Rewiring

So sometimes blogging is a time sink.  But sometimes it's a good influence too -- I doubt I would have peeled off 20 pounds of baby weight last summer without my vegetable project.  If I post on the web that I'm going to do something, I find I'm more likely to follow through.

So.  (Parenthetically, did you know William Safire says I shouldn't use "so" to begin a sentence?  What would I do if I couldn't use "so" like that?  I would have all these wee headless sentences crying for new beginnings.  Let's ignore William Safire on the subject of "so," agreed?)  So I have this hot button.  No, actually, I have this hot button -- I cannot stand the thought that someone whose opinion matters to me will think I am doing less than I ought to.

Recently I alluded to a squabble with Elwood.  We took the boys to swim lessons and Joe didn't want to get in the water.  It started at home, with a near-tears assertion that he didn't want to be all pruny.  (He hates when he gets out of the water, whether tub or pool, with wrinkly fingers.)  At the Y, he said he'd had a hard time keeping a grip on the wall last week; the water is over his head.  He clung to my leg and said he didn't want to go in.  He hid under my chair and said he didn't want to go in.

After some back and forth, he agreed to try it.  ("For one minute," he said.)  His teacher took him out into deeper water briefly and then brought him back.  He clambered out of the pool and resumed his position under my chair.  I could tell he was tired and on the edge of tears.  I didn't push it.

When Elwood came to pick us up, this news did not make him happy.  We talked.  We disagreed.  The hot button was pushed.  I said, "I feel like you're saying I didn't try hard enough."  He said, "Would that be such a bad thing to say?"

And my gut response was, "Yes!  You are not allowed to say that to me!  You can tell me I'm ugly.  Tell me I'm stupid.  Don't you ever tell me I'm not trying hard enough."  I was really in a tizzy.  The little rational bit of me saying, "Ugly? Stupid? What are you talking about?" was shouted down by the Inner Drama Queen.

The arrival of our first child was hard on our marriage; I spent way too much time in a cold fury in those early months.  We ended up seeing a counselor, which was very helpful, but I also learned a lot from Harriet Lerner's book The Dance of Anger.

Lerner writes from a family systems theory perspective, examining the way that conflicts are shaped by hidden history and family dynamics.  She writes about overfunctioners and underfunctioners and their tendency to get stuck in those roles -- one spouse doing too much of the work in a given area, the other not carrying his (or her) weight.  An example:  I've always paid the bills.  When Alex arrived and I left my full-time job, we had a lot less money and I was constantly fretting about it.  Elwood did not respond by pinching pennies; he responded by buying stereo equipment.  I freaked out.  He bought more stereo equipment.

It's easy to get stuck in a counterproductive pattern, with one spouse saying, "We have a really big problem here," and the other saying, "Problem? What problem? I do not see this problem of which you speak."  The solution, Lerner posits, is not to yell louder but to take a step toward the middle, to say, "Hm, maybe you have a point."  During our disagreements about money I asked Elwood to take over the bill-paying.  This felt to me like the height of folly.  I bit my tongue when he scribbled out his mistakes in my previously immaculate checkbook register.  We racked up late fees in that first month.  And yet weirdly, unbelievably, it worked.  When I let go, a little, and he stepped up, a little, it brought the tension about money way down, immediately. 

I know my hot button reaction, my determination to be the one who always tries hard enough, isn't healthy.  There's probably a wealth of tell-it-to-your-therapist crud behind my fear of underachieving, but I don't really have the inclination or the emotional energy to go digging right now.  What I will do is take a small step toward the middle, and say, Hi, my name is Jamie and sometimes I don't try hard enough.  Sometimes I try too hard.  Sometimes I do one when the other was called for.

This whole train of thought reminded me of reading Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting last fall.  He writes about our kids' need to know that we love them whether or not they succeed.  I thought, Did I feel that way about my parents, that they would love me just as much if I failed?  Not at all.  And then I thought, Do I feel that way about God, that he will love me just the same whether or not I succeed, whether or not I try hard?  The answer hit me like a ton of bricks:  Of course not.  Don't be ridiculous.

Theologically, that's absurd.  Of course I cannot make God love me more or less by my actions.  But in my heart of hearts, theology is taking a back seat to fear.

I have waffled about posting this, because it leaves me feeling pretty naked.  But one of my goals here is to write authentically about my life as a Christian, about its struggles and uncertainties as well as its satisfactions.  So here it is.

This isn't really about the swimming lessons.  I think, if I had it to do over again, that I would still listen to the small boy saying he was scared and tired, still say he could stay with me instead of going back in the water.  It's more about what came afterward.  Maybe the next time we have that conversation, I can respond with a little more equanimity.  Maybe it doesn't have to be such a bad thing to hear that I could have tried harder.

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.