Trust Is A Decision
In The Down Side To Dd I talked about when he messes up. It has taken me a few days to sort all this out. He did mess up, but more, I realize now, he scared me. Grant is having a hard time, and he seemed out of control to me the day he left. I mean out of control as in not in control of his/our world. I mean that one part of the HoH dynamic that works so well for me is that underneath this very competent and worldly woman who loves running things is a woman who is scared, and doesn’t want to be the one in charge. When he is in charge I can relax and exhale.
It is a weird polemic, because in so many places in life I am the one in charge. I am the one in charge at work. In many group activities, I seem to end up with people looking to me for some sort of leadership. I back away from it these days, but it is there, the ability, and people see it. The other side of this is that to be her, I have to hold myself tightly together, be in charge, on top of things, responsible, tougher, less soft or vulnerable. I have come to appreciate the side of me that can be softer, more vulnerable, and more feminine, if you will. And Grant allows that by him being the one who is in charge, so I don’t have to be. He makes that OK for me, to let go. He makes that safe.
Dd is a dynamic. It is not his role and my role, it is our roles in relation to each other. We function as an interdependent unit. When he is off I am off, and visa versa. So, he was off. He was shaken, not in control of himself and his, thus our, world. When he weakens I have to get strong. When I get strong, my impulse is to get hard…to move away from the softer version of me that his control and protections allows. To go back to the way I used to be. At some level this might just have to do with my insecurities. I feel anxious if I feel no one is in charge. SOMEONE has to be in control… In my head I think ‘OK if it is suddenly not you, then it will be me’. I step up, and that means away too. Away from us as I know us now, and away from him too.
I get angry about that, because HE changed it! He is overwhelmed and so I have to respond and keep us balanced. I know this might sound awful to feel this way. I know full well that we are a team, he cannot be invincible and we cover for each other. I will always have his back as he has mine. I will always love and accept him. But some small inner part of me is angry, still, that he shook us up, and I think that is because some part of me gets scared. If I am the one in control, the world is a very unsafe place! I am way better than most, but not good enough to keep our world safe. I think these are feelings from childhood, when I kept the world safe at a very young age. I did it and it scared the heck out of me, but I did it. I always do, but it shouldn’t be me, because I know how fallible I am, even if others see me as a very capable person. I know the secret, inside, of how small and scared I feel sometimes. I know the secret of all that I am not.
So, I got scared, and then mad, and then sad last week. Grant comes back on Monday night, and he is wounded, I fear, from a very bad and hurtful foray into family drama. He will need me, the safety of us, our home, our marriage, my support and acceptance. He doesn’t need my disappointment. He doesn’t need me being shaken over one bad morning. He needs me to believe in him and what we have together, so he can feel the safety of that, too. I think we just need to be together again.
I am struggling to get me together again too. I need to make the decision to believe in us, in who we can be, and trust in him more. I need to decide to trust that he will pull himself together for us. That he will find the strength to overcome any obstacles, even these that now present, to be there for me. That he will take care of me and us. It all comes back to trust…to belief…to faith. He deserves that trust despite what I feel now, despite my past, despite my fears. He deserves me to push through that and simply make a blind decision to trust him, so I will.
A Down Side To Dd
I have noticed that I seem to have grown much more vulnerable towards Grant over the past two years. As we become more intimate, less defended, there is the possibility of tremendous closeness. That feels wonderful. There is also the possibility of misunderstandings and deeper hurt, and that feels worse than it did in the past, I guess because I am less defended. We are at a point in our marriage where we pretty much expect the best of each other, we strive to trust more and more, and when there is a disappointment, it really can cut deep!
And then there is the D/d, M/s, D/s question always…what happens when HE messes up? How do you process and resolve that? We have ways for when I do, but it becomes tricky when he does. Clearly I don’t punish him. He doesn’t want or need that, and neither do I. But sometimes it leaves me with upset, him with guilt, and not such clear ways to process and resolve those times, together as a couple. We talk, we argue, we come to an understanding. He apologizes and I accept. This time it has left me still feeling hurt. Maybe because he is away for a week, the over- the-phone processing was less effective. I was really angry, but I know that Grant would never intentionally hurt me. That much we have established beyond a shadow of a doubt. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t hurt me at times, and/or sometimes I do get hurt. Those things are a bit different, having to do with whether what he did should or could have been prevented, or whether it is just a matter of increased sensitivity on my part. In this case I suspect it was both. I am extremely vulnerable, and he should have known better. He is human though, and so he makes mistakes too. Learning forgiveness is essential for a solid love relationship.
