3195 Weekend, Wilderstein

Saturday, December 12, 2010

Any couples therapist will tell you
that the minute the initial contract of the relationship is breached,
all bets are off.

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I believe the green quote above to be absolutely true, but often you don't know what that initial contract is. You think you know, and then find out it wasn't what you thought it was. The real contract was deeply hidden.

From the therapist's viewpoint, the expression of the contract is and always was as it is now, known to be now broken, but back at the beginning of the relationship, the couple may have expressed their understanding differently. We change, and our expectations change, and we think our current expectations are the same as ever. If you know what I mean.

Maintaining a relationship is often like trying to hit a moving target.

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Yesterday a friend and I drove up to Wilderstein mansion in Rhinecliff, to see the Victorian Christmas decorations. First we had lunch at the Rhinecliff Hotel, and visited a chocolate shop outside Rhinebeck.

The Wilderstein decorations were ok, but I was excited just to see the interior of the mansion again. I hadn't been inside in several years, and I'm impressed with how well the restoration is going. It's just sad that the work could not have been done while Daisy was alive. I love love love the wood and the gorgeous detail in that house.

It's odd, but there are very few photographs of the interior of Wilderstein online or anywhere else, and as much as I love it, I have never taken any pictures inside the house, either.

The friend had two questions she wanted to ask in research for a book, the first question having to do with electric service at the turn of the century, and the second with train service.

I was amazed that the docent was knowledgeable about electricity, and then as we were leaving, we met a guy who was an actual train buff, filled to the brim with old train lore.

I mean, what are the chances?

After leaving Wilderstein, we headed south of Newburgh to a Mensa dinner/party. There were a lot of people there, and I was happy to see many people I haven't seen in months. What felt especially good was that they seemed happy to see me, too.

We had two, count 'em, two, GPS devices to get us south to the Thruway and back home, and somehow I managed to get lost anyway. Route 9w kicked off to the left near Suffern and I missed the turn, but I kept going thinking the GPS would simply reroute us. He did, and we somehow ended up on the Thruway alright, but headed north. Duh?

After dropping the friend off at her home, it was supposed to be another 25 minutes to my home. Yeah, sure, this is New Jersey. It took me almost an hour because the state police had a sobriety roadblock set up on route 35. I didn't get home until after midnight.

When I got home, I found a bunch of packages on my doorstep. One from Amazon was four seasons of "My Name Is Earl". I LOVE that show! So this morning after breakfast I set myself up with the DVDs in Bedroom #2, planning to lie on the bed and watch the first season. Uh, I woke up at 2 pm. Windy and raining today (prefect bubble-blowing day), so no loss.

And this is/was my weekend.
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1824 One part of the contract

Thursday, May 22, 2008

A few posts back I mused on the unspoken but understood contract in a relationship.

I can define one part of the contract with the Man. We've made an actual agreement.

I’d read that men not only dislike but actually fear emotional discussions of the type women love. They don’t want to think about what things mean, where things are going. They want things to just bump along. Women, on the other hand, fear emotional distance. They want to know exactly what’s going on, what things mean, how he feels, and so want to discuss everything.

This is absolutely true of both him and me. Drama scares the hell out of him, and withdrawal scares me. Given that drama gives withdrawal gives drama gives withdrawal gives ... wherever you want to jump into the cycle, a few months ago I proposed an agreement.

My part is no drama, no pressuring him into “relationship discussion”.

His part is to watch the emotional distance, stay connected. No silences.

I did warn him that sometimes I will have to tell him things about how I feel, but the important part is that I promise to do so unemotionally, logically, briefy net it out, just as information for him. All he has to do is listen. I will not expect him to respond or discuss - that's the important part. He can take that information and do whatever he wants with it.

He seemed to like that a lot.

So far it seems to be working. I think we've both relaxed.

Before, when things weren't going the way we might have wanted, usually that we weren't able to get together as often as we wanted, he would go quiet and withdraw, partially because he was afraid of my reaction. As a result of his withdrawal I'd get even more upset and demanding. Now, and I hope it sticks, he knows I'll stay calm, so he continues to reach out and touch, his affection is more constant. It keeps me calm, and that keeps him closer, which is even more satisfying to me.

Damn. I wish I'd known about this when I was younger.
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1818 Freakout and Relationship Contract

Saturday, May 17, 2008

I about had a heart attack this evening. I went online to my bank account to check the balances, preparing to write a bunch of checks tomorrow. One of the lines in the list is my credit card with that bank, a Visa with a maximum of $10,000. I was expecting to see a balance owed on that card of about $700 or less.

Imagine my shock when I read a balance of over $9,356! No way! Ack!

Much running around, and shrieking, and dumping the purse to make sure I hadn't lost the card, and checking to make sure the previous payments had been credited, and tripping over cats that weren't moving fast enough, and searching for phone numbers, and trying to remember where I'd used it recently. Ack ack!

Then I took another look.

The bank had changed the format of the screen. $9,356 is the balance available.

Oh. Ne'mind.

Next thing you know I'll be locking my keys out of the car with me in it.

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In a recent post, another blogger said, "Any couples therapist will tell you that the minute the initial contract of the relationship is breached, all bets are off. " (If the author wishes so, it can be claimed or linked in the comments.)

Anyway, that statement hit me hard, and I've been chewing it ever since.

I guess there are some things that are invisible until someone points them out, and then they're obvious. I'd never thought about this before, but yeah, it's suddenly obvious.

It explains what happened in some of my old failed relationships. It would even explain my observation that divorce so frequently follows breast cancer diagnoses. "She's supposed to provide the care and emotional support, and now she wants ME to? I can't. It's too hard. I didn't sign up for this."

That "initial contract" bothers me, because I doubt that anyone actually thinks about it until it's breached. Until you get to the "didn't sign up for this" stage. Couples don't discuss what they expect from each other, what their roles in the relationship are.

People grow and change, and things happen, and to maintain the initial contract you have to be aware of what clauses must be immutable, or be willing to change the contract. But to do any of that, you have to know what the contract IS.

I looked at my current relationship, and I really don't know what the contract is. I'd sure like to find out before anyone breaches it.

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A related observation: Jay's brain cancer strengthened our relationship rather than hurting it, because it was obvious in our initial contract that I would mother him and take care of him and act as his interface to the world, even though neither of us ever said that.
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