"Blending in Marriage"

First picture of us together!

  

            After thirty-two years of marriage, friends often query, “How did you stay together so long? What’s the trick?

                I usually shrug my shoulders and shake my head, “I don’t know. Lots of love, but sometimes you fall out of synch with each other. The love may not feel as overpowering as it once was; yet if you wait it out, it comes back stronger and better.” I’ll pause for effect, and then continue, “You have to be friends as well as lovers. And you have to be willing to give up some of the things that are important to you as a person in order to reach for what’s best as a couple. Marriage is never easy—but nothing in life is, right? You’ll both feel anger, frustration and hurt. Own the negative as well as the positive. Always pull together when there’s a problem instead of heading in separate directions or relying on someone outside of your marriage to ‘fix’ things when they go wrong.”

At the Leakey cabin

            One of the tricks of marriage is taking two separate lives, with different upbringings and experiences, and blending them together into something wonderful and new. In the early years of our marriage, we made conscious choices of the things we liked or disliked about our childhood. For example, I hated that we moved every two or three years. I wanted to settle on a city or town, sink in roots, and build a life in one place. That didn’t matter as much to David at first. Later on, when I started looking for a bigger house, it turned out David rooted more deeply than I did; and so we added on to our home instead of moving.

Dinner with friends

            Our biggest area of contention those first years? Keeping house. I grew up a clean freak. Baseboards and door trims got a white glove inspection when we lived on base, and I transferred that tidiness into my adult life. Many of our early arguments revolved around housework. David always pitched in, but did such a horrible job that I ended up redoing many of his chores. After one explosion on why he didn’t clean something correctly, he admitted that he rarely did housework growing up. His bungling attempts, which I misinterpreted as a passive-aggressive dodge of chores, turned out to be total lack of knowledge of how to get something spiffy clean.

            When David and I had been married only a few months, he asked one night, “What do you do to the sheets?”

             “Sheets?” I echoed, puzzled.

          “They always feel so smooth. And they always smell good. Do you do something special with them?”

             “No. I just wash them every week."

           David paused, “Oh, that’s it, then. We didn’t wash our sheets every week. Sometimes more than a month would go by.” He made similar comments on the towels that never became cardboard stiff or smelled sour. Although all of David’s clothing when we first married fit into one paper sack, I was shocked to learn that he’d been told to turn dirty underwear inside-out and wear them a second time!

          These differences in upbringing caused friction during those first years. I couldn’t understand why David didn’t just jump in to clean something, often forgetting that he truly didn’t see that something was dirty because his level of tolerance was so much higher than my own.

            Eventually, we divided house cleaning and yard work not by the usual male/female divisions, but by what each of us likes to do most (or least hates to do). David prefers “picking up” or straightening up clutter. He likes to vacuum, cook, and clean the kitchen. I prefer dusting and laundry. We tackled grocery shopping together until recently. Both of us like working in the yard. Usually David will weed-eat while I’ll mow. We team up for clipping hedges, and I love to piddle in the garden

            Blending occurred in many other areas of our lives. Even after all of these years, we’ll sometimes find ourselves discussing a difference (yes, they still exist) and figuring out the best way to fuse two ways of viewing something into one solution. During this past year, we’ve had new challenges and changes that could strain a marriage; yet we seem to have mastered this blending skill. And frankly, it’s the mixing and merging that makes life interesting. 

Anniversary #45!

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

"Night Sounds"

 

Time slips past midnight    

I fold into a fetus under the quilt    

so the dogs can stretch on the foot of the bed    

Through the open window wafts rose scent     

and Autumn's breath tickles my lashes    

Cold air carries the whine of semis from the highway   

and a lonely canine whimper    

Let me in   

Let me in to warm beds and ticking clocks     

to the pftt, pftt, pftt of my lover's sleep    

I hang in suspension    

half awake, half asleep   

lost between now and then     

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Hidden Feelings"

There are feelings here that can’t be hidden any longer.  

Forever trying to force them down, I find they’re growing stronger. 

Is this a tentative friendship, or the clumsy lover’s dreams?   

Am I experiencing love; is that what this confusion means?   

I’m lonely when you’re gone, and resigned when you are here   

because you’re always far away, even when you’re near.   

I can’t tell where desire ends and where the lovin’ starts.   

Is this what the fairy tales mean when one gives away one’s heart?  

I want to touch you softly, to talk with you and to share.   

I want to say a simple phrase, just “Darlin’ I do care.”   

I'm not asking for eternity; I’m just hoping for one day.    

For I need a chance to show to you the feelings I’ve hidden away. 

Copyright 1977 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"An Old Friend"

She’s an old friend,   

just a co-worker now—an acquaintance   

We smile when we pass in the hall   

We share complaints about classes, victories with kids   

Lately, she’s lost her smile   

Her usual elegance fades    

Her eyes, downcast as she walks, miss my smiled greetings   

Someone whispers a rumor   

asks what I know—me, the ostrich with her head in the sand   

I look around   

Suddenly I see her loss   

realize her shock and grief   

Stunned, I see them together—       

as she must see them, too       

He sniffs around the other woman like she’s a bitch in heat       

They drive up in the same car       

step out for lunch       

stand together in the hallway       

flirtatiously laughing       

body language that screams—Couple       

What words can I offer?       

advice, as they say, is cheap   

How do I let her know I care   

without letting her painfully realize—   

I know   

(just like everyone else)   

I can talk to her, try to listen, try to be around just a little more   

Her other friends and I can form a safety net   

but we can’t protect her from anger, loss, grief   

We see it in her eyes  

in the way she moves now   

I remember another time when she had no net   

her loss almost killed her    

So, I’ll stand guard

Copyright 1999 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman