WHAT KEEPS US TOGETHER?

What keeps us together when that first flush of love begins to fade?

When we go into a long term relationship, for example marriage or partnership do we envisage the changes we will need to make to keep that relationship going?  Indeed do we even notice how we change over the years together in such intimacy? Young and in love in marriage we have to adapt to stay together to a certain degree, however without realising, one or both partners may slowly lose them-self in order to stay with the other. So many things occur within the process of life and development, work, friendships, children and money issues, to name a few which will influence how we continue. Trauma and how we deal with that together can be a test of any partnership.  

My grandma had a saying 'Love is a trap' and 'marriage is an eye opener'  another one was 'It takes ten year to get to know the person you live with.' or 'do you ever really know them?'

Of course no one takes much notice of these old sayings, when one first meets and falls in love all one can think of is how to stay together. These sayings imply that we walk into to some relationships with our eyes shut and gradually over time become shocked and hurt by the others behaviour. Maybe that is so especially in extreme cases of hurt like infidelity and abuse.

We all think that we know the person we have fallen in love with  but love does strange things and  over time we make new discoveries about this 'other half', and yet once we have found love, the very idea of losing it brings fear and uncertainty. When we fall in love we may become embroiled in the need for the other. Hiding some things from ourselves and often blatantly ignoring them in the hope that the other will change.

  How do two people learn to live together in harmony?

There has to be a certain amount of adaptation and that is good thing. This adaptation also includes compromise. Sadly however there can be an imbalance where one   half of the couple may be doing the adapting and compromising and the other failing miserably.

Imagine a happy couple where one is more prone to expressing their emotions openly whilst the other keeps emotions well and truly under wraps. How does each cope with that?  It is quite common to see each other as chalk and cheese, many couples are what might be termed as 'an unlikely match' and yet seem to rub along together quite happily so this must mean there has to acceptance, give and take and so on.  

When we first meet this other we consciously and unconsciously show our best side. Indeed very often we chose to ignore the bleeps in the other's personality, seeing little peculiarities as lovable but these little quirks in our beloved may gradually become irritating.

Should we ignore these little alarm bells or should we confront. Should we deal with things head on or should we put resentments to one side? Does not facing the problems mean we are suppressing our emotions or does it mean we are accepting of aspects of our relationship that cannot be resolved?

 I do not think there is any secret to a long term relationship I think it is a case of what each of us can deal with, how the percentages work out. Maybe if you are over fifty per cent happy then gradually the resentments can fade into the background but may keep raising an ugly head gradually swamped by resentment. If over seventy per cent happy then past transgressions can be folded away like an old blanket and put into a cupboard. I do not believe that anyone one can be one hundred per cent happy but I do know that if upsets are not faced they will keep coming back like a recurring boil that cannot be cured.

I would love to know what keeps your relationship on par, is there a secret to your relationship? I often wonder when I hear couples saying something along the lines of

‘We’ve been together for forty years and never had a cross word,’ can that really be true?

 

 

MEDITATION, A WAY TO BECOME CALM AND HAPPY

When in my forties I became more, how do I say, spiritual. Reading  books by people like the wonderful Deepak  Chopra 'Seven Spiritual Laws of Success', 'Ageless Body Timeless Mind' and more recently 'Super Brain'. 'Mindfulness Meditation' by Jon Kabat-Zinn was a nice one. This helped me on my way to regular meditation aiding me through some times of illness and despair. Meditation supported me through the horrendous time when my husband became terminally ill and his subsequent death in 2001. However,  I did, as the time passed, let my regular meditation slip.

I became busy with my work again and with a new relationship and eventual marriage. Now after ten years I have found meditation again, maybe to do with aging and emotional upheavals. Perhaps because I need to find a way of dealing with the trials of rapidly moving time pushing me ever closer to the end of my life, admittedly this could be another twenty years or so. However if one looks ahead twenty years and then back seventy, it doesn't seem very long to go.

