The Lens:
Not long ago, my husband and I started watching “Last Tango in Halifax.” If you are unfamiliar with the show, it is about two people in their 70s who find each other after roughly 60 years. They had been smitten with each other way back when, but circumstances led them apart. After reconnecting on Facebook, with the help of their grandchildren, they hastily marry in what seems like a quaint love story of love lost then found again.
It is a bit of a soap opera, though not ridiculously so. It is believable every step of the way. Not far into their marriage, the two protagonists, Celia and Alan, start to have their differences. Their true personalities start to show. They have lived very different lives. They each have a daughter who couldn’t be any more different that adds conflict in their marriage. Etc., etc., etc.
To those looking in from the outside, they are a sweet old couple living a dream. To those on the inside, they see just another married couple who struggle to be “happily” married.
In one episode later in the series, Caroline, the daughter of Celia, is talking with a teacher at the school where Caroline is head mistress about her mother and Alan. The teacher’s initial reaction is a story of hope for everyone. Caroline counters that, in the beginning, everyone wants to believe in these two people in their 70’s finding true love, but reality is another story.
Caroline continues on that when you haven’t seen someone in 60 or so years, truth is “you don’t really know them.”
The Refraction:
How well do we really know anyone? If I look at Celia and Alan, getting married after so quickly reconnecting wasn’t necessarily a mistake. The mistake came in not considering they would have their differences. That is the general idea behind dating – getting to know one another, figuring out if you are compatible. Usually, this takes time. You could get married and live with someone for years and still be surprised by them. Still, little clues creep up during the dating process that give a sense of whether or not a long-term relationship will work.
These little clues I call the “Dear Abby Test.” A guilty pleasure of mine is reading advice columns. I’ll admit I don’t think a lot of Abby’s advice but she is probably the most well-known. I digress.
If you are also an advice columnist enthusiast, you are probably aware a great number of letter writers write something like: I met this great guy/lady. He/she is perfect in every way, except . . .
And, there it is. The “Except.” Surely, we all realize no one is perfect. We should also realize that, in every relationship, there will always be an expect (or two, three, four, etc.) It is easy to be in a relationship in health, in richer. It is a little harder in sickness and poorer. Likewise, it is really easy to be in a relationship when your compatibilities are in sync. It’s not so easy when they are not.
My husband is always late. I am not only always on time, I absolutely hate being late. I knew he was always late before we married. We even had a screaming match on our way to our rehearsal dinner because he was late. Still, I didn’t see this as something that would be a problem. I missed the message my mom had told me years before: Don’t marry someone with the expectation they will change. She was referring, in her own way, to the “excepts.” Something that is an except today, will very likely be an except tomorrow.
A while back, a young coworker was upset one day. She had been seeing someone and they had become quite serious. She asked me, how people who have been married for a long time deal with issues. Here is what I told her:
I started with my Dear Abby Test intro and said, there will always be excepts. Don’t expect them to go away. As a matter of fact, expect that they could get worse without ever getting better. The question you have to ask yourself is: can I live with it for the rest of your life? That is key. Can you live with the situation for the rest of your life? Think long and hard about that one. Can you live with the situation for the rest of your life? If you don’t think you can, no matter how perfect he/she is in every other way, your relationship will not survive.
Regarding my tardy husband, we had been married many years when we had a complete blow up over this. Our son’s singing group was going Christmas Caroling on a motorized cable car. The cable car was leaving at 6:00pm clear across town – not a speedy drive. My husband was late getting ready, very late. We were getting to the point of possibly missing the cable car.
On the way over, I completely flipped out in the car. It was a very loud and angry argument. Both kids in the back were very upset. It was awful. Afterward, I felt horrible for sake of the kids.
I vowed that was it. This would never happen again. We had three cars. My husband and I are both licensed drivers. I made it clear to my husband from then on, I would no longer wait for him. The train had a departure time and he would either be on it or not. If he missed the train, he could get himself to the event. It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing after that, but we never had a similar situation again. I’d give fair warning the train was leaving in 30 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. He never missed the train, though it might have left a minute or two late on occasion.
Would I have married him anyway had it occurred to me when we decided to get married that his tardiness would become such a problem? Yeah, I think so. But, I also might have dealt with the situation better, coming to a resolution far sooner than we did and without all the trauma.
There have been other similar “excepts” we have dealt with. Some have been eased, others not. We are not perfect. We will never be in sync 100% of the time. I would bet Fred Astaire stepped on Ginger Rogers’ toes every now and then. Still, they found a way to dance.
So, if you are in what is becoming a serious relationship, take a hard look at the excepts. If you can’t change it and can’t live with it, then it is probably time to move on. Be a bit choosy but don’t wait for the perfect person. He/she simply doesn’t exist.
For the excepts that rear their ugly little heads after the vows have been taken, decide what you can live with. For what you truly cannot tolerate, employ the mindset that they need to be dealt with . . . and the sooner the better. The longer the excepts fester, the harder they are to resolve. Anger and resentment build which is just as hard, maybe even harder, to overcome than the except itself.