Yesterday was one of those days. We went together first thing in the morning to a psychiatrist to get some help for us dealing with our son, as he would not come with us. Before we left the house, Grant got a call from his sister saying that his mom, who has been in the hospital, was doing very badly. Needless to say he was stressed. He is totally not a morning person anyway, had not slept well, and after the Dr we had booked a flight to Florida for him to go see his mom, and to deal with an out of control family situation that is getting worse daily. When a family is dysfunctional, crisis exacerbates everything, of course. So with all of that I understand his stress, and then we both have the weight of our son’s illness as well. And I was worried knowing I would be dealing with our son alone for the upcoming week. That is all to explain, we have a lot going on!
The situation turned quickly to snapping over little things, arguing, and that went on for most of the morning. I felt criticized and eventually attacked. Grant grew up in a family where when very upset, people say things that everyone knows they don’t mean, but they say these things anyway. I grew up in a family where words were chosen more carefully. They carried weight. When I blow I might curse at him (spankable, of course), but I very rarely say things that are emotionally loaded in the same way. He at times does. Not often…only when he is at his worst. I guess we all regress when we are at our worst, and yesterday, we both did. He was in a bad place, and I did not have the emotional resources to deal with that. I am still struggling.
And then I kissed him goodbye, and put him on a plane at Noon. We have talked. I felt awful telling him any of this, when he is dealing with his mother and bad family issues! I tried to hide it, but it took a fraction of a second for him to hear it in my voice. He was not letting me put him off, so I told him at least some of this, and told him we would talk when he gets back, that I love him always, and to deal with what he had to there, and this between us could wait.
So now I am left with my anger dissipated and feeling really sad. Is it because we can’t work through it now? Likely that is a big part of it. It is also because when he hurts me now, I feel a tiny bit of trust is broken, trust I/we worked so hard to build! I do trust him to take care of me, to think about me, to protect me. He does such a wonderful job of that all the time! When he slips, and I guess he has to sometimes (I do know that rationally), I feel shaken! And then that also kicks up my anxiety about that trust, about the Domestic discipline lifestyle in general. Is it based on a wish, or on a fantasy? Am I foolish to let myself rely on anyone this way? Am I expecting too much? Am I better to think like a ‘real’ adult, and just take care of myself? So the doubt, of him and of myself and even us, creeps in.
I have been here before. I think any woman living this kind of lifestyle has. We have to talk ourselves through it. For me it always comes back to forgiveness and to love. I have to love him enough, and believe in us enough, to put aside the doubts, and forgive the errors. I have to take that leap of faith, again. I have to suspend the doubts, despite what my mind tells me, and go with what my heart knows. I am either being very wise or very foolish. But what else is there after all?
A Good Question On Domestic Discipline
Regarding A Reason To Cry Katie asked:
“Don’t you wonder how you would have gotten thru this prior to D/d? Would you and Grant have banded together, united in your efforts- would you have been as centered and focused in the absence of having made the changes in your marital relationship?
I’d dare say that you wouldn’t have been as effective singularly as you are as a couple now- the strength that you draw from your renewed commitment to each other has to be much more powerful than previously… What are your thoughts on this?”
Here are my thoughts. Our son has had depressive episodes before, albeit not so severe. Grant and I were in no way on the same page. It was not only that we had different ideas about how to deal with our son, but also that the trust was just simply not there between us like it is now. When I made clinical observations, Grant was suspicious, when he came up with suggestions, I was not supportive. Faced with such an extremely emotionally loaded situation as a child’s illness, the basic weaknesses in our marriage succumbed to stress. When there are stress fractures in a foundation, pressure can tear that seemingly solid foundation apart. It is not the current stress that is the real culprit, however. The hairline cracks were there. We would attack each other, instead of the problem together.
DD begins with discipline, but has the chance, if you work hard, to develop the partners into highly communicative, supportive and in sync partners. We have learned to trust and rely on each other. With that in place, this challenge is something we face together, without the underlying mistrust that would rock us. This frees us to support each other as we better support our son. Even while we focus on him, we still focus on us. We have learned through painful mistakes that we have to nurture the marriage, regardless of what else might be going on around us. Everything else is built on our marriage as the base.
