Posts Tagged ‘relationships’

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Pandy’s box?

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

I have taken the below passage out of my latest book club read, Mitch Albom’s, tuesdays with Morrie:

“I’ve learned this much about marriage,” he said now. “You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how to accommodate or don’t.”
Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going t work?
Morrie smiled. “Things are not that simple, Mitch.”
I know.
“Still,” he said, “there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.
“And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?”
Yes?
“Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”

There has been a minor Facebook war over my going public about my relationship, which, incidentally, has been neutralised. It had to do with balance and blame. But the above passage gave me a kick up the arse. The above passage showed me what I should have seen years ago. It isn’t so much about a lack of belief in the importance of our marriage so much as a total lack of importance. Importance comes from communication and my husband hasn’t spoken to me about anything in months and about very little in years. And that is the truth.

But people find it hard to hear the truth about things they have already formulated an opinion on and especially on something that makes them shine a light on issues in their own relationships. I continue to shine my torch under the carpet revealing what others believe should remain there. (see also: http://www.bhalababy.com/2010/06/28/my-life-as-an-open-book) I want people to see that there is no shame in sharing a very human failing. I won’t be silenced because people find what I say uncomfortable and the only thing I am sorry for is how vague I was previously.

Morrie used an analogy I think is appropriate to share: we are not all individual waves crashing on the shore but part of the same ocean.

I am a work in progress. But I have the courage to recognise my flaws, and the inner strength to erect the scaffolding and do the work. My husband, however, is a derelict building site … absolutely fine if it wasn’t for the fact that he thinks he is a palace.

I was asked recently by a lovely young man to be his life coach. He was sweet, I was flattered … tempted even … until I realised that I have done all the coaching I care to do for a while and the next man I am with will climb the scaffolding with me, chat to me while I work and add value to the renovations. He won’t be afraid of the change.

For almost two decades I have loved a man so much I thought I would die without him so I can tell you all that you can love someone with all the stars in the sky but unless he loves you back with the moon, he has the ability to snuff out every one of those lights. He loves me ‘in his way’ he says … but then so do wife beaters and adulterers have a ’way’ of loving. Love needs to shine for the sole benefit of the person it shines upon.

Love is a gamble – sometimes you put everything you have on the table and all you end up with is change for the car guard.

I am not a victim, just a student on one of life’s very cruel courses on love.

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Fizzling friendships

Monday, July 26th, 2010

I was caught up in a cheesy email chain letter (try and say that fast) recently. It was about friendships, relationships and those people who drift through our lives passing on a little wisdom, or gathering some, before moving out of our lives again. Being close to those midlife crisis years (allegedly) has given me cause to seriously reflect on the words in the email even though I feel slightly ashamed to have passed it on. Having a baby shifts things with friends, as does getting a divorce. You change, situations change, others change … and you shift up and down rungs of friendship ladders all the time. Yet you still feel like mourning the loss of a friendship regardless of whether the parting is good or bad.

Escaping to Durban meant my child was away from his school friends again for another month. He forgot their names. Everywhere we went he played with other children, behaving like he had a new best friend each and every day … only to forget that person the next time he met someone new. I couldn’t help but wonder why we fixate on the breaking down of long-lasting friendships when often the best thing to do is just let them run their course and then let go.

There are a few friends that have just drifted away and then there are those I have turfed out intentionally. I can count on one hand only the ones I have turfed intentionally. They are: the girl I shared digs with who slept with every guy I brought home for ‘coffee’ … hence having to wait an extraordinarily long time before I could find someone to harvest my cherry tree; the guy who almost beat up my husband on a small road in Putney outside the house we shared with him … I suspect it had something to do with pent up frustrations over my forbidden fruits; and there is the guy who I have known for longer than I have known my husband who, like all good gentlemen do, has backed the horse he feels will come out tops and is giving my husband advice on our divorce.

I used to obsess over the severing of these relationships as though they were limbs I could still feel even though they were no longer there. But through my child I am learning to look at what I have right in front of me … not only the magnificent friends I have and love but the incredible people all around me waiting to be delved into; waiting for that spark that begins it all.

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My life as an open book

Monday, June 28th, 2010

You get people who brush things under the carpet. And then you get me. I lift the carpet. And then I search. With a flashlight. And I broadcast what I find.

