Don’t do it. It’s worth the effort to make it work.

As the child of a divorce, married to a child of a divorce, watching the self-destruction of other children of divorces, I just don’t have patience for it. I know marriage is hard. Communication is hard. Setting and being clear about expectations is hard. Holding up your end of the bargain is hard. Staying when they aren’t holding up their end is hard.

Walking away from what you share is hard. Losing the relationships that-might-have-been with your children is hard. Figuring out how to talk with people who think you were wrong to do it is hard.

Months and months ago I heard some positive remarks about a book called The Three Weissmanns of Westport. It’s a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility (if you’ve read S&S in the past few years, you’ll have this figured out within the first chapter). I bought it months ago and just didn’t get to reading it. The timing is probably about right, because now I was ready to read it.

In S&S, it is the father’s son from his first marriage who is charged to take care of the father’s second wife and 3 daughters after his death. This modern retelling changes it up a bit, and it is actually a divorce of the parents after 48 years that leads to the reduced circumstances of the wife and daughters. The bits about the divorce really hit home.

For example: p3 (the first page of the book)

Irreconcilable differences? she said. Of course there were irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that have to do with divorce?

The author of the book goes on to explain that it really had nothing to do with this divorce. It was really that Joe was “in love” with a younger woman, but that isn’t the reason he gave his wife.

Joe can’t figure out why his daughters are so mad at him and why they don’t want him to be happy. They can’t figure out why he’d do something so cruel and selfish as to abandon their mother.

The oldest daughter is thinking about him at one point (p65):

Annie thought fondly of her father for a moment. She almost wished he had died, she realized with shame, for then she would have been able to remember him as he had been, distant but in a quiet, patient, and reassuring way, someone she admired and looked up to and relied on. Instead, he was a living, unreliable, despicable deserter.

A little further on was this (p90):

Joseph had not spent all his time playing with the girls. He had been a work, and when he was home, he had agonized about work. Joseph wanted to build a future for his family. That’s what he told her at night when they lay in bed, arms around each other, dreaming of all the good things that would someday come their way. Well, Betty thought, here we are in the future, and what good did all of Joseph’s planning and concern do them?

In some ways the fact that this book so closely resembles some of the reality we are seeing right now is comforting. I did like how the author Catherine Schine showed how Joe did regret his decision and wish he could undo it a few times. But he can’t seem to figure out a way to undo what he’s done. And he’s easily satisfied by some small remark, that he is just fine with his new girlfriend.

One of the most telling moments in S&S in early in the book when the older son’s wife uses his generosity to somehow bring him down to barely giving anything at all to his father’s second wife and daughters. This book has the same scene, with the new girlfriend and her greedy desire to have his nice apartment, convincing Joe that his ex-wife can’t afford the maintenance and effort involved so he should keep the apartment and maybe give her some of the value instead. It’s amazing how his intention to be generous to his wife of 48 years, turns into months of no money at all due to legal discussions and exiles her from New York to live off the generosity of distant family.

In the novel, the daughters have their own relationship issues, but it was definitely the divorce of the parents that I found most interesting this time around. If you are thinking about divorce, maybe reading this novel will help you see some of the reasons it is worth putting in the effort to fix yourself and your marriage instead. Or at least understand why you will be considered selfish and making a huge mistake by some people if you go ahead with it.

I have a need to be understood. And when I am misunderstood, I am very frustrated and hurt. The level of hurt depends on the person misunderstanding me, but it is always painful.

One of the few plot points that most aggravates me in a book or movie is the bad guy who misinterprets the hero’s motivations because he assumes the hero is as selfish and self-centered as he is. I much prefer a bad guy who is at least mature enough to realize not everyone has his same perspective.

This need for understanding goes both ways. I am frustrated and confused when I can’t figure out why someone I know and care about is doing something harmful. I want communication so we can figure it out. It may not be a good reason, but I’m ok with that. If I can just know what it is.

I guess all of this means that refusing to talk with me and explain why you are doing something, or repeatedly misunderstanding and misinterpreting my actions without trying to understand my reasons are the best ways to cause me distress and pain.

I got what I wanted for Christmas! (Of course, it helps that I ripped the page out of World Magazine with the review of the Cirque de Soleil Elvis album and handed it to Anthony with the words – “This is what I want for Christmas”). I came home from Raleigh a week ago to find iTunes open and Viva Elvis in the play list! The review in World is right, this is great Elvis music. I have really enjoyed listening to the songs over the past week.

