I think that my first divorce was incredibly hard on me because I never saw it coming, because she was so cold about it, and because she tore 'trust' from my chest. I guess I was mostly surprised because we didn't fight like the angry couples do in movies or on TV. Things got tight, communication slowed down, and neither one of us liked the negative tone of the marriage.
I compare that to some couples we know who call each other names, in front of their friends, and openly display the harsh edge of their relationship. I never see them hold hands or say 'sweet' things about the other. Yet, with all of that acid, they are still married. I never yelled at my ex, hit her, or abused her or her character.
So lessons learned were 1) holding in the dispute or managed-anger is very harmful to a marriage, 2) It's okay to be angry or mad at something they did, but the good marriage resolves that well, 3) and there is no perfect marriage.
This topic comes to light as I date someone else now. We really care for each other, are physically attracted to the other, and see good qualities in the other. Yet, we are so different politically, in how we deal with stress, and our general outlook on life. She can drive me to the edge of the dating cliff and, just before I fall over, we return (sometimes with effort) to a good place. That is so tiring sometimes.
What is normal? I don't want Lucy and Ricky, but I don't want Al Bundy's marriage either. I'm twisted. How much do real couples, healthy marriages, go back and forth? I wish I knew.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
It's My Mantality
I heard a new phrase. In describing the guy who came to an agreement about the large purchase he and the wife decided on, was sent to the store alone to get it, and came back with bigger (and might I add, Better) item. I came away with, "it's his MANtality".
Mantality: The mental reasoning taking place inside the head of a man.
Love it and proud of it! Sure, it will get me into trouble sometimes, but men have a certain way of thinking that women don't. It's by design! It's the yin and yang thing. It's the turbocharger in the brain that gets us from a complacent 'Yes, dear' to 5 foot flames coming out of the fire pit because someone dared you lower a Dixie cup of fuel into the burning pit.
I am a father who sensitive to the missing maternal factor in his own home. When little Adam and Eve need something, I work to provide it, whether it be a cool fort or hand-sewn costumes. During Eve's young years, she would say to her mom, "I want daddy to brush my hair" because at my place, there weren't as many hair-pulling screams. I can do that maternal-edged stuff because my kids need that when I have them. But they also get the "Hey, let's drive 3 hours to a new soap box car hill where we can scream down at 30 MPH!" dad. Halloween is at my place because costumes can become living beast, worthy of long-term memories.
I value my mantality. That is what made a couple of boxes to play inside, become 14 heavy boxes sewn together to create a castle with working suspension bridge between to 7 foot climbable towers. Adam's bout with chicken pox was made much more livable when he got to stay home from school with his dad and help build it and play in it.
Mantality was needing to get the wasp nest down from the 2nd floor eaves. I pulled out my 30 year old BB gun. It worked so well that I then used the same method to knock down the one by the upstairs window. Okay, stupid idea, I know. The resulting hole in the outer pane was a natural consequence to my mantality at the moment.
My mantality is just one thing that keeps me alive and vibrant. My kids need that as a role model, of the way to be and sometimes NOT to be. They see me laugh at myself and they see me accomplish great things. One thing I am definitely proud of is that all of those parts of me make me a great dad. I just like to roll in the mud of my mantality just to keep it real.
Love it and proud of it! Sure, it will get me into trouble sometimes, but men have a certain way of thinking that women don't. It's by design! It's the yin and yang thing. It's the turbocharger in the brain that gets us from a complacent 'Yes, dear' to 5 foot flames coming out of the fire pit because someone dared you lower a Dixie cup of fuel into the burning pit.
I am a father who sensitive to the missing maternal factor in his own home. When little Adam and Eve need something, I work to provide it, whether it be a cool fort or hand-sewn costumes. During Eve's young years, she would say to her mom, "I want daddy to brush my hair" because at my place, there weren't as many hair-pulling screams. I can do that maternal-edged stuff because my kids need that when I have them. But they also get the "Hey, let's drive 3 hours to a new soap box car hill where we can scream down at 30 MPH!" dad. Halloween is at my place because costumes can become living beast, worthy of long-term memories.
