My Two Choice Dilemma

When I got home from work last night, I had worked out and was physically tired.  However, getting in better shape and working out does help me mentally and emotionally and I find I’m more resilient under pressure.   I’m going to need every bit of it.

Qrwyn started earlier in the week working on me and trying to talk me into going to her church with her and boys for Good Friday services.   I was very reluctant, but she voiced how this was important to her and I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I went.  I’m willing to sacrifice in order to make my wife happy and, even though I was tired, this would be a comparatively minor sacrifice.  It was a lovely service that included all the kids and it really did fit the mood and tone of the evening, where they showed some clips from the Mel Gibson movie set to music.  Pretty graphic for the youngsters and was probably the most violent thing MY kids have ever seen.  But they did really well, despite some yawning toward the end.  I don’t many people at this church, but I do like the ones I do know and the music they sang was from more traditional hymns that I actually knew the tune for and the words were on the big screen.  They did have the big wooden cross in front and had everyone take communion in front of it.  It suitably marked the occasion which I should probably blog about but will leave that for others more capable than me.

Which might be pretty much everyone.

We got home and it was past the boys’ bedtime so they were quickly put to bed.  I was sitting in a chair just thinking, and Arwyn sort of sidled up and said, “Are you just going to sit there all night?”

Hmm.  Okay…

I was tired in anycase, and got ready for bed.  Then Arwyn stated her intention to go to sleep.

Oh.

It wasn’t even 9:00 so I considered the possibility of going back to the computer for a bit as if I go to sleep before 10, I’ll be up at 4.  But I decided that we at least needed to talk.  My opener was to ask her how long it had been since she was baptized, “Almost exactly a year ago, right?”  She stated that it was.  Regular readers might remember that it was also around this time when we had sex for the first time in over a year and what would turn out to be the last time in over a year.  I also asked her about the ENQ and she said she intended to fill it out.  Hopeful sign there.

We were both lying in bed, holding hands and then embraced and kissed for a bit.  I was stroke=ing her back and hair and she was stroking my back.  This went on for quite awhile and I was feeling less tired and more aroused.  She said she wanted me to talk, but I was at a loss as to what she was after.  So we talked a bit about the church service and then she asked the question, “Do you ever feel like you’re at war with God?”

Funny question, but I was keen to answer.  Basically, yes.  At times, it seems like God is a very sadistic Being who seems to put an enormous premium on suffering.  The Bible is all about people who have suffered at the hands of other people, at their own hand or even at His hands.  Whether or not God causes suffering can be questioned, but unquestionably He allows it and uses for His own purposes.  So, yeah, I struggle and grapple with God on any number of fronts.  However, I also subscribe to the view that a lot of the suffering we endure is largely of our own making as our fight with God is more of a fight with our own selves.

She seemed satisfied with this and didn’t really follow up accept to stress the importance of trusting God.

There was more intermittent kissing and hugging and general making out.  I wanted to make love to my wife this night.  As my hands wandered under her shirt, one hand got into the forbidden zone which would be anywhere near a nipple.  She grabbed my arm and moved it away and I asked her why.  She said it made her feel uncomfortable.

There was a long period of silence interrupted when she announced she had to  turn off some lights and take a decongestant.  when she returned some minutes later we sort of resumed the kissing and then she said she was tired.  After some silence, I asked her, “How can you say that you’re interested in sex?  I don’t get it because you don’t seem to ever want it!”

She said she was interested in only having good sex.  Which led to the next burning question, “Just what exactly would good sex look like to you?”

“Well, I can’t go for an hour.  An hour would be too long.”

“Okay, an hour is too long for you.  That still doesn’t tell me what good sex looks like for you.”

“Well, I’d like to be satisfied>”

“Oh, you mean you’d like an orgasm!”

“Yes.”

“And that’s been a problem for pretty much most of our marriage.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve gone on our entire marriage without mentioning this?”

“Yes.”

“Because you were afraid of hurting me?”

“Yes, that’s a big part of it.”

She was not telling me anything I didn’t already know or suspect, anyway.  I was past  being hurt by that.  But the next round did put me squarely in the two-choice dilemma.

“So you want to have more orgasm?” I asked, trying to reinforce the point.

“Yes, but I don’t want them through your hands, through your mouth pr through any mechanical means.”

“Which pretty much means only through intercourse.”

“Yes.”

“Only about 1 in 5 women have orgasms that way.” I countered.  I was pulling the statistic out of the air, or so I thought.  As it turns out, I was just about right. (that’s the youtube link, here’s one to the text.and here’s one byDr. Phil.

” I have had them in the past.”

“Well yeah, when you and your partner were  both younger and in better shape.  We’re both older now, and in different shape. “  I did not point out that I was in better shape than I was when we got married or that the pubic bone she liked grinding up against was now more exposed for her enjoyment thanks to the weight loss.

But I went in a different (and perhaps predictable)  direction.  “Have you ever had an orgasm with me?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever faked an orgasm?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So you want good sex, where you have orgasms, but if it isn’t just intercourse, you don’t want it. You don’t want me to use my hands because it makes you feel uncomfortable.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s why you’re uncomfortable using your hands on me.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot of it.”

“So if I ever got injured or paralized, sex would pretty much be over.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

It’s now midnight, she’s tired and I am frustrated beyond words.  Sex tonight is out.

As she falls asleep, I lie awake, wondering what the future holds for us.  It seems impossibly bleak to me beyond words.  Basically, I’m not going to have much of a sex life (if any) with this woman unless she decides to change.  She shows no signs of changing or maturing or developing sexually.  I’m changing the things I can within myself and I do try to do things she likes but she seems unwilling or unable to reciprocate.  She wants orgasms but is unwilling to to let me out of the procrustean bed in order to accomodate her.

So basically, I can

a. Stay with her, and totally sacrifice my sexuality and my integrity as a sexual person but my family remains somewhat intact

b. Leave her,  and sacrifice my family but keep remnants of my sexual integrity

Or wait around hoping that an option c becomes available.

D.

189.8

I haven’t updated my weight in awhile, so I think I’ll do that for a minute. My weight loss efforts actually do figure into things. This morning I was at 189.8 which is about 3 pounds off from my eventual target. Over the holidays, I maxed out at about 196 but fluctuated between there and 192, which my body seems to like. I work on the elliptical and the step mat but not every day or even every other day. Maybe I get 2-3 times a week if I’m lucky simply because demands at work have been quite heavy the past couple of weeks. I did manage to download Stepmania 4.0 CSV which is a very nice looking release and I like many of the new display features. But it has slowed me down and I’ve had to adjust to it.

When I first began losing weight and posting about it, it was largely driven by my need for better health and a changing self-image. I needed to get rid of the pounds because my knees were driving me nuts. Anyone else who struggles know of what I speak. So I did some research, found an exercise that I adore, some foods that I also adore and went for it. The little “Biggest Loser” competition didn’t hurt either. But somewhere towards the end, I mused on these pages; how much weight do I have to lose to get my wife to want me? It’s at that point that Rod Smith chimed in with a comment that I really needed to get Passionate Marriage. I had been following 2amsomewhere’s posts on the subject and was somewhat familiar with Schnarch and his writings from lurking alt.support.marriage. This name would come up on other relationship blogs on occasion also.

In November Rod and I did make efforts to contact each other by telephone. One time I woke him up after he was asleep! He was very nice about it, and told me to call back earlier the day the next day, which I did try but got an answering machine. He left voice messages on my phone as well as by email. I’m okay with all of this because just knowing he was there was sufficient. Plus I got the book and figured after reading it I might have more to talk about afterwards. The point being that I was too busy (and careless) to even make a phone therapy connection but as it turned out his advice was spot-on. He gave me a small shove in the right direction.

The last time I had a major discussion with Arwyn, it was almost like an assault or a guerrilla attack. It was short and a skirmish that left more questions than answers and certainly didn’t do anything to make me feel better about our marriage. It was bad timing all around.

This time, it was not planned at all. I went to the store after work and she and the boys had gone to church. We got home about the same time and she put the boys to be while I got ready for the next day. I was tired and was ready to go to bed. This is highly unusual as she normally goes to bed early and I stay up late, mostly after midnight. She was in already bed when I came in the bedroom. I sat for a minute contemplating whether to turn in or go back to the living room and turn on the computer. I laid down and attempted to snuggle up to her in the inverted position. To my surprise, all I found at the foot of the bed was her legs. Her hands reached down in the dark and moved over my legs and bum and wondered what i was doing. I switched positions, feeling a bit embarrassed but was able to snuggle without her moving off. And then we began to talk.

At first it was about her church, where the senior pastor is taking a leave of absence “to recharge” and another pastor there just left the ministry with no known explanation. More casualties of “church.” I shared with her my evolving views of church. She’s known that my views were under construction, as it were. She thought I was fancying starting my own church as part of a “house church” movement. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but I’ve come to realize that conflict is just part of the growing process. Leaving and starting a church would be a futile attempt to escape and avoid that growth; there really is no escape anyway because conflict is inherent in me. And to carry this where I’m going, leaving my marriage for someone else wouldn’t solve my conflicts because the conflicts that I have with Arwyn are conflicts I have with me.

In that sense, it is about me and my own deficiencies. Confronting my own mess has been a major part of this process. Meanwhile, Arwyn has been working on step 4 in her 12-step program for the second time. This step closely mirrors the process that I was going through as I was learning to confront my own issues. We were going through identical steps at identical times. We did discuss this process. Arwyn went through all 12 steps last year, and I knew she was doing it. I waited for step 8 and step 9 to come around. It never did, at least for me. So when she told me she was doing the 12 steps again, I was skeptical that it was doing her any good at all as she was obviously in some deep, deep denial about what she was doing to me.

She admitted that she had “forgotten” to deal with me in those steps, and I corrected her and told her she had most likely simply chosen to avoid it altogether. She admitted to that and we went into a discussion about our avoidance issues and the fact that we were both first class avoiders. One of the major problems is that neither of us was interested in listening to what the other had to say and so we simply avoided the major issues. We agreed that this was likely something we both acquired from our respective backgrounds and that we would need to work in order to overcome that. Much of arwyn’s avoidance stems directly from issues I brought up in that long thread “XH and Me” where most people forgot all about the “me” part and wanted to talk about XH. Fact is, I have many of the same exact issues as I related there. My brain allows me to intellectually out-flank a whole lot of people and I have my own sense of moral rightness that makes others feel small, stupid and wrong. I can effectively use this to keep people from getting too close and intimidate them while beaming with pride when others tell me how great a Sunday school teacher I am or how great and smart I am in general. Smartness is a long way from wisdom, as evidenced by me stupidly asserting my moral and intellectual superiority over my wife.

Nothing says “I love you” like making a person feel small, stupid and wrong.

Keep in mind, this intellectual power was what fueled her initial attraction to me. She came to the young adult Sunday school class I was teaching and really liked my teaching skillz. She was hungry for knowledge and saw me as being a person who had a lot to offer her.

But later, she always felt judged and controlled by me, and gave up arguing with me a long time ago. To wit: I was always “right” and she was always “wrong.” My “rightness” pretty much put us on a collision course with disaster. God was using my marriage to wring that self-righteous pride out of me. I’ve still got plenty of it so there will be more wringing, I’m sure. But avoidance was about her only choice, as she saw it. She felt she was always walking on egg shells around me. Yeah, I see it, now. I really was judging her and found her wanting most of the time. The more she withdrew from me, the more I judged her as being inadequate which pretty much guaranteed that we would overheat and become disconnected. There was no such thing as a “discussion” because differing views automatically made us adversaries and if I become an adversary with anyone, I play to win. This is not a winning strategy for making friends and influencing people.

For her part, Arwyn had her own way of winning a fighting which was almost a form of emotional jujutso. To wit:

Jujutsu evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan as a method for dispatching an armed and armored opponent in situations where the use of weapons was impractical or forbidden.

My emotional fusion made me an easy target for this sort of thing. While I was using my intellect, she was using my own heart against me.

We talked about the whole business of marital sadism. I have a sadistic streak so wide, it’s pretty pointless denying it. Arwyn heartily agreed with that. But the real revelation to her was when I talked about my struggle in dealing with her sadistic side. And that opened the big can of worms that you have all been waiting for.

I told her that based on Passionate Marriage I had figured out that early part of our relationship that was so vexing to me. Namely that we were having sex all the time and then after we were married, sex had dwindled to pretty much nothing. The reason for that early sex wasn’t desire, but it was insecurity. Arwyn and I share very rich, deep wells of the fear of abandonment. Her sexual behavior was her attempt to avoid that whole abandonment scenario, and so it was all fueled by her insecurities. She would have sex even though many times she didn’t want to because insecurity reigned. However, she was also feeling guilt and shame over our premarital sexual behavior. By the time we actually got married, the shame and guilt had grown to a point where it overcame her insecurity about our relationship. Once the commitment of marriage was finalized, that insecurity disappeared but the guilt did not.

On top of this, we can add a generous dose of resentment. I was pretty much in total reptilian mode in the early years of our marriage. I really liked sex, and my self worth was totally tied to it. If we had enough sex, I felt loved. When I didn’t, I felt rejected and unloved. Arwyn’s self-worth was also tied to sex. But the more sex we had that she didn’t want, the more she felt used. She felt that in my view, sex was the answer to all our problems. She was pretty much right. She resented me for my controlling ways and then wanting sex on top of that. At the same time, her guilt increased because now I’m really making her feel like the bad wife.

And then we tried to fix each other. A classic example of this is the 3^rd year of our marriage, Arwyn bought Relationship Rescue. She went through about 4 chapters and then didn’t read anymore but did leave the book lying around thinking I really needed to read it. I did glance over it back then and thought it wasn’t too bad of a book for her. Two years later, I picked it up off a dusty shelf and then went through every single exercise. When I came to her at the appropriate time and attempted to follow Dr. Phil’s advice, she really wanted nothing to do with it. A few months later, I bought her the workbook for her birthday. That workbook has never been opened. To say she regretted buying that book is an understatement! She bought it with the idea of changing me, but when I did do it, she resisted it! Because it was another case of me controlling her, she wanted none of it.

A major part of this discussion involved our differing ways of getting to this point. Arwyn does better as part of a group-type structured process where I am able to get stuff from a book and learn independently. I went through Dr. Phil’s book alone. I was able to exercise and diet and lose weight without weekly meetings. I was able to discover and apply vital things from Passionate Marriage without a therapist or a support group — apart from my blogger friends, of course! I play with computers with very little in the way of classwork. I even play around a bit in Linux just getting things off the internet. But this is not at all typical, which is what makes me exceptional as a teacher. It’s what makes XH able to do much of what he does. But it also results in some problems relating to others who are not on the same page. I get exasperated at others for being too slow. Arwyn seemed to always be too slow and she didn’t appreciate me reminding her of it. Her going and finding her own group of friends in a different church through a 12 step group seems to be just what was needed for her to work on herself. And she has been doing it with the help of the group and her sponsor. It was helpful having my own background in 12 step groups because much of what Schnarch talks about translates fairly easily into 12-step-ese. I was able to share what I had learned from reading this book pretty much what I shared here. Writing has been another vital part of processing what I’ve learned and I’m getting better at harnessing that in order to internalize and retain it.

I shared with her my revelation about her own sadism in watching me suffer all of these years in virtual sexlessness, knowing perfectly well that I was suffering. She stood by and watched and participated in it while doing nothing or even rejecting my efforts to resolve it. I treaded carefully here, because I knew this was extremely sensitive territory we were in. Almost every previous discussion of sex has resulted in her and I both getting defensive and her totally melting down. But she did not meltdown at all. She took the hit and held it together. That was truly an amazing thing to witness.

Then we got to some nitty gritty. Basically, for pretty much our whole marriage, the sex has been awful. I did point out that she might have been ahead of me in that department for not wanting bad sex, while I was willing to ask for a double portion of it. She pretty much agreed with my assessment: it’s not that she did not like sex. She did not want it from me. It took me all this time to really figure it out to a point where I could deal with it and handle that without falling apart.

This is what emotional gridlock and critical mass does for a marriage. It makes emotional fusion such a totally untenable position that we are forced to move away from it and grow like a hermit crab that outgrows its shell and has to shed it to go find a new one. We were both ready to listen because the alternative was too much to take.

We discovered that we were on the same page in a lot of areas. We both wanted good sex and not bad sex. We each affirmed the right of the other to avoid bad sex and go for good sex. What entails “good sex” was not discussed, however. Just getting to this point was nothing short of monumental. I told her that I wanted to pursue that with her. I think the act of choosing her was an important one, at least for me. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly done that, before. Honestly, it comes to me that I’ve accepted her, settled for her, preferred her, cared for her, tried to win her, and done other things. But I don’t know if I’ve ever truly chosen her. She asked me out the first time we went out. Schnarch did write extensively about this, and I’m going to have to look it up again as it didn’t register first time through and i didn’t write about it because it didn’t hit me.

Moving on to better sex might be a daunting challenge, but I think she might be up for at least approaching the challenge of it. She seemed to be very open to it last night at least. No we did not have sex. By the time we concluded, it was already 1:30 a.m. and we both had to get up early and I was tired before we started the conversation. But we were snuggled together and touching and holding hands and it really was probably more intimacy than we had shared at any other time. Hence the proposed title “This is the most significant conversation we’ve ever had” which is a statement Arwyn made.

We concluded by deciding that we would avoid more positively. Namely that we were going to avoid avoiding these sorts of conversations in the future!

D.

Christmas Wrap

 

I’m in a blogging blitzing mood lately, aren’t I?  You folks who blog from work are in for a jolt checking in here when you go back in a week or so!  So let’s talk a bit about Christmas and where I am at the moment in my thinking, reading and studying.

 

Christmas was a swell time this year.  If you read my Christmas message you might see I’m in a better headspace as to what the season means.  And I really am more relaxed although I wasn’t necessarily so heading into it with last minute stuff to get done.  But it feels good to decompress.

 

Anyone who reads me regularly knows I have a bit of a crazy orthodoxy at work in my faith.  One of those aspects surrounding this particular season is the treatment of Santa Claus with the kids.  Our oldest has developmental delays on the autism spectrum, so he spared us from really having to deal that much with it.  Our youngest at about 6 is ripe for this sort of thing, so we have had to deal with it in the way that works best for Arwyn and me.  We avoid it.

 

I’m not against people who want to make a huge deal out of Santa Clause.  It is definitely a cultural thing, and people who want to engage with the larger culture don’t offend me.  As long as the larger culture isn’t getting all over me about this issue, I won’t get all over them.  I’m not coming right out and telling my kids there is no such thing as Santa so they won’t blab and spoil all your fun.  But they are going to figure it out soon enough on their own, anyway because he did not visit our house.  We don’t leave cookies out or hang stocking on the fireplace.  Sounds rather bleak, doesn’t it?  But I’m not the Burgermeister.

 

They watch Santa shows and movies and sing Santa songs and decorate the tree.  And they get presents just like your kids.  But they are not from Santa; they are from their loving parents and from each other.  We open our gifts Christmas Eve, so pretty much all thoughts of Santa are abandoned once they get their loot.  Although the youngest did make mention of it this year, with those 3 words every parent eventually hears whenever kids open presents; “Is that all?”  But Arwyn deftly and tactfully told him he should appreciate what he has or we would ship him off in Santa’s sleigh to an orphanage in some third world country.

 

The big hit for them was the Lionel train I got off eBay.  It was opened once before 30 years ago as there was still tinsel in the tracks but it may have never been run since opening day.  It’s now happily being run to death now, however.

 

Arwyn got an mp3 player which she can use while using her brand new elliptical trainer.  She had been going on about wanting a treadmill but this thing looked much more cost and space effective plus the workout is more complete with the arm levers.

 

I got underwear and a shirt.  But I was lucky to get that as Arwyn has no money since she is sweating off the debt she ran up last summer.  But I am totally okay with not getting stuff because I can play with the train as well as use that elliptical machine and I have.  It does give a more complete workout and I shed 500 calories this morning according to that nifty digital counter in 30 minutes.  Arwyn did 15 minutes, but she’s just starting out and is way out of shape.

 

She was most appreciative but there was no sex last night, as we were up late fiddling with the mp3 and I had to finish assembling the elliptical.  And that was fine, too.  That’s part of that whole differentiation thing, where giving and disclosing are done without any expectations of it being returned and being okay with it.  I am unsure how to react to a sexual advance at this point, anyway.  I miss it, but I am not hankering for a double scoop of controlling-guilt-based stuff.  But my body says otherwise.  Ugh!  I wish it would just shut the hell up!

 

Back to Santa for just a minute, Arwyn and I are pretty much in agreement on this.  We just don’t want belief in him to be our children’s first crisis of faith.  Yeah, he’s real the same as Winnie the Pooh.  Both are lovely and heart warming characters who occupy positions of fondness but the business of building a belief system around this particular fellow is mass psychotic silliness. And I’m not keen to have this particular madness be any more significant to my children than I have to.  They love presents as much as any kids and tying Santa to a stash of presents puts the fat guy pretty high up in significance to them.  I’m not going there at all.  So we sort of play the smallest of roles in perpetuating the cultural psychopathology.  Discovering that Santa isn’t real won’t involve even the mildest of trauma for my kids.  I’d be happy to indulge more if the fat old guy was paying my mortgage or even just the cable bill.  But he’s not, so he can seek credit, cookies and glory elsewhere.

[Ha!  After writing this but before posting, I ran into this story about parents facing tough questions about the myth.  My question is this: why teach them the myth in the first place?

 

I’ve been reading some of Passionate Marriage but have spent more time reading stuff off the Reveal website.  It’s fascinating stuff and I’ll post a lot more thoughts on that a bit later.  But the more I read the more I see I was formerly linked with the ICC movement in my former dealings with the fundamentalist group.  Both are on the cult watch lists and both did business in a similar manner.  My discipling was very much like what they did and I’m not sure we didn’t use the same curriculum.  But we didn’t follow anyone named “Kip.”  We followed “Jim.”

 

Like Kip, Jim left the movement he started only much earlier. 

 

Happy Holidays!

 

D.

 

 

Emotional Gridlock

 

Hahahaha!  I laughed out loud when reading chapter 4 of Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage.  He spends a lot of time setting up the interplay of other-validation v self-validation, self-presentation v self-disclosure and fusion v differentiation.  Basically, Schnarch describes a process that begins during courtship when we are poorly differentiated and seek emotional fusion.  We then seek validation from others (our date/perspective partner) and get all fused up.  Once we get emotionally fused we discover that many things we might otherwise do, say or feel make our partners anxious which makes us anxious.  And often when we seek validation it sometimes forces the other person into saying what you want to hear instead of how they truly feel thus creating this sense of self-betrayal.  So we end up presenting something from almost the outset that violates our own integrity instead of real disclosure.  Sometimes we disclose in the hope that the other person will validate us in addition to disclosing something about themselves.  Often, neither happens which frustrates us.  The icing on the cake is when our past disclosures become ammunition during heated fights!  We become walking wounded, and pretty soon a stony, icy silence sets in.  Total emotional gridlock.

 

This, according to Scnarch, is the perfect and most fertile place for true intimacy to blossom!  Hahahaha!

 

No, I’m not kidding.  Emotional gridlock happens when we run out of accommodations, we are tired of the mask, and we refuse to violate our integrity anymore.  Basically we have run out of patience and tricks and now must choose to confront ourselves because we are not making any headway with changing our partner.  Ain’t that a hoot?!?  According to Schnarch, I’m on the verge of some real electric sex, here!

 

In this section of the book, Schnarch just doesn’t confront contemporary psychology and marital counseling; he stands it on its head.  It’s not a problem of communication as emotional gridlock can only happen when the communication is really happening.  Otherwise one partner would still be blathering on and trying to attack the stone wall.  But when both partners know the score (I’m not changing and I’m sick of trying to change you!) and silence ensues progress can be made.  It looks like “falling out of love” but we are truly incapable of love “until the honeymoon is over and gridlock arrives.”(p.119)  

 

What finally made me put the book down and begin writing this was a statement Schnarch made about self-confrontation.  Basically when we are finished confronting our partner in an effort to either mold and shape them or seek validation from them (it ain’t coming) then we have to deal with who we are.  We have to differentiate.  “Only when we confront our own essence do we become more tolerant and accepting of everyone else, including your partner.”

 

It’s taking the plank out of our own eye before deciding to remove the speck in someone else’s.

 

So marriage and emotional gridlock and anxiety and tension and trying for intimacy and not getting it and being all angry and frustrated are all just steps up that staircase to a new level of growth. 

 

Arwyn and I are definitely in that whole frozen tundra area of emotional gridlock.  That blow up of the last entry which took place over a month ago is almost a last gasp of confrontation in trying to get her to move.  And she is not budging.   Talking more is not going to get us anywhere, and I can see that now.  More confrontation isn’t going to work at the moment, until I know I can handle where ever it ends up going.  I’ve accommodated way past my comfort zone.  At least reading Schnarch’s take on icy conditions around here makes me feel better about it!

 

But I still have questions here.  Schnarch does a swell job of incorporating emotional and spiritual intimacy into the whole sexual arena.  But I still wonder about the concept of attraction here.  I guess I’ve had people tell me I look good since dropping the fat and I feel better about it.  But how in the world would I expect her to ever light up physically if she’s just not attracted to me in that way?  Yeah, yeah, sex has a lot more going on in terms of intimate connection but a body has to get naked and in the sack at some point, right?

 

I feel like I just took a step backward right there.  Oh well.  I’ll keep reading and writing as the mood hits.  This particular subject also has some implications as far as our other discussion at Unsolicited Advice, but I’ll get to that later.

 

D.

Differentiation

I’m bringing some of Schnarch’s discussion over her from Unsolicited Advice WP because this nicely dovetails into some discussions we’ve had here and there.

As I said before, much of Schnarch’s view of marriage and sexuality takes on some very spiritual dimensions. Differentiation happens to match up to where I am in one aspect of my relationship. Like much of Schnarch’s perspective, it flies in the face of conventional understanding.

If you think of a relationship as a continuum with total disengagement on one end and emotional fusion on the other, differentiation would be in the center. It has some things in common with an independent-dependent continuum where interdependence is the center spot.

So I’m going to attempt to describe my understanding of differentiation as it applies to one area where Arwyn and I have had to adjust. Namely within the context of our church affiliation and involvement.

