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Happy to be Stuck with You?

  • January 23, 2011 at 9:28 am


As my iPod was tooling through songs, it played Huey Lewis and the News’ “Happy to be Stuck with You.” When that came out, it really disturbed my mother, although I never understood why. As I was listening to it this time, I realized that they’re discussing a relationship I don’t want. I want to be in a relationship because I choose to be there. I’m reading a lot that love is a choice, and while finances and lives do get intertangled, that’s not the reason to stay in a relationship. You should be staying because you want to be there. Otherwise, the anger and resentment build up and no one is happy. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

If you chose that person in the first place, who’s to say you can’t choose him or her again? Things happen in life and in relationships. People change and their first “in-love” feelings for each other can wane. I see it all around me and have personally experienced it. But, unfortunately, our society is too quick to throw in the towel when things get challenging. On the flip side, some people just accept their “stuckness” and wallow in their misery.

The two times I have been in love, it was not my choice to end either of those relationships. I see now my participation in them not being stellar, but I wasn’t willing to throw in the towel. In fact, in my marriage, when I tell people the story, they seem to be shocked. This is how it went:

My ex-husband told me one evening, “I want a divorce.”
“No” was my response.
He had this look of “HUH?” on his face, and then he confessed, “I’ve been with someone else.”
“That’s great,” I returned. “No.”
Again, the “HUH?” look.
“We have a one-year-old son down the hall. I told you I would marry again but that I wouldn’t divorce again, so no.”

That began our year-long bout into marriage counseling and neither of us seeing the forest for the trees. He continued his dalliances and I continued my distrust. It’s horribly exhausting to lose trust with a partner, because I found myself spying on him constantly. It tore me apart and didn’t make him feel too great either.

Granted, once trust is gone, it is that much more difficult to choose to be with that person, but it can be done. I’ve known couples whose relationships are stronger than ever because they made it through an affair, but it requires a kind of resolve and love many don’t possess. We are somehow programmed to take the road MORE traveled in our lives, which is definitely an easier route—but is it always the right one?


As I was sitting down to write this blog, I heard another song, which is much more direct and choice-oriented than the first: Baz Luhrmann’s “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen).” It’s full of advice for a full life, one that involves choices and carving a path. THAT’S the life I want! I don’t want to be stuck in a relationship, a career, or a place where I’m not at least 90% happy all the time (100% is, of course, the goal!).

What about you?

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No Time for Negativity

  • January 21, 2011 at 10:10 pm

Life is short. Too short, in my opinion, to waste time worrying and thinking negative thoughts. This week, I have seen a lot of negative in this life. A friend’s 19-year-old daughter died from suicide. A client was unhappy with my work and chose to go in another direction. A negative networker was verbally abusive to me and another colleague. My ex-husband’s fiancée attacked me by commenting on this blog. So many things happen every day that can weigh us down and sour our disposition.

So what do we do about it?

I can’t speak for everyone in the world, but I choose to assess, assimilate, and move on. First, I am usually taken off guard, angry, embarrassed, or whatever. Then I think about it. Feel first, think second; go figure for an ENTJ. I then try to learn something from it, if there is something worth learning. And, yes, there nearly is always something to learn. Then I move forward with a smile on my face. Sometime this process takes as short as five minutes or as long as a day.

I wrote a blog in November 2010 about angry people, and I believe a lot of the negativity we experience in the world begins with people who are angry and insecure. I run into people I like to call “Eeyore,” those who walk around with a gray cloud over their heads. Nothing goes right for them—even when it seems like it should be right. And, too often, they want to pull others into the gray shadow with them.

I don’t have time to live under a gray cloud. I have to live in a world of negativity that would love to bring me (and everyone else) down, but I choose to live in an amazing world. My son is the center of that world, and he is the most awesome boy ever. My business is growing by leaps and bounds and I’m ready to add contract writers. I’m going to Disneyland next week for my 40th birthday. I have a slew of wonderfully supportive friends. My life is amazing.

This evening, I went to Dave & Buster’s with some friends to celebrate my birthday. They treated me to dinner and drinks, and I had some free games courtesy of a coupon. Then, after tons of fun there, I drove home under a gorgeous full moon. I’m now watching Easy A, which is super fun and funny. So, try all you want, all you Eeyores; I am committed to being happy, regardless of what you throw my way.

