Marriage Is For Losers

(I know I haven't updated my blog for a few months...shame... and I know this doesn't count as a post from me, but I read it on another blog and LOVED it so I wanted to share. Also, I wanted to keep it somewhere that I could find it for when I need it. In the future. Distant future.)

You can be right, or you can be married; take your pick. I can’t remember who told me that, but I do remember that they were only half-joking. The other half, the serious half, is exceedingly important. This is why.

Many therapists aren’t crazy about doing marital therapy. It’s complicated and messy, and it often feels out of control. In the worst case scenario, the therapist has front row seats to a regularly-scheduled prize fight. But I love to do marital therapy. Why? Maybe I enjoy the work because I keep one simple principle in mind: if marriage is going to work, it needs to become a contest to see which spouse is going to lose the most, and it needs to be a race that goes down to the wire.

When it comes to winning and losing, I think there are three kinds of marriages. In the first kind of marriage, both spouses are competing to win, and it’s a duel to the death. Husbands and wives are armed with a vast arsenal, ranging from fists, to words, to silence. These are the marriages that destroy. Spouses destroy each other, and, in the process, they destroy the peace of their children. In fact, the destruction is so complete that research tells us it is better for children to have divorced parents than warring parents. These marriages account for most of the fifty percent of marriages that fail, and then some. The second kind of marriage is ripe with winning and losing, but the roles are set, and the loser is always the same spouse. These are the truly abusive marriages, the ones in which one spouse dominates, the other submits, and in the process, both husband and wife are stripped of their dignity. These are the marriages of addicts and enablers, tyrants and slaves, and they may be the saddest marriages of all.

But there is a third kind of marriage. The third kind of marriage is not perfect, not even close. But a decision has been made, and two people have decided to love each other to the limit, and to sacrifice the most important thing of all—themselves. In these marriages, losing becomes a way of life, a competition to see who can listen to, care for, serve, forgive, and accept the other the most. The marriage becomes a competition to see who can change in ways that are most healing to the other, to see who can give of themselves in ways that most increase the dignity and strength of the other. These marriages form people who can be small and humble and merciful and loving and peaceful.

And they are revolutionary, in the purest sense of the word.

Because we live in a culture in which losing is the enemy (except in Chicago, where Cubs fans have made it a way of life). We wake up to news stories about domestic disputes gone wrong. Really wrong. We go to workplaces where everyone is battling for the boss’s favor and the next promotion, or we stay at home where the battle for the Legos is just as fierce. Nightly, we watch the talking heads on the cable news networks, trying to win the battle of ideas, although sometimes they seem quite willing to settle for winning the battle of decibels. We fight to have the best stuff, in the best name brands, and when we finally look at each other at the end of the day, we fight, because we are trained to do nothing else. And, usually, we have been trained well. In the worst of cases, we grew up fighting for our very survival, both physically and emotionally. But even in the best of situations, we found ourselves trying to win the competition for our parents’ attention and approval, for our peers’ acceptance, and for the validating stamp of a world with one message: win. And, so, cultivating a marriage in which losing is the mutual norm becomes a radically counter-cultural act. To sit in the marital therapy room is to foment a rebellion.

What do the rebellious marriages look like? Lately, when my blood is bubbling, when I just know I’ve been misunderstood and neglected, and I’m ready to do just about anything to convince and win what I deserve, I try to remember a phone call we recently received from my son’s second grade teacher. She called us one day after school to tell us there had been an incident in gym class. After a fierce athletic competition, in which the prize was the privilege to leave the gym first, my son’s team had lost. The losers were standing by, grumbling and complaining about second-grade-versions of injustice, as the victors filed past. And that’s when my son started to clap. He clapped for the winners as they passed, with a big dopey grin on his face and a smile stretched from one ear of his heart to the other. His startled gym teacher quickly exhorted the rest of his team to follow suit. So, a bunch of second grade losers staged a rebellion, giving a rousing ovation for their victorious peers, and in doing so, embraced the fullness of what it can mean to be a loser. When I’m seething, I try to remember the heart of a boy, a heart that can lose graciously and reach out in affection to the victors.

