One of my favorite tips that the author gave was to go to bed mad. People are always suggesting the opposite, but when you're tired and grumpy...it's just not worth a fight. Everything is always better in the morning.
1. Go to bed mad.The old maxim that you shouldn’t
go to bed mad is stupid. Sometimes you need to just go to freakin’ bed. “Let not
the sun go down upon your wrath” is prefaced in the Bible by the phrase “Be
angry and sin not.” So, who’s to say it doesn’t mean “Stay angry. Don’t
let the sun go down on that awesome fierce wrath of yours.” Seriously. Whoever
interpreted this to mean that you should stay up after midnight, tear-stained
and petulant, trying to iron out some kind of overtired and breathy accord --
was stupid. Shut up, go to bed, let your husband get some sleep. In the morning,
eat some pancakes. Everything will seem better, I swear.
2. Laugh if you can.In any fight, there is one
person who is really mad, and one person who isn’t that mad. That person should
deflect the fight. Make a joke, do something stupid or corny, make the other
person laugh. If the fight is very serious for you and you feel like you really
want to plant your flag and die on this hill, fine. Do it. But if you’re
fighting for entertainment, or because you’re just reacting, then you be the one
to deflect. Fights are bad. Deflecting a fight whenever possible is a good
idea. When you’re the one who’s being pissy and raw, and the other person
helps you get out of it and brings about peace, that feels fantastic. This was a
hard lesson to learn, for me. Letting Dan deflect a fight is the best thing,
now. He does it really well.
3. Don’t criticize. Ever.Here is a fact: Whatever
critical thing that you are about to say to your wife is already being loudly
articulated in her head. And if it’s true, she already feels like crap about it.
Assuming you married someone intelligent enough to like you and sane enough to
let you put a ring on it, trust that they are self-aware enough to know when
they screwed up. It may feel good to you in that moment to say the critical
thing, let it go ringing through the air in all its sonorous correctness, but it
will feel awful to hear it. The only, only way it’s beneficial to give your wife
criticism of any kind is if you’re absolutely positive she is completely
unaware. And you better find the nicest, kindest way possible to tell her. And
even then, good luck convincing her. Their recognition of the thing you are
helpfully trying to point out will be INHIBITED, not facilitated, by your
criticism. And then you’re the bad guy. So be careful.
4. Be the mirror.Your husband is the mirror in
which you see yourself. And the things you say to him give him an image of
himself too, which he will believe. You want him to believe it, so make it good.
Be a mirror that reflects something positive: you’re smart, you’re successful,
you’re fantastic in the sack, you’re a great provider, you’re the best. Can you
MAKE him any of these things just by telling him he is? I don’t know, but
consider this: the alternative really sucks. The things my husband says to me
are 1000 times more convincing than anyone else’s opinion on earth. Don’t think
he won’t believe you because you’re married and you’re contractually obligated
to say nice things. He’ll believe the terrible, insulting things you say, and the
gloriously positive things.
5. Be proud and brag.Let your spouse hear you
talking about them in glowing terms to other people. Be foolish. Be obvious. It
will mean everything. You will stay married forever.
6. Do your own thing.Dan races bicycles. I write
books. I don’t race bicycles or have any desire to race bicycles. He doesn’t
write books, nor does he even read the books that I write. Seriously. And I
don’t care. My opinion is that he’s the fastest, coolest most awesome bike racer
ever. His opinion is that I’m the bestest, coolest writer ever. We don’t have to
know all about cycling or writing in order to form these opinions -- in fact
knowledge of literature or actually reading my book might damage Dan’s opinion
of me as “best writer since the dawn of time.” We can still support each other
without being all up in the other person’s stuff. Doing your own thing, having
your own friends, being completely insanely passionate about something that the
other person has no idea, really, about, is awesome. It allows your spouse to be
your cheerleader, uncomplicated by knowledge or personal investment. And it
means you’ll always have stuff to talk about, because you’re not overlapping all
the time. You don’t have to read the same books either. You don’t have to have
the same friends.
7. Have kids.Kids stop you from being as crazy as
you want to be. Because when you have kids, you can’t be that crazy.
