Average, Stuck-In-A-Rut Couple Seeking Phenomenal, Fantastic Marriage...Does It Really Exist?

Monotony, boredom, excuses, and blame; this is not the life I signed up for. Insecurity, self-doubt, financial hardship, and despair; not exactly what I had in mind. Excitement, adventure, passion, and love; yes, that’s what I meant, that’s absolutely what I want.
In all fairness, I’m sure my husband didn’t expect to marry a loony bird wife either. Up down, high low, scattered and erratic; yeah, not the way he intended to roll. But that’s where we’re at, and that’s why we’re here.
Welcome to our very own “Marriage Experiment”. Six months of our lives (we’ll probably need more), devoted to transforming ourselves as individuals and as a couple. We want to succeed, we don’t want to be a statistic, and you have a front row seat. Who knows, maybe you feel the same way? Maybe we can help each other? Boy, this is overwhelming. This task is huge.
I have a feeling this won’t be easy. We can’t afford counseling or therapy. That’s no excuse. When you decide to really take control of your life, your path, your destiny…sometimes you have to think “outside the box”.
Our “outside the box” therapy sessions will be held every Wednesday night, 8:30pm…..at our dining room table. Therapy, or “lessons”, to be led by us! Come on, we’re both teachers, at least we used to be. We’ve written so many lesson plans, we should be able to do it in our sleep. The topic for each week? Well I guess we’ll have to see where this goes. The first step is just simply reopening the door to communication. We may just sit at the table and laugh at each other. Would that be so bad? A good laugh is always therapeutic.
My husband has obviously agreed to this experiment. We’ve watched both sets of our parents destroy and tear each other apart. We’ve been the children involved, we know how it feels. A long time ago we vowed we would never do that to each other or our kids. The time has come. Now we put our money where our mouth is, and get to work.
This may get so good, I might even have to miss General Hospital. Yes, the soap opera. Yes, I watch it every night at 10pm on SoapNet. It is totally my guilty pleasure. I do love good old Port Charles, Jason Morgan, Sonny Corinthos, and of course, the legendary Luke Spencer…….but if it really comes down to it fellas, I gotta choose my husband.
I am not a writer. I am also not a therapist. I am simply an average American woman, leading a very average life. Here’s the problem; I don’t like average. Never have, and by now I definitely know, I never will.
My husband and I are both thirty-something, married 7 ½ years, 2 adorable little girls, a small home in a nice suburban town, cute little puppy, an aquarium filled with 5 fish that are, unfortunately, still alive from the county fair…. He’s a teacher and coach at the local high school, I’m a former teacher turned full-time mom, part-time everything else. Many people would say we’re lucky. And yes, there are many parts of my life that I’m thankful for. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate my life and the experiences I’ve had. I know my problems pale in comparison to the problems many others face. I have a good life.
The problem is; I want more. Good is nice, but GREAT would be better. I want to feel like I’m truly LIVING my life, and not just SURVIVING someone else’s. I want to do this with my husband, with my family. But first, we need help.
We’ve drifted apart. It happens. He goes to work; I throw myself into our kids. He comes home too exhausted for any kind of emotional bonding or talk. All I want to do is reconnect. All he wants to do is relax. As you can probably guess, relaxation, in my husband’s mind, does not involve an in depth conversation about the universe and our place in it. So we do our own thing, working our way through the evening and into the night, passing by each other, until it’s time for bed. We might be intimate, we might not. We will definitely turn on reruns of Seinfeld and Friends. We’ll fall asleep. Repeat, repeat, repeat……
If I had a choice would I be so boring?!? Of course not! But I do have a choice, and why did it take me so long to remember that? Have I been that detached? Why didn’t somebody, ANYBODY, tell me to wake up?!? Why? The answer’s quite simple. So many of us feel this way. So many of us have simply accepted the place that we’re at, good or bad, and we’ve decided this is it. We probably don’t even realize anymore that we possess the power to change.
I’m hoping that by writing and blogging (I still don’t even understand how this works), I’ll be helping our cause. You have to understand, I just learned how to text a couple months ago. I don’t use social networking sites, I don’t even know what Twitter is. Tweet someone? Are you kidding? Sounds kinda perverted to me.
Maybe my writing will help me really examine myself; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Maybe someday my girls will read this and laugh. At any rate, this should be interesting! I must admit, I can hardly contain my excitement! I do love a challenge, and if you knew my husband, you’d be in hysterics right now. A challenge? Yes, he’s a challenge. But he’s a good man, loyal to a fault, and a wonderful father.
Our first session is tomorrow night. Wednesday, November 18th, 2009. Mark your calendars, the first day of truly the rest of our lives together. Maybe. Or I guess we could end up tearing each other apart. Hmmm, I guess we’ll see.
The first topic? Dreams, goals, ambitions……. You know, those things we used to think about? The driving force and motivation behind change. The reasons you strive for more. The part of your life you forget and leave behind when you’re stuck-in-a-rut, detached, emotionally and spiritually empty.
Yes, this will be a challenge. Will we fully embrace this experiment, this phase of our relationship? Or will we crash and burn? This should be good. No, let me rephrase that. This has the potential to be GREAT. Let the games begin…..