The stress here is apparent. Our son is doing better, but we have a long road ahead of us. What is different this time, as opposed to several years ago, when he suffered his first depressive episode, was that then my focus was on ME helping our son. Not on what WE would do or how WE felt. I assumed that I had to figure out what to do, and to do it, with or without Grant’s cooperation. I operated as a solo. It was not that Grant was uninvolved, but we were simply not a team, and my perception was that I was alone. When you think of yourself as a lone ranger, even within a partnership, the dynamics are very different. Much of this was old issues from my childhood. I took care of everyone else at a young age. Still, I have had to unlearn old rules to relearn new ones that are best for Grant and I, that pertain to how our marriage works.
This time, because of how we have grown together as a couple, the underlying focus is on how We will help our son. We are also very aware of how we can support each other through this. We think and talk about things like how we need to stay connected, what we need from each other. We communicate. That sounds simple, but is harder than one might think at times. When I feel vulnerable, I know it is harder to ask for support. That leaves me feeling needy, and I don’t like that, although Grant always assures me it is his job as well as his pleasure to take care of me. He is really wonderful about voicing those things! It really can help a lot to hear this reassurance from him.
Sunday the stress got to me. A small issue came up, and I got angry. The whole thing was really no big deal, but probably because my emotional resources are scanty right now, it started getting bigger, and we both began to get upset. There was tension between us at a time when we can ill afford it. Grant decided to spank, and at first I was quite miffed, because I didn’t think it was “fair”. I felt he had being the culprit, not me. In the end that hardly matters, though. What is important is that we keep our eye on the ball, the relationship. So much comes down to trust, knowing that whatever anyone did in the moment, we love each other. It is deciding to believe, even when you don’t feel like it. It is also honoring our commitments, even when we don’t want to. That means me submitting when I don’t want to and sometimes means Grant spanking when he might not want to.
So, he took me over his knee, but only used the leather strap…not a punishment implement in our world at all. It did hurt with no warm up, though, and was just enough to get my attention. I think Grant was more making the point through the ritual, setting the boundaries, and putting us back to order, that he would not let us get off track. He used Dd to get us through that little disconnect, so it did not continue.
The Dd dynamic works for us to keep us focused on our marriage, our bond and commitments. Who is right or wrong at any given moment becomes much less important in the face of the larger consideration of our union. The trust is there. The hurts are momentary, and usually fairly small. We talk about and work through the disruptions when they occur. This leaves us in a much better place to face life’s big adversities together.
A Reason To Cry
Sometimes the purpose of spanking is to lower my walls, to allow me to let go of the emotions I keep so tightly locked inside. I didn’t exactly want to do maintenance last night, but I also more or less didn’t care. I have been so focused on our son, and holding myself together through a nightmare, that it hardly mattered to me. What did matter was that once Grant started spanking, after we talked a bit through the 10 minute warm up, and then he started with that wooden spoon, I could feel walls weakening, and tears welling. I could literally feel the internal walls that were holding me together slipping. It was scary and I did not want to let out all the feelings I have kept inside. When he started with our cocobolo paddle, I lost my composure. The walls I had held safely around me for days crumbled and I cried and then finally sobbed.
I rarely cry during spankings. It is much less the pain than the emotions that trigger the tears. This time I felt the process as it was happening, and at one point even said to Grant, “Stop, you have to stop, I am going to lose control.” He understood perfectly what was going on and said, as he continued to spank “That’s ok. Let it go. I am here and you don’t have to be in control. I will take care of you.” That was when I sobbed, and that is what maintenance is about sometimes, a place to let go and be safe.
I just don’t know how to talk about anything but real life, what is on my mind, especially when it feels so pressing and all consuming. Small talk is not my thing. Neither is make believe.
Our son is very ill. He has suffered from depression and anxiety for several years off and on, but recently has become non functional. He is in so much pain. Seeing your child suffer and not be able to relieve the pain is an awful thing. The Dr he has seen in the past thinks he needs to be hospitalized. That is terrifying to me. Being in the field, I am terrified of what I do know rather than of what I don’t. I also understand that he is seriously at risk, and depression like this can turn to suicide in a young man in a flash.
