When we say “happy wife, happy life”, how passive or active it is really depends on who’s saying it. Being translated literally — a happy person will most likely contribute to happiness — it is as obvious as you can get. Being ominously interpreted — if a wife isn’t happy, she will wreak havoc in her husband’s life — but this may just be about the difference between beings from planet Mars and Venus. Finally, being stated by a husband as a mantra, puts the onus on him to make it happen. You want a happy life? Make your wife happy! Sustain your wife’s happiness (at all cost) to keep living a happy life.
It sounds so simple until when that “happiness” becomes a zero-sum game (your happiness is not my happiness). What I really meant by that is I only got so far in pleasing my wife until I erupted like a volcano. The gap between the smoke and the spewing lava was really short, but the brewing time was long. It was brought about by a concoction of my misinterpretation of that witty phrase and my silly belief that I can make her happy on my own. I was wrong, damned wrong.
How could anyone blame the Husband Beach Bootcamp where the phrases “yes, dear”, “you are right, I am wrong, I will do better next time” will be etched onto your husband heart and soul — when it works perfectly fine for some?
I choose to be only one person with my wife: the husband, the father, and the guy who likes most things opposite from her likes, are one and the same. So far. it is the best way I know how in riding through the smooth and bumpy road of our marriage.
She emptied a blue luggage and hurled it to the floor. “That isn’t my mine,” I thought. I reached for the army green one and emptied it myself and took all my remaining clothes from the cabinet and dunked them into the open zipper. How unfortunate that most of my shirts were dirty in the laundry basket. I darted out of the bedroom and stationed the luggage near the front door and beside it I prepared a pair of shoes. That was a picture of someone leaving at 11 p.m. Except that I chose not to leave because I admitted to myself that I wasn’t ready to be away from the people that I love. Explosions like these were necessary to relieve the pressure in our relationship. As the night got deeper, the clouds over our heads got lighter. Sleeping in separate rooms brought us into a morning of forgiveness.
Can you really make someone happy on your own? Or do they need to bring in some effort themselves? How we sometimes wing it, how we find the groove, how we tread the murky waters of our relationship is when we carry our own weight towards the center. When we pull out a chair and sit down. When we lay all our cards down the table. When we warm our hands around our own comforts. When I take a sip of my coffee and she, her tea. When we start with “I’m sorry” and continue with “I love you.”
Jaycelle is a tremendous force that I allow into my being. I’m grateful for always finding common grounds wherein we help each other grow and live our individual hopes and dreams. And in this life that we share, I wish to always remember to pull myself back into the now and squeeze the juice out of each moment that we are given.