In marriage, losing is letting go of the need to fix everything for your partner, listening to their darkest parts with a heart ache rather than a solution. It’s being even more present in the painful moments than in the good times. It’s finding ways to be humble and open, even when everything in you says that you’re right and they are wrong. It’s doing what is right and good for your spouse, even when big things need to be sacrificed, like a job, or a relationship, or an ego. It is forgiveness, quickly and voluntarily. It is eliminating anything from your life, even the things you love, if they are keeping you from attending, caring, and serving. It is seeking peace by accepting the healthy but crazy-making things about your partner because, you remember, those were the things you fell in love with in the first place. It is knowing that your spouse will never fully understand you, will never truly love you unconditionally—because they are a broken creature, too—and loving them to the end anyway.

Maybe marriage, when it’s lived by two losers in a household culture of mutual surrender, is just the training we need to walk through this world—a world that wants to chew you up and spit you out—without the constant fear of getting the short end of the stick. Maybe we need to be formed in such a way that winning loses its glamour, that we can sacrifice the competition in favor of people. Maybe what we need, really, is to become a bunch of losers in a world that is being a torn apart by the competition to win. If we did that, maybe we’d be able to sleep a little easier at night, look our loved ones in the eyes, forgive and forget, and clap for the people around us.

I think that in a marriage of losers, a synergy happens and all of life can explode into a kind of rebellion that is brighter than the sun. The really good rebellions, the ones that last and make the world a better place, they are like that, aren’t they? They heal, they restore. They are big, and they shine like the sun. And, like the sun, their gravitational pull is almost irresistible.

New Year's Resolutions

I have a hard time with the idea of New Year's Resolutions. I feel like they are an excuse for people to make goals that wouldn't have made them otherwise. I guess it's a good thing though... shows that people are trying? What I don't understand is why people don't just make their big goals as the ideas come to them. Why wait for some day on a calendar in the middle of the winter? If you want to lose weight, lose weight now. If you want to read that book, read it now. We could all be progressing at a much faster rate in life if we would just continually set big goals and not wait for once a year. None-the-less, I have decided not to boycott the social norm of goal making this year. However, all goals that I have decided to set go above and beyond the typical, "get good grades", "exercise more"... nonsense that most people use as a goal setting cop-out. I have even broken my large goals up into four different categories (adopted from the categories of connection I feel are important in relationships). Mind, body, heart, and soul.

MIND
This category would include anything that I feel is associated with intelligence, stimulating the mind, or educational growth. Therefore my goal in this area is to read four books of classical literature. This would include works from authors like Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, etc.

BODY
Body includes all physical goals. This year my goals are to participate in five triathlons and set a new PR for my 5K time.

HEART
The heart category would be for things that I enjoy. One must not simply set practical goals, fun goals are just as important if succeeding is the mission. My goal for this area could probably fall under the "body" category, however it is something that I enjoy. I want to try an new healthy recipe every month and do better at logging my eating on my fitness tracker.

SOUL
Soul would be the equivalent of a spiritual category. For this one I would like to do more than just focus on reading my scriptures daily, although this is most likely what everyone else would do for their spiritual goal. I would actually like to take it in a different direction. I want to read books that deal with spirituality and not simply religion. For example, I want to read a book by the Dalai Lama and his view of life. I want to read "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis. Vicktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" is also on my list.


So.... I'm hoping that the act of publicity announcing my resolutions for the year will be more of a motivating factor to work harder at them since now I have other people that are aware of what I'm trying for than just myself. What are some of your resolutions for the 2012 year?

2011 In Review

Things I did this year...

