parents and the Marines had done a great job making him one of "the few good men." He had all the right credentials: He was a charter member of his hometown Jaycees, a Pennsylvania State University graduate and lover of the finer things. He was as beautiful inside as outside, and since he seemed so perfect, I expected him to perfect me. I thought he could settle me down.
The storm began brewing from the beginning. The Marine Corps didn't pay a Corporal scads of money, and we had $1,000 worth of dancing lessons to pay for--thanks to easy credit. Starting married life with a 3 year old child left us little time to get acquainted, and I had a difficult time putting it all together after my "tossed salad" life style. It was almost more than an engineer (by profession), Marine (by training), and German (by birth) could take.
"If you'd put things back after you get them out, you'd know where they are the next time you need them."
"If you'd not take everything so seriously, you'd be more fun."
He saw in me an easygoing manner, and I saw in him the ability to organize--areas in which we each wanted to grow. Years later our daughter was to write an English theme entitled “Opposites Do Attract," but at that time we were too miserable to allow that attraction to surface.
While Tony was in the Marine Corps, we moved around a lot, and I always worked at the local radio or TV station. I should have been happy, but I was depressed, miserable, and angry.
I had expected marriage to cure all my problems, but it only magnified them with angry flashes of "lightning" brilliance.
The tornado inside of me carried over into my job. I didn't really want to work away from home, but when I stayed home I was bored and had no money to call "my own." Besides, the prestige of my own radio or TV show fed my ego.
We sought happiness outside of marriage--in our social life, in our possessions, our children; the empty happiness which comes from seeing how many times you can get your picture in the paper through position, power, and prestige.
But the nagging emptiness inside of me remained. It argued with its unknown tormentor.
"Get your life straightened out.”
"But we go to church all the time," my threatened conscience would reply.
I taught Sunday school, Tony was a trustee on the building committee and served as church treasurer, and we both helped with Vacation Bible School. Even the minister joked about the death of some of his members-- "They starved to death," he would say, "from attending all of the meetings!" With the whirl of activities and the meaningless round of social events, church had become just like any of the other clubs we belonged to.
We studied on Sunday that "God is love" and "love is giving," yet I was only interested in "getting."
Now I’m supposed to adapt myself to my husband. But how could I, a former board member of the Women's Political Caucus, accept that?
Meanwhile, I had finally become an expert at something--I could criticize.
In public I was vivacious, outgoing, the public relations director for the human race. But at home I brightened up the room when I walked out. And when I was being mean, I couldn't allow my husband to be the nice person he really was. My attitude toward Tony and our marriage had changed him from a warm, loving individual to an old grouch. But I felt justified because he seemed to be so cold to me. (I would lie on my side of the bed at night, hoping he would make the "first move." Wasn't the husband supposed to be the aggressor?)
The cavity of emptiness inside me was getting huge. It wasn't that we didn't talk. I complained that he didn't. He said he would talk more, but he hated to interrupt!
The downward spiral continued until Tony moved out, and I filed for a divorce.
For two weeks during that time I sat in a stupor. It occurred to me the way things were going I could go from divorce to divorce to divorce. In fact, at our wedding my uncle had said, "We'll have this to go through again." Would we?
I was reminded of the mother who was watching the school drill team perform when she said, "Look, everyone is out of step but my son!" I felt like that son.... except that when everyone was out of step but me, I began to wonder about ME! My first marriage ended and the second one was dying because I couldn't cope with the problems, situations, challenges, and obstacles. That day when I looked at myself in the mirror I knew I was in the eye of the tornado. I was in a trance while the debris of my life swirled around me.
I had expected Tony to give me all I wanted, to be my one, sure, straight path to happiness. But did I have a choice? I wondered, "Is there an alternative to this cycle of excited love, disappointment, anger, disgust, apathy, divorce?" I pondered the question many times.
I asked myself and God, "Why did I get married?"
Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever wondered why you got married? Was it a search for love, romance, or sex? Or was it because of restrictions, school, poverty, pregnancy, or rebellion? Was it because everyone else was getting married, or was it truly love? Was it politically or socially advantageous to marry, or was it an escape from home life because parents were:
*Alcoholics
*Against marriage
*Against you (you thought)
Or you were:
*Raised in an orphanage
*Raised by grandparents
*Raised by step-parents
*Raised by neighbors
Are we blaming someone else for our marriage failure? Who wins the Blame Blotter of the year award? Does the need to change start with "them" or with us?
Do you wonder how you got to where you are now? How could you have dated, dreamed of, and maybe had children by that two-headed gargoyle you're tied to now?
In management courses at McClennan Community College I taught my Analysis-Action system for problem solving. It works in a marriage situation just as well as it does in solving business-related problems.
In the following text begins the Analysis-Action section for this first chapter. It contains forms which make it simple to analyze (examine and think out) where you've come from, where you are now, and where you're going with different areas of your life that affect you and your marriage. This How-To procedure gives you a blueprint for exploring your career, your pocketbook, your possessions, your children and your marriage. You may begin by analyzing your marriage.
I call the Analysis-Action (A-A) the Chrysalis stage; i.e., the "stage of Change."
The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary defines "Chrysalis," in addition to being the capsule-enclosed pupa from which a butterfly develops, as "anything in an undeveloped or transitory stage." The World Book Encyclopedia says, "It's a stage of development
