could just get the wife to get on board
with my plan of pretty much doing whatever the hell I wanted to all week long.
Thankfully, she never even head-faked at understanding that plan. She’s
definitely got some Spartan in her too.
Third Finger at the
Band:
This one seems to be a choice thing even when we don’t
realize we’ve made the choice or that there was ever a choice to be made.
Work pulls and pulls and pulls and financial obligation makes us accept this ever increasing pull. What I’d like to say here is that money isn’t everything and neither is work
so quit letting these things add tension to your rubber band. However, what I will say is that these things are a
reality we all have to deal with in the real world and the tension must be
compensated for by closing ranks with your spouse. As tension increases and
until tension can be diminished, two points of the triangle must come together
to avoid breakage.
The same thing applies to kids, outside activities,
organizational involvements, and other activities.
Inappropriate relationships are an entirely different animal
altogether. The devastating effect of inappropriate relationships as an influential
force on the rubber band is exacerbated by the inability of spouses to draw
closer to one another as long as one spouse allows the outside relationship to
continue. These types of relationships aren’t always sexual affairs. They can
manifest themselves in a myriad of ways.
My example is pretty vanilla so don’t get all excited. Give
me some breathing room here.
///Deep Breath…….and
breath out///
I had an affair with Skoal for the first 9 years of our
marriage. Now, in all fairness Skoal had been with me for 9 years before we got
married. What?! It was a matter of seniority. She knew I dipped when she met me
and I never promised to quit before we got married.
Let me explain why this was an inappropriate relationship
for me. It wasn’t as much that I was a tobacco user. It was that dipping was a
taboo subject for my wife.
“I promise to love,
honor, and cherish you all the days of my life, but don’t even think about
talking about my dipping tobacco because that’s all mine. You stay the hell
away from that!”
“You know I’d throw
myself in front of a bus to save you, baby, but I do not discuss my Skoal with
you, remember.”
“I would read to you
from our notebook every day if you suffered from Alzheimer’s just so I could
spend those special days with you when you remembered who I was and our life
together, but if you speak of my Skoal again I will throw a walleyed fit just
like I did last time.”
{Inappropriate relationship}
Of course, if you find yourself engaging in a better
friendship with someone other than your spouse on a regular basis (emotional
cheating) or you are boinking someone other than your spouse, that would work
as an example too.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Managing the Rubber
Band:
No secrets here. Find a way to shift when the tension
builds. Don’t try to see how far the band can stretch before it snaps. Manage
the band. Don’t let it cut off your circulation. It’s not the band's fault that your finger is purple. Manage the band. When 18 fingers are all pulling at the
band from different directions and the two of you are situated as close to one
another as you can get, that’s a good thing. That is oneness.
If your spouse is anchored for no other reason than stubbornness—unwilling
to converse and adjust and compromise—then kick them in the ass. No, I’m
serious (not physically unless you’re my wife). I mean get up in their grill
and force the issue. “You’re being a stubborn jackass and I won’t have it. Compromise
is not a one way street, dumbass.”
If your kids are pulling at the band for no other reason
than to get their way then kick their ass too while you’re in the ass-kicking
mood. Partner with your spouse and do some metaphorical ass-kicking. It can be
your new hobby that you share with one another. “If you want to take on Mom
then you gotta get through me first. I brought you into this world, and I’ll
take you OUT.” This is called “going Cosby on the kids.”
If the both of you are moving in different directions as if
you are independent souls enjoying full autonomy from one another, then just
stop it. No, I mean it. Resentment is ruthless. It will sneak in and it will
jack you up.
Remember that person you said you loved with all your heart?
You can wind up sitting with friends a few years later talking all about what a
piece of shit they are. The weird thing is that you might love them til the
very last moment and then, suddenly, when the divorce papers are filed and you
look over their demands with your attorney all the filters inside your heart
will flick off revealing what a truly horrible person they were. But you’d
grown accustomed to the immense tension on the rubber band so much so that your
finger grew callouses.
What’s the Freakin’
Goal?
I think the goal is NOT just to adjust to the tension on the
rubber band generated by life. Likewise, I do NOT think the goal is to avoid
all tension on the band. I think the goal is to work as a unit to manage the
band through all different seasons of tension with an eye toward the 65 years
we should all intend to manage this very same band.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rubber band is
much more flexible or stretchy in the first 10 years of marriage. I think that’s
a design feature. It flexes well and snaps back to its original size. It is
resilient even when we don’t think it’s all that resilient.
Don’t treat your rubber band as if you intend on replacing
it in 10 years even if you do. Likewise, don’t accept long term extremes of
tension on your band if there’s something you can do about it.
Marriage is a rubber band—there—I said it.
