The Secrets to a Long-Term Relationship

….are, separate bathrooms and the Internet.  Of course, there are the basics that you learn about from your mom and other love gurus, such as the need for positive and thoughtful communication.  That one took us awhile.    Since Nels doesn’t lie very well, and since I used to be (ahem) sensitive about my body image, it was a clear landmine when I asked him, “does this skirt/dress/outfit make me look bovine/matronly/slutty?”  Nels did a terrific job dodging these landmines, but neither of us felt good about these exchanges.  Now, I can ask that same question and he might say something like, “It’s not particularly flattering” and then gives some specific reasons why by focusing on the outfit, not my figure.  Many problems are solved here.  My sensitivities are unruffled.  I don’t go out looking ridiculous.  Nels can feel good that he saved my ego. 

We also have different, often strong, opinions on how certain things should be done.  For example, I load the top rack of the dishwasher so that the cups fit nicely in the rows. Nels puts the cups over the tines.  It turns out this conflict goes back at least one generation, since we are merely following how each of our mothers taught us.  I argue that my way is better because you can fit more cups in.  It has never been clear why he does it the other way.  Now, we basically just put our cups in how we like to, and it all seems to work out. 

Then there is the annual argument about how to use the central air.  When it was installed, the technician told me that once the air was on, you were supposed to keep it on.  Also, you didn’t want to wait until it was too hot and humid in the day to start it.   All of this was supposed to produce less stress on the system.  That made sense to me, so I stuck with it.  This, however, did not fly with Nels.  Why turn the air on before you needed it?  Why can’t we turn it off and on as it is needed, he asked.  Our Indiana friends may think this whole turning off and on thing is crazy, because once it is hot there, it’s just plain hot.  Here in Bristol, however, it can be pleasant and cool in the mornings before the heat and humidity creep up to uncomfortable levels.  Thus, the disagreement usually begins in May and lasts through September.

We were having this discussion just last week.  Awhile after our usual impasse, Nels came to me and said, “I don’t want you to be mad, but…”  But what?  Did you wreck the car?  Did you break something expensive?  No and no.  Instead, he had gone to the Internet and found out that what the technician told me eight years ago was a myth.  The less time the air conditioning is on, the better.  Plain and simple.  Nels thought I would be mad because he was right and I was wrong.  Absolutely not.  It is such a relief to not worry about turning the air on in the heat of the day.  This is just one reason why the Internet is good for relationships.  Instead of clinging to set ways of doing things that feed into longstanding arguments, it is possible to find out the facts. 

Another secret to a happy relationship is to have separate bathrooms, especially when they are so tiny there is barely room for the tub, toilet and sink, much less a person, much less two people.  Some folks like the toilet paper to be put on the holder a certain way, object to toothpaste in the sink, are grossed out by pulling somebody else’s hair out the of the drain, or resent sharing such small space.  By having separate bathrooms, these issues do not arise, nor do I have to look at Nels’ soap ball.  What is a soap ball you ask?  Well, it’s the accumulation of months, possibly years, of bars of soap.  Having a different bathroom ensures that I do not have to find a way to wash my body with something that I can’t even fit in one hand, although I do have to pull my own hair out of the drain.        

While there is much to be said about the romance and excitement of the planning and first years of marriage, I prefer this time, 19 years in.  While we are the same at the core, we are much different people than we were the day after OJ Simpson’s wild ride in the white Bronco.  We even look different—less innocent, perhaps, and less puffy (clothes, bodies, hair).  More mature, more thoughtful toward one another. 

 

  

A Peek Inside the Mind of a Conservative

Discipline for discipline’s sake.

Take care of #1. 

I am sure all Dads have pet sayings, offerings of wisdom to give to their children.  Those are the two I remember hearing most from my dad, whom my brother Joe christened “the Waynus” as in “Waynus the Painus.”  Dad, like his two brothers, had two names growing up.  He was Floyd Wayne.  His oldest brother was John Guy.  His second oldest brother was Harley Joe.  Mom said that when she first met Dad, she thought he had four brothers because he used their first and middle names interchangeably.  Luckily, Dad was only known as Wayne.  Or maybe he didn’t think he was so lucky when my brother came up with a nickname that has stuck for 40 years.  Although Dad doesn’t seem to mind now.  He even signs his emails “The Waynus.” 