I am not sure why I have found meditation again and needless to say it isn't as easy for me to do as it was back then. For example I cannot force my body into the lotus position anymore, my back won't stay upright and now I tend to sit on the bed with pillows. It isn't ideal, hardly the Buddhist posture I desire but now I am at least I can console myself with having the shape of a fat little Buddha. I tend to remember to meditate later in the evening and 'Om mane pad mahum' can sometimes aid me in sleep. I am using the sound of bells to time myself and I love all meditation music.

Because of it I have been sleeping better, feeling calmer and directing myself towards healing and so I persist. In many ways it is almost compulsory now but when practicing at night I have to shut out the sound of husband's clicking nose and heavy breathing. Not sure which is the least helpful, that or my own heart beat which only reminds me of the passing moments of my life. With that at least I can focus on the here and now moment to moment experience.

I am happy and adjusting to life as an older person I don't mind being called old although I don't feel as if I am. All the pressure of my working life and the hours I put in to become successful in a chosen career seem a long time gone. All those skills acquired with hours of study and perseverance mean very little now. I suppose one could see all that as a massive waste of a commodity, my generation with all our skills should be used as an important resource why has no government ever considered it I wonder? However what we contributed to society is rarely celebrated but that is another story.

ENFORCED REST, A GODSEND OR A CURSE?

 I have hurt my knee, strained a ligament or something and have to rest for anything up to three weeks. It's hell! So I am spending more time on my laptop. Time to be philosophical and maudlin I suppose. I have been thinking a lot about growing old because of this. My knee has literally had me hobbling around and for the first time in years I have to lean on someone, namely my husband. We have been through a bit of a testing process because of this, in the beginning, refusing to rest, thus him believing that I wasn't so bad. Me believing I wasn't so bad either but with my secret martyr whispering in my ear. You know the kind of thing the 'poor me' syndrome. Waiting for him to say 'let me do that love' or 'should you be doing that dear?' Sadly it doesn't happen at first mainly because I rarely ask for help therefore I don't get it when I really need it. However I am irritated by my own resentment that I generally believe I anticipate his physical needs if and when he is ill. Now after two weeks that horrible part of me is creeping back in. Why doesn't he think I might be a bit fed-up and need to be taken out somewhere, even for a coffee in the local café. He doesn't because he is waiting for me to say what I want. Is it me?  Men are very logical creatures on the whole and his belief is that I just have to sit this out and therefore shouldn't need anything because 'it's how it is'. 'It's just a case of rest and that means grin and bear it. I am obviously stir crazy because I feel irritable and angry grrrr!!!

It has been a learning curve to be sure, there are so many things one takes for granted, even walking down the hall to the loo was a hazard for the first couple of days and hubby had to push me in the office chair leaving me to scrabble my way in and out of my ablutions. Joy Oh Joy! Not being able to take the dog for a walk has been the most frustrating.  Cooking dinner at night something we usually do together, well, he peels the spuds and lays the table while I do the rest normally. I am having to instruct him on how to cook certain things. His repertoire of egg and chips or pasty and chips a bit limited or a ready made curry his speciality. Not good for someone who is starved of exercise and needing comfort food and definitely no more padding on the hips.

Growing old, and I am, is something to be feared or welcomed as it slowly engulfs me. Seeing someone I don't recognise in the mirror, walking a bit unsteadily on occasion and that was before the knee issue. Failing to remember things unless they are written down and then forgetting where I wrote them down. Frightening!
Who wants to grow old? However it's inevitable and we hear the old cliché 'it comes to us all'. Do we fear it because it brings us nearer to death or just that we become incapacitated in so many ways.
I suppose in the words of Maurice Chevalier 'old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative' is something to ponder.
 

Age creeps up, a cliché I know but sadly it is true, as a young woman I would never have considered how it felt to be getting old and indeed why should I? Although I watched my mother age and she was ninety-four when she died as was her mother before her. I still could not imagine myself getting there. I have been blinkered with the unconscious philosophy of ‘It won’t happen to me’ apologies for yet another cliché. Aging is full of them. Past it, over the hill, doddering, what can you expect when you’re getting old, losing your marbles, deaf as a post and so on?

