So I’ve been married for 12 years and have some very definite ideas about what makes a relationship work. I’ve also been thinking about some of the relationships around me, in light I suppose of the whole Tiger thing. I don’t know nor care how many women have stepped forward now but I keep coming back to this one thing, if he’s been with this many women how could he not think that one day it would come back and bite him on the butt. Seriously.
For me truth in a relationship is key. When my hubby struggles with certain things he tells me. When I nearly kissed a guy at work, I told him, when he kissed a girl after a gig he told me. Some things thrive in darkness and being honest about them sheds light in which they cannot prosper. Of course I can’t say what would have happened if Tiger had been honest the first time but it does make me wonder. I feel for his wife and little one.
Honesty isn’t the only think I’ve been thinking about as far as relationships go. I’ve also been considering the concept of choices. Not just the choice to cheat or not but the many choices we make that effect the dynamic of the partnership, because that is what a marriage or love relationship is.
What about the guy who asks his wife if she is okay to move from one side of a country to another for a promotion, she says no, he says too bad we’re going. Or the fiancée who believes her partner’s interest in music is merely a hobby not a passion he wants to pursue, so he stops, years pass and he hasn’t been able to get back into it and regrets it. Then there’s the wife who tells her hubby that once they have kids he has to stop playing in a band. How is it we say we love someone and often seem to lack the capacity to support their interests, passions or opinions?
Okay so for me moving from one side of a country to another or even moving country isn’t a terrible idea. I’ve already lived in another country and some of the things we’d like to pursue make me wonder if we would be better off elsewhere. So to be honest the fear that has some people clinging to that kind of familiar isn’t one I understand. Having said that I can’t imagine my hubby saying too bad we’re doing it, if I’ve said I really didn’t want to do it. It just wouldn’t be something either of us would consider.
The other two examples I admit make me want to scream. I simply couldn’t understand not supporting my husband’s passion. I can understand people not wanting to go out on the limb that we have because it can be a particularly treacherous place to be. It can be tough having people constantly say grow up and get a real job. It’s tough having to live week to week and very carefully balance your budget and give certain things up. Thing is when he’s in the zone it’s a great place to be, even though it hasn’t made us financially stable yet.
I wonder though if I have a better grasp of the creative because I am one. I see the drive and passion in others and don’t understand how their loved ones cannot support it. The flip side is that I need to be supported and believe me I’ve have been know to hit some crushing lows. I can cope with these because in my relationship I am free to be me and I know I’m not alone, I know my passion and interests are supported even though my writing has bought in less money than hubby’s music.
There is a second thing with the last. I don’t know how someone can make the leap that cutting someone off from the stress relief and ‘me time’ then also adding a child to the mix, is a good idea in anyone’s book. Heaven knows enough other stuff changes when you add kids and I know plenty of people actively involved in music and theatre that have kids. An ultimatum like that concerns me because I can see so many bad things it can lead to.
Maybe I’m just a pessimist and I don’t understand how these things can work in a relationship because it wouldn’t work for me. I believe in choices, looking at the big picture and finding a compromise that works for both parties. Have I ever used an ultimatum? Yes – it was ‘sort some stuff out now because I can’t keep doing it this way, or I’m taking the girls away for a while and you can sort it out with out us around.’ Needless to say I didn’t go anywhere, not because stuff got better immediately but because he finally realised just how hard a time I was having. That’s the thing about ultimatums, sometimes they need to have a little flex in them.
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