Marital Negotiations

I left my first marriage without much in the way of cash resources so it took a few years in a rental condo before I had saved enough to buy a home.  I will never forget the day I first saw the house that was soon going to be mine.  A friend who was also recently divorced called to tell me about a house he had seen.  It wasn't for him but he thought I might like it.  He was right.

I was home with an awful flu but I dragged myself out of bed for an hour to tour the house.  I instantly fell in love.  A few weeks later the place was mine.

The house was a Craftsman style bungalow,  in a great family neighborhood.  The kitchen was recently remodeled and was bright and sunny.  The hardwood floors gleamed!  It had built in bookcases, a fireplace and (best of all) a great front porch.  Did I mention that I fell in love with the place?

I cannot adequately describe the emotions I felt about that house.  Just buying new towels for the bathroom was like bringing home a gift for a lover.  Writing about that house still makes my heart race.

When I got married, I moved into my husband's house.  His was the grander of our homes, so it made sense.  Giving up my bungalow was incredibly difficult, but I was able to sell it to a nice young couple, which helped soothe me.  But I never, ever stopped loving my bungalow.

Fast forward seven years.  My husband Joe is retired and I plan to retire soon.  We don't need a huge home with four bedrooms, 15 acres, and a pond.  The term "downsize" appears often in our conversations.

I recently learned that my bungalow is back on the market.  It is the perfect place to downsize.  At first Joe agreed, but lately he has had a change of heart.  He is just as emotionally attached to his home as I am to mine.  Tonight I agreed to walk away from my bungalow.  But I am really having a hard time with that decision.

 Joe's house is just that - Joe's house.  My house is just that - my house.  Joe's house feels like a responsibility.  My house feels like a gift.

Now what do I do?

How Soon They Forget, and Maybe That's the Way it Should Be.

This past weekend my husband Joe and I were invited to attend a surprise birthday party for the wife of one of Joe’s oldest friends. Also invited to attend was Joe’s ex-wife (“M”), who drove with her boyfriend all the way from Chicago to share the birthday celebration with her dear friend.

Joe and I have been married for five years and he and his ex-wife split up another ten years before that. Just a year or two after their breakup, M moved to the midwest and has only made a few short visits each year to our neck of the woods to visit her son and his children who still live near-by.

I have never felt threatened at all by M so I was surprised to dream about her the night before the birthday party. In my dream, Joe told me that our marriage was over because he and M had decided to reunite. In the dream I was amazingly calm and accepting of that news, even patiently and soothingly explaining the decision to a few infuriated friends and Joe’s distressed children.

Joe and I arrived at the party at the designated time and M arrived about an hour later. She hovered across the room and then disappeared into the kitchen before she and I even had a chance to greet each other. My husband went to the kitchen to get a drink and emerged a minute later.

Joe came right over to me with a funny smile on his face. “She called me Bill”, he said. Then under his breath he added, “Her first husband was named Bill and he’s been dead for over ten years!” I thought he was joking, of course, but a minute later M followed Joe from the kitchen and after greeting me she apologized to Joe for forgetting his name. Joe was gracious, of course, but I hardly knew how to react to the absurdity of it all.

How could a woman forget the name of a man she was married to for nearly twenty years? I suppose there are a number of explanations but none of them particularly matter to me. I’m just amazed that I wasted an entire dream on my apparent anxiety about M’s arrival. And I am very grateful to M for providing the material that has kept me amused for the last three days.

Joe....I love you and I promise I will never forget your name....even twenty years from now.....until we get to the assisted living facility. Then all bets are off.

Fires, Tiger Woods and the Power of Forgiveness

I live in Western Massachusetts where the news in the past week has been dominated by a series of devastating fires. The first occurred a few days before Christmas in an historic home in Millers Falls that housed three generations of an extended family. The cause of that fire was accidental, but because the home was constructed of well-aged wood, it was quickly consumed by the flames. Although the family members escaped unharmed, the home and everything in it were totally destroyed.

