Ghost stories

The latest heartbreak was one that I never saw coming - never expected his arrival, and surely didn't expect his retreat.  I didn't even want to write about this one, but my fingers are typing and I'm thinking...and sometimes I don't even know what I think until I see it here on the screen in front of me.  So bear with this cathartic post, and maybe you'll even find a bit of your own life in it.

When we met, it was purely for professional reasons: I had been put in contact with him as someone that I should network with.  But in the course of that first informational interview, we found ourselves connecting beyond public policy issues.  As I watched him leave an hour later, I felt like my life had just changed for the better.

Our second meeting - a "follow-up" networking meeting - was even less professional.  We talked and giggled and joked and I couldn't help but notice how his eyes shone brightly and how his smile made my heart beat faster.  

A few hours later, my phone chirped and when I saw his text message asking me to dinner on Friday night, I felt elated.  That dinner, and the ensuing four weeks, were incredible.  I fell hard and fast for him.  We spent countless hours talking about our lives: children, divorces, shared interests and passions.  We covered law and politics, teased each other with vocabulary known only to policy wonks like us, and then laughed at our own nerd-ishness.  It wasn't uncommon for time to get away from us and to notice that it was after 1:00 am on a work night or that we had been on the phone for over an hour. 

But what we didn't talk about was the important stuff--how our past relationships and attendant vulnerabilities would affect a future relationship.  Like all divorcees, we both had raw, scraped-up hearts and when the Ghosts of Relationships Past floated up to create a wedge between us, we didn't know how to handle it.  In the end, the failure to talk about what really mattered was our undoing.

So for the past few weeks, I've been walking around in a daze - things remind me of him and the wound breaks open again.  It's hard to believe that I could miss someone like this when the relationship was so brief, but there it is.  There is so much I wish I could go back and change and undo - and that is the worst part of all.  I rarely carry around regret; I find the word itself to be ugly and the emotion to be not worth its weight.  But this time, I am full of regret for words left unsaid, words said in haste, words borne of past hurt.  When I find the courage to meet my own eyes in the mirror, I hate that they are full of remorse and sorrow.

Driving in to work today, I heard a song on the radio - one I'd never heard before, one that gave me pause and changed my mood. 

Maggie Rose, a relative newcomer to the country music scene, just released a song called "Better."  The melody is so-so, but the lyrics are heart-wrenching.

I just want to feel good, feel alright

Feel anything but what I feel tonight.

I just want to feel better

Music has the power to change us.  I wasn't sure I wanted to even download the song because it hit me so profoundly, but since the song was already in my heart, I gave up the fight and forked over $1.29 to iTunes. 

I just want to feel better.  Lift the heaviness from my chest, stop the flow of tears that randomly escape at inopportune moments.  Feel anything but what I feel tonight.  Why can't there be a medication that could make it all go away?

But the bad feelings are what make us human, make us alive and maybe even make us appreciate the good moments.  Pain has a purpose - it signals that something is wrong and needs attention.  Heartache is no different.  I have the hardest work of all to do: heal my heart so that the Ghosts of Relationships Past can no longer haunt me.

"The challenge is to learn from the past without giving up our innocence." --Tammie Carino

Two to Tango

It's often said that you can't change other people.  Being the creatively-minded person that I am, I thought for sure that I could get around that little rule if I changed myself in order to meet the needs of the relationship.

So imagine my surprise when my perfectly crafted plan washed away like a sandcastle in high tide.

It wasn't like I didn't try.  I worked hard to learn new ways to communicate, to resolve conflict, to caretake his heart and find happiness.  I toned down the sarcasm and spoke plain English about my worries, fears, and troubles.  I told him what I needed when I was hurting.  I told him how to make me happy.  I left him space to be a boy and get in trouble with his buddies.  But the more I did, the more he pulled away and refused to meet me in the middle.

I still don't know why that is.  Maybe it was him, maybe it was me, maybe it was the poor circumstances of our relationship.  I do know this: I could try to write up an after-action report and dissect each moment, searching forensically for guilt or absolution.  Or I could move on, taking lessons where they appear naturally and finding peace in the future, rather than sorrow in the past.

One clear-cut lesson is this: it takes two to tango.  You can't drag your partner around the dance floor, hoping that he'll pick up the steps in a song or two.  You can't just yank him up out of that chair and lead him to the floor; disaster is sure to ensue in that scenario.  If he doesn't want to be there, you'll only end up tripping over each other and you may even get seriously hurt in a fall.

Sometimes, partners are afraid to tell us "no" - so they go through the motions.  But that's equally as dangerous, because it lures us into false security.  When he's going through the motions, he's not really listening to the music...and the next thing you know, he missed the uptick in tempo, you trip and fall, and he just turns and walks off the dance floor.

If he's late to the dance on a consistent basis, that bears examination as well.  My last partner gave me many signs--a lot of which I missed because I wasn't ready to face them.  One big sign was his consistent inability to show up on time--or sometimes, show up at all.  It should've been the single biggest "he's-just-not-that-into-you" sign of all, but I refused to see it for what it was.  Instead, I would scold him, he'd apologize and promise to do better...and then he'd fail again within a few weeks.  If someone doesn't want to be at the dance, isn't that telling you something about the status of your relationship?  Above all, your partner should look forward to spending time with you.