Dad will turn 83 the day after Father’s Day.  We always celebrated Father’s Day and his birthday together, and he never seemed to resent the joke gifts, like the Jimmy Carter coffee cup or the George W. Bush talking doll (my sister and I, the liberals of the bunch, like to tweak Dad for his conservative views).  I bought my favorite gift for him from K-Mart when I was in middle school.  It was a red, white, and blue mesh baseball hat, the kind with an over-sized bill, and it said, “I’M PROUD TO BE A FARMER” on the front.  To me, it was a goofy tribute to the hours he spent in his large vegetable garden, including his morning and evening strolls to see what growth might have occurred in the intervening hours.  This irritated Mother, because after work he would go out into the garden before even coming into the house.  She only knew he was home when he plopped the basket of yellow squash on the counter.    Dad wore that hat for years, un-ironically, and I began to see it that way too.  It made me sad when the thing fell apart and it had to be thrown away. 

While Dad may not have been the kind of farmer who planted acres of corn or soybeans or kept cows and hogs, he spent his summers on his grandparents’ farm in rural Jennings County in southern Indiana during the Depression.  He once told me that his ancestors were not very smart because they chose to set up farms in the clay-like soil near Commiskey and Paris Crossing, instead of moving to more fertile ground to the north or west.   To this day, he can barely keep his eyes on the road when driving south down I-69 because he’s checking out the fields.  For Dad, the health of the crops is connected to the health of the economy, and thus the health of communities, families and individuals.  You can take the boy off the farm, but not the farm out of the boy, it seems.

My dad’s favorite sayings reflect this background.  Farming requires hard work, regardless of how weather or markets affect yields or prices.   Living in the inevitably lean periods means that discipline was meted out externally, as in “Discipline for discipline’s sake.”   Dad puts great stock in self-control for all behaviors, emotions, and actions.  For him, this is almost a moral imperative, and it’s tied directly to his other favorite saying, “Take care of #1.”

I used to roll my eyes when Dad would say that.  It seemed selfish at the least, criminal at worst.  It also did not correlate with what I was learning in Sunday School, which I attended at my parents’ behest.  This is probably why Dad argued with Pastor Krueger during his own Sunday School classes, as he found the books and teachings to be far too liberal for his taste.   You’d think Dad would actually practice some of this #1 business since he said it so many times, but he did not, at least not in the literal sense.  He and Mother regularly tithed to the aforementioned church.  Another, much bigger example occurred  after  the company he worked for, Kroger, asked that he move his family from Fort Wayne (they had moved my dad’s job from Chicago to Atlanta to Cincinnati to St. Louis to Fort Wayne during the previous ten years).   Because my sister Julie was about to enter high school, Dad said no.  He took less promising positions with smaller companies to ensure that we had a sense of stability and security in the family-friendly haven of Aboite Township. 

Thus, for the Waynus, taking care of #1 does not mean taking care of oneself at the expense of others, although he is an unrepentant capitalist and the only person I have ever met who didn’t like Franklin Roosevelt.  He believed FDR ushered in an era of individual dependence on the government.   Dad is definitely a “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind of guy.  To a critical researcher and teacher like myself, it is easy to claim that he is insensitive to issues of class, race, gender, etc., and believe me, we have had those arguments.  However, my dad’s stories about this topic always revolve around how much a person appreciates what she earns by working for it instead of being given it.  As an illustration, he tells the story about how his dad once said to him, “I notice you take a lot better care of your own car than you ever did of mine.”  My dad took this admonishment to heart.  His point is that it is easy to take for granted things that are given to you instead of earned. 

While it pains me to know that my parents get their news from Fox and believe that yes, while climate change might now be legitimate, it is not necessarily a result of human behavior, I do think Dad has some wisdom to offer those of us starting from a level playing field.  For him, there is nothing like the satisfaction of earning one’s way.  Taking care of #1 requires the belief and the will to take care of oneself if given the opportunity.  It means independence.  It means responsibility, and perhaps, discipline for discipline’s sake.

