Dear Sonnet,
Your story reminds me of myself and Ben when we were first married and even for
the first couple of years of life together. Ben was six years older than me. My parents loved each other very much but they also had a stormy marriage. Like
you, I didn't want to let anything go for fear that it would grow into something
I didn't want to live with.
While there's wisdom in this, it needs to be consulted about later, and in private. I used to react immediately, which embarrassed a few of my friends. The first thing I learned, after some years, was to get his general agreement to consult with me about any things I felt were problems, and a firm promise to make an
effort to change. Also, to let me know what I needed to change in myself. This
understanding that you have about the importance of building well from the beginning is an excellent quality in a mother, but it needs to be handled carefully
with a spouse. As is often said, "Rome wasn't built in a day," and neither is a
good marriage. As we learned, experienced and tried and as we grew older, we gradually adjusted better and better to each other.
I learned that he would listen if I explained quietly and lovingly to him what I
needed from him in the way of behaviour, and he became able to tell me some of
his reasons and feelings. Ben had been on his own for years, and wasn't used to
sharing his life with anyone. It took him years of my persisting in asking him
about his day to get him to tell me about it. In the beginning he was very stilted and seemed embarrassed or annoyed. After awhile he began to enjoy telling me about his day. Now he looks forward to it. I had to work long and hard for that! :-)
I was unusually mature for my age in some ways and quite immature in others. When I was a child I remember having done something wrong and apologizing for it,
only to be told by the adult involved that saying sorry didn't change what had happened. Maybe that's why I didn't like to apologize when I was in the wrong.
I would know clearly that I was the one who had been wrong in my behaviour but I
couldn't bring myself to apologize and make peace. I would hold to my pride. So finally Ben would nobly apologize to me, and then we would have peace between
us, but I knew that he had taken on himself what didn't belong to him. Ben was
more mature that I was in this critical place where I was weak.
When my mother was too emotionally wrought up to be able to talk to my fatherthere were occasions when she would write him a letter. They lived together in
the same house, of course, but she felt she could calmly express what she wanted
to say only in writing as she couldn't get through it if she felt too strongly
about it or when he was excited and upset, too. She got around the problem by
writing her letters. That is a possibility that you might explore.
Your dear man will need lots of encouragement to learn to share and consult with
you. As long as he loves you and wants to have a happy and congenial relationship with you he will make attempts to overcome his childhood conditioning. In the places where you have problems, (which may be similar to mine in "flying off
the handle" or in verbally striking too fast when you don't like something,) you
will need to adjust together so that you are both commited to being willing and
able to talk things through later to reach an understanding satisfactory conclusion to both of you.
Keep trying. This wonderful phone call you received 0from your future sister-in
-law is a landmark in your relationship with her as well as with your dear man.
The way you respond will bond his family to you and to him. This is part of your knitting yourselves all together as a family.
He sounds like an excellent man. I hope you continue to work things out together. I also hope my sharing our experience here helps. Ben and I have been married to each other since 1957, almost 50 years, and we both agree that our marriage just keeps getting better and better!
I remember how we used to have loud arguments on occasion at home, and both would be very upset. Sometimes I began to feel like laughing, right in the middle of some argument, but I also felt it wasn't fitting, so I quashed the feeling and
kept right on being loud and angry. One day I let myself laugh. You should have seen Ben's face! He looked so astonished that it was even funnier. He could
see that I wasn't laughing meanly at him, but at both of us and he began to laugh too, and we ended up in each others' arms. That was a real break-through in our development.
At a later time he was cross and I was going to reply in kind when suddenly I thought better of it and said "Ben, this isn't the way we want to live with each other, is it?" He agreed, and we both relaxed and handled the situation in a new
and better way.
Now, if one of us ever speaks even a little impatiently to the other we make sure to apologize as soon as possible. We love each other too much to want to speak even in an impatient voice to the beloved. Marriage can become better and better with the years.
I wish you both, and your families, all the best,
Warmly, Mary