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Please Me!…Please?

  • January 19, 2011 at 7:14 am

I have completed reading The 5 Love Languages, and I even took the profile test to see which language is mine. It’s a close tie between “acts of service” and “words of affirmation.” I think the former is more because I have a strong desire to feel safe and cared for in a relationship. The latter is pretty self-evident.

It’s interesting to trace the origins of these love languages. As Gary Chapman says in his book, our styles began in childhood. Either it was the way we were shown love, or we missed it so much that we desire it now. I can totally see that. When I was a kid, I was pretty much on my own. I was an only child with a self-obsessed father and a bipolar mother. They did the best they could with what they had (I don’t have any ill feelings), but I definitely was lacking in some things. I had to take care of myself, from cleaning up after myself to doing my own laundry, making my own appointments, and paying my own bills—all from around the age of eight or ten. That definitely explains why “acts of service” are so important to me.

As for “words of affirmation,” to my mother, nothing was ever good enough. I wasn’t smart enough, skinny enough…you name it. Now, when someone tells me I’m good at something or beautiful or whatever, my heart fills up. Something positive I heard years ago can fuel me even today, and I am often reminded of my ex-husband’s encouragement that I am worth much more in the workplace than I give myself credit. Oh, and I LOVE it when I make clients happy!

Writing this, it would appear that my primary love language is “words of affirmation.” They definitely make me feel good about myself, but since security was so absent for me as a child, “acts of service” help me to feel as if I’m in a lasting relationship.

I’m starting to review how I show love to Patrick through this process, and I have even asked him how he knows I love him (he says because I tell him). The book suggests that we shower our children with love in all of the five areas so they always have a full emotional love tank. I am pretty sure I was doing that before, but I am paying attention to it now. I also watch my language more; I’m cognizant of using more positive words than negative (e.g., “Remember to brush your teeth” as opposed to “Don’t forget to brush your teeth”).

I also am working hard on my relationship with Jeff, my ex-husband. We are linked together for the rest of our lives through Patrick, and there has always been so much animosity. There’s a great section of the book in which a woman who is in a loveless relationship asks, “How can I love someone I hate?” I certainly don’t hate Jeff, but it’s challenging to love someone who puts up so many roadblocks and shows so much anger toward me. So I implemented what the book suggests. Last night, I emailed Jeff and told him I am committed to having a positive relationship with him. I also disclosed that I wasn’t telling him so he’ll feel obligated to reciprocate my kindness; I was telling him because I didn’t want him to think I’m nuts or have an ulterior motive.

While reading the book, I’ve written him a note thanking him for helping me and Patrick one day, and I took him and his fiancée a couple of cupcakes from the batch I made over the weekend. If nothing else, I feel good in my approach and it’s erased any negative feelings I had about him. Let the growth continue!

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Woulda … Coulda … Shoulda

  • January 9, 2011 at 10:09 am

The problem with reading all of these relationship books and reflecting on myself is that I’m currently single, so I have no one on whom to practice and no pairing to improve. That leaves me with one option: consider relationships of the past and what I did that I could have done differently. With a poor memory for the specifics, that leaves me with one recent relationship: my marriage that essentially ended 2 1/2 years ago (the divorce was only a year ago, but we were physically separated for longer).

As I continue to read The Five Love Languages, I am realizing so many similar themes across the books I’ve been reading. It may be because most have a Christian theme (ironic, since I’m very much an atheist) that they seem to draw from the I Corinthians 13:4-7 verse:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Although I’ve only read two languages of love—words of affirmation and quality time—I see my ex-husband in both of them. I’ve yet to unearth my primary love language, although my guess is that it’s acts of service because I really appreciate it when men do things for me. For him, he told me at the end that he didn’t feel appreciated at all and that I was always on my computer when he wanted to talk to me. If only I’d been listening all along, or he’d told me that earlier….