Since he is 21, there is also no way to have him committed against his will, unless he becomes a danger to himself or someone else. That means he decides to become an active participant in his treatment, or he continues to sit in his room staring at the TV or computer screen. He is unable and/or unwilling to talk or interact, and has been like this for the past four days.
Part of me wants to not talk about this, to hide it as if it is something to be ashamed of. I am a trained therapist! I know, of course, that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, and our ignorance and shame causes too many to suffer needlessly. If my son had diabetes or cancer, I would not feel ashamed. Depression is simply an illness. We don’t really totally understand where it comes from, although we know now that there are strong genetic and biological factors…just like diabetes and cancer.
There are effective treatments, if one will admit the problem to one’s self, and get the help. Right now, my son refuses to go to a doctor. I wonder if he would refuse treatment if he had a strictly physical illness. Of course this is complicated by his anxiety, which makes seeing a psychiatrist daunting for him. It is easier to hide, and to pretend, but that is not the path to self acceptance and recovery. That is denial, and he floats along letting himself drift instead of attacking his life with any sort of optimism or energy. This is part of the depression, too. So many people today can live extremely wonderful, successful and fulfilling lives with mental illness. Drugs have literally changed the world into a better place.
There is a woman named Christine Stapleton who writes for the Palm Beach Post. In her column entitled “Famous People Get Depression” she says:
We – those of us with depression and bipolar – are not alone.
Actually, we are in some very good company:Art Buchwald, Sigmund Freud, Marilyn Monroe, Ted Turner, Greg Louganis, Alanis Morissette, Lionel Aldridge (three-time Super Bowl winner and sports broadcaster), Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Mike Wallace, Georgia O’Keeffe, Roseanne, Sir Isaac Newton, Franz Kafka, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Carrie Fisher, Tipper Gore, Jackson Pollock, Barbara Bush, Kitty Dukakis, Congresswoman Lynn Rivers, D-Mich., Phil Graham (owner of The Washington Post), Abbie Hoffman, Robert McFarland (former National Security Advisor), Winston Churchill, Ilie Nastase (tennis player), Jimmy Piersall (baseball player and broadcaster), Buzz Adrin, Stephen Hawking, Salvador Luria (Nobel prize winner/bacterial genetics), Francis Ford Coppola, Patty Duke, Alvin Ailey, Dick Clark, Drew Barrymore, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Irving Berlin, Axl Rose, Cole Porter, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Hector Berlioz, Sting, Robert Schumann, Sheryl Crow, Ray Charles, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Vincent van Gogh, Mark Rothko, Michelangelo, Edvard Munch, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Downey Jr., Dick Cavett, Spalding Gray, Vivien Leigh, Margot Kidder, Mariette Hartley, Ben Stiller, Jonathan Winters, Larry Flynt, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), William Styron, Danny Bonaduce, Bobby Brown, Rosemary Clooney, Connie Francis, Graham Greene, Phil Ochs, Tony Orlando, Darryl Strawberry, Phil Spector, Noah Wylie, Naomi Judd, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Chopin, Truman Capote, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Jim Carrey, Jane Pauley, Lorraine Bracco, Brooke Shields, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Billy Joel, Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Adam Ant, Robin Williams, Drew Carey, Mandy Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Uma Thurman, Harrison Ford, Terry Bradshaw, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Boris Yeltsin, John Denver, Marie Osmond, Princess Diana, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, John Kenneth Galbraith, Napoleon Bonaparte, Agatha Christie, Cary Grant, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Mozart, Cara Kahn (MTV’s Real World), Aristotle, Francesco Scavullo (photographer), Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway, Charlie Pride, Evan Dando (Lemonheads), Robin Williams, Thelonious Monk.
And you. And me.
I think then, this is worth talking about.
Mothers And Daughters
Recently I have been thinking a lot about mothers and daughters. A few weeks ago was my firstborn’s 21st birthday,
and that surprisingly brought up a lot of feelings about my mother, since I lost her to cancer several months before he was born. My daughter also just left for her freshman year in college. Wow that has been a big transition! After six weeks away, she came home last week for the October break changed. She is a young woman who quite suddenly blossomed with self assurance and maturity. It is so wonderful to see, but there is a feeling of loss too! As I see her launching out into her life, I find myself thinking about her future, her past, and my past too. About my mother, how much I wish they could have known each other, and about my mother’s mother, whom I was fortunate enough to have in my life growing up.