I am sure that in due time, other lessons from this latest flop will become apparent.  I like to think that failure isn't such a bad thing--that learning from bad experiences is a success of sorts.  I am still working all that out--and trying to do so without letting it drag me down emotionally.  This is a big task.

There is a great TED talk given by Kathryn Schulz about failure--about what happens when we're wrong and how it feels when we think we're right.  I encourage you to spend 15 minutes and watch it:
http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html

Invasive Species

Last night was ladies' night out.  You know the kind: we get all dolled up in too much makeup and too high of heels to head out on the town to taunt men, with the rule being that we all leave the bar together.  Always a good time...unless you're a guy trying to break into that circle....sorry, guys...

Around midnight, we descended on a St. Paul hot spot called Wild Onion.  As the girls headed out to the dance floor, I hung back to survey the crowd.  Within two minutes, the Creepazoid was at my side.

"Hi!  I'm Eric." (Or is it Erik? Or Erick? Erich?  I didn't ask.)

I stared blankly at him.  Who was this creature?  Was I in a 1996 time-warp?  He wore a plain blue v-neck t-shirt that was two sizes too small, a heavy silver chain necklace, and gel-spiked hair.  

"I love Spice Girls!  Let's go dance!" he yelled in my ear.  What guy says that?!  For that matter, what girl in a post-Y2K world would say that?!  It should also be noted that he was quick to tell me that he was sober--doesn't drink--and that he was there alone.  Red flag!  Red flag!

Before I knew it, I was on the dance floor, trying mightily to keep a healthy distance between me and the Creepazoid.  I quickly located my gal pals and gave them the pleading "help-me-out-here" eyes.  They laughed at my misfortune and we tried to make our escape from the him.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy.  When we found a table to sit at, he squeezed right in next to me in the booth. He was not to be deterred by our girl talk or blatant texting to each other about his obnoxious behavior. To quote Vince Vaughn's character in "Wedding Crashers"...we had a Stage Five Clinger.  As other guys came up to try to talk to us, he brushed them off and whispered to me that they were "number two" to him.  To say I was horrified is to put it mildly. 

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I HATE being a possession.  Being owned.  Being caged.  It makes my innards queasy.  And it made me think: what is the right amount of "possession" in a relationship?  Where do we draw the line between "we" and "I"?

Earlier in the day yesterday, I had coffee with a dear friend who is in the beginning stages of divorce.  As we talked about our failed marriages, we found that we had both struggled with how much of ourselves to turn over to our partners.  At the beginning my marriage, I neglected my friends and my personal needs in order to be with him, (wrongly) thinking that doing so would make our relationship stronger.  But instead, I lost sight of who I was and what I needed, which was a contributing factor to the failure of the marriage.  

An article in Psychology Today discusses this very issue, and urges partners to find ways to communicate regarding personal space needs.  Failure to communicate the needs can foster a breeding ground for "negative feelings: rejection, insecurity, jealousy, mistrust, and resentment."  When one partner moves away without telling the other what (s)he's up to, even when the motives are pure, it can cause a rift in the relationship.  Talking about space needs before it becomes an issue can head off a potential storm.

"Space" is a multi-faceted thing--it comes in many forms.  There's emotional space, physical space, and even spiritual space.  A failure to provide enough room in one of these areas will likely result in the partner taking space in another form.  Dr Vondie Lozano, a California marriage and family therapist, stated in a Wall Street Journal piece on relationships that "if you don't give them their physical space, they will take emotional space."  

But when we do give our partners what they need, our relationship is much more likely to thrive.  In romantic relationships, we seek to give comfort and increase happiness for the person that we're with.  That may come in the form of a good meal, a sweet note, or a thoughtful gift.  What if the best gift you can give your partner is the gift of personal space?  

Don't make your partner resort to this:

As always...feedback welcome!

leahc168@gmail.com

Thin Line Between Love & Hate

This morning, when I awoke at the grand hour of 10:00 am, I did my usual roll-over-and-grab-my-phone wakeup ritual.  (How many of us do this?  I wonder if I had a real person in bed next to me, would I still sleep with my phone?  Another topic for another time...)  As I triaged messages, quickly skimming and deciding what needed my immediate attention, a message from my girlfriend caught my eye: she needed to cancel our dinner plans.  I read on: she described her rather contentious divorce proceedings and how her ex was documenting all her time away from their kids, so we would have to delay our dinner so that she could be home with her babies.  Completely understandable, although sad that her ex felt this was necessary.

Message 2 was from another friend who is going through divorce.  He relayed to me that he had put his Facebook settings on super-lockdown because he felt his ex would use information against him in their divorce proceedings.  

The combination of the two messages got my thinking: how do we move from lovers to fighters in our marriages?  Is it an inevitable evolution--part of the separation process?

