Huh?

So yesterday Chris and I visited a couples counselor. The plan was to discuss with her ways to improve our communications so that when we have our tiffs, we do it more constructively. We find ways to build up and not tear down.

We have hurdles. It seemed like a grown up thing to do.

This is what really happened.

We went in. We sat down. She asked me to talk. I talked for 5 minutes. She asked Chris to talk. He wouldn't. I said "you want to talk without me here?" She said "that sounds like an idea. Go wait in the waiting room and I'll come get you in 10 minutes."

So I waited for more than 30 minutes.

When she finally came back to get me I was on my way out the door. Furious.

I went back to her room, sat down, and listened to what she had to say.

She said "Chris needs to get clarity. You will need to be patient."

I said "how do we pay you. Chris. Pay her. This was clearly a session for you."

We left. I was so angry I couldn't be in the car with him. So I walked/cabbed home. He was blissfully unaware.

I'm still mad. He thought it was a good session. I thought "did we not have the same goal here?"

Then I told him....for the 400th time. "GET OUT!"

He won't. Now we are at my sister's house, trapped in more than a foot of snow (expecting 2 feet) and somehow it is supposed to be okay. Because he still doesn't see the problem. Here's the problem. He either works with me on this or he gets out. Because I'm not really interested in working on a relationship that is one sided.

And somehow this counselor completely missed that point.

So I'm more confused and less helped than ever.

Because I don't know how to make this man either decide to work on us or get out. I am tired of him sitting on some imaginary fence.

Which sucks because other than this quirk, he's a wonderful man and deeply loved by every one I know...including me.

NL

It's A Lot To Process

My father is having his hip replaced on Monday. A friend "in the know" says that she wouldn't be surprised if he wakes up post surgery in less pain than before the surgery. Apparently hip pain can be

JUST

THAT

BAD

So he's going in and they are replacing his bad hip. And I am hoping, hoping, hoping that he gets some of his mobility back. Because in the past two years he's been in so much pain that he has barely wanted to live.

Which, as his daughter, makes me sad.

Meanwhile I am pondering Facebook, lovers, and The Spectrum's really interesting question about relationships. Sometimes bad relationships are like bad hips - they just need replacing. But how do you know?

Hoping to get some insight on that tomorrow.

NL

Little Happy Pills

No doubt about it. The past week has been a trial for me.

There are a few things in my life I have a lot of trouble with. Lying and dependency are the two big ones.

I learned early on in life that lying gains you nothin' but trouble unless there is no way in heck you are going to get caught and only if the lie is for good (I love this sweater Aunt Flo!)

Dependency is a whole 'nother issue. I was on the roof one day at the tender age of 17 and I was BITTER. I'd been invited on a picnic with then boyfriend and my father, for some unbeknown reason, decided that it was high time I learned to fix a roof. So up there I was, in the hot sun, pounding nails and bitchin'. But nicely because I was never sure if my father, pushed to far, might be inclined to throw me off the roof.

"Why do I HAVE to do this Dad?" I whined.

I'll never forget what came next. Instead of exploding he looked up at me and said "because no daughter of mine is going to be dependent on a man."

My life lessons included stacking and loading hay, chopping wood, repairing a car, and fixing a roof. Except for repairing a car, none of those other lessons have done me a whit of good...except this: they reinforce in me the sense that I do not have to be dependent on anyone or anything.

There is good to that. There is bad to that. The good is that I am pretty competent in most things AND I can have alcohol and Ambien in my house and know that I will never become reliant on either of them. Amen.

The bad is that I am extremely resistant to any drug which may become a lifelong requirement - including those for which prescriptions are written by a doctor. This resistance extends to my beloved, who I think should have my same unwillingness to be bound to the pharmaceutical industry.

But one of the best things about Chris is that he is not me. We make different decisions and when we are in disagreement we fight like crazy until we find a spot in the middle. And sometimes one of his decisions turns out to have an unexpected benefits.

(Dad, if you are reading this you might want to stop now.)

So it was that after a week of fighting over a lie and decision it occurred to me that if he was going to go the pill route for life management there might be something in it for me. As a result Chris found himself in the doctor's office in which the conversation, as relayed to me, went like something like this:

"Deb says if I'm going to use pills there may as well be something in it for her. Can I get a script for Viagra?"

She laughed. She said "Did she really say that?"

Chris said "she did." (And I did.)

So he came home with some little blue pills. And I can honestly say that while he's never been a slouch in "that department" these are a *wonderful* addition to his medicine cabinet.

Which makes me wonder about all of the other doors that might be opening up just because Chris is a lot more open minded when it comes to medicine and doctors. I could learn a lot from him I suppose.


NL

Commercial Seductions

A few days ago I discovered that Chris has elected to control much of his health through drugs. I *thought* he was keeping his promise to try diet and exercise first so this was quite a shock. Since 100 percent of his "issues" are lifestyle related and since I believe that pharmaceuticals are important but should not be a crutch, we are having a difference of opinion.

I'm trying hard to understand but I'm failing. He feels like the choice he made is essential to saving his life. I feel like it was weak.

The liberal part of me acknowledges that this is his choice and it isn't my business. The part of me that is pure woman is disgusted by what I consider to be weakwilled. To keep from exploding over and over I have to not think about it.

Tough if you are watching any amount of TV (ironically its own special player in this drama) because the commercial lineup is roughly 60 percent drug company sponsored. As I sit here 3 of the last 4 commercials have been for the following:

Crestor

Lipitor

Viagra

Lipitor is one of the components of his drug cocktail and the one I most object to given its side and cumulative effects. But there sits a man about Chris's age and he is discussing how important it is to him not to have a heart attack. How he is doing this for his wife. He is so convincing it's hard not to be sucked in.

