How I Almost Lost My Marriage
The only reason I ever shaped up in my marriage is because I realized I was going to lose it.
After ten years together, five years married, and two very young kids, things had become quite crappy.
I didn’t intend to work on it with my life coach; I had made my peace, and had fulfilled my own expectations. I was living out the “normal” life of a modern urban “liberated” woman with kids.
But the first exercise my coach asked me to do--to write my dream for all areas of my life, including for my love life (grrrr 😾)-- showed me how far from ideal things were. Oh, and then I noticed my husband was flirting with my assistant: a woman who worked from my home, but with way perkier (and more exposed) breasts, and way more kind attention to offer my husband.
After a weak attempt to fire my coach, I took a crack at the dream for my marriage:
“Pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.” HA!
It wasn’t actually quite that corny, but it was close. It went something like this:
LOVE DREAM: We just “get” each other. We have long connected conversations and the sex is hot. What an awesome team with the kids, everything works seamlessly at home.
When my coach asked why that dream had not come true, despite years of spiritual work, therapy, and courses, I only had excuses.
He didn’t want it. He wasn’t up for talking. We had tried everything.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!
But it wasn’t enough for her to tell me I was wrong. You may be surprised at what my coach had me do next.
She told me to read the dream to my husband and find out his reaction. To see if I could coax out of him the REAL reason we didn’t have the dream.
And she was right to assume it might be hard for him to give me the answer. We had been locked into our patterns for a really long time, and we were comfortable with all our dysfunction. I think we both knew that in order to disrupt the status quo, we’d be making big changes.
Well, I bravely sat him down and read the dream to him, and he politely listened… but to get him to answer the question, “why don’t we have it,” I had to make it VERY safe. He knew, after years of getting in trouble with me for far lesser crimes than telling the truth, that I might get pissed.
I promised him–and this time, I meant it—that I would listen, and be kind, no matter what he said. I was, finally, truly curious (and accountable to my coach). And that’s when he told me.
He said: “My experience, when I am talking to you, is that I never get past a few words before you interrupt me. I know you mean no harm and you get away with it with other people, but for me it‘s like a physical assault. I cannot get my train of thinking back on track, especially since you usually interrupt to change the subject to you or something you are anxious about that my speaking has triggered. I stopped trying to talk to you years ago.”
That was a moment of truth for me. I really wanted to go defensive, but again, knowing I had to account to a coach for how the conversation went the next day gave me pause. I did pause, and that's when I realized it was true. I was never listening to my husband to grant him the honor of being heard--to hold or support him. I was listening to get the information, anxiety reduction, or entertainment I wanted, at the speed I wanted it.
How I had been behaving for years was utterly selfish, and not at all what I promised at the altar. Then other things from my life passed through my mind: other accusations of selfishness from my father, brother, coworkers. I realized he was pointing to a personality trait.
For years, I had justified that selfish trait. My excuse: I’m a tough girl, surviving in a cruel world. I painted myself as a victim having to fight for limited resources. Most of that turned out to be, on inspection, as false as the theory that I can’t stop myself from interrupting.
But because I had an image of myself as a victim, selfishness was justified. Once that theory was debunked, selfishness could also be leashed. Just because I had behaved this way up until that moment didn’t mean I had to keep behaving that way.
I remember, to this day, my head clicking into the first true apology I ever offered my husband. I completely validated what he had said, and owned my rampant interrupting. Plus, I promised to curb the habit, with a promise not to interrupt and a self-imposed consequence.
And to this day, 16 years later, I still have that promise, and if I interrupt I do one of my husband’s chores. As a selfish girl, this is not an activity I like to add to my daily schedule, and an excellent reminder to zip it when my partner in life talks.
Now, guess what happened when I started letting my husband finish his sentences? He started to talk more. And the more he talked, the more interesting it got, and the more I wanted to listen. The more I listened, the more he talked, and before I knew it, we were having the kind of intimate conversations I had always wanted to have, but didn’t know how to make happen.
Turns out I needed to do way less, and listen way more. I will be honest: it’s still hard for me to hold my tongue, especially when the topic we’re discussing seems to affect me in some way. But when I do, the results are profound.
I see my husband glow with pride that he is sharing something with me. Getting quickly to the point, as I see it, is no longer my only goal for communication.
My point is: one bad habit almost lost me my marriage, and one exercise saved my marriage. That exercise was the articulating, and sharing, of a dream. The day I admitted my dream was the day I gave up believing all my excuses, and blaming him, and got in the game to fix what wasn’t working.
In the next newsletter, I am going to talk about the purpose of your relationship. It was something I hadn’t contemplated until my coach brought it up. I think you’ll love the exercise I’m going to give you, next week, for aligning on a purpose for your union.
If you know you need a coach (or a community) to urge you into writing a dream worth sharing, and then taking the steps to make it come true, hit me up for a consultation or Join the Love-in Community.
