The Bumpy Road to Recovery

[Bagheera]

I was going through a box of stuff from the early years of my marriage today, and found some of my old 'underway diaries:' little notebooks I would write letters, thoughts, and notes to myself and my wife in while I was on board the USS Hawkbill (SSN-666) and a few hundred feet under the Pacific ocean somewhere (I was a submarine nuclear plant operator in the U.S. Navy when we were first married). Our sexual relationship had already started to become rocky, coincident with our first child and my being out to sea much of the time. One entry caught my eye:

2 July 1987 (an excerpt)

"When I want to make love, it it not just a physical release, It is because I want to be close to you, loved by you -- to give you pleasure and show how much I love you. I want it to be a true union of two spirits; an extremely close time for each of us; a time to love, and bask in the love of the other."

This made me sigh: it's a wonderful expression of the male half of the Marriage Catch 22, from a 26 year old. It would be another 20 years before we would each stop carrying around all of the classic misunderstandings about each other, and stop making all of the classic mistakes with each other, and really start to set things right.

So to all you kids out there struggling with young marriages: don't do as my wife and myself did (and many others for that matter). Learn to understand and meet the unique needs of your spouse, opposite sex partner that s/he is, and teach them about you, encouraging them to meet your unique needs in return.

The Golden Rule doesn't work in marriage: you cannot treat your spouse the way in which YOU would like to be treated and expect them to be happy -- they won't be. It's so much more enriching and enjoyable to serve that lovely member of the opposite that you married when you stop trying to force them to be like you, and really appreciate, deeply appreciate, who they actually are.

/exit[Soap Box]

Bagheera