I saw in my daughter that she was willing to engage in a debate and healthy conversation because she wasn’t threatened that the relationship will end if they disagree. On the opposite side her boyfriend came from a divorced family that continues to struggle with resolving their differences. I remember my own fears coming into our marriage at an early stage.
We had an argument about how to mop the floor. Not whether the floor needed to be mopped but the right way to mop. I grew up in a long ranch house where we divided the chores between all the people. I was taught to fill a bucket with cleaner and take the mop from room to room in the bucket. Mike was taught to use the kitchen sink for the mop water and take the mop from room to room and then clean the sink when you finished mopping. We had a tiny apartment with a little galley kitchen and little bathroom. There was not much floor to mop. We were both so determined that our way was the right way to mop the floor. It turned into a huge argument. We had never had that kind of argument in our nearly two years of dating and two whole months of marriage. It was all about my way versus your way. We hurt each other’s feelings by putting down the way the other person was planning to mop.
As a child of divorce, I thought, oh great I have just married this guy and now we are not going to stay married because we can’t communicate about how to mop the floor. I literally sat on the couch that night taking inventory. I brought the bedroom suit and he brought the couch and TV to the marriage. What were we going to do with all the wedding gifts? How would we split them if we couldn’t make it work and got divorced. He asked me what I was thinking. I told him that I was splitting up the furniture and he looked at me like I was an alien. He did not understand my fears or immediate jump to thinking that this was not going to work.
He said, “We had a disagreement. This is part of it. We just have to find a way to work through it”. My response, “WHAT?!? Aren’t you worried that we aren’t going to make it? What if we can’t agree on the big things. What if you don’t want me anymore? What if……” It wasn’t even in his wheelhouse to go down the road of fears. It was a wake up call for both of us. For me – to realize that I am not my parents and not doomed to make the same decisions. And for him, he learned first hand that my fears were big and would take time, patience and reassurance from him.
There are still times that I come home from hearing about a friend getting divorce and I get right up in his face and I tell him the bad news and then I say – “we are ok right?! Do we need to work on something? Do you want to tell me something? Is everything ok with us?” He knows now.
He usually smiles and kisses me or holds me and says yes we are ok. He knows that sometimes the fears and lies can still be loud and that I need his steady presence and the legacy of his parents staying married to continue speaking into my life.
And I have to let it. I have to share my fears and be vulnerable. I have to tell him what is going on in my head so that he can call out the fears and lies and speak some truth to it. If I let the fears rumble in my head it can be a dangerous thing. The bricks in the wall are easier to pick up then let go of.
And do you know what I learned? It doesn’t matter how you mop the floor. Just get the floor mopped!
Children of Divorce – Let me say this again – You are not doomed to the same outcome as your parents.