None of that has happened yet thank God! I can be thankful that at nearly 70 it's just my knee.

Letting Go Means Taking My Feet Off the Bottom

I want to learn to swim, at the moment I have to build up to getting into the pool and wade about a bit before pushing off in the water with my bottom down and feet only inches from the floor. However that in itself is a big move as a few years ago I couldn't take my feet off the bottom at all. Now at pushing 70 I am still struggling with the urge to learn how to swim correctly. Last week I had a couple of lessons one to one. First lesson went reasonably well and I managed after a couple of years out the pool to lift off and swim a very short length. Next one not so good, she wanted to see me float star like, face down in the water. Logic tells me that I should be able to do this and once mastered swimming with my bottom high up to the surface would be a doddle, but the fear and panic is so great I just cannot master it. I knew, that she knew, this process might take more than the odd lesson she was envisaging for this old woman.
In my paranoia I believed she was now seeing me as a hopeless case,  that I was so stuck in my ways of doing this half hearted splashing about, I couldn't grasp the floating bit.
I have been trying to work out what I am afraid of, apart from drowning of course. Logic tells me that isn't going to happen. With either a swimming instructor  there or hubby, who has assured me of his support,  but sadly, and ashamed as I am to admit it, I do not trust them. Deep inside I don't think I trust anyone and the only way I can stay above the surface is to stay above.
There are those who tell me to use the buoyance aids available, but I don't trust that either. I know what your thinking that I am a hopeless case and of course that is a projection too. I have seen that there is a session at the local swimming pool for 'nervous adults' and wonder if I should give that a try? Lessons start next week for adults so that is another option.

I think that all of this is a metaphor for the way I live my life, and recently have come to realise that as I age the more independence I strive to be. If I am ill it is very hard for me to ask for help and if I don't then those around me see me as not needing anything.
As a child I made a decision that the adults in my life, my family, were not OK and could not be trusted to look after me. There was always turmoil in the household and I felt a permanent sense of anxiety. In retrospect it felt like stage fright on a constant level. Whenever something new had to be faced I would tell my mum that I felt sick, mainly because I didn't know how to describe it. That nausea was a physical manifestation of my deep rooted fear. There were so many things went on as a child that were frightening I learned to stand it and tell no one. Violence at home, bullying in school and an inner isolation which manifested as standoffishness.
Knowing all of this does not help me swim or let go in the water and I wonder if after years as a therapist, and all the personal therapy I underwent, will I ever even trust myself to let go, giving up what I perceive to be complete control. I suspect that if and when I do, then swimming will be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

PROBLEM, WHAT PROBLEM?

Once again awake at the crack of dawn, maybe it's because the sun is shinning through that wonderful misty maze we see when we live by the sea. Maybe it's just that my mind is full of ideas that I never seem to have the time to develop. I feel tired but my butterfly thoughts combined with best beloved husband's clicking sound which emanates  from somewhere at the back of his throat as he sleeps the sleep of a baby. I regularly toss and turn  like some demented sociopath thinking of ways to shut him up. Of course psychosis can slip above the parapet of normality in the middle of the night, many murders are committed in the dead of night aren't they? Eventually I am driven from the warmth of my bed to pull on the gown and slippers trotting down to the safety of the kitchen to make a cup of Tea and scoff a couple of digestive biscuits.