Then, in the early hours of Sunday morning, a series of fires were set in a single neighborhood in Northampton. Five structures and four cars were damaged or destroyed. In this case, not all of the occupants of the burned structures were lucky – a father and son living in one of the homes died in the blaze. Thankfully, the arsonist wasn’t entirely successful in his efforts that morning. Three other fires were set but fizzled before they ignited.

I have never been the victim of a fire, so I can only imagine how awful it must feel to literally witness your life go up in smoke. Once, about ten years ago, my home was burglarized. The saddest part of that sad event is that I knew who did it. He was a teenager, a “friend” of my son’s. He came from a troubled home and just days before the robbery we had celebrated his 15th birthday at my house. I had made him a cake when I learned that his own mother had forgotten his special day. I wasn’t home when the burglary happened, so I didn’t feel physically threatened, but it did leave me with the feeling of being violated in a very personal way. Losing everything to a fire has got to be so much worse.

There is something about a fire that draws us in. We can’t avert our eyes even when we are watching the awful destruction it is causing. The hottest sports story for 2009 was the amazing fall of Tiger Woods. The revelation about his insatiable sexual behavior was like a virtual bonfire. We couldn’t stop watching even as his career and marriage went up in flames. We wanted Tiger to do something to put the fire out, but instead he fanned the flames by going into hiding and only periodically issuing cryptic and uninformative comments through his publicist. We knew this was making the situation worse. And still, we couldn’t take our eyes off the fire.

The most fascinating aspect of the Tiger Woods drama was how poorly it was handled. My friend Bill McGee says the secret to a happy marriage is based on the frequent use of four simple words, “Honey, I was wrong”. Tiger should have used words like those quickly and often – to his wife and family, to his sponsors and to his fans. If he had he done so the fire might have been quickly extinguished. Instead his silence poured gasoline onto the smoldering fire until it was an inferno.

There is a great book on marketing written by Harry Beckwith, called Selling the Invisible. In that book, the author describes an interesting phenomenon. As customers, we are more loyal to a business that has made a mistake in its dealings with us than we are to a business that has never harmed us, provided the offending business quickly admits to the mistake, apologizes sincerely and takes immediate steps to rectify the problem. If that sounds implausible, consider your own reaction to a sincere apology. If you are like me the first words out of your mouth are, “That’s OK. Don’t worry about it.” We respond that way because we recognize ourselves in the actions of the transgressor. We make mistakes too and when we do, we want to be forgiven. Someone should have explained this to Tiger. Had he quickly admitted to being wrong we would have forgiven him. Unfortunately Tiger’s disappearance gives us no choice but to brand him as immature, self-centered, and clearly the winner of the first prize in the Worst Husband of the Decade contest. Tiger’s bonfire continues to burn.

A couple of months ago I was astonished to receive a friend request on Facebook from the very same young man who robbed my home nearly a decade ago. He sent me a message asking if I remembered him. I got a chuckle out of that. As if I could ever forget him! My first instinct was to send him a few choice words and then block his account forever, but for some reason I decided to accept his offer to be his friend. He lives in California now, where he went to look for a career as a model. He has a young daughter and he proudly pointed to her pictures. Since then we have had occasional email exchanges. Nothing important or profound is said. They are just the little messages that keep people in touch who live a continent apart. Neither of us has mentioned the robbery because we don’t need to do so. His reaching out to friend me was his apology and my acceptance was the forgiveness we both needed.

I hope someone explains to Tiger that he has the ability to snuff out his public relations bonfire by apologizing sincerely, loudly and often. He has to tell us that he doesn’t want to be the tabloid Tiger Woods and that he is prepared to do whatever it takes to earn our admiration as a disciplined, devoted husband and the best golfer in the world. And if he does, we just may forgive him.


Written by Rebecca Caplice
December 28, 2009