I blogged about my travels. I put it all out there for everyone to read. People could read with horror or wonder and know what I was experiencing almost daily. And when I came back, I didn’t have to try and pack into a single conversation the enormity of the experience of travelling through India with a 4-year-old. Everyone just knew and asked for only a little information to fill the gaps in the story. A cultivated result.

But we tend not to do that with other life-changing experiences. We tuck things away and in the face of an enormous experience such as two great people parting ways, we have to explain how we got to this place without anyone noticing.

People were shocked when they heard my marriage was breaking up. It took them by surprise and I have been explaining for months what should have been out in the open for years. When you get to a point of needing support, it is useful when people know what you need the support for instead of having to bring your nearest and dearest up to speed. I had left a trail of crumbs on Facebook … a trail that didn’t lead me back home but rather straight into the witch’s house. My Facebook page became a forum for all the people who themselves had been tucking things away. Is my midlife crisis merely a sign of these new sandwich years – a generation stuck between a parenting style of shame, guilt and denial and a new enlightened age of gentleness and introspection? I haven’t seen the driver. Regardless, life’s experiences need to be shared. Not only do we learn from our own experiences but we also have an opportunity to teach. We don’t – and can’t – live in a vacuum.

“If you share with others, they will share with you”, I keep telling my son. And that kinda means I have to do the same … only this sharing thing just got a lot more grown up.

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The first day of the rest of my life

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.
~ Isak Dinesen

I sit on the cusp of my story. My story is not, like Isak Dinesen’s, of Africa but it does contain heartbreak and sorrow and promises of new beginnings. There are no happy endings like we were all promised in childhood. Nothing ends happily ever after. There are only ever happy beginnings. And sometimes we have to jump between the two in an attempt to minimise the cataclysmic fallout the ending may have.
My cusp sits somewhere between what my child terms as mum and dad splitting apart and an awfully big adventure. My child and I are going backpacking around India.
Now, everyone has an opinion about this. It’s too dangerous, he’ll get lost or stolen; he’ll get dehydrated or get malaria; he’s too young etc., etc., etc. But say I’m going to leave him behind and the opinions change to I am abandoning him.
As his mother – not the one who yells and says f*ck a lot but the one who loves her child so much it hurts right down to her toes – I decided to take him along for the journey. It wasn’t intentional, it just happened. I was chatting to him at bedtime about all the stuff going on in the house at the time and the options that were open to us … and the India adventure thing just popped out. I regretted it instantly and immediately told him what a bad idea it was because of the disease and the poverty and the filth and the sewerage. It was already too late though … I had him on ‘adventure’ and he wasn’t letting me back out.
The planning process ensued and having so much time to organise meant OCD overload with purchasing and decanting and labelling and packing and printing and unpacking and folding and rolling and changing the itinerary so often, I think it has included almost every part of India at various stages of its lifecycle.
I now have such an awesome first aid arsenal it is more like a pharmacy and it takes up half my backpack with just enough space left for two changes of clothing each. I have been frenetic but I’m not sure the output has quite matched the input as I seem to still not have everything done and I leave today! I believe I would be at the same stage had I given myself a week to get ready for this journey.
During this process I have waited daily for a break in the cold war but it has never come. My seventeen-year cycle has run its course and I look to India now for the beginning of my next new cycle. I feel excitement, fear, happiness, gratefulness, anger, privilege, frustration, pain, joy, sorrow and betrayal … as well as emotions that haven’t yet been named.
There was a grim temptation when packing the pharmacy to calculate if there was enough clout there to obliterate the pain of a broken heart. But I didn’t think I could handle a failed suicide on top of a failed marriage.
Darkness makes way for incense, marigolds and kindred souls. I will eat bravery; I will drink inner peace and I will find strength again to travel towards a new me.
So, farewell until we meet again. I’ll be a totally new person, but you’ll recognise me by the smile on my face.

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Who’s the best?