I suspect that I probably snore too and when I say to him in the bright light of day that he had snored most of the night, his chin sets and with eyes forward he stubbornly  recants 'I don't think so, I don't snore.'
Well that's alright then! I think.
He says he doesn't so then it must be true. I think not.
 'You snore and talk in your sleep all night' he says smugly now determined to hammer the nails into his denial.
If I'm honest I know he is right.
 'Does it keep you awake?' I smile retaining my cool.
'No it doesn't bother me' he smiles back with a certain pride, shaking his head as if that should be the end of the matter.
'But your clicking bothers me dear.  So that is the difference I groan.
Maybe separate bedrooms would make a difference, but that doesn't appeal either.
Even in my futile attempt to stop him from clicking his way through the night I am aware that this is a pointless argument. How does one stop oneself from having habits or funny ways that annoy others?
Maybe women are more susceptible to irritation. It has to be said that I am an irritable person, who can be impatient and intolerant at times. He never picks me up on my own irritating habits, maybe it's because I don't have any. Hmm! highly unlikely, one always likes to think of oneself as easy to live with but of course that isn't true. Moody and often sulky and thinking negatively about things in life, some days with glass half empty and only occasionally half full, probably makes me not so easy to live with. I feel like my mother at times who was highly critical and irritable a lot of the time pulling characters and celebs on the telly to bits.
'What has she done to her hair, it does nothing for her'
'Christ he's aged looks as old as God'
'Look at the size of his chin'
'With a thousand pounds worth of plastic surgery he'd be quite nice looking'
'well that outfit does nothing for her'
'A woman of forty should not have long hair'
'Those are not her own teeth'

Believe me that list is endless and shocking when I can hear myself in my mother's voice talking to the telly. I would often look at her with shocked horror but now I have become her. However the difference is, I am aware of doing it which is more than can be said about my husband's clicking nose.

Dieting, A Thousand Calories of Guilt with every Mouthful of Food

To diet or not to diet that is the question.

Today I had a revelation, and this occurred as I turned and walked back from my dog walk at 7am this morning. I had smelled the wonderful Llandudno air, watched how the sun sparkled on the sea whilst my ears absorbed the sound of bird song as they bobbed around in their daily quest to find food.
My revelation, such as it is, I was not going to spend the rest of my life dieting. Not a major thought I hear you say but to me it is a biggy. I am nearly 70 years old and think it's time to stop this constant cycle of self analysis about why I am fat. Oh yes it's true I am and I am the only one allowed to say it.

I have spent every day of my adult life waking up to the thought of 'today I must diet' and it started in my twenties probably a lot sooner than that.  When I woke up this morning I began straight away with the usual thought of, wether or not to eat breakfast, and believe me when I say that I love my breakfast even though it's a perfectly normal meal of cereal and fruit, healthy enough. I then go through the rest of the day struggling with whether this or that meal is high in calories or fattening or not right in some way. I can rarely enjoy the food because each meal carries a thousand calories worth of guilt. If I am going to enjoy a meal then I must also carry that burdon. Maybe I have never enjoyed eating although I am overwieght, because if I enjoy it then it's wrong.

I have yo yo dieted over the last 30 years or so and in the early days it could be classed as my having a serious eating disorder. Never quite anorexic, but starving myself for days on some ridiculously savage  diet. Of course when that fad had finished I would put back the weight, continuing to rebel against myself, eventually starting again a week later.

I consider myself an intelligent woman and confident in life in so many ways and yet I have never hacked this issue. I know there are guru's out there who think they have the answer and would jump on the band waggon with advice of more exercise, eat less and cut down on this and that. Believe me I have been there, seen it and done it and no one knows more about food and healthy eating than me.  My husband is tall and slim and he is a faddy eater so I have to think about our meals and want to make sure he has fruit and veg daily so thanks to him we do eat healthily. I get upset and annoyed when I see how fat people are berated by the media for eating junk food and of course, many do but I don't and know many like me who would not touch a burger or fry up with a barge pole.

So this morning on my walk I made the decision that all dieting must go, there must be a clear out of rubbish from my psychy, sweep away all forms of diet manuals from my brain, throw out the self loathing take on board more self love. Clear away thoughts of my being a bad person if I eat something nice, and good if I stick rigidly to some high fibre, low fat, sugar free, calorie counting obsessive diet.

Therefore my middle of the years resolution for 2013 is, to give up my struggle to be slim,  be happy with myself as I am and just allow myself to BE.

AN AGE OF PROGRESS?

