I love you. I trust you.
See how interchangeable that is? To have one in a relationship is to have the other, and if one is missing, the other one also has found a serious hiding place within your heart.
As hard as it is to accept, and contrary to most Valentines Day cards and psychological advice, you can’t build trust. You can’t build what has and infinite value and place. It’s like being pregnant; you either are, or you aren’t.
Have you ever stopped to consider how you are the only person in your relationship that can do the things you do? Ever contemplated your uniqueness not only to your partner, but to your family and the universe as a whole?
Sure, there are people who look better than you, cook better than you, are funnier than you, smarter than you, and more engaging than you. But no one combines it like you do. Your spouse, partner or significant other will tell you; you are the one and only.
And its not just in an emotional sense. Perhaps if people realized how much they are the only person responsible for so much in the lives of their spouse or children, many marriages would be spared the injustice of premature ending. In my house, I’m the one who shovels snow, takes out trash, and reaches for things in high places. I get up when the baby wakes up at night, because he sleeps closer to me.
I check up on lightbulbs, do the vacuuming, make sure our heating filter is regularly changed, and bring up the heavy laundry. My wife can do all of these things, but I’m the only one who does them in our house. I’m the only one who bears the responsibility.
You can’t imagine how many responsibilities in life bear your name, and how much other people depend on you to maintain them. No matter how angry, how tired, how frustrated you become, you are the one and only for so many things that make your life and the life of your loved ones run efficiently.
So the next time you question how important you are to someone, or if what you do matters, think about the role you fill that only you can maintain. You may be surprised, and pleased, with how irreplaceable you are.
The number one question that many people in tense relationships ask is “Should I stay?” The qualifying emotions of love, hope and trust often tip the balances of judgment in favor of everyone else but the person that needs them.
And chief among these emotions is hope. You can love someone and leave them. You can trust someone and not make yourself vulnerable to hurt. But when you hope for someone to reach potential and maturity, there is very little that can be done to shake that optimism. You can’t hope and act otherwise.
So when you get to a point where you are considering leaving a marriage, but there’s something holding you back, it’s the hope that you don’t have to leave. It’s a hope that the comfort you’ve known for so long, whether positive or negative in its affect, doesn’t have to be abandoned for the unknown.
Is that a signal that you shouldn’t leave? Probably not. But it surely is a signal that you aren’t ready to leave. You haven’t come to grips with removing yourself from the drama, the incompatibility, or trauma that has been the hallmark of your relationship.
If you listen to the lyrics of this song, which I’ve heard were written by Michael Jackson, you should be able to easily relate to every word if you are in love. It’s one of a few songs that I feel like exactly captures how I feel about my wife – even though the video is full of daughters.
It’s funny how a simple tune can make you fall in love all over again in a matter of seconds. So I hope to inspire all of the folks out there through the power of music with this new feature – Love’s Soundtrack.
Today’s entry is one of my favorite love songs, “There She Goes” by Babyface feat. Pharrell. Babyface is cool, but Pharrell is my favorite producer.
Enjoy, and for all of the guys out there, imagine replacing your sweetheart’s name in place of “she” in the lyrics; chances are, you probably do feel this way and haven’t said it or acted on it in a while.
If you are a newly married person, or someone who is contemplating marriage, let me give you the best advice you’ll ever receive about the institution.
Never take marriage advice.
People who offer advice mean well; we all assume that we’ve been through enough trial and error to impart some wisdom on some less-knowing person in a like circumstance. The problem is that no one ever discloses all of the things that didn’t work for their circumstance. Not failures, mind you; but 10,000 ways that don’t work.
A smart thing to do is to ask about best practices. Habits. Nuances that make life easier for married people. No one has a universal answer; it’s like trying to offer a bride a wedding dress that is commonly worn; it ain’t gonna happen. Never take advice. Instead, try to receive the lighter and more soluble characteristics of successful marriages.
Or at least, those marriages that are successful on the outside.
It’s amazing how life can create ripple effects that echo for generations. One bad thought can echo throughout your day. One negative action can ripple throughout your lifetime.
And one evil person can effect a family for generations.
It seems far gone, but if families knew how their bad habits, their proclivities and their poor judgment cascade down through to their children, grandchildren and beyond, would they make the same kind of faulty decisions? Would they be willing to be so selfish?
My son jolted out of his sleep, eyes bulging, gasping for air but finding no room to exhale. His legs and arms were writhing, and his body began to stiffen.
Right away, I realized that he was choking. How exactly, I was not sure; but in the seconds that surprise settled into panic between me and my wife, I fleetingly thought to myself, “God, please don’t take him from us.”
You would think that that the lesson to pro athletes concerning infidelity would’ve been a well-taught, well-received one; Steve McNair lost his life because of an affair.
But as this column indicates, rather startlingly, most athletes believe its business as usual.
In a frighteningly candid way, this might be exactly what society needed to put the Tiger Woods scandal in its appropriate perspective.