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

They say mum is the best. They say no matter what happens in your relationship, children must be with their mum. They will be fine as long as they are with the mum. I can’t help but wonder, is there ever a time when mum isn’t the best there is? Does mum just get too much credit sometimes because she is the female parent and grew the child from scratch? What if mum was the type to don a wig and tote a plastic gun and hold up convenience stores … would she still be considered the only person who can make her child’s life complete and safe?
Some children get lucky, I suppose. Some children get the type of mum who makes their world safe. Others get the totally fucked up variety that just adds to their baggage and ruins a previously perfectly good package. They come out so pure and full of light and joy. We don’t make them into who they are – that’s born with them – but we meld their perspective. We define their attitudes to life. So is it better to tear apart their reality and say it’s fine because they have their mum with them. Or do we play martyr mum; one who suffers for the sake of their happiness. It seems to me the latter would be the equivalent of taking their true mum away from them. But then I’m no expert.

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If you respect someone’s needs …

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

… you help them figure out if those needs are worth prioritising, or not.

In a relationship you need to be able to state exactly what it is you need. Sometimes it is not even important if those needs are met because sometimes it’s just the fact that someone is willing to listen to your needs and respect your needs. And then you might realise you don’t need it after all. ‘What am I getting at?’ you ask. Let’s say your child asks you to leave the light on at night. You could refuse because you claim he won’t sleep or you could just leave it on. Your child will sleep regardless. If you meet his need, chances are he won’t bother to ask you to leave it on the next night. If you don’t meet his need, it will likely turn into an issue that he will perform about every night before bed. Is this one worth analysing, you ask. Well, hell yeah, for the simple reason that it translates into so many areas in life when it comes to navigating those relationships … and is such a simple thing to remedy.

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Tricky pathways

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

We spend our lives navigating our way through relationships and all we create is more baggage. We are social animals and the only way we can shun this aspect of ourselves is if we go and live in a cave. Tempting though it is …
We can’t just look after ourselves in life as we are so interconnected with those around us that when we think we are dealing with our issues, chances are we are dealing with those of the people we are sharing our issues with. We go from our childhood families, often straight into sexual relationships, living together and then marriage. And just when we are trying to figure out a route through all these mazes we go and add a new relationship to the mix: our children. And once that happens, the cave isn’t even an option. We are then just propagating the issues because there are the children’s friends, later the children’s partners and … sigh, yes, the dreaded outlaws.

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Destiny … in three parts

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Part 2:
There are also those of my friends who are so keen on parenting that they are on IVF for their seconds and those who have turned to adoption after trying that option for so many years and it just not working. Then there is my friend who tried everything for eight years and then went travelling. Travelling is my answer for everything … but it didn’t help her fall pregnant. Or perhaps it did. On her return, she and her husband found a surrogate, put two fertilized eggs in her and put a third one back into my friend … as a last ditch effort.

They all took and she’s expecting triplets in August.

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Destiny … in three parts

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Part 1:
At the age that most of my remaining single friends are either desperately seeking a man to provide them with a child or considering the option of adopting and single parenting, I have a friend who has a dog. It’s a beautiful sad-eyed retriever who exists on an organic diet of fresh free-range meat and bergie pooh. And it is loved like a child. In fact it is her child … the only child she will consider having. She is at risk of losing her hot Swedish boyfriend because of her decision. And he is at risk of losing his hot Jewish girlfriend because he won’t compromise on having a family.

She takes care of her dog, her sister and her mother – she’s not lacking in the care department – but there is not even one cell in her body that wants a child … there is not even one cell that is curious about it. She just isn’t wired that way.

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Frenemy

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Let’s take a break from children and talk about friends …the adult variety. I got all flaky on myself this weekend and threw a copy of Psychologies into my shopping trolley. I read it cover to cover and found it quite disturbing that I have reached the age that I can devour a self-discovery magazine with as much relish as I once poured over Hello. The article that got my attention though, was not the one on saving my relationship but the one on breaking up friendships.

When you have a child, the dynamics of friendship change completely … as does your relationship with your partner and yourself … But that’s not really what I want to talk about here, mainly because I inadvertently brought a child into the article.

I want to talk about a great friend of mine. Well, she used to be a great friend of mine until she discarded me and made me question myself and the reasons she felt I wasn’t ‘good enough’ to be her friend anymore. What I discovered was that it had nothing to do with who I am and everything to do with what I did. I changed the dynamics of our relationship.

Our friendship I thought was based on a strong bond that revolved around common goals, interests and the fact that we had similar aged children (there I go again). We were somehow always there for each other and discussed problems over tea, coffee, sushi, anything going, almost every week. What I only realised once the friendship was over and she claimed she needed to create some space in her life was that all the problems we had discussed were hers.