I value my mantality. That is what made a couple of boxes to play inside, become 14 heavy boxes sewn together to create a castle with working suspension bridge between to 7 foot climbable towers. Adam's bout with chicken pox was made much more livable when he got to stay home from school with his dad and help build it and play in it.
Mantality was needing to get the wasp nest down from the 2nd floor eaves. I pulled out my 30 year old BB gun. It worked so well that I then used the same method to knock down the one by the upstairs window. Okay, stupid idea, I know. The resulting hole in the outer pane was a natural consequence to my mantality at the moment.
My mantality is just one thing that keeps me alive and vibrant. My kids need that as a role model, of the way to be and sometimes NOT to be. They see me laugh at myself and they see me accomplish great things. One thing I am definitely proud of is that all of those parts of me make me a great dad. I just like to roll in the mud of my mantality just to keep it real.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Natural Pick-Me-Up
At the end of the day today, I was feeling pretty blah. I didn't have a bad day, things weren't going to hell in a hand basket. But I just couldn't shake the purples. (I wouldn't qualify them as the blues, but there was definitely some off-black to them.)
I let the feelings sit in the back seat of the truck as I drove to get Adam to take him to scouts. Adam, (not his real name), is one of the best 10 year old guys on the planet. He just got his report card, all A's, and is not shy about telling me that he loves me. (So what that it's only at home. He really means it. Ha!) He's a great gamer and is very creative when he lets himself try. He loves to read and can express himself pretty damn well in writing. He's even trying to get out of the natural track of school and go to a special, advanced science and math academy next year because it will challenge him. I doubt any dad could love his son more that I love him.
So I pick him up from his mom's house and we drive off to scouts. He starts telling me about his day, the work that he is doing, and his how his favorite teacher from last year is spending fun time with him after school. As I listen, I had flashes of the young boy he used to be. He has really done well for himself, living in a world where his mom and dad have been married and divorced twice to each other. He is adjusting to having a guy date his mom and propose to her over Christmas break. I work hard to provide a healthy environment, despite the upheaval I also helped supply, and he doesn't seem to hold anything against us.
By the time we get to scouts, I realize all is pretty good again and we are laughing on our way inside. For those dads who let the negativity of a spouse's infidelity or dishonesty color everything about them during divorce, keep in mind that our kids are sponges and the soak in the good and the bad. Lead them down the high road as much as you can so that they build strenth in their own personality and self-confidence. Honesty is huge, but avoiding the nasty honest truth is the wise thing, as our kids don't need to be exposed to the crap that settled between husband and ex-spouse. The kids may learn someday down the road, but it serves no good purpose while they are still growing up in our house. Yes, a dad will sometimes take a hit from the painful actions of the spouse, but firing back with the kids in the warzone does NOBODY any good.
My Adam and Eve are my living proof that I did the right thing. They are both such bright spots in my life and I'm more grateful every day. Around them, it is pretty difficult for the periods of blah to get through.
I let the feelings sit in the back seat of the truck as I drove to get Adam to take him to scouts. Adam, (not his real name), is one of the best 10 year old guys on the planet. He just got his report card, all A's, and is not shy about telling me that he loves me. (So what that it's only at home. He really means it. Ha!) He's a great gamer and is very creative when he lets himself try. He loves to read and can express himself pretty damn well in writing. He's even trying to get out of the natural track of school and go to a special, advanced science and math academy next year because it will challenge him. I doubt any dad could love his son more that I love him.
So I pick him up from his mom's house and we drive off to scouts. He starts telling me about his day, the work that he is doing, and his how his favorite teacher from last year is spending fun time with him after school. As I listen, I had flashes of the young boy he used to be. He has really done well for himself, living in a world where his mom and dad have been married and divorced twice to each other. He is adjusting to having a guy date his mom and propose to her over Christmas break. I work hard to provide a healthy environment, despite the upheaval I also helped supply, and he doesn't seem to hold anything against us.
