Marriage: Heavy Lifting Together

Joy here...When I started blogging (with my co-written blog East and West Running with Nomi, my Malaysia running buddy and adult BFF) I charted my workouts; blogging was a way of e-journalling how I felt as I learned how to train, but over time this blog has morphed as much into a place where I collect random thoughts as it is a place where I chart workout updates (such as this all-time favourite "The Dreaded Kid Question" post from last year or this conversation-starter "A Triumph of Mediocrity" about my ambivalent feelings towards Ottawa).

At one point, one of my friends had read a blog post and said to me, "you should write about how to fight in a marriage."  "What?" I thought.  "The Man and I fight?"  My automatic response was to pretend that The Man and I never disagree; that our life is filled with sunshine and roses; and that our true love shines bright and trouble free all day long.

Even though every songwriter the world over knows the connection between anger and love, there is great social and cultural pressure for regular people (like myself) to deny that disagreement is part of love...in fact, one of the best parts.

The Man doing some heavy lifting.

Learning how to fight with the person you love most of all in the whole, wide world is probably the most important thing you can do for your relationship.  In my view, it's in the moments of genuine disagreement when we can open ourselves up and trust our partners enough to go to a place of disagreement with us, knowing that the relationship will still be standing at the end of it all.

What I've started to learn over time is that the best disagreements come from productively trying to see the other person's point of view.  In that sense, both partners are actively trying to see through the other's eyes, rather than convert the other to his/her point of view.

The WOman doing some heavy lifting.

It can be a lot of hard work to disagree this way - to always try to empathize - but in my experience, it's worth it when both partners try to do some heavy lifting.

But then again, you don't have to take my word for it.  I've only been married for 5 years, and The Man and I say that our relationship is still very juvenile as we figure things out along the way.

But we're willing to figure it out together.  And I hope whoever you love is willing to figure out how to fight with you too.

Over and out,
Joy