Friend

She was thinking about the next place the two of them could go on Date Night, as we talked about a luxury movie theatre in the area. Neither of us had been, but we had heard they serve meals there and cocktails and the seats are big, cushy recliners. I remarked how great it was, that after being married all those years, they still went on dates. It was New Year's Eve, and she told me that she and her husband met on New Year's Eve in 1966. She was 16 and went with a bunch of girlfriends to a dance at his college. He was 18. Forty-six years later, seven children and thirteen grandchildren later, here they are. Still loving each other. Still liking each other. She said, "He's my best friend."

Is there any greater compliment? It is easy to stay married; just don't get divorced. And I think that for some, no matter how unhappy they may be in a marriage, they will both admit they still love each other. But to be best friends, well now. That has to be the most wonderful thing of all.

Isn't it odd how we dismiss and minimize a member of the opposite sex by saying "We're just friends." Just. As if a friend is less than a partner or a lover. Sometimes we say we want to be more than friends, meaning we want romance and sex and a possible lifetime commitment. Don't get me wrong. These are all great things. But we tend to minimize the friendship aspect, when it is the real strength and core of any long term relationship. We have probably all known people who took a friendship to the "next level," only to later break up and never be friends again. Sad.

So she might be going to that luxury cinema, even though it's a little pricey. She might just decide to splurge. With her husband. With her kids' father. With her grandchildren's Papa. With her best friend. Who just all happen to be the same man. What a love story.

"Just a Friend" written by Biz Markie and Freddy Scott

Susan

The Thrill is Gone

We all know that we have a high divorce rate in the United States. I myself am one of those statistics, and although my seeking a divorce has moved my life forward in a very positive way, in a perfect world I would have preferred to stay married to one man for my entire life. So how do we fix this problem? Arranged marriages. Here in America, we base our marriages on something called romantic love. We marry when infatuation and sexual excitement are at a high, often not knowing or understanding our mate as we should, and then the thrill is gone. That feeling is not sustainable for the long run. We also marry without doing any due diligence, without any real counseling, because that just doesn't seem romantic. So what is the answer? Arranged marriages. Arranged marriages equal a very low divorce rate.

There is a wonderful article in today's edition of The Los Angeles Times by Mark Magnier and Tanvi Sharma. In India, where 90% of the marriages are arranged, parents more and more are using private investigators in the vetting process.

Who better to choose the perfect mate for our children than us as mothers and fathers? We know our kids very well. We have enough life experience to know what to look for, to see the red flags. We also want the very best for our adult kids. We don't want to see them hurt, taken advantage of, abused or abandoned. So the young people should just sit back and relax and let Mom and Dad take care of it. We accept applications, look at resumes, administer tests, interview, run background checks and then to allow the kids to have some sense of control, we narrow it down to maybe three finalists. Any of those three people would work for us, so we let our son or daughter choose one of those. It could be like when they are little, and it's chilly outside, so we tell them they need to wear something warm. Then we say, you can choose. Would  you like to wear your red jacket, your white hoodie or your blue sweater? Give them a choice.

So maybe it isn't romantic, not to us as Americans. Maybe at first there are no sparks that fly. But I say put them in an apartment together, and sooner or later the hormones will kick in. Chemistry is not that hard to come by. Then as they get to know each other, they will sooner or later fall "in love." The thrill is gone really sucks. How much better to start out slow, and then one day they realize that the thrill is here!

Susan

Naked

"Eros shall have naked bodies; friendship naked personalities." C. S. Lewis

On purpose I have not written much about my marriage, which I ended almost three years ago. Some of it is that my ex-husband is a good man, a great father and someone who was instrumental in my becoming the person I am today. I feel a need to express some things without painting him in a negative light, to tell some stories that don't disrespect him, and so I struggle with walking that fine line. The failure of our seventeen year marriage was as much me as it was him. After we separated, we met once a week for dinner for almost three months and did an autopsy of our relationship. That was not conducive to good digestion, believe me. Who in their right mind conducts an autopsy while eating a meal? But that's what we did. I also went to therapy because it was crucial for me to understand all the ways in which I had failed, so that I could take responsibility and be fully accountable for my part.

