Functionally ReTodded

It might come as no surprise to some of you, but there has been some additional tension in both my written and spoken words recently. There’s been some tension at the homestead and it’s boiled over a couple of times and ultimately led to a pretty good CTJM (Come To Jesus Meeting) or two.

After what I consider some pretty introspective thought (which I wasn’t sure I could spell, let alone do), I came to a startling discovery:

Marriage and marriages takes work.

That may be oversimplified a ton, but you may (or may not) get the point.

GBD and I have been together for over twenty years now and married for sixteen. We’ve been through a ton of shit on this ride together, both good and bad, but I think we also lost sight of the marriage and not taken care of it.

Now you might say "What do you mean lost sight of your marriage? You’ve got jobs, a house, three kids, etc. Your marriage is looking you in the face every day."

Not so, grasshopper. My life (and the things IN my life) are looking me in the face every day and requiring nearly constant attention, but my marriage for the most part gets taken for granted, neglected, and set aside for some other time.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I get so caught up in work, the kids being fed, clean (sometimes) and dressed (also sometimes) and that the house is a mess or the yard looks like shit or that money’s tight, I forget to just stop and remember the stuff that matters, like my wife and my marriage.

Recently I have been getting more and more short-tempered and snappy with everybody, and after getting a second hiney hole chewed by the wife (amidst quite a few tears), it was apparent that I was letting things get to me that shouldn’t.

So I pondered and came up with my own little course of action.

Marriages suffer and receive damage (temporary and permanent) because of stress, stressors, and how we let those things affect us and how we handle them. Stress will kill you if you don’t do something to alleviate or at least minimize it, so it’s important to identify stressors in your life and do something about them.

Here’s how the little retarded flow chart in my head went:

Marriages, even on the best of footings, struggle and go thru periods of difficulty and people, even with the best of intentions, go thru periods containing various stresses and pressures. It’s imperative to recognize these and what cause them.
For example, being mad because the laundry’s piling up but not doing laundry is dumb. The same goes for money troubles. Recognizing stressors isn’t the end of the story. The key is to recognize them and do something about them.

For years, I used to laugh at people that said "You know, marriage takes work. You have to work on your marriage." I thought those people had just made bade marital choices.

Turns out, those idiots were right. Much like a kid or a pet or a plant (or even your aging parents), anything you neglect with fall into disrepair, illness or even die. To prevent that, you’ve gotta care, be assertive and attentive and you’ve got to be a giver and not a taker. (I know that last one’s gonna make Avitable vomit). That’s hard to do if you’ve spent your whole life as a taker at one level or another.
Also, you’ve gotta take baby steps. Much like debt and getting fat, it didn’t happen overnight. I personally have decided to adopt the "Leave it better than you found it" approach. That means that, while cleaning the entire downstairs would be great, it’s pretty good just to pick up a few toys on the way out of a room or put away a dish or two or whatever. That stuff adds up (I think).

Next up: I will kill Tony Robbins live on the internet and begin my own pirated motivational speaking webpage.