And the reason the friendship ended? Well, it was my fault entirely. I asked her advice one day about a big problem in my life. I changed the dynamics of the friendship and broke our contract. I made it about me and that wasn’t the deal.

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‘Don’t scratch an itching dog’

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

An expression I heard used when I investigated having the rust scraped out of my car – because once you start scratching, you have to keep on going.

So what happens when you start to itch? Do you scratch or do you let it lie?

Or do you just sell the damn car?

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Relation-shapes

Monday, March 8th, 2010

A relationship is point to point – a three-dimensional line that grows or shrinks according to moods and swings. Add a baby and you add another line. You have a triangle: a love triangle.

There is no greater or more complex love triangle than the one created by having a baby.

Someone is always left out and there is a massive amount of attention grabbing … usually from dad who can’t bear the sight of ‘his’ boobs being used as a dairy, and often from junior who, like the dog, pushes in during an embrace.

No matter how strong the lines are – the individuals who make up the triangle – the points of the triangle are likely to wear over time … and very often they just snap.

But sometimes you have to break the points to notice how the individual lines can be stronger than the shape they make up.

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You can’t have your cake and eat it

Monday, September 7th, 2009

A new friend is a friend out of our connection over the lack of any real need to have children. I am known to her boyfriend as the evil one as he is determined to have kids (to the point of dumping her if it doesn’t happen). I suppose it is unfair of me to try and dissuade her as there are things that can be done to pre-empt any of the crap that enters your relationship when having a baby. There are practical tricks and tactics that can be deployed.

For example:
discussing expectations of parenthood;
defining a budget for things such as a night nurse;
planning logistics around routine and responsibilities;
looking at the potential need to move in order to accommodate a child;
balancing work and social commitments and sacrifices;
counselling sessions before even trying to fall pregnant.

You can’t have it all. We want it all – I suppose that is normal … what makes us human. But having something always comes at the cost of giving up something else. And perhaps that should be fine. Having a baby costs. We can’t expect to keep everything of what we were before having a baby … and have the baby too.

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No degrees for separation

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Relationships are based on what you have in common, and you stay together as long as you maintain some element of that. Then, just like that, you suddenly realise that there is something to disagree on … something big, huge in fact … and it was never there before. Not only that, but it is never going away. It’s your own child.

People have babies for many reasons – one of them to glue the relationship back together – when, in fact, there is a greater chance that it might pull it further apart. Since my child was somewhat a surprise to me, I am obviously not referring to myself here. I am sure though that everyone knows at least one couple – at least one – that has split because they thought a child would be the answer and they failed to look at the real reasons their relationship was failing.

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Isn’t it ironic …?

Friday, May 8th, 2009

I worked to the point of obsession (me and Gina) to promote independence and a sense of self. I ensured that my child would be in bed every night be 7 p.m. so that my husband and I could have time … adult time. My child slept in his cot from day one and only slept in our bed on occasion during daytime sleeps and very rarely at night if he was too sick and we were too tired to attend to him (up and down the spiral staircase!). It’s not easy following such a strict routine but it pays off when your child responds and never gets between you in bed.

Well, that was the idea.

Despite all efforts, he came between us anyway … not physically but emotionally. He is always there. And there remain so many unspoken conversations about how we both feel in our new identities as parents. Being a parent is a vulnerable and fragile time and it is often not treated with the respect it deserves. I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a lover, a writer, a patient, a client, a consultant, an employer, a dog owner, a Beetle driver, a shoe lover, an optimist, a runner, a breather … and so much more, I could risk running out of blog space. But when I added mother to this list, it tipped the scales, and balance is something I have been seeking ever since. I find it so difficult to switch and juggle a multi-faceted personality … but only when I am in the role as mother. My new persona takes so much from the old ones and it’s difficult enough trying to deal with those stats when you’re also playing out a guilt trip about what your new role is draining from your partner’s other personas. You whine and moan about not getting enough space when it’s just the two of you … but when there’s three, space is the one thing you could happily do without.

Does he know he’s getting between us? Of course not. I used to tell him he was ruining my life … and he developed a sense of humour. Now, I giggle with him all day and deal with the other stuff when he’s gone to bed.

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