We both began attending the Methodist church soon after moving to this area. We had gone to and visited other churches, but this one seemed like a good fit. But over time, it seemed to fit less and less. Five years ago, I actually visited several other churches in the area, looking for something different. I was looking for a church with a purer Biblical orthodoxy than that manifested by the Methodists. In Georgia, it’s pretty difficult to swing a dead cat without hitting a Baptist church, so I visited a few in the area. No I didn’t visit any of the poison-drinking, snake-handling sort but stuck to fairly conservative brands. What I found was fairly consistent: people going to a meeting on Sunday morning, doing a few activities during the week and then doing whatever they want the rest of the time. I think I was hungering for a more holistic experience not unlike some groups I had experience earlier and the intentional communities Emily and Desmond have described.

Arwyn also wanted more but had even less of an idea of what to look for than I did. Her religious background was pretty much from a Lutheran-type background before becoming a Methodist. She does want more knowledge and grounding in the Bible and get closer to Christ. To be sure, our goals were not incompatible. We both wanted a more fulfilling relationship with Jesus Christ and other believers. Does that sound too radical?

After looking around, I decided to keep my involvement with my current church and work on deepening my relationships and involvement there. Arwyn, while involved, never really bonded in as much as I did with other couples our age. She felt like an outsider and her engagement with others became less. She was involved with the kids and their programs and activities, but nothing with other adults.

In October of 2006, Arwyn decided to make a move. She had spoken to a couple other moms about this other church that was big and growing, growing growing. It was the one I’ve been calling Saddleback East but it could also be called Willow Creek South. She felt this is where God wanted her, and would not be convinced otherwise. For a few months, she sort of straddled between the two as the boys were involved in the Methodist children’s choir and programs, but by January of 2007, she had disengaged the boys and was going to Saddleback almost full time.

I continued to attend and teach at the Methodist church, but was very distressed by Arwyn’s seemingly unilateral move. It was seemingly a move away from me as well as the church. So I had a choice to make.

1. I could continue to do my own thing at the Methodist church

2. I could join her church

3. We could look for a 3rd church.

My attitude was basically one of resentment. I didn’t feel God calling me out. But I was willing to go in order to keep the family intact. Option #3 was never a serious option as Arwyn was so convinced this was the church for her.

I chose option #2 back in March. I began attending services with her and we actually began trying to start a small group. The small group effort was disastrous as while everyone seemed to think they needed to be a part of it, no one wanted to actually do the simplest of things to build a connection. Stuff like emailing, talking and staying in touch throughout the week, in addition to regular church meetings. The thing just disintegrated because no one would commit. Everyone wanted to be fed without doing any feeding. Yeah, the flock can be amazingly stupid. But they’ve been conditioned to be that way by the blind guides who are in turn pressured to give people what they want which is a sort of Twinkie religion. It feels pretty tasty but is actually pretty empty.

Arwyn got baptized into the church back in March. That baptism more resembled running cattle through a dip tank than consecrating and celebrating a decision made for Christ. I attended the new member class and got the low down on membership requirements. After learning their basic theology, beliefs, practices and culture, I decided that I could not do it. I could not join this group and maintain my integrity.

And this is where we get back to Schnarch’s idea of differentiation. When a couple becomes emotionally fused, any change one person makes necessarily changes the other person’s position and challenges his/her integrity.

If I would have stayed in that church, I would have had to sacrifice my integrity which would have created a butt load of resentment. Insisting on Arwyn to go to my choice of church would have forced her to sacrifice her supposedly divinely inspired move and thus challenged her own integrity.

I went back to the Methodist church, but I was not the same as when I left. I began re examining church, worship, spirituality and how we do all these things. I knew something was wrong, and it was bigger than any single denomination or even nondenominational churches. God had showed me something important through Saddleback East and the small group experience. It was not that people did not want to connect, but they had no idea of how to do it. They were so used to going to the over-sized feed trough every Sunday and having the pastor feed them they and had no idea how to do it themselves. They had become totally domesticated and not in a good way. We aren’t designed to have our needs met by one person, not to mention the same person. We are designed to feed one another according to the gifts distributed amongst each other. We don’t all have the same gifts and neither does anyone have all the gifts. And the fact is that Saddleback East is the Methodist church’s main competitor. Given the pressures exerted by members departing to go there (Arwyn’s departure sent a few waves of its own) it’s not surprising they felt the need to adopt many Church Growth Movement (CGM) tactics, programs and practices.

This is where I depart from Bill Hybels, who prescribes training people to be “self-feeders.” That’s as disastrous as having a rationed feeding trough! No, people need to be rewired into feeding each other. This not only has the Christian community meeting its own needs but enables it to fulfill its apostolic mission to meet the needs of others and spread the gospel.

Getting back to differentiation…

It took some time, but I’ve gradually come ’round to not seeing Arwyn’s move to another church as being a threat to our family, our marriage or my own spirituality. What happens there really isn’t what I would call quality family time. The kids are dropped off to their place and you go to worship which consists of everyone facing the front, singing and listening. I suppose there could be some hand holding in there between couples. That would be nice. But it really isn’t family time, per se. We aren’t even all in the same room!

In the Methodist church, the family does sit together for a time, but that often involves as much of a struggle as anything else as the kids always fidget and bug each other and a fight can easily ensue. Not that I don’t value teaching kids to sit down and shut up, but it is distracting trying to make sure your own kids are not the ones distracting everyone else.

Arwyn and I actually talk more now than when we were attending the same place. We compare and review and retell the lesson of the day and then discuss. And the kids engage in what they learned. That’s more quality than anything else.

There’s a lot of confusion and ASSumptions about where I am as far as Christian community. I am still part of my group in the Methodist church. While I’m not tithing, as such, I am contributing to many missions in the UMC such as the children’s home and committee on relief. I engage with our adult Sunday school, but not the main worship service. If others choose to do that, I’m not threatened, although the reverse may not be true.

Yeah, the disapproval and rebuking are all done in the name of love…

Please. Go sell crazy somewhere else, as we’re all stocked up here! Guilt mongering and threatening are not loving acts. They are a failure to properly differentiate. Differentiation involves allowing people to go and do where they need without feeling threatened and without delivering threats. Differentiation is not “I gotta be me” either. It does involve taking a hard look at ones own integrity and loving freely without becoming so fused that one becomes incapable of standing alone when it is necessary. And sometimes standing alone is necessary if for no other reason than figuring out where you are without criticism, threats, fear, guilt and all the other tools used to control and subjugate others. Direction is welcome. Tales of personal experiences are very welcome. Busting me down without knowing all the facts or caring about them is not necessary. Differentiation does necessarily involve relationship with others; else it wouldn’t be an issue at all! Properly differentiating involves being a more complete person so that loving can occur more completely.

D.

An Update on Lots of Things

With school starting, the family is once again getting into a routine. For good or ill. So let’s do a little round-up:

- Arwyn has been making and succeeding in becoming a better roommate. She is picking up after herself better and doesn’t let the kids trash the place. She seems to have a decent handle on the money situation. No sex or affection, but this at least makes the situation somewhat tolerable. Sex isn’t everything. I’d rather be getting laid on a weekly basis than live in a spotless house (if that’s the cost) but if we’re going to be roommates, we should at least do so properly for the kids sake if no other reason.

