Off the Grid: Marriage and the eternal dilemma of two minds

Recently, I was sitting in a circle of grownups having a very elevated intellectual conversation about leadership.

Or at least we thought we were elevated because the alphabet hung in upper and lower cases on the wall, we could say all the letters, and our chairs were made for 6-year-olds.

Among our reading materials was the astute recommendation by psychologist, Rob Evans: “Don’t mistake dilemmas for problems.”

We said a lot of wise and mature things about this and congratulated ourselves on our “leadershipping” abilities with various nods and pats-on-the-back sorts of gestures, which is how I imagine the halls of Congress operate most of the day.

Only I bet they have those sexy Nespresso machines.

This was a Waldorf school, so we only had herbal tea associated with the planet, color, and verse of the day, naturally.

It occurred to me later, as I stood on the bare land, now scraped free from trees and rocks and lupine blossoms in a rectangle the shape of our floor plan, that marriage is rather a string of dilemmas in which there is no solution.

Problems are easy. Problems are for single people.

Dilemmas are for the courageous-of-heart, couples who build homes together or maintain different opinions on how many pillows a bed ought to have.

Problem: The city sent us a bill for water and sewer.

We don’t have water or sewer.

Apparently the solution is to pay the bill. While this historical off-gridder is appalled, my husband and I unified in lengthy discourse about the general injustice of the situation in which we were of the same mind.

We are not often of the same mind, which is safer for society as a whole and us as individuals. Our differing viewpoints are what brings balance to a shared life.

Thus I am surprised to realize how often we mistake dilemmas for problems.

In the dilemma, two opposing interests are valid and accepted. They exist in the same space and neither of them is actually a problem.

They have just as much right to be there as any legitimate problem though.

Sometimes, we try to make one of the sides of the dilemma a problem and fix it.

My preferred form of this is just pointing out why someone’s side of a dilemma is a problem for me.

“Your foot is on my side of the bed,” I say. Or, “Your need would not intrude on my need if you could just stop having it.”

My husband’s approach is slightly different and involves the use of a cunning turn of phrase in which he’ll try to convince my brain that what I want is not actually what I want.

It’s a brilliant tactic and one of the most effective ways to turn me into a raving lunatic in a matter of minutes.

“I want the house right here because it feels like we’re on top of the hill,” I chirp.

“But you’re not on top of the hill. And I thought you said you wanted to be down in the trees.”

Cue fire dragon eyes and poetic description of the aesthetic of hilltop perspective while still being in the trees as to hear the right amount of wind-sway and the wrong amount of distant-highway. (Any amount is the wrong amount, yet somehow unavoidable. Pop quiz: Problem or dilemma?)

What we so often fail to see is that we don’t have a problem at all, rather, we have a dilemma.

And these require a different kind of navigation, something more tender and accommodating than a solution.

They require acknowledgement.

The dilemma is more dynamic, has a life of its own as both sides adjust to internal and external environmental changes.

It’s also long-suffering and needs patience. It demands gray-scale and that other dirty word: compromise.

Some dilemmas may resolve naturally, others may just settle in for life.

We might as well get more comfortable with them.

We are losing our ability to live in the middle ground, to allow different perspectives to exist in the same space.

We want yeses or nos and boys or girls and vertical or horizontal siding.

With that comes a kind of rejection of the other, an invalidation of the experience or concerns of another person or group.

One might note today’s two-party system as a classic example of a dilemma turning into two problems bent on fixing each other. I think that’s called “a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

While we might not feel empowered to significantly impact that as individuals, we can take time to ask ourselves whether something is a problem or a dilemma before we start promoting solutions.

Because with the dilemma, we are forced to explore and understand the other side. And this surely leads to fewer problems.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com.