Being born into the nineteen forties I carry a certain pride, probably because I am a product of the Second World War, where families struggled against the odds with working class values born from the war years, many families already deep in poverty. Life was filled with the days of rationing, grief and loss, whilst sons and young husbands were fighting for the future of freedom. My own family history could be presented in any reasonable historical novel, my maternal grandmother in service as a young house maid made pregnant at sixteen with the ‘master’ of the house which was the first step on a downward spiral of poverty for any girl with an illegitimate child. No such thing as social security or benefit, just something called ‘The Parish’ where rich folks condescended to give handouts to the poor.

Pre war families were resilient and unbeaten by adversity and because of that there was an insatiable drive to lift out of poverty and improve standards which we post war children inherited.  We, of course are known as the baby boomer generation, growing up at a time of dramatic social change. We were the first in Western countries, to grow up with television and perhaps seen as rebelling against religion only to return later in life. My own early experience was of a scanty catholic school upbringing, where education came secondary to religion and the wrath of the church.  I left school at fifteen, only realising what I lacked in education when it came to finding work. Many of us in those days were considered to be factory fodder and I suppose you could say we were lucky to be able to walk away from one rotten job in order to find another. My best friend was fortunate enough to have to choose between Comptometer operator training or shorthand and typing for which she would attend college. How I envied her. Girls from my background had limited choices in 1959. Sadly it was the factory for me until I discovered night classes at the local polytechnic a few years later. I think that for boys it was generally an apprenticeship, joinery, electrician, the construction industry or commercial. If you were lucky to do well in school you might be accepted into an indentured apprenticeship which meant a company insisted on parents signing an agreement pledging their son would attend work and college in order to complete the training. How many parents today could make that assurance I wonder? What happened to all those skilled trades? Indeed, what happened for us to lose those opportunities when at that time the UK was probably the leader in the Textile, mechanical and electrical engineering industry?

Working class children born pre and post war have seen massive changes, from living in small back street terraced houses with outside lavatories and a tin bath tub hanging on the back yard wall, brought in for the weekly family ablutions. Each member taking their turn, with the littlest child going first followed by the next oldest moving up the line, adults taking time later when they could ‘wash each others backs’ in private. This whole ritual happened by heating up a gas boiler to get enough hot water. There were the joys of getting dry, then snuggling into warm pyjamas in front of the fire, whilst listening to ‘Friday Night is Music Night’ on the radio. Of course the drawbacks were getting rid of the large tub of water and trying to dry up the condensation which ran down the scullery walls all of which went unnoticed by the kids.

In those days we knew no different than putting on a coat to go outside to the loo, using cut up newspaper for wiping our bottoms and taking a candle to protect against the spiders that lay in wait. Of course living conditions have vastly improved. I remember our family moving into a council house and wandering the empty rooms with wide eyes and open mouths at the sight of a white walled bathroom and inside loo, large windows letting in the sunlight, new kitchen units and hot and cold running water. We had our first television around 1956. It was a time when we children were seen and not heard and had to earn what little spending money we could. I remember getting a Saturday job at Woolworths when I was fourteen and hiding under the counter because I couldn’t add up. My first wage packet had to be handed over to my mother who gave me a pittance in spends in return.

Since the war we have born witness too numerous changes, one being ‘make peace not war’ with the onset of flower power and ban the bomb in 1960. Then in 1969 American Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon.  It seemed unbelievable back then but now we are blasé about such things.  A profound effect upon society was the onset of the computer coming into the home in the late 70’s early 80’s and in the early 90’s we could access the World Wide Web with its capacity to seek out information freely, with a gateway to knowledge that would have been difficult to find previously. We have made the transition from a telephone box at the end of the street to the digital age and the first mobiles. When I had my first computer surfing the net was something I thought happened at the seaside and email terrified me. At nineteen I had learned to type on a very old type writer with a Pitman’s, ‘Teach Yourself Shorthand and Typing’ manual, eventually branching out to a new typewriter followed by the magical word processor. Now it’s impossible to imagine my life without my lap top the internet and broadband.

I really want to say Ah! Progress, I really do salute you whilst acknowledging the wondrous strides within the last fifty years but in terms of unemployment how can we embrace progress when we now have over a million young people falling off the edge of education into the wasteland of benefits.

 

 

First published in the North Wales Weekly News 2012