marriage issues

Different is Surprisingly Good


Ozzie Nelson

Ozzie and Harriet Nelson Image via Wikipedia

A widow friend of Rob’s posted a valid criticism of the phrase “Different is just different” today. In the beginning, and for a while after, comparing now and then is something you spend a lot of time doing. Then is a wonderful whitewashed place where you lived in Shangri-La like bliss with your late spouse. Everything was easy and more than a little like Lake Woebegone – above average. And we all do it because it is easier to pretend that we had the mythically perfect marriage than to admit it wasn’t or that what we had was a product of sweat and maybe tears and certainly would have made for better reality television than 1950’s family sitcom. It’s an effective strategy for preventing the inevitable forward momentum that takes hold of your life and moves you on – willing or not.

 

Comparisons to then and now. Then wins hands down in the beginning because there is little worse than grief when it is as fresh as a newly acquired paper cut.

 

My life has been different for a long time. Five years actually. It’s been five years. And if I am to be truthful, things were not perfect before that really. Will and I had a good marriage, but it took time and effort to make it so.

 

My life now is different from a year ago or even six months ago. In June it will be different again. And different is just different, but it is also pretty darn good. Not just because of Rob either. Finding love does not cure you of widowhood. That is one of the more annoying fallacies that many of my fellow widowed believe. That because I am engaged to be married this June, I am suddenly “okay” and that I no longer grieve. Not true. What I do have is a much better sense of who I am and what I want for myself, and my child, and that I am discovering more about myself and my strengths and limitations every day.

 

Rob’s older daughter worries that he and I might not be emotionally solid enough to know what we are doing. Marrying so soon. I can’t speak for him, but I am far more aware of the enormity of what I am doing now than I was back then. I know now what “in sickness and in health” is really asking of me and what “til death do you part” feels like. I know how important time spent with your husband is and why you can never say “I love you” often enough.

 

Could I have discovered a deeper sense of self with Will? It’s possible. Would I have the insight I have now into relationships and marriage? Perhaps. I know that way back then I was content and contentment isn’t the best soil for sustained growth.

 

My different is good. Very good. But it is just different. It wouldn’t be fair to then or now to compare.

Being a Single Mom


"Under the horse chestnut tree", 1 p...

Image via Wikipedia

I have never pretended that I ever wanted to parent on my own. As a matter of fact when I turned 31, I actually spent a few months comtemplating  single parenthood. Not because it was becoming a trendy thing, but because I really couldn’t imagine not having a child of my own. I came to the conclusion though that it was too daunting a task and much too unfair to a child to go it alone. 

 

Imagine my surprise when the fates went ahead and made a single mom of me anyway.

 

It isn’t that I am not good at it. I am commended right and left for what a wonderful child I have, but I often wonder if they are merely saying that and the unspoken part of the sentence is “for not having a father..” Because the truth is that my little girl is headstrong and spoiled. I have been too distracted and too tired and just too grief-stricken to hold the lines that needed holding as often as they should have been held.

 

Case in point is that she still sleeps with me. She has slept with me almost from the beginning. I am assured by other two parent families that children do sleep with their parents. It is more common than the majority let on and that eventually they all sleep on their own.

 

I feel like a failure nonetheless.

 

Neither I nor any of my siblings ever slept with our parents in their bed. Their bedroom as a matter of fact was strictly off-limits. I have memories of hovering in the doorway to their room and asking to be allowed in. Even in the middle of the night. Even if I was ill. I never even tried to broach the door if I had a bad dream. I would just pull the covers over my head and grip them tightly to prevent whatever monster I had dreamt of from gaining entry.

 

I bring this up only because I worry that this bad habit I have left to its own devices will become more of an issue once the summer comes and we are in Canada with Rob. He is patient when it comes to my parenting skills, but he is far and away the expert. It must take quite a toll on his inner Virgo to tactfully approach subjects concerning my daughter. 

 

We had a semi-conversation about sleeping arrangements tonight on the phone, and although he brought up nothing I hadn’t already thought about, I still felt bad afterwards because I know firsthand that no one was ever meant to do this by themselves.

 

I wonder more often than not who she would be if there had been two of us raising her.

The Details


Wedding Dress

Image by LollyKnit via Flickr

So, we have gone from a small ceremony with just ourselves and our daughters to planning a wedding on location and with guests no less. And it makes me smile to think about it really because I can remember us not long ago joking about theme weddings in Vegas.

It doesn’t matter really. As long it is us. Rob and I. Our girls.

I bought a bride’s magazine the other day. It felt like an odd thing to do. At my age. Looking at “princess” gowns like a teenager getting ready for prom.

When I married Will, it was in a dress that I didn’t really like, wearing accessories that were better suited to my sister DNOS, who had picked them out, than myself. The ceremony was written by the Catholic church and the songs prescribed by them as well. The reception was old school with a sit down dinner and dancing afterwards. All I had wanted was my toes in the sand, a flowing, slightly sexy gown and white cake with sickeningly sweet thick icing.

This time I will have the mountains, and I have come to love them more and more, a very exotic Canadian who fulfills the sexy requirement more than just slightly, and a ceremony written by the province of Alberta.

I don’t know if Tool has ever written a wedding appropriate song, and I can’t eat cake anymore without making myself sick. And I don’t think the gown will be white much less princess-like.

Details. It’s a good thing I am marrying a Virgo*

 

*Rob planned the entire wedding really, I picked out a dress for me and a flower girl dress for Dee. I also arranged for the few flowers we needed. Mostly though – it was Rob. Interesting my late husband, Will, was also keen on wedding planning, the mark of an enthusiastic to be wed man though Rob did tell me that when he married his late wife, Shelley, he couldn’t have been less interested. He was just nineteen though and as he tells it, whenever pressed into wedding planner mode, he was more than willing to oblige her. (see How Do You Know)