      

Flunking Compassion

Last weekend I attended a Compassionate Presence workshop.  Like any community, we yogis share particular worldviews and practices that can be outside the mainstream.  Reconnecting with others who don’t think it is crazy to chant in Sanskrit even if we don’t know what the words mean, who have serious talks about breathing and loving-kindness, and who believe truly, madly, and deeply that all beings are linked to a Divine presence, is a way to reinforce our individual practices. Compassion is definitely yogi territory, and I was eager to find ways to bring it off the mat and into my other social worlds.

Not so fast.  After some chanting (see above) and introductions, we took a quiz on compassion.  Many of the questions were difficult to answer, as often happens on these kinds of quizzes, because there is no room for context.  For example, one of the statements was, “When friends are sick, I make a point of paying them a visit.”  Because I don’t necessarily want visitors when I’m sick, I figure that my friends don’t either, unless there is something specific I can provide for them. I will also admit to discomfort in being around people who are physically suffering.  Any response feels either inadequate or wrong.  That probably comes from wanting to fix the situation, and since the Dr. before my name is not the M.D. kind, I feel incapable of doing anything substantive for their health. 

Another statement was, “I drop everything to help my neighbors and coworkers when they are having problems.”  Again, I go back to my empathetic response.  I would feel terribly guilty if an acquaintance rearranged her schedule because I was having some kind of nebulous “problem.”  The only person I expect to do that for me is my husband, and since we go back 19 years, that seems like a fair expectation.  That being said, if my neighbor needs me to take her son to school, I’m happy to do it unless I happen to be teaching a class or have a meeting at that time.  To me, the “drop everything” is a red flag.  It is disrespectful of one’s own time, life, and plans. 

It is probably obvious why I scored five points under Low Giver (20^th percentile), which is where they stopped counting.  What would be the name of the percentile under that?  Stingy Giver?    I have not scored that low on a test since the quantitative section of the GRE.  Thank goodness that test had verbal and reasoning sections, or I never would have gotten into grad school. 

Just as the GRE measures different kinds of intelligence, shouldn’t a compassion quiz address multiple types of compassion?  For example, if there were questions about animals (“I have adopted animals from a shelter,” or “I send a little prayer for the souls of roadkill when I pass their furry bodies by the side of the road” for example), my score might be a lot higher.  Or, if there were questions for listening to friends and family members who are frustrated by circumstances or people outside their control, my score might at least hover in the “Low Giver” range. 

On the other hand, this quiz provided some insight into my willingness to offer and express compassion.  It is easy for me to feel compassion for those who have little power, whether they are Michael Vick’s pit bulls, abandoned children, or targets of domestic, political, or societal violence.  It is harder to feel compassion for grownups who make self-harming choices or who cede their sense of well-being and control to others and then complain about it (full disclosure—that’s one of my specialties.  Damn it!).   

While most of us—saints and gurus aside—are guilty of the above, Charles Eisenstein offers this wisdom: “I would surely do as you do, if I were you.”  This is beyond empathy, which simply makes a claim about understanding how the other feels. It is easy to feel horror and sadness for victims, but most of us would like to think that we would not have remained in the abusive relationship; would not become addicted to food, drugs, or alcohol; and most certainly would not have slapped a child.   Eisenstein says that true compassion starts with understanding that if you were that person in those circumstances, yes, you would have done those things.  It does not make everything okay; and it does not excuse behaviors that harm the self or others.  Compassion is the simple recognition that, as Lucille Clifton said, “Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” 

Thus, compassion is not about being nice.  It is about being authentic and accepting the world and people as they are—not as we want them to be.  Compassion also tells us we are all the same, deep down.  It is about offering what we can out of the kindness that naturally arises when we come from a place of identification instead of judgment, because judgment arises from a sense of I’m-better-than-you, thus I can fix this for you.

Deborah Adele writes, “Handling challenges gives each of us a sense of skill, self-esteem, and accomplishment.  When we try to fix or save someone else, we are keeping them from getting the learning the situation has for them.”  That’s my lesson from flunking the quiz.  I may not able to cure you or fix your situation, but watch out the next time you get sick.  I might be stopping by anyway.