I remember one time midway through my marriage, I was home sick from work and had Dr. Phil on. I am not a fan of his type of psychology, but what he said that day really affected me. He spoke of allowing our partner to come in to the most intimate place of in our hearts. I had a visceral reaction. No way! No one comes in there. That place belongs to me. I guard it zealously. The idea of it really upset me, and I remember talking with a friend a few days later about it. She looked at me strangely and said, "Why wouldn't you want your husband in there? Isn't that what intimacy is all about?" Well. Yes. Of course, that is what intimacy is all about but it sounded hideous and scary and awful to me.

It's plain to see that he and I lacked trust. I didn't trust him not to hurt me. Some of that was my own baggage and some of it was his behavior, a pattern of cruel emotional and verbal abuse. I didn't trust him. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I now see that there were a number of red flags that went up before I married him, which I chose to ignore. I was physically naked with him countless times. We had sex with the lights on. When the kids weren't around I would walk around naked. When we went on vacation, just the two of us alone, I would sleep naked. I loved sex and was often the initiator.  I was not at all self-conscious being naked physically around him, but I have to ask myself was there ever a time when my personality was naked with him? Was there ever a time when I had my guard completely down? Was there ever a time I beckoned him to come into my most intimate, most secret place in my heart?

No. He was never allowed in there. I was kind and loving and generous and supportive. I did many of the things and made many of the gestures that I believed a good wife should, but my soul never, not one time, stood naked before this man. Never. This has come as a startling revelation to me here lately, as I have begun to become much more vulnerable, first here in my blog, and with other people in real life. I have become pretty bold at sharing my stories, even when they paint me in a very bad light. It is very simple really, that when I trust people and when I feel safe, I can show my naked personality. When I think about a time in the future when I might meet another man, I think I can't wait to invite him into that most intimate place in my heart. I can't wait for him to see my naked soul.

Susan

Stubborn Passion

"Tell me of the lady the poet stubborn with his passion sang us." William Butler Yeats

Last year they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. It truly was a celebration, because these two people love each other and like each other and it shows. Their marriage has passion. It was not always this way. When they had been married sixteen years, they seriously contemplated divorce. Their marriage had hit a major rough patch, and it seemed their differences were irreconciliable. But they both still loved each other and wanted to make it work. One of the factors, they frankly admit, was their daughter who was just in kindergarten. But they didn't stay together because of the child, pushing the anger and resentment down, gritting their teeth, enduring. They believed their marriage was worth saving. They sought counseling and did the very difficult work of changing, as individuals and as a couple. If you saw them today you'd never think that once they teetered on the verge of becoming another statistic. Their marriage, as they will both tell you, is better than ever.

You might say that they had this stubborn passion for one another. The passion burned brightly at the beginning of their relationship. Love was blind and sparks were flying. As the years went on, things started to go south and the flame was almost out. But they gave it oxygen and fanned the flames. It's easy to be passionate about a person when you're under the influence of infatuation, but remarkable to still be passionate about someone you've been with for half a century.

It's easy to be passionate about your relationships, your career, your hobbies, your life, when things are shiny new and exciting, and only human nature to become bored and lack motivation as time goes on. It happens to all of us.

What about you in your life? Do you have a stubborn streak? When you feel the fires of your life's passion start to go out, what do you do to fan those flames?

Susan

There's No Fool Like an Old Fool

"As one grows older, one becomes more wiser and more foolish." Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Society as a whole has become more accepting of the May-December romance. The older man/younger woman combination has been around forever, and now we see older women with younger men becoming more common. I read a tongue-in-check piece which gave a formula for determining if your May-December relationship would be socially acceptable. Take the age of the older person and divide by 2. Add 7 years. That would mean a 60-year-old man could date a woman as young as 37 without anyone getting all flustered. I think that marriages and long-term relationships are challenging at best, and if two people love each other, we should for the most part leave them to their happiness.

As we get older, we should have learned from our mistakes. With age should come wisdom. It's just smart to take to heart some of the lessons you've learned along the way and use them for your own betterment. As I've grown older, I have become more willing to take risks and to be a little reckless. Really what I have I got to lose? I am less self-conscious than I was as a younger woman, a lot less scared of someone laughing at me. I kind of like being a walking contradiction, a woman wise enough to know when to be foolish.

Susan

Beating the Odds

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

He asked her to marry him. In front of her entire family. Now that is one brave man! The wedding is set a year from now. The proposal was not a surprise. Well, the timing of it was, but they had talked at length about a future together as husband and wife.