He is exactly the kind of role model men all over the country would follow, the 2009 version of the Marlboro Man.

I'm not an Ad Man but I've touched the industry in my practice and I'm familiar with the concepts of hook and hold. I've been closely involved a couple of campaigns (product and services) and I know the first step is to identify your target audience.

There is no question in my mind that these commercials are just like any commercial for a product upon which profit is the goal.

And they are effective.

This afternoon I was going through a pile of magazines and found an ad for Viagra. It was about having "that talk" with your doctor. A full page ad. It resonated with me because frankly, cholesterol, and high blood pressure aren't the only problems a man like Chris has when they are nearing 60.

What I don't understand is why the ads aren't geared toward women and why they don't say "how to have that talk with your man?"

Oh wait, I know...*we* aren't the gullible ones.

Until we become mothers and we are told to shoot our daughters up with Guardisil in all of its minimally field tested with no long term impact studies conducted. Because we should trust our daughter's fertility to the motives of profit just because a commercial, or a doctor who recently had lunch with a drug rep, told us to.

Personal responsibility has many faces. It starts with asking the hard questions and not falling for the advertisers story telling.

Cigarette anyone?

NL

Pick and Choose

I've had a chance to spend some time recently thinking about relationships...particularly familial relationships... and I've come to the following conclusion:

They are complicated.

Over my desk hangs a snapshot taken at my stepdaughter's wedding. In it is the bride (her), her father and my daughter (her half sister). That is where the blood ends.

The picture also includes my niece, two nephews, my mother, my sister, and my brother-in-law. Oh, and me.

Generally speaking I like this picture. It oddly contains some aspect of each person's personality. My youngest nephew is distracted by something his sister is holding. His sister is focused and wearing her Mona Lisa smile. My daughter is smiling and her eyes are dancing at something the photographer was saying. My ex-husband is wearing the exact same smile he has for every picture.

My sister is smirking. She smirks frequently because, I think, inside her head is this constant Robin William-like chatter. It's even funnier when it exits her mouth. My brother-in-law is a stoic kind of guy and yet he has a pleased look on his face. It's the look that has always anchored my fondness for him. You have to know him to be able to see it and I'm still not sure that everyone in our family has figured that out.

Next to me my mother is grinning her usual grin - it's the one she uses for pictures and moments when she has to smile becauses she is "bucking up." I'm not suggesting she wasn't happy...I think she was...but the tedium of post ceremony pictures gets to everyone. Behind me my eldest nephew is towering over most of us and it is in this picture that I am reminded that the bare-butt baby I helped deliver into this world has grown into a handsome young adult.

And yet...it feels incomplete.

I look relaxed in this picture as I tilt my head in toward my mother and I actually like this picture of me because it doesn't show just how fat I am (vanity thy name is woman.) But if you know me, if you really know me, that smile is the one I give when I am seething and trying to be a good sport. It is a perfect blend of my mother and my father.

Missing from the picture is my heart. He is standing out of the picture looking on. It never occurred to him to be part of the picture - but it occurred to me. The look on my face is the look of a woman honoring a bride's wishes made clear just moments before and trying to be a good sport about it.

It is only just now that I realize why this picture and that scene make me so angry.

With two exceptions, every person in that picture is the brides family because of me and only because of me. Not an ounce of shared blood flows through her veins. She hangs on to the family I brought into her world with a tenacity reminiscient of Molly Brown and the Titanic. But not my WHOLE family. Only the part she picks and chooses.

Also missing from this picture because they could not attend are my father, 2 brothers, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, my 5 other nephews and other niece. Had they been there she would have wanted them in the picture and those 10 other people would have spread around her in love. But still she would not have wanted Chris.

But Chris is as much my family as she is. In fact more so.

It is Chris that wakes up with me every morning, worries about whether I've had lunch (or dinner), holds me when I sad, sits quietly with me when I am watching a waterfall, thinks outloud with me when I'm am noodling through a "situation", patiently explains football to me every weekend and laughs at me when I yell at the football refs, players, and coaches. He is not me but he amplifies everything I find good in who I am (and sometimes the stuff that isn't so good.)

My sister wisely suggested that perhaps she did not want Chris in the picture because to her he represents the fact that her father and I are no longer together. That may be true. But my family is as much to blame for that as I am, and certainly more to blame for it than Chris is. It was my family who raised me with enough self-esteem and strength that when I finally realized that we were NOT good for each other I was able to leave him.


So it left the question wide open. How much of your family can you choose?

With that first divorce in my family came a question in our ranks - was my ex-husband (and his children) still part of our family. We pondered deeply for about 3 seconds and then came to the conclusion that yes, they were.

And it was this decision made without hesitation that serves as the backdrop for why my step-daughter's exclusionary behavior bothers me so much. Does she have the right to pick and choose?

After much thought I've decided that while she can choose her family, she can't choose mine. Mine is wide and open and loving even in our every annoyance with each other. Entrance into my family is a gift that seemingly never ends as my divorce from her father (and therefore her) did not alter my family's decision to let them keep their places. Maybe it's the fact that a big family realizes that a new kid does not spread the love any thinner.

At the end of the day I think what I've learned is that I *can't* pick and choose parts of my family. If you're in, you're in. But I think I learned that the moment my parents brought home my first sibling.

So if the piece that glues you to my family is *me* then you get ALL of my family - Chris included.

If you can't deal with that...then it's time to get out.

NL