I am the only daughter of an only daughter. I also have one daughter. The legacy of these women is important to me. There was so much love and pride and a strong bond. They taught me so many things that I take with me through my life, and that I try to teach my daughter. When it comes to marriage, however, my grandmother and mother very lovingly steered me wrong. They taught and equipped me to fend for myself, but also taught me to separate myself. They did not teach me that to be part of an intimate marriage, I would have to put the battle of feminism aside to integrate with my partner. You cannot be separate, for you first, and together, committed to your partnership at the same time. You cannot serve two masters.
My mother worked hard to make sure I would be “more” than she was and that I would have freedoms. She made sure I would go to college, have a professional career, and in her words, “make sure I would be in the position to never need to depend on a man”. How ironic I feel at times! I used to worry that she would be disappointed of she knew me now. Would she think I surrendered to the enemy? She died when I was 29 and did not see most of the adult part of my life, as I developed. I wish I had the opportunity now to share with her who I am and what I have learned. I believe she was smart enough to grow, and like to think she would accept and appreciate who I have become.
I was the product of a feminist ideal that was unattainable for her but she was determined to give to me. She was very bright, yet her father refused to pay for college because it would be “a waste”, since she would “just get married and have kids”. She never had financial freedom. She went from her father to her husband, and although they really loved each other, she never quite found herself. She felt controlled by her husband’s dominance. Her submission was assumed and she never had the opportunity to offer it from a personal position of strength. She wished for something different for me and she believed financial freedom would be the key to my happiness. I learned she was wrong, that financial freedom is financial freedom, nothing more or less.
Her marriage seemed happy enough, but she was not fulfilled, and so my father being in charge at home got mixed up with her being deprived of opportunities and options in her life. Personally, I think that was fallout from the feminist dream for many women. They thought of men as the enemy, the oppressor. Of course equal rights, opportunities, and pay is fundamental. But why did we have to peg men as the enemy to achieve that? Is it true men in general would want to oppress women? Is being submissive the same as being subjugated? Most of the men I know would not support discrimination, but still fundamentally have a dominant masculine core. I believe most women still have the female fantasy-wish deep down to be taken care of, even though they are capable of taking care of their basic needs themselves these days.
It was a mistake to polarize the sexes into we and them. How could this lead to anything but alienation? I remember being in college in the 70’s and in many women’s bathrooms the phrase would be scrawled on the walls, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle!” I suppose if I was gay this would have worked better for me. Growing up with that affected my view of what a marriage would and could be. I think I was not willing to give as much, thinking I would not get so much either. I was taught that liberated women looked out for number one. The marriage came second, if there even was one. I was never led to think marriage was a priority in life. The goal was an independent me.
I hope I will be able to pass a different kind of wisdom on to my daughter. I truly think we can have it all, but not by being super woman. Super woman had a lonely life! I want my daughter to have an education so she is able to have a career where she can support herself, and be intellectually fulfilled. I also want my daughter to find the happiness of a committed marriage where she finds love, contentment and true life long intimacy. I hope one day she will be lucky enough to be a mother too. There are many paths to fulfillment!
Freedom, of course, is about having choices, not about which choices you make. I can’t help but wonder if the interest in Domestic Discipline comes as a back lash from a society that took away those choices in the guise of giving women choices. We gave women the choice to go to college and have a career, and took away the choices of being a submissive wife or stay at home mom. Not really, of course, one can be those things, but other women frowned on you, and maybe still do to some extent. The point should never have been a trade off but rather expanding the list choices. I hope I will be able to set that example for my daughter, and offer her an idea of how to gracefully be an independent woman who needs her man. I truly feel like I have it all, a great career, and a loving husband who allows me to not have to run our family and marriage. I can stand on my own two feet, but always have his shoulder to lean on. For me that is the best of both worlds! I wonder where my daughter will go with that in her journey, in the years to come.
Resisting My Lucy Moments
I would guess I Love Lucy was so darn popular because so many women related to her. I still do. I am a highly competent professional woman, but a Lucy also lives inside me. I have this ditsy side, I get great ideas. I hatch plans to outsmart Ricky…I mean Grant. I also happen to like Lucy…she is fun!
