Heaven Help Me!

No one dreams of their marriage ending in divorce. It usually is something that “just happens” over time, right? Once the love is gone, that’s it. No so, says Laura A. Munson, author of an article on modern love in the August 2, 2009 edition of the New York Times, entitled, “Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear“.

Munson is a chain-saw swinging, horse-shovin’, Montana mountain girl who just won’t take “no” for an answer.  From her husband, that is.  One day, after being married for a satisfying twenty-some years, he wakes up in the morning, out-of the-blue says he doesn’t love her anymore and announces he wants out. Does she crumple up in a fetal position and cry, whine, and beg for him to stay? No.

Rather, as the article states, she calmly looks him in the eye and says to him, “I don’t buy it”.

She refuses to accept his wish and instead offers to give him whatever he needs to get through his “mid-life crisis”. A man-cave in the garage, maybe? A trek in Nepal, the drum set he always wanted – anything – to give him the distance he needs without hurting the rest of the family.  She calls it “responsible distance”.

Despite his initial wish to move out, he didn’t. He was present, however unreliably so. It was difficult. He stayed out later than usual after work and not call, blew off family parties and activities. He didn’t even wish her a Happy Birthday.

She continued to set the dinner table with a plate for him, continued to enjoy summer with the kids & invited him to join them, basically she went on as usual. She loved him from afar. Not to say she wasn’t angry…She was. She wanted to scream at him, but she didn’t.

She did all this because she knew his problem wasn’t hers to solve.  She knew she should get out of the way to help him solve it. Realizing that if she didn’t, he could turn his problems into “their” marital problems or “her” problems, which is exactly why she steered clear.

She acted in this counter-cultural way, much to the chagrin of her friends who urged her to “kick him out” and get a lawyer.

As she writes, “Although it may sound ridiculous to say, ‘Don’t take it personally’ when your husband tells you he no longer loves you, sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do.” She tried this for six months.

After six months, she looked outside one day to see her husband home early from work moving the lawn. Then making home repairs. Then making plans for keeping their family warm during the upcoming winter. A man doesn’t do these things if he’s not planning to stay. Then, finally, on Thanksgiving Day, he bowed his head humbly and said, “I am thankful for my family”.

Much psychology out there tells us what most of us already know – to be happy, you have to know happiness inside yourself. Relying on external factors for happiness  is like building your castle on shifting sand. Whether one’s achievements, accomplishments,  possessions, job, and/or spouse might enhance one’s happiness, it is not the same as knowing happiness from within. Her husband had bought the myth that happiness was due to external factors, and because of this, he lost hope & his pride. Fortunately for their family, he found his way out.

I believe the love that drew two people together in the first place remains, even when extinguished to a flicker by everyday stresses and occurrences which knock us around. It can be fanned back into raging bonfire.

It’s amazing that Ms. Munson was able to see this, and struggle, and suffer, and wait.

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Posted October 22nd, 2009 under Children, Marriage. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.