Growth Spurts

Inspired by Chapter 3

“When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.”

–Ryan Reynolds

It seems as if my life has been one big series of trips out of “la-la land” when it comes to my expectations of everything should play out. I really mean that too because I have had some asinine expectations of some of just about every single major life event I can think of and as a matter of fact, let list some of them out now shall we?

1. When I was a little boy I expected families especially my future family to be like all the T.G.I. Friday shows on ABC with the emphasis of this thought being molded by the show “Full House”. This was the ideal family in my mind for some reason which my assumption being that it was completely opposite of how my family worked.
   
   
2. I expected to be a “cool kid” in school and play football not realizing I was neither “cool” or even remotely athletic in just about every sport you can think of except for tennis and wrestling and the latter being that I was really good at being pinned. 
    
   
3. I expected my parents to fully fund a vehicle for me when I turned 16 and received my driver’s license, I mean why else would they have let me take Drivers Ed?
   P.S.: Smart move mom and dad
   
   
4. I expected to marry my high school “sweet heart” and by “sweet heart” I actually mean “psychotic malevolent nut-job”. This would of course come right after school which after the magically paid for wedding would include me able to find a good paying job, while going to college full-time, her popping out kids while staying home with them, and let’s not forget that we would have our own house right off the bat too!
   
   
5. I expected to be dead by 30, spoiler alert, it didn’t happen!
    
6. I expected to marry someone else but ran into and creeped out my wife until I ended up marrying her instead.
   
   
7. I expected to get married in the Temple right off the bat, and that our marriage would be easy and we would never have problems divide us.
   
   
8. I expected one of my girls to end up being a boy.

I’ve learned to no longer have expectations about how my life will turn out.

So as you can see, I’ve spent some serious time in “la-la” land and each time I’ve been thrown out ended up being a huge growing experience for which I hope I am the better for it. Out of my list though there is one I am still growing with and that would be lucky number 7.

For all intents and purposes I will state for the record that my wife is an utter and absolute saint for putting up with me and while that sounds completely and utterly cliché I am far from the easiest person to have married given her upbringing and mine being completely and utterly different and the baggage that comes with me to boot. For instance, one of our dates before we married was too the movies which is no big deal right? Well not with me because the second the movie ended my phone was blown up with calls and voicemails with the callers being Roy City Police Department. My parents was to be arrested and our dog was going to end up shot if they could not get into I was told so of course we rushed back to my parents to find the block was lit up and packed full of Roy City’s finest and a SWAT team. What did my parents do you ask? Well they were getting their water heater replaced and while shooting the breeze with the installers, my father ended up pulling a gun out (the subject of the conversation) in order to show it off. The installers being a couple of apparent idiots then proceeded to call the police as they felt threatened and claimed my dad kept pointing the gun at them. This, this was what my wife was marrying into.

On the flip side however she isn’t as much of a saint as she appears to be as she has her own baggage but I am not going to list because I am not an idiot, well not most of the time.

Becky and I have our issues, well our marriage has issues with one of the biggest factors being that we are horrible with communicating with each other. I second biggest issues comes from being blind to or not giving into each other’s “bids for attention” which has been a recent revelation in my life thanks again to Dr. Gottman’s book on marriage.

On Dr. Gottmans’ site he defines these bids as, any attempt from one partner to another for attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection. Bids show up in simple ways, a smile or wink, and more complex ways, like a request for advice or help. In general, women make more bids than men, but in the healthiest relationships, both partners are comfortable making all kinds of bids. The site goes on to explain how men are normally guiltier of being oblivious to these bids which I can see me being one of those I am sad to say. These bids are really important to maintain an emotional connection between spouses for without them we not only grow apart but when some crisis arises in our family or personal life we turn away from each other. When this happens we lose vital opportunities for both growth as an individual and as a couple which would help our bonds deepen.

The last four years of our marriage has been full of these different crises and trails but instead of turning towards each other we have managed to grow further apart. How much more have we suffered individually and collectively during the past four years for it and how much growth has been stunted as well? I hate to admit these things from our marriage because from a religious perspective, the mistakes we’ve made has eternal consequences. There is also this cultural expectation that a Temple marriage is supposed to produce a happy and perfect couple which is not us to say the least. I feel a lot of this comes from this idea that Gordon B. Hinckley and his wife never argument or fought. Becky and I however have but how many of these would have never occurred had we been more focused on turning towards each other, connecting more often and on deeper levels, and thought less about ourselves and more on each other? This is something we can work on however because we are far from ending our journey because we are just beginning it!

I love you Becky

It's time to grow.

If you want to read more about Gottman’s work that I references then here:
https://www.gottman.com/blog/turn-toward-instead-of-away/