This whole submissive thing is a mixed bag, you know? Sometimes when I read on sites and blogs out there, I find a lot of stuff on how fulfilling it is to surrender, to be submissive, to be told what to do and then do it. Maybe it is just me, but I don’t find it easy. I mean I have written about submission that way, and there is that fulfilling part, but there is always that other part, the other inner voice, that says, “I want to do what I want to do…and why shouldn’t I?”
After being home for a couple of weeks straight, Grant is off for a 3 day work trip again. A few minutes before he left today he turned to me and said “And while I am gone this week I want to do X and Y. I want it done before I get back, OK? Oh, and you promised to schedule that MRI…TOMORROW! Right?” Yep, right…sure thing! So I got my kiss and my hug and the Dd pat…this is something that some Dd women friends tell me their husbands do too…this little pat on the butt. I am not sure of we have helped our husbands develop a fixation, or it is a gentle reminder, but anyway it happens, a lot! And it is a post Dd phenomenon. He never did that pre-Dd.
Anyway, it is all fine, but I am not sure I will feel like doing these things in the next 3 days, and I know I don’t want to have that MRI. I have managed to successfully avoid doing that for at least 3 months now, with all sorts of legitimate excuses which have nothing to do with the fact that I am avoiding it. It kind of came out Friday night, and now will become a huge issue if I don’t follow through given I received a direct and specific order to schedule it on Monday. When I get a directive with a time limit, it is pretty certain I have run out of maneuver room.
So, the point is, after a few weeks of routine stuff being put on hold for a huge work related event that I finished with this weekend, my real life is back. I was thinking tonight about why I do this stuff…why I agree and do what I don’t feel like doing. Why do I allow myself to be told what to do and not to do? I also informed Grant on Friday that I thought I would paint our front hallway. We just had the stairs carpeted with a beautiful oriental runner, and it looks wonderful. It also makes the paint look old and dull. I like doing artsy house projects, although rarely have the time these days. I decided I would repaint and then either stencil, or rag roll the walls. He decided I would not! I am tempted to fuss about this. Just because there are 10 foot ceilings, lots of oak moldings that need to be painted around, and I have a bad back doesn’t mean I won’t be able to do it. On the other hand, if I start it and do hurt my back, don’t have time to finish, or otherwise prove him right in his concerns…well it would be a huge problem and I guess unfair to him.
I was chatting with a friend last night and suddenly had this brilliant thought! Grant is away until late Wednesday afternoon. I am enjoying thinking about this! I could take a few days off work, and have it done before he gets back! It would be fun, it would look great, I would never sit again! Isn’t that something Lucy Ricardo would do? She has a great idea, Ricky says “No”, she comes up with a full proof plan, and figures by the time he finds out it will all be great, and he will be surprised and pleased. If Grant walked into a beautifully finished, rag rolled front hall, he couldn’t be mad…could he? I can just imagine the look on his face when he walks in and sees it! Can you? When I get past my excitement I (almost) always realize that the issue is not the hall, or whatever latest great idea I have. And I do come up with many ideas by the way. We actually and literally moved our house a few years back. That took me quite a while to talk him into, but that is a different story entirely.
The thing is I (we) don’t believe I should do what he says because God decrees it, because I am a woman and thus less capable of making good decisions, or any other variation on those themes. The issue for us is that together we both made a commitment that we would function as a team, instead of making independent decisions when they affect the both of us. Almost everything either of us does affects the both of us. So this involves everything from health and family life, to painting the hall and doing a few household projects this week. I get my say and he makes the final call. In the past I did household projects as I saw fit, but often my agenda did not match his agenda, and that caused stress between us. In the past I also would have just painted the hall without necessarily even mentioning it, and regardless of what he thought. He might have walked in one day to a ladder, draped stairs, and open cans of paint. A lot of couples function this way. The wife believes their husband does not have the right to tell them what to do. The husband believes their wife’s wishes should not be their first priority, either. Grant just simply puts me first. And I do what he says when he feels it is important to direct me. It is not about him being superior but him being the agreed upon leader, or HoH, and that when we function as a unit together, even in terms if the smaller things, we stay more connected and emotionally in sync as a couple.
As much as I don’t like being told what to do, I also find that these little directives he gives me keep me more focused, especially when he is gone frequently. It reminds me of my responsibilities towards us, how we agreed to live, and makes the transitions much easier. It doesn’t mean I relish the process, but it works, and anything worthwhile takes some work. So, OK…I will not paint the darn hall! It really would have looked great too!