By the time we get to scouts, I realize all is pretty good again and we are laughing on our way inside. For those dads who let the negativity of a spouse's infidelity or dishonesty color everything about them during divorce, keep in mind that our kids are sponges and the soak in the good and the bad. Lead them down the high road as much as you can so that they build strenth in their own personality and self-confidence. Honesty is huge, but avoiding the nasty honest truth is the wise thing, as our kids don't need to be exposed to the crap that settled between husband and ex-spouse. The kids may learn someday down the road, but it serves no good purpose while they are still growing up in our house. Yes, a dad will sometimes take a hit from the painful actions of the spouse, but firing back with the kids in the warzone does NOBODY any good.
My Adam and Eve are my living proof that I did the right thing. They are both such bright spots in my life and I'm more grateful every day. Around them, it is pretty difficult for the periods of blah to get through.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Wisdom
I don't claim to be wise beyond others or have some deep understanding of the universe. Quite the contrary, I ache for discernment. Had I been more wise, I would be in a much different place today. More true that that would be to say, had I acted more wisely, based on what I already knew, I would be in a different place today.
I think that growing up with an undiagnosed learning disability made me really doubt myself and not have a self-motivated sense of achievement. Not having that confidence in myself made me more inclined to take the easy road when it was presented to me. The biggest example of that is when I married my first wife, a second time.
There were numerous issues that we didn't deal with and she left our first marriage for another person. She was never truthful about the facts behind that, not seeing what she did until our second marriage was coming to an end. I didn't have the clarity of vision to recognize that when we began to think we could get back together.
Wisdom, to me, is that extra step between what I want to be true and what I (think I) know to be true. Getting back with her the second time was great. We were very friendly. I was mentally and emotionally in a much better place as a single guy at that time, and any issues around our intimate times were so gone and so different. I wanted that to be the true picture. I knew that blatant lying to me during our separation and refusal to admit the depth of her affair would cause me to not have the same faith and trust in her. Without trust, love sits precariously on the edge of a precipice. And in time, love was pushed over the edge and we returned to the same place as before.
I hope that writing again about my past and my future will help me attain some bit of wisdom that I refused to listen to previously. There are hard choices ahead and I will need every bit of discernment that God has to share with me to make the hard choices and live with them.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Hello World!
This, the inaugural post for Pulling At The Well, is my first step back into blogging. I will be partly sharing my story, partly sharing schtuff that makes me laugh, and partly things that I find interesting.
I make every effort to post the truth. As I tell me story, there could be those who would have their own version, and I will be very up front in saying that I in no way intend to harm anyone, anyone's reputation, or embarrase them. Yet, this is MY story and I will be putting it all on the line as I reflect on certain events. I aim to remain anonymous and make up names for the people in my story so I can feel free to share whatever the hell I want.
The most important people in my world are my kids. They make me laugh and they make me always want to be a better man. I will refer to them as Adam and Eve, my only two creations. Their mother, who at one point could have been the third character in that particular garden, loves her kids greatly, but twice left our family. She and I now share custody fairly evenly and I have worked hard to make that part of my life less of a bottomless pit of despair and more of a failed test that I learned from.
If you find my blog, take a few seconds to say 'Hi'. If you are a dad, a divorced dad, or a man who has or is learning to change paths in the later part of his journey, drop me a comment. I'm looking for an online community of dads who can actively participate in dialogue that will help build up those areas we may wish to improve.
Lastly, I will not preach to anyone, as I feel so totally unworthy of that skill. But I will say that I am a Godly man and respect many of the religious beliefs. I pray that God guides me in my writing and reflection so that others may possibly learn something or gain some insight from my travels.
God bless and thanks for visiting. -Finn
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