RACES
1. Jacob's 5K
2. Mud Run 10K

3. Turkey Triathlon
4. Nearly Naked Mile

BOOKS
1. The Peacegiver
2. A Passion for Excellence
3. 10 Stupid Things Women Do to Ruin Their Lives
4. The Hunger Games
5. A Farewell To Arms

TRIPS
1. Italy, Greece, and Turkey

2. Las Vegas Road Trip

3. Lake Powell

MISC. ACTIVITIES
1. Learn how to make a skirt
2. Learned how to rock climb outside

3. Went on 18 first dates
4. Rode on a bullet bike
5. Fell in love with sushi
6. Played with these incredible girls

7. Ski dived and surfed indoors
8. Got a new job
9. Started dating this handsome boy :-)

I think it has been a very good year! And today is the last day. BOOYA! Bring on 2012!

11-11-11 at 11:11

The Nearly Naked Mile! It occurred on 11-11-11 at 11:11pm. A charity event in which you must donate items of clothing to register for the race. We took the clothes right off our backs and then hit the ground runnin'! Naturally this left us nearly naked in 30 something degree weather (we were actually quite a bit more dressed than most people - I'll spare your eyes from pictures of them though). We completed with a time of 7:36, a little slow but I blame the cold.

We did free t-shirts though - censored of course ;-) Thanks to my lovely friend Kelsey and all her work into organizing the event, I was able to convince Jake to run around barely clothed with me in the freezing cold. Super fun!

Facebook is...

...a public display of how little attention American's pay in English class. Let's think about the average American for just a second. We have spoken American-English since our first words at a few months of age. Then, at the age of approximately 5, we begin school, where we study the English language each year for the next 12 years. Not only do we speak it, we write it, we understand it, and we communicate with it, correct? How come, after at least TWELVE YEARS of study, and 20+ years of speaking, do people still struggle with correct grammar?? And why do we display this lack of intelligence across the internet?? It's no wonder we get the "dumb American" stereotype! Can we be just a little bit better? Try just a little bit harder?

It is embarrassing to read people's Facebook statuses, knowing that they were allowed to graduate high school although unable to correctly diagram a sentence before vocalizing it. I'm not saying that I am an English expert by any means, I'm just asking why people don't know how to maintain the correct tense, use the correct conjunctions, and form grammatically correct sentences for something as simple as a Facebook status. Am I being orgulous? Absolutely. I just think we need to step it up act more educated.

September Already?

Things I experienced for the first time this summer:
- Going out of the country :)
- real rock climbing

- an Aussie repel. INCREDIBLE.
- actually loving a new job
- working two jobs
- riding a true road bike with clip in shoes - and falling quite a few times
- became the VP of the Student Interior Design Organization
- volunteering for the Utah Diabetes Association
- declared a double major: Interior Design and Marketing
- running 6.5 miles one lovely morning :) it's a wonderful feeling. I'm running my first official 5K this Saturday.
- Attending the National Kitchen and Bath Industry show in Las Vegas - road trip!

- learning how to swim like a swimmer - and drinking way too much pool water
- losing my respect for government funding in relation to medicare, medicaid, disability pay, etc.
- being surprisingly nervous on a date with very admirable/cute/fun boy. I don't generally get nervous...
- stripping wire
- buying real running shoes

- sanding and re-staining a deck
- multiple dates with 7 different boys. haha. It's not as great as it sounds.
- backing up a trailer - oh baby! This one I'm quite proud of.
- sewing a skirt
- sanding and re-staining/painting some new shelves for my bedroom

I'd say it has been a pretty successful summer :) Now that school has started and I'm taking 17 credit hours on top of my two jobs I've got a whole lot more to keep me busy... But I sure love being busy!

Beauty

"I find the whole concept of being ‘sexy’ embarrassing and confusing. If I do an interview with photographs people desperately want to change me - dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows, give me a fringe. Then there’s the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini-skirt. But that’s not me. I feel uncomfortable. I’d never go out in a mini-skirt. It’s nothing to do with protecting the Hermione image. I wouldn’t do that. Personally, I don’t actually think it’s even that sexy. What’s sexy about saying, ‘I’m here with my boobs out and a short skirt, have a look at everything I’ve got?’ My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder." - Emma Watson

This is absolutely beautiful. Why can't there be more girls in this world that are as comfortable with themselves as Emma? And why can't more men in this world support that? I admire Miss Emma Watson. She's the kind of example both girls and boys need nowadays...