8. Move.Live in different houses. In different
parts of the country. Travel. Make it so that you can look back and divide up
your life into the years you spent in different cities, or different houses. If
you’re feeling stuck geographically or physically, you can confuse yourself into
thinking you’re stuck romantically. See your husband in different places, in
different contexts, in different countries even. Try it. Take him to a
mountaintop and give him another look. Pretty sexy. Take him to a new city and
check out his profile. Along the same lines, don’t be afraid to change
personally, or let your wife change as a person. Don’t worry about “growing
apart.” Be brave and evolve. Become completely different. Don’t gather moss.
Stagnation is unattractive.
9. Stop thinking temporarily.Marriage is not
conditional. It is permanent. Your husband will be with you until you die. That
is a given. It sounds obvious, but really making it a given is hard. You tend to
think in “ifs” and “thens” even when you’ve publicly committed to forever. If he
does this, I won’t tolerate it. If I do this, he’ll leave me. If I get fat. If I
change jobs. If he says mean things. If he doesn’t pay more attention. It’s
natural, especially in the beginning of your marriage, to keep those doubts in
your head. But the sooner you can get go of the idea that marriage is temporary,
and will end if certain awful conditions are met, the sooner you will let go of
all kinds of conflict and stress. Yes, you may find yourself in a horrible
situation where it’s absolutely necessary to get a divorce. But going into it
with divorce in the back of your mind, even in the way way way back of your
mind, is going to cause a lot of unnecessary angst. Accept that you’re going to
stay with him. He’s going to stay with you. Inhabit that and figure out how to
make THAT work, instead of living with the “what if”s and “in case of”s.
10. Do not put yourself in trouble’s way.Leave
your ex boyfriends and girlfriends alone. I’m sure you’re very trustworthy.
Aren’t we all? The thing is, there’s absolutely no reason to test it. Your
husband and your marriage are more valuable than any friendship. Any friendship
that troubles the marriage should be over immediately. Protect it with knives
and teeth, not because it’s fragile but because it’s precious. Don’t mess around
with a “hall pass” or a “harmless flirtation.” Adultery isn’t an event, it’s a
process with an event at the end. Don’t put your feet on a path that could lead
someplace bad.
11. Complain to his mother, not yours.This is one I
did read somewhere in a magazine, and it’s totally true. His mother will forgive
him. Yours never will. If you’re a man, complain to your friends. They expect
it.
13. Be loyal.All the crap you read in magazines
about honesty, sense of humor, communication, sensitivity, date nights, couples
weekends, blah blah blah can be trumped by one word: loyalty. You and your
spouse are a team of two. It is you against the world. No one else is allowed on
the team, and no one else will ever understand the team’s rules. This is okay.
The team is not adversarial, the team does not tear its members down, the team
does not sabotage the team’s success. Teammates work constantly to help and
better their teammates. Loyalty means you put the other person in your marriage
first all the time, and you let them put you first. Loyalty means subverting
your whims or desires of the moment to better meet your spouse’s whims or
desires, with the full understanding and expectation that they will be doing the
same. This is the heart of everything, and it is a tricky balance. Sometimes it
sways one way and some the other. Sometimes he gets to be crazy, sometimes it’s
your turn. Sometimes she’s in the spotlight, sometimes you. Ups and downs,
ultimately, don’t matter because the team endures.
14. Trust the person you married.For two people
who are trying to help each other, it can almost be harder to let the other
person help you than it is to be the one who’s helping. It can be harder to let
the other person deflect the fight than to be the one deflecting. It can be
harder to believe that your husband is fully committed to a lifetime of marriage
than to commit yourself. Harder to change yourself than to let the other person
change. Harder to be loved than to love. Weird, but true. I’m saying this to
everyone who’s newly married, and to myself: trust that person. Love them
completely and let them love you. If it all goes to seed, it’s going to hurt
either way. Better to have gone into it full throttle. Full throttle marriage is
a thrilling ride.
I love the realistic approach that these suggestions give. My only exception is that me, my spouse, and God are a team of three and with that third member...we can do just about anything we set our minds to.
