The guy was tall, muscular and terrified.
\nLet me explain.
\nHe was a summer guest at our college,
\ninvited by our adult daughter because
\nhe needed a place to stay\u2014 seriously.<\/p>\n
Allow me also to explain that my wife and I,
\nhave a, shall we say, volatile relationship:
\nif tension rises, we have established very
\nclear guidelines for resolving things. Generally,
\nyelling will be involved, accompanied by door
\nslamming and the occasional tearful epithet.
\nThese guidelines, developed through carefully
\nmonitored battlefield conditions, usually define
\nthe duration of hostilities: normally several minutes
\nto several days, depending on how angry she is.
\nOne should note, however, that the pronoun “she”
\nis generally replaced by the pronoun “he” in
\nall official records. This policy has operated
\nsuccessfully as long as its implementation
\noccurs only in front of our children, who generally
\nregard it as hilarious.<\/p>\n
So the guy was terrified. He had watched a mild
\ndisagreement about window cleaning, normally
\na minor three minutes sortie, escalate into
\na force seven riot and stomp, complete with
\ntwo door slams and fourteen tears, strategically
\nshed from each of her eyes. Such escalation
\nwould hardly occur under normal conditions;
\nbut the scrutiny of a twenty-four hour observer
\nwhose parents, our daughter told us, never
\nraised their voices, was losing its charm.
\nHe figured it was not long until the carving knife
\nappeared in one of our fists, an operatic prelude
\nto its neatly seating itself point first in somebody’s
\ncurrently beating heart. If only he had realized
\nthat the only difference between the current spectacle
\nand Grand Opera was that our words were yelled,
\nnot sung. Consequently, we were quite surprised
\nwhen he stepped between us passionately begged
\nus not to do anything drastic, but to try to calm down
\nto save the marriage, because he could see that, deep
\ninside, we had something special, something worth saving.
\nThere were tears in his eyes; he was trembling.<\/p>\n
That pretty well ended the hostilities: it was as if we were
\ntwelve-year-old kids who had been caught playing doctor
\nby the local cleric. That whole thing was pretty strange.
\nWho knew there were couples that didn’t fight? To us,
\nthe possibility of universal peace in a marriage was
\ninconceivable, to him, the use of war to create peace
\nwas equally impossible.<\/p>\n
What if he had married our daughter? Would he panic
\nevery time she invoked her innate right to scream and slam
\nand cry? Would she become frustrated at his inability
\nto take part in this healthy exchange? Nobody prepares you
\nfor this; you are expected to work out your own rules.
\nBut what if you can’t understand each other because you’re
\ntoo busy honouring your preconceptions see how much you
\nhave to change for love? Is our heaven somebody’s hell?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you enter a relationship, your “baggage” may be incomprehensible to your partner. As with everything, it takes serious work, even miraculous leaps of divergent thinking and understanding to get through to a working relationship. (#1025) Continue reading