My Christmas present also makes me cry. I remember slow dancing with Dad to songs like Memories and Love Me Tender. And watching Elvis movies like King Creole and Blue Hawaii with him. All the times we listened to Blue Suede Shoes and Heartbreak Hotel while playing pool down in the basement. Singing along, dancing, laughing. Watching the Elvis bio movie every year (Kurt Russell!) and crying at the end because it always had the same sad ending.

Elvis brings back my childhood, and so many good memories of my Dad. October made 2 years that he’s been gone. And I really miss him.

This is not a real cheerful Christmas this year, as we struggle to understand and move forward with the results of Anthony’s brother’s actions.

But it is still a joyful season. We are saved and secure, no matter what happens here we know where will spend eternity and we are loved by a Holy and Awesome God.

While we were all here the weekend after Christmas I got our Christmas Ladder tree up. I am spoiled by how easy it is to put so many cool decorations on the tree. We don’t have a lot of flat surfaces waiting for decorations in the rest of the house, so this year I even put our nativity scene on the tree. (Someone kept inviting Tigger to the nativity.

I didn’t leave an empty spot, but one of the items on the tree is a soft bag and Bluetooth has found that spot quite satisfactory.

My favorite addition to my Christmas decorations this year is the fantastic Christmas Wreath that Edie made for me!

Hopefully no birds will build a nest in this wreath (I guess that means I need to take it down earlier than I did last year).

Thursday night while in Raleigh I got to go hear my nephew singing with his Chorus group. A fine way to begin the season.

Tomorrow night, of course, is our Cantata at Church. Last Monday was a covered dish dinner with some good friends. This coming Monday is a Christmas party / ornament exchange. Family get-together next Saturday. Tis the season. I am very happy to say that we’ve done a better job this past year of staying in touch with family and friends, so this isn’t the only month of the year that we get to see each other. I expect to make next year even better!!

Stay warm and spend time remembering how blessed you are!

It’s a great line. It falls under the concept of allowing the other person’s feelings to be validated as real, and accepting that the person feels that way is a good step toward opening communication back up. But the next thing you do determines whether you really mean it or not. If you then let me express that anger and why I am angry and if necessary, explain what I’m not understanding or taking into account, then you really are following through.

But if your next step is to say you are very angry, refuse to make eye contact or listen to what is being said, and stop talking about the issue, then you really haven’t validated my feelings at all. You’ve closed me off and told me I don’t have a right to have feelings about whatever is happening to me.

And my first response is that Dave has no right to be angry about anything, he started all of this with his actions. And he should have known how Alison and the boys, and we would react, so he should have been ready for it. Besides, we’re just trying to talk to him, figure out what he’s thinking, and tell him why we think this is a bad idea.

A more tempered response is that he obviously can be angry, since he is. Perhaps he didn’t think it through and was surprised to find out that not only were people angered and hurt by his actions but actually expected him to talk about it and change his behavior. Preferably change his behavior enough to come home and live his life again. At least stand up and accept responsibility for his behavior and the damage it is doing and work with the people he is hurting to get through this.

But he is the one that opened with the line and then he refused to listen or to respond as if he really felt his son or wife or the rest of us actually had a right to be angry. Or at least that we had a right to express how we felt and why we felt that way and then actually get some useful response from him.

Over the past two days David has commented that his oldest son has been hostile on the 2 visitations and then indicated that he doesn’t want him on the next visitation as a result. Yet, this is actually one of the first people Dave admitted should be angry, and that time in the driveway Dave even said he was surprised the young man wasn’t even angrier than he seemed to be. He’s 15, a teenager, old enough to understand what is going on, and to feel betrayed by the man he called Dad. Like us, he wants answers. Yet when he has stated his feelings, Dave has accused us of coaching him, as if he isn’t capable of feeling this pain and anger all by himself. And when he expresses his anger that Dave won’t talk to or answer the questions of the younger boys, Dave calls it hostile and instead of talking to him simply states he doesn’t want him there.

David is a life coach. He’s someone you call up and work with to help make yourself better, achieve more, and live your dreams. There are things we hold on to, agonize over, and keep dragging around that a life coach has to help us realize should just be let go and walked away from. But there are also things we avoid, ignore, keep procrastinating about dealing with. Here is where the life coach guides you to stand up and face the situation or person or weakness or fear. David seems to be telling himself (and I supposed getting reinforced by someone) that he should just walk away from his family and the quicker the better. For an abused spouse, that may be the way to go (and you don’t leave the kids behind). But for a man to walk out because he wants to be selfish and wants to focus on his business, it is not right or profitable to avoid dealing with the pain and damage he leaves in his wake.