I Could Accept Him As Is, Faults, All
Stan and Mari had one of those can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em relationships. They met in 1978, married in 1979, divorced in 1986 and remarried each other in 1989.
That tells you something right there. This is not an easy-going relationship. A lot of love, but also a lot of anger, disappointment, resentment and regret. After getting divorced once, it would have been easy to do it again. And that’s probably where they were headed until Mari happened to be having coffee with her pastor, Dan.
“It was years ago, one of the many times when I was disenchanted with marriage in general and Stan in particular. I was sitting at Dan’s kitchen table at his home, ranting and raving when Dan quietly said to me with a heavy sigh, ‘Stan isn’t what you thought he was, is he?”’
He sure isn’t, Mari told him. She then listed in loving detail, leaving nothing out, all the ways she felt Stan had misled and disappointed her in the few years they had been married the second time around.
“Stan isn’t what you’d like him to be, is he?” asked Dan.
Well, finally somebody who understood her!
Mari was so excited to find someone who seemed to agree with her, she really went to town, doing a number on Stan that reduced him to shreds.
“I took a great deal of self-righteous satisfaction in continuing with my tirade, pointing out all the areas in which I felt that Stan needed to change and improve and how much wasted potential I thought he had.”
When she was done, there was a long pause.
Mari half-hoped Dan was going to say that the only way out of this mess with such a screw-up husband was a divorce. Instead, he looked at Mari and said, “He’s just Stan.”
“The utter simplicity of this wisdom hit me like a rock in the chest,” says Mari. “I was absolutely speechless. But I did not accept and learn from Dan’s lesson right away. I realized the truth in his words and I felt ashamed, but at the same time, I felt angry, cornered and trapped. I grew increasingly frustrated as I realized I had three choices:
“A, I could continue my futile efforts to mold Stan to meet my expectations, using every unhealthy manipulative mechanism in my repertoire (threats, bribes, punishments, fits, pouting, ultimatums), which would result in mutual misery. B, I could leave him and hope to find someone who would see things my way - the right way. Or C, I could accept him as is, faults and all.”
She had already tried A and B. It was time to try C.
It’s not always easy, but it helps her to remember the pastor’s words: “He’s just Stan.”
Which means at times he drives her nuts and Mari puts up with things that really annoy her and she compromises in ways that she doesn’t really like. But she realizes he does the same with her. And it helps when she reminds herself how lucky she is to have Stan, boils and all.
“He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink to excess, rarely raises his voice, never hits me, doesn’t fool around, doesn’t abuse my child, works hard to support us, shares with me a common faith in God and agrees on and works with me toward important common goals. In the larger scheme of things, the rest are just petty details.”
Overheard
He: “A relationship can withstand a lot of things, but not your girlfriend telling you her doctor has to see you right away.”
xxxx