Many years ago, I married the man who I called my best friend.  We knew all of each other's secrets, insecurities, quirks.  The formative year(s) of the relationship were spent getting to know these things about each other and learning to love one another's flaws.  With time, however, we stopped being each other's confidante.  Kids, work, and other demands slowly took over the time we used to spend laughing and sharing.  As we drifted apart, it became apparent that the marriage had run its course and we ultimately agreed to split.  Just as quickly as we fell in love, we became enemies: judging each other's every movement, looking for motive, and distrustful of the person with whom we had once shared everything.  Best friends to total strangers in mere months.

And our situation is not unique.  While statistics about divorce abound (which party made the initial filing, how many go to trial, divorce by race, religion, etc), it is difficult to find good data on the subjective topic of contentiousness during the process.  In the United States, the vast majority of divorces (>95%) are resolved without a courtroom trial.  Still, that speaks nothing of the highly charged emotional state of both parties while they part ways--and part children, homes, cars, and bank accounts.  The fights, the testy exchanges, the snide remarks...who measures that?  And yet, just about everyone I know who is divorced has experienced it.

More importantly....can we move from fighters to peacemakers after the dust has settled?  How authentic can a friendship become when we're on the other side of a nasty split?

Ultimately, during a bad divorce, trust between parties gets broken.  In the situation of my guy friend who put his Facebook on ultra-private, he clearly doesn't trust his (ex-)wife not to misuse information.  My ex took it a step further and actually blocked me on Facebook, preventing me from seeing anything he does on the website--a setting that remains today, three years after our split.  Re-establishing trust, even to the small amount needed for a basic, no-frills friendship, requires a demonstrated change of behavior coupled with an honest discussion of what went wrong.  We have yet to let our walls down enough to move forward in that direction.  Instead, we make small talk at our kids' events and during hand-offs of the children, while steadfastly refusing to allow any real emotion or discussion to enter the space between us.  It's all very Minnesota Nice.

Is that what we've been reduced to?  The best friend I married ten years ago has now become a near-stranger in our post-divorce world.  Is there a happy middle ground?

Yes.

Because the greatest thing about people is our ability to change.

  

What is Romance?

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be able to spend a few days with a great group of women.  We rented a house at a resort with the intent to pamper ourselves in the spa and spend time relaxing.  As herds of women are prone to do, we took turns dishing about the various men in our lives: what he did or didn't do, how that made us feel, what we loved and what could be better.  By the time we left on Sunday, I realized there was one main theme: Communication.

I spent the next two days talking with other friends--men and women alike--trying to define this mysterious "communication" thing.  Someone referred to it as romance, and that got me thinking: What is romance?

Romance is often intangible as a concept, but it can be found hidden in the small token efforts that make the other person feel cared for.  These little offerings--communications--tell the other person that they are valued.  Throughout all of our conversations this weekend, my girlfriends consistently indicated that what they missed in their long-term relationships were these seemingly almost-meaningless expressions of care.  The wake-up text message or a cup of coffee and a note in the kitchen can often mean more than an expensive dinner or a bouquet of roses.  

I've spent a lot of time talking with friends who are divorced, near divorce, or actively going through divorce right now.  I encourage them to take a look at their relationships and find out what went wrong.  Often, I hear that one or both partners forgot to take time out for the relationship--that the dishes piled up, the kids needed to go to soccer/hockey/gymnastics practice, that work became a priority...or that these distractions even eventually became an escape.  When we fail to kiss goodnight or say good morning, the partnership begins to die.  Relationships are built on those small moments and minor expressions of care; there is no substitute for making a daily connection with our partner.

Someone told me that he defined romance as "the desire to bare one's true self to another...[which] achieves a greater sense of euphoria (love)."  This incredible sense of personal vulnerability inevitably ties us to our partners; recognizing and respecting this naked exposure creates a bond that can never be undone.

One of my friends has been in an on-again, off-again pseudo-relationship. Without a doubt, they love each other, but external negative circumstances always seem to nose their way in, causing disruption and instigating arguments.  Whenever this happens, she will ask me the eternal question: "Why do I love him?"  For a long time, I had no answer.  Now I know: it's because you know what is in each other's hearts.  You've each been vulnerable, you've allowed each other into the most secret places of your soul...and you can't undo that confession.

Sometimes I think that we are more polite to strangers on the street than those living under our own roofs.  How many of us will force a smile for the barista at Starbucks, but then come home and grump to our partners--or worse, breeze by them without saying a word?  While our homes and relationships should be a safe place to talk through problems and experience frustrations, we can't do so to the exclusion of purposefully creating good times, too.  A short text message to say "I know it's tough at work today...hope you have a good day though!" can only create love and happiness in the other person, even if it's just a tiny spark.  It only takes a single spark to ignite a fire.


Fire is risky, and not without its dangers.  But the greatest risk can offer the greatest reward.  Even if you don't know if the gesture will be returned, what have you really lost by trying?  I challenge you to do something that would surprise your partner and put an unplanned smile on his/her face...to do something that you used to do but have since forgotten due to the daily demands of life.  It doesn't have to big grand or intense...but it does need to be authentic and meaningful...try to recall what is in your partner's heart, and speak to it.