We have just about completed the IKEA kitchen cabinetry and I only contemplated divorce and/or murder two or three times. Whether that is due to the good engineering of the designers or we're just too dang old and tired ; I don't know.
The tile guy is prepping the shower and needed running water. I thought that event happened after the shower is completed.
I didn't even have to read the posting "still married" to know immediately what it was going to be about. The title said it all.
ReplyDeleteMarriage is a lot about negotiation and some negotiation sessions are louder than others. There is never a "perfect" solution but if you've got any sense--and you have a worthy mate, you know to be happy with a "workable" solution.
I think a lot of people who decide to split after only a few years of marriage never quite understand that.
How about those Words of Wisdom? I think I was able to come up with them because I'm using Chinese remedies for my ankles. BB
Kay and I had a discussion about arguments in relationships. She had heard a theory that in every relationship there is a "bedrock anger" that comes to the surface in some fights. This is something that just ticks you off about the other person, it is there and it never goes away. I think that in long term marriages, you know what it is about that person that you hate, and you learn to work around it. Of course, there is none of that with Pat's feelings for me, because like Mary Poppins, I am 'practically perfect in every way."
ReplyDeleteI think the "bedrock anger" issues are the things that make someone get up one day and shoot their spouse when to all the world it appeared they had a perfectly happy relationship.
ReplyDeleteIt's either the "bedrock anger" that makes people do it or what I like to call "the list". The list is made up of those things that have nothing to do with core values or goals but rather the teeny tiny things about your spouse that make you want to pull your hair out--like not putting the toothpaste cap back on or something. Just one day, you've had enough and get out the frying pan and whack him on the head. I think it's called "justifiable homicide". BB
yes, or else the person just gets up and leaves one day, the spouse, the kids, the house, everything. I've known this to happen many times, and in at least one instance, everyone looking on, knew it was coming. It was like watching a tv show, only the viewers knew the ending and the actors didn't. Very odd.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was very young (certainly before I started school) we took the short trip to Niagara Falls. I remember seeing nothing but motels lining the roads in an era before fast food. I remember my mother telling me this was because the falls were a popular honeymoon destination, as there was nothing to do there but look at the waterfall, which took only a few minutes. I knew that a honeymoon was a vacation for newlyweds, and could understand their excitement to see the falls, but my mother's further comment was indeed a puzzlement.
ReplyDeleteI now think that the honeymoon popularity stems from a need to face doom head on, and to contemplate it. There are those who need continual drama and risk, and readily hop in a barrel at any opportunity to test fate. There are the apathetic, who are carried over through lack of care. There are those who do not plan nor take precautions and are killed for want of a bit of gasoline for their boat, or a rope, or spare oar. And of course there are the true, improbable accidents, the twists of fate. Statistically, half of the newlyweds will not survive.
I remember walking along the edge of the Niagara River above the falls with my parents, entranced with the rapids and the speed of the water. I remember my mother telling me to not put my hand in the water, that there was more force there than I thought, and the river could grab my hand and pull me in. I had no interest in doing that. I already knew that the water was wet, but I stood on a firm, dry asphalt path. I watched, and did not move away.
Between the American and Canadian falls is an island. The dangerous rapids speed by on either side, at times carrying their victims to their fate. The water slowly erodes the edge of the falls, and smooths the rocks below with its force. All of the energy of all of the Great Lakes is realized here, and swirls past the island which stands firm at the precipice. The island is known as Goat Island. Sometimes, amidst great danger, the best course is to stand silently yet firmly and be willing to be the goat.
Of course, good fortune can be assured by hanging rabbits from your lintel.
-A Bachelor, whose name is not Hosea
Dear Bachelor,
ReplyDeleteWe too used to vacation in Niagara Falls and we used to have picnic lunches by the big turbines that powered the area (this was a long time ago before the era of lawsuits.) One day my sister, BB and I were happily eating our egg salad sandwiches and swinging our legs over the ledge dangerously close to falling in the river, when Dad showed up and steered us back toward the family. It wasn't until DECADES later I connected that experience with our not picnicking there anymore. Must have scared the pants off our parents and I don't remember either of them acting odd about it at all.