As I was reading about the first two languages, I was at the gym, as I always am when I’m reading. While I was doing my bicep / tricep curls on the bench in the weight area, a couple behind me was going through some personal training. The man was seriously struggling with his reps and making that crazy grunting sound you sometimes hear in the gym. Nearby, his wife was watching—and laughing! Okay, I’ll admit that the grunting makes me wonder why men torture themselves in that way, but to laugh at her husband while he so obviously needed support and encouragement? I wanted to go over there and slap her and then encourage him.

Recently, an enlightened friend of mine and I were speaking about relationships and she suggested that, since the sexual revolution of the ’60s, men have been raised to expect to be emasculated, while women have been raised to emasculate men. I’ve done it, and most of the women I know do it. The issue is that we have no idea that we’re doing it; it’s almost ingrained in us. Meanwhile, men are so used to it that they don’t say anything when it happens. They take it and then build up feelings of resentment.

I think it should be our goal in this generation to make our children aware of their feelings and able to express them. No matter what feelings they are, they are valid. Sharing them with loved ones should not produce fear or anxiety—and perhaps by letting others know how we feel, they will be more aware of their actions and consequences, thus ending this ridiculous cycle of failed male-female relations.

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Choosing Love

  • January 4, 2011 at 10:58 pm

I just started reading The Five Love Languages, after reading Men Are from Dirt; Women Are from Men. They were a package deal through Amazon, and I’m starting to realize why. One of the underlying themes I’ve seen so far is that love is a choice. (In fact, that theme runs through a number of books I’ve read recently.) The first book talks about how the in-love feeling lasts about two years, until we discover that all of those annoying things we found endearing at the beginning are, well, annoying. The solution, of course, is to CHOOSE to love the person you’re with. The problem, though, is that we live in a disposable society and, when life gets challenging, people walk away rather than dealing with their issues. They think that the next person will be better and they obviously didn’t have “real love” this time.

It’s disappointing to me that people just give up so easily, and a lot of it has to do with this generation. Years ago, couples just accepted that they would be miserable in relationships—and they stayed. Obviously, that’s not a great solution either since no one wants to be miserable, but it somehow seems better to me than just throwing in the towel when life gets tough. Especially when children are involved. Speaking of children, the book said that 60% of second marriages fail—and the statistic increases when children are involved.

I’m eager to continue reading this book to learn what my love language is and to learn to speak the language of others, especially my son. As the author pointed out, our love tanks need to be full for our relationships to run. We take care of the gas and oil in our cars, yet we somehow think our relationships will run on empty. How ridiculous is that?

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Part of the Herd: Resolution #1

  • January 2, 2011 at 9:13 am

Just like most Americans, I am evaluating my life and starting anew in 2011. In actuality, I create new goals and such all the time, but this just made sense for me to get back in shape in 2011. I’ll be 40 at the end of this month, and I want to be back to a size 4—and stay there. No more excuses about being a bit older, blah, blah, blah. I lost weight before, after Patrick was born, and I know I can do it again.

My preferred method of attack is the “5-Factor” diet and exercise plan, as outlined by trainer-to-the-stars Harley Pasternak. It’s actually incredibly easy to follow because you only have to work out 25 minutes a day five days a week and eat five meals daily. One day a week is the “cheat” day, so you can eat whatever the hell you want on that day. When I was diligent with both eating and exercising, my stats in November 2007 were 122.5, 28% BFP and measurements of 34, 27, 37. Right now, I’m starting at 136.5, 32% BFP and measurements of 35.5, 29, 40.5 (you can see where I retain the weight!). My goal is to be 115-125, based on how comfortable I feel and look.

It’s a little more challenging to follow any diet plan as a vegetarian and wannabe vegan, but this plan includes quite a lot of vegetarian “meats” since they provide protein while being lower in fat. Also, each book has a few different options. I only have 5-Factor Fitness at the moment, but I’m going to pick up 5-Factor Diet and 5-Factor World Diet to see what other meals he suggests. Basically, the idea is to always include a good carb, protein, fat, fiber, and sugar-free beverage (read “water”). The protein is the kicker for me, but there are many plant-based ideas at Whole Foods, thankfully.

So, I’m gearing up my menu for a trip to the store, and I’m copying the fitness plan again so I actually follow it. I’ll track my progress so I can be in superhero shape in five weeks!

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