They plan to beat the odds. It's no secret that marriages fail. I guess it's 50/50 that any given bride and groom will end up divorced. Of the half that stick it out, how many of them have happy, healthy marriages? Most leave it up to chance. They just believe that their love will carry them through the changes of life; the richer, poorer, sicker, healthier, better and worse of it.

Not this remarkable young couple. They had an issue, and they went into therapy for it together. A kind of pre-emptive strike against marital discord. Many couples seek counseling as a last-ditch effort to infuse some life back into a dead marriage. Not this remarkable young couple. I dislike gender stereotypes, but really isn't it usually the woman who wants counseling and the man who drags his feet? It says so much about this man that he was willing to do that. He said doing so was one of the best things he has done. It was brave of both of them, because therapy could have revealed that they were not right for each other. Sometimes folks in love become too determined to be together and don't want that belief challenged. They just want to go full speed ahead with wedding plans without careful reflection.

It isn't difficult to have your relationship fail. Just do nothing about it until it's too late, and there you have it: another statistic. How inspiring when good people admit they have a problem and decide to address it before it even has a chance to poison the relationship. Really, they have given themselves the best possible chance at a successful marriage. Happiness is something that should not be left to chance.

Susan

The Buck Stops Here

"The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life." Brian Tracy

A woman whose family of origin was less than stellar told me that she decided she would be the one to turn it all around, starting with herself and moving on to her own children. President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said, "The buck stops here." While it's easy to play the blame game or continue being a victim, it takes real integrity to be fully accountable for your life.

Some people, after the break up of a marriage, villify the spouse and act totally clueless about what they themselves might have done wrong in the relationship. A popular variation of this theme is the idea that you had the perfect marriage, and then the cheater cheated or the gambler gambled or the abuser abused. Please! Marriage is a two-way street, and even if one person is clearly in the wrong, the other party responds and reacts and is half of the problem. The success or failure of a marriage takes two people. As a divorced person myself, I must admit that the failure of my marriage was my personal failure. That is the starting point. Then you move on to discover what went wrong, what your specific responsibility was, what can be learned from it and so on.

We can never be truly happy until we grow up and become accountable for our own actions and attitudes.

Susan

The Path of Least Resistance

"Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him." Samuel Butler

My friend's husband asked her to do something he felt was important. She agreed, but she didn't do it because she felt it was unnecessary. Later he asked her about it, and she immediately lied. She is an honest person and not at all a good liar, so he picked up on that and pressed the matter, and she admitted she had not done it.

She was so ashamed and shocked at her behavior as she told me this story. She said, "I didn't even think about it. I just lied." She asked me what I thought about that. Well, since she asked, I told her my theory.

They have been married less than a year, still sort of on the honeymoon. They have a somewhat old-fashioned marriage where he is in charge and she is deferential. While her husband has some good qualities, he is short-tempered and tends to yell when he gets upset. She excuses this by saying he's Italian, but I'm not buying what she's selling. Now I won't go so far as to say she's afraid of him, but I did say she probably just told him what he wanted to hear to keep the peace. It's not uncommon for a volatile person to marry a peacemaker. And while sometimes the path of least resistance is the way to go, I do not recommend it for a long journey like a marriage.

Susan

Celebration

I had two wonderful Labradors. Each lived to a ripe old age. We had birthday parties for them. A gift, special treats, and a cake. Just a simple family party at home, although I know some people who invite other dogs. My first Lab would recognize the "Happy Birthday to You" song anytime she heard it, and became very joyful.

When my younger son was in junior high, he had some friends coming over, and he told them that we were having a birthday party for our dog, so of course they joined in the fun. It was very sweet to see that each one brought a gift. Not something they had actually gone shopping for, but they looked for something around their houses that our Lab would like. There was a tennis ball and a frisbee, as I recall. The next morning when they went home, one of the boys said to me, "Thank you. That was really fun. I had never been to a dog's birthday party before."

Special occasions are cause for celebration. I have a friend who just celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary; she and her husband were honored by their daughter for an entire weekend of parties and fun. And the fact that these two people have been married for fifty years and just as in love as ever is definite cause for celebration. What an amazing accomplishment.

But what about the every day, the times that don't seem so extraordinary? Do you celebrate life on a regular basis? Just the fact that we are here is good reason to bake a cake and put up a few streamers. This life that we have is a precious gift. Let's celebrate it.

Susan