On Gay Marriage

I'm not gay, nor are my feelings about this issue particularly strong. I have no intention to offend but I do plan on addressing this issue with a somewhat detached and more logical/less emotional approach.

This issue exists largely due to what I consider to be a violation of the first amendment. The institution of marriage is both a religious and legal one thus crossing the line that separates church and state. As such I believe the best way to "untangle" this issue is to leave "marriage" as a religious institution and going forward refer to all "legal marriages" as civil unions regardless of whether those unions are between two people of the same or of opposite genders.

During his first term, George W. Bush, in a move that inevitably contributed to his losing my vote to his Libertarian competitor, suggested a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Such an amendment would be a violation of both the 1st and 10th amendments. Defining a religious institution-- in this case marriage, is a violation of freedom of religion. The government has no place telling members of the clergy who they can and can't perform marriages for. And it would be a violation of the 10th amendment, as last I checked there is no language within the US Constitution granting the government the power to define marriage.

Leave marriage to the churches, let them sort it out for themselves.

Now on to the legal side of things... People in Civil Unions should be granted the same rights across the board regardless of the genders of the two parties in the marriage. And, in an effort to silence the "slippery slope" argument civil unions should be defined by the States (not the federal government, this again goes back to that pesky 10th amendment) as the union of two people. No inter-species unions, no polygamous unions... if one is a member of a church that recognizes polygamy that church is welcome to recognize that marriage (provided no other laws-- incest, child abuse, etc. are being broken) but the people in that "marriage" would have to realize that legally only one of the people they are married to can be recognized as their legal partner.

I know I may catch some heat for this one... and these are just ideas... they aren't fully fleshed out yet. I welcome all comments-- positive and negative. But if you're going to be negative please at least be constructive about it.

Happy Anniversay, My Love

Four years ago today, you made me the happiest man alive when you became my wife. In a few weeks you're going to top that by bringing our first child into the world. My love for you knows no limits.

In honor of our special day...



I am, I am, the luckiest. :)

On Marriage

Awhile back I pondered whether men are afraid of commitment or just of failure when it comes to marriage.

In the latest issue of Guideposts there's an article on The Secret to 60 Years that kind of extrapolated on the idea I had pondered in that aforementioned blog entry.

The thought of spending the rest of your life with the same person can be a bit overwhelming. Routine gets boring and the fear of losing that "spark" of the romance growing boring is a real one. But that's just it, when you marry someone you aren't spending the rest of your life with the same person. People change, and the person one marries will not be the same in 5 years as he/she was on his/her wedding day any more than that person will be the same at their ten year anniversary as he/she was at his/her 5th anniversary.

Life is an adventure and it is about the journey, not the destination. After all, we're all bound for the same general destination and our lives are made richer not by getting there but by HOW we get there.

My wife & I got married the same year my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, her parents have been together for over 30 years, so between our two sets of parents we have over 80 years of marriage to live up to, and two relationships to learn from on our own journey through life together.

I remember a discussion we had on our honeymoon, my wife mentioned she didn't know what I expected of her as a wife. My answer was simple and remains the same as it did then-- I have no expectations. I'm as new to this marriage as she is, it's not about expectations, it's not even about the challenges we face. It's about how we face those challenges together and learn and grow from them.

So, is the prospect of marriage near as daunting, near as scary when you take into consideration that you, much like your chosen mate will change over time? The people you are now, are not the people you will be on your first anniversary let alone your fifth, tenth, or even (if health and circumstances allow) your fiftieth. There is as much adventure in learning and watching each other grow and change as there is in the journey itself. That person won't just be your spouse, that person will be your companion on the journey of life so do choose wisely but also savor and enjoy the choice you make and the journeys you travel together.

Crossing Wires

With the increasing wisdom gained from the great teacher known as Dr. Life Experience over the years... Well I've known for awhile that men and women are "wired" differently. We think differently. Not better or worse than one another, just different.

I know a lot of gender issues are attributed to a breakdown in communication. But is the breakdown in communication coming from not understanding what one another are saying or is the breakdown coming more from not understanding where one another are coming from? That is to say, we know and understand what we're saying to one another but we still haven't taken that critical step of understanding WHY we think/feel the way we do? It's not what we're saying to one another-- it's the WHY we're saying it and HOW we're wording it.

There is, after all, an inherent difference in the way men and women think and that difference is reflected in the way we speak to one another. We use different words/terms because our focuses are different from one another. Women are traditionally focused/centered more on emotion and men more on logic. Now there are both advantages and drawbacks to both approaches. Being more focused on emotion allows for a greater degree of empathy and an a greater acceptance of all those shades of gray that exist between black and white. Too many shades of gray can end up complicating what might otherwise be simple issues. Being more focused on logic is more conducive to critical thought, snap decisions-- sometimes emotion just gets in the way. The trouble with this is that when it comes to logic there is little room for gray-- it's black or it's white with little or nothing in between.

To put it into a simpler context (albeit some of you may argue this is oversimplified) think of men as coins and women as a deck of cards. An issue arises and the man sees two possible solutions to the problem and weighs which makes more sense and acts accordingly. The woman sees 52 different possible solutions and weighs them accordingly.

I recently read an article in The Globe and Mail, Ghost Dad, Not Deadbeat Dad, the basic gist of which was that divorced men who tend to distance themselves from their children don't do so out of spite, cruelty, or malice but out of shame. As men