- I am really liking Stepmania and it does work for me. I don’t need to drive to a gym, and the boys like it when I do it at home on occasion. They don’t like it all the time, though, or as much as me. So, I do it mostly after work at work after everyone else has gone home. I usually stay late anyway but this way I’m not making an extra drive. Plus late afternoon has traditionally been a time when I junk it up with snack foods. Good exercise has proven to be an effective substitute.

What’s more, I’ve figured out how to add my own music and edit my own steps. So now I’m into finding some good step dance music. FTN recently brought back some good memories with Funky Town. I think there’s a story there. In any case, I’ve purchase some used CD’s from the Funky Town genre and era and style. Okay, my links sort of deviate a bit from Lipps Inc, but we’re talking music to move by here.

When I started Stepmania just a few months ago, I was working on the lowest possible beginner level and struggled to make a grade of “C” or better at level one. Then a few “AA”s started appearing. Right now, I am getting “C”s again but this time at level 4, which is moving past beginner and light mode and into standard mode. The coolest thing about this game is that are so many ways to show improvement. Plus it is oodles of fun if you like music that runs 120-300 beats per minute.

- Financially, we are doing good. That $10,000 Visa bill Arwyn incurred 3 years ago has fallen, freeing up another $300 a month. One more $330/month bill left to attack. And then a student loan. And finally, the big one; the house. We can do it.

- Spiritually, I am far less settled. I’ll be teaching a series next month and have been accumulating material. I have some books on order that I’ll go over after I’ve been over them but I continue to examine and re-examine how church life is conducted compared to what we see in the New Testament. I’m sure if I elect to present my findings on tithing, that’ll be my Sunday school teaching swan song! That day is coming soon enough. I enjoy it and have forged some decent friendships.

I’ll reserve the preaching and teaching for another time.

- Getting back to my weight loss (Stepmania was a part of that but has since taken on its own life) I finally stepped on a scale the other day. 228 lbs. When I looked at my BMI, (follow that link to calculate yours) I was still 30.1, which still puts me in the lard ass category. I have to work much, much harder to shed the blubber. I was 240 back in February, and really didn’t start seriously working it until June so I only averaged about 4 lbs per month or about 1 lb. a week. When I think of 1 pound a week, that doesn’t sound so bad. But I’m still 5 pounds more than I was a year ago. I also joined a “Biggest Loser” program at my place of work where the winner is the one who loses the most by percentage by Thanksgiving. So there’s a dual motivation going on there as we have a pot of about $1000 that someone could win by Thanksgiving. Why not me?

- I haven’t smoked in over a month and am fine with it. I might go on the occasional weekend jag but am happy to return to being smoke-free. I used to go on smoke-free jags and return to smoking so I’m happy with this turn of circumstance. I treat it like drinking, namely it’s something I do less and less as I get older. The cost of cigarettes continues to climb, so this is also helping with the financial issues.

 

So there you go, your regular update on the world of Digger as it stand today. Sometimes I think things get a bit heavy on the relationship end, but I don’t live in that depressing of a world. I’m doing some positive things, and some things are going positively which is good to know when you think things are too depressing and burdensome.

 

D.

 

A Yen for Zen

This post is already a week old, but I’m working on something newer.

Okay so I took a couple weeks off from blogging in order to just live life without so much interior noodling. I never stop analyzing completely, but by not writing I’m not thinking as much. Or obsessing as the case may be. But I figure an update would be useful as a way of just taking stock.

First off, I’m continuing with the exercise/healthier diet thing. It’s not quite every day like it was a couple weeks ago, but every opportunity which is close enough. Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables means more trips to the store which takes extra time. I haven’t weighed myself in 6 weeks plus I have an annual physical coming up. I’ll be interested to see how that turns out. If my weight is back where it was a year ago, that will be progress since I ballooned out so much last winter. My blood pressure has always been good so I need that to continue. So I guess not getting any worse is the goal at this point! I also found a cool program that goes with Stepmania that allows me to painlessly choreograph and use music from my own collection if want to, which has helped keep the interest going.

Arwyn has been working through her step process and is doing her step #5 right now with her sponsor or mentor or whoever. She has spent hours and hours and hours doing her personal inventory. So it may take hours to go through it! Being patient with this is a difficult process. She invests in this business to the detriment of everything else. So now in addition to being the one who works full time and does all the lawn/garden stuff, paying all bills and most of the cooking and groceries, I have to do additional cleaning and raising the kids and doing laundry. The 12 step process is an inherently selfish one. Not that addictions and codependency are without selfish aspects, but from my perspective I’ve seen those who are in recovery end up in trouble because they neglect every single thing not associated with recovery steps. These first steps are especially dominated by self-absorption with taking a personal inventory and such. But I’ll wait awhile and see how Arwyn does in subsequent steps that do become more relational in nature. I’ve just got to grit my teeth a bit and hold on for awhile longer.

But that does not mean that I’m not looking at extra long twin beds. This sleeping together business has gotten more tension filled as of late. Keep in mind that Arwyn has her inverted self-wrapped position where we’re head-to-toe which is fine for sleeping military style in bunk beds. But not for married couples. I have been awakened more than once by a sharp kick to the rib cage, presumably because I’m snoring. I don’t do that when she snores. And then our oldest likes yo come in at 5 a.m. or so and he’ll lay right up on her, which she minds a lot less than if I do it. So now he is kicking me because he likes to flail around in his sleep.

A few days ago, Arwyn woke me up with a kick or a poke and instead of reacting by retaliation or in anger, I reached my hand over and rested it on her bum. And this obviously infuriated her all the more. My hand was batted off and she picked up her blanket and pillow and retired to the couch. I really wasn’t feeling angry at her until she did that.

Other couples make the separate bed or even separate bedroom thing work. As nice as the queen-sized bed has been in conceiving the two boys, it is really and truly more of a hindrance now. My maternal grandparents (who were Catholic, if that matters) had their separate beds and slept that way the entire 20+ years they were both alive that I knew them and it might have been the way they always did it.

The church/spiritual business is in a holding pattern. I’ve been reading the Charles Davis book, and have been enriched by it as he does wade into deeper theological waters of faith, hope and love. I Enjoyed one quote in particular that is quite poignant:

“Is it surprising that men have thrown off the yoke of the Church as an unbearable oppression? They are looking for freedom, they want to be themselves. They find no signs of liberation in a life within the Church. And not a few Catholics today, if they dared to formulate their thought would say, ‘Thank God we live in a secular society where ecclesiastical writs do not run far and our freedom abd personal development are guaranteed by factors outside the Church.’”

He then goes on to document how the church actually works against Christ by failing to testify to His freedom, love and His truth. As such, people are left to despair and their hope is taken away. These charges can be made to virtually any institutional system, but especially religious systems that seek to exercise authority and control. As long as there are people who seek to control others and institutions willing to facilitate that, there will be abuse. I feel Catholics have been unfortunately singled out by the media, because I’m sure the protestant ministers and priests have engaged in behavior just as bad as those of any Catholic priests and there have been countless cover ups. Perhaps the protestants just can’t afford the big payouts.

In any case, I’m keeping my eye open for something less corporate-like and more relational in nature. Such groups will be small and difficult to find since they are intentional in not advertising and trying to steal from one another’s flocks. Since they see themselves as part of the larger body, the whole competitive atmosphere is not present at all. There’s room for genuine unity since no one is worried about wearing a shirt or having a coffee mug with the wrong logo.

D.

Disengaging the Matrix

 

Xi Summit made suggestion in a comment to my post below that I quit trying to analyze my marriage, my relationship with the church, my work life and generally adopt some of the Zen principles XH talked about in a comment to FTN in response to this post.  I’m actually running both ahead and behind him in some respects.  It’s not a bad suggestion, except this is the stuff that I usually blog about.  I suppose I could start a bunch of memes and pass those around and I might just do that at some point.

 

My noodling about my discontentment does serve a purpose, tho.  God is driving me towards questions and answers even amongst my attempts at finding diversion.

 

I went to our public library the other day to drop off some books and DVDs I had checked out for my boys.  I decided I would look for some movies for me to watch, which certainly beats even the prices at Blockbuster, which would have been my next stop.  Our library has a growing DVD collection both those are forever picked over by late afternoon.  However their VHS collection is quite expansive and mature.  So I got Up  The Down Staircase which is a lovely teacher movie from the late 60’s and another movie I had never seen before called The Matrix.  That one was also a good movie which has some interesting parallels to the institutional church system which wasn’t lost on David Frederickson in the first installment of his documentary, The Dropouts.  I got one more movie which looked interest called The King’s Guard which was a low budget swashbuckling dud that resembles The Princess Bride except with a lousy script and some stilted acting.  Your kids might like it, though.  Eric Roberts and Ron Perlman make decent villains, and Ashley Jones makes a lovely princess, but that’s about it.

 

While in the library the thought occurred to me that I should check out a book.  Radical thought, huh?  Imagine; checking out a book from the library!  But I had absolutely no idea what I was in the mood to read.  Definitely not a relationship book.  Maybe something nonfiction by C.S. Lewis.  There’s still a lot of his books I haven’t read.  So I looked in the electronic searcher and found the section where his books might be.  But I did not end up checking out a book by C.S. Lewis.

 

I was perusing the stacks and I just had that feeling that I should be looking for something more.  I should look for something more along the lines of where I am in my thinking as far as my relationship with the institutional church.  Which is a perfectly odd feeling because I knew that our library had slim enough pickings with Lewis.  How does one go about finding a book dealing with being a Christian and not going to church?  I knew of no titles or authors off the top of my head and this is not a large library. 

 

So I just browsed, and was getting a bit frustrated. 

 

Ever had a book just sort of leap out at you?  Perhaps the book jacket stands out, or the title just grabs you or you may have heard something about the author or perhaps you saw something about it on Oprah.  None of those things happened here.

 

I just reached down to the very bottom shelf and picked up the least descript book on the shelf.  Not too big.  Not too small.  No book jacket, just a plain dark cover with a copyright of 1967 by someone named Charles Davis entitled A Question of Conscience.  And within I found exactly what I was looking for.   Some answers by a real genuine theologian with some real genuine clout.  Still, this is still an unlikely source for answers for me.  Or maybe not.

 

Charles Davis was a lifelong Catholic who entered the priesthood at a very young age.  He rose up in notoriety and was considered by many to be the greatest and most influential Catholic theologian of his day in Great Britain.  He was teaching at a college there and was editor of a prominent Catholic publication at the time.  Then in December of 1966 he announced he was leaving the church and intended to get married, which he did within a couple of months.  He is not the first priest to leave and get married and most casual observers would not fault him for that.  Hardly worthy fodder for a book.  What caused the real firestorm was his stated reason for leaving.  In part:

 

For me, Christian commitment is inseparable from the concern for truth and concern for people.  I do not find either of these represented by the official Church.  There is concern for authority at the expense of truth, and I am constantly saddened by instances of  the damage done to persons by workings of an impersonal and unfree system.  Further, I do not think that the claim the Church makes as an institution rests upon any adequate Biblical  and historical basis.  The Church in its existing forms seem to me to be a pseudo-political structure from the past.  It is now breaking up, and some other form of Christian presence in the world is under formation.

 

There’s more to it, but perhaps you can see why I got a bit excited over it while sitting on the floor in the library.  I wonder when the last time this book was checked out?

 

Davis was perfectly articulating some things running through my head.  Here was a guy who was unplugging himself from the institutional religious matrix 40 years ago.  But not just any Christian institution but the Mother of them all.  It’s understandable why many Catholics got their blood up about this because he was striking at the very heart of something very personal and meaningful to many people around the world.  And so his book is an explanation of where he was coming from, at that time.  And remember, this is the sixties, when all institutions were being questioned. 

 

I have barely started this book, and it is not light reading.  It’s actually more challenging than C.S. Lewis.  Davis is writing as a former Catholic theologian and his main audience is presumably Catholic, although he was of no particular denomination at the time of his writing, less than a year out.  Plus there is a 40 year gap between then and now, back when I was only 3 or 4 years old.  But it’s still a good read for me, and one of the reasons I like to blog is to read real accounts written by real people of their lives.  So Davis gives a good backstory on an event that still might have implications for today.  I did google up the original article write up from 1966 from Time Magazine as well as a more recent interview and his thoughts on the selection of the new Pope. 

 

He makes the case that I think I should make (again) that it is not a dislike of any particular people or group of people.  It is the institution and the hierarchal structure that becomes such a stumbling block.  His assertion about authority coming at the expense of truth particularly resonates in light of some of the past discussions we have had around these parts. 

 

D. 

 

Home Alone

I’m being massively indulgent.  I SO know what Marie means by having the house totally empty except for MEEE!

 

Arwyn and the boys went to visit her mother in Florida for the rest of the week so it is me, me, me and all mine!  I finished cutting the grass this morning in the hot Georgia heat and not we are getting serious thunder storms.  What am I doing with my freedom?  Massively indulging as much as possible.  I’m finishing off this quart of brew I bought this morning and decided I would do some intense blogging the likes of which I haven’t done in awhile, leaving comments and such.  At least until the lightning got intense.  I’ll be back at it as soon as thing blows over.  I’m massively enjoying the rain, tho.  We have not had anything measurable for a few months.  Barely enough too keep the grass growing, which means this down pour will have me back at it in a week or so.  Hopefully stuff will grow and the deer will find forage somewhere else besides my garden!

 

With Arwyn gone, so is all the pressure and bother of the relationship drama.  That’s as much why I feel lighter as the beer.  I’m just relaxed, not buzzed.  Maybe I’ll do that Friday night.  Arwyn’s presence brings with it a certain intensity and heaviness that descends and clings and presses down.   Oddly enough, she has voiced a similar feeling about me.  She feels like I am always judging her and trying to change her.  And in a way, I suppose I am.  She threw that out on Black Sunday, and I’m not sure how to respond to that.  I simply said I felt the same way.  I feel I am forever judged and found wanting.  I think this is how anyone in an unhappy relationship feels. 

 

How do you exist in an unhappy relationship without looking at the things that are making you unhappy?  I suppose one could argue that I simply look at the positives.  I could do that, but then aren’t I then denying all the other crap that is so prevalent? 

I’m thankful that Arwyn is not a shrill harpy, and that she is an otherwise kind person.  She is on a spiritual journey not unlike my own but we are going in radically different directions.  I’m opting out of religious churchianity and she is opting to get deeper and deeper into it.  She wants to pull me back into a system that God is delivering me out of.  There’s an impasse here that I don’t know how to bridge.

 

Several folks have commented that getting out might be the way to go.  2Am, facing similar circumstances, has all but decided on that course of action.  And I certainly can’t argue that he has not put up a valiant effort.  He’s done the separate and joint counseling, which I haven’t done.  He’s made some decent strides in improving himself, but his wife is not moving but continues to harp at him about stuff that happened years ago and he’s since resolved.

 

But I think we need the break up one myth right off the bat: when there are kids involved there is no such thing as a “quick, clean break.”  Even without kids, disentangling can be messy.  Artful Dodger has been working on his divorce for almost 2 years.  Our friends Donald and Gina have been working on their divorce for about 3 years.  Arwyn’s dad’s divorce is on its 3rd year (with no kids involved but considerable assets).  See a trend?  I suppose it could be easier, but this is not the norm.

 

So what do I do?

 

At this point, I’m taking my cues from God.  A body can do that if they are developing that kind of relationship with Him.  That property down south does not look to be going anywhere.  The party who was interested in buying has not shown much interest in actually paying for it.  God could have closed that door a long time ago.  I have often wished He would have!  But I can’t live down there simply because my job is up here.  But I can spend more time down there working on the place if need be.  I can begin a move if so guided.  Stuff is happening in my work life that is pointing towards a move.  But I’m seeing how it plays out.  The finances are straightening out better and better as long as something doesn’t come along to muck it up.  Anything can happen.  Something will.

 

I would like for Arwyn to show up and attend the marriage.  I’d do counseling if I had any confidence at all it would work or if she would even go.   But at this point she’s not indicated any willingness to do anything.  Especially talking about it. 

 

D.

 

 

Black Sunday

I just had a bit of a discussion with Arwyn.  It was a light enough discussion to start with, but it suddenly turned into something a lot more heavy.  VERY heavy.  To really and truly grasp it, you’ll need to catch up on the entry below this one.  Because this conversation with Arwyn fit neatly into the conversation I just had with you all.

Last Sunday, I taught Sunday school and the topic was more or less the Relationship-based Christianity.  One of the objects of my pointy jibes was the whole concept of appointing greeters to be stationed at various points in order to make people feel welcome.  The point is, that when you invite people to your house, do you have a designated greeter who stands by the door, away from the rest of the party, in order to greet people?  No, of course not unless you are wealthy enough to have a butler or someone hired for the purpose.  But not a family member!  The idea of greeters is something very institutional that has really and truly become an issue in CGM churches designed to bring in maximum numbers of seekers.

On Wednesday, I got the church newsletter/flyer, and there was an entire page devoted towards the greeter ministry.  It seemed to be a response to what I had taught the previous Sunday.  So I considered submitting a written response to our local council on ministries.  So I got the newsletter and my Bible and my PDA and began working on it.

Arwyn came in the bedroom and asked what I was doing.  My usual answer is “Writing.” and I leave it at that.  But this time, decided to tell her, just in the interest of having a conversation.  As it turns out, she did give me some good perspective on the institutional mindset, which was helpful.  People do seem to need to be told what to do and how to do it sometimes, and the greeting program gives people that sort of structure.  It meets a need.  Granted, it’s a need created by the institution but a need nonetheless.

However this discussion morphed into something else along the way.  Somehow I began pointing out that her church, Saddleback East ( or Willow Creek South, if you prefer) has many of these same difficulties as the Methodist church and seems to be intent of making a program out of everything!  She goes there 3-4 times a week and yet wants to go yet another time for a small group meeting.  She pointed out that it wasn’t the meeting she wanted, it was the relationships.

Which is where I spring the conversation back to my last post.  I asked her if she expected God to honor attempts at relationship outside of our household when we struggled so much within our own family.  “Don’t you think we should work on our relationship?”  I asked.  The next three words were a bombshell.

“I don’t know.”

Don’t know?  Don’t know?

“You don’t know if you want to work on our relationship?”

“No.  I don’t know where to go with it.  I’m not sure if I want to.”

At least she’s honest.

Still, this did sort of floor me because somewhere in the back of my mind I was hoping that she might come ’round to wanting to show up and work on our marriage.  Now she’s flat out saying that she is not sure she even wants to make an attempt.  And this is perfectly consistent with her actions for the past several years.  She basically has not lifted a finger to help in various efforts that I’ve made to improve our status.  She is simply not that into me.  And she might be on her way further out.  The conversation ended abruptly as the kids were fussing about something and she was about to break down in tears. 

The thing is that this really does impact everything.  Or to be more realistic, there is very little about day-to-day life that this does not impact.  For instance, the small TV that I owned before we got married and had in our bedroom went on the blink.  Arwyn stated that she wanted some say in replacing it.  However, now I’m thinking that I need to think about a post-Arwyn life and what sort of TV I might fancy, if any.

And then there is this boat-anchor of property we have in S. Georgia.  The renter who was not paying rent has been evicted.  I’ve been working on selling the place.  However now, perhaps I’m thinking that I might need it as a place to stay for myself. 

People deal with major stresses in different ways, and Arwyn’s is to clean and organize which she commenced to doing while I tried to write this post.  We had a small conversation about the property and she seemed to think keeping it wouldn’t be that bad of an idea.  But neither would getting rid of it.  She is not interested in living there so it would be just me if it happened that way.

Basically, we are at a point where we are sort of on the same wavelength.  In her own mind I think she is thinking about a post-Digger life.  She’s thinking about going back to school and/or getting a full-time job.    While I think she handles a lot on her own, it’s difficult for me to imagine her being able to handle both boys by herself. 

It’s all sort of depressing.  Arwyn gave up on the marriage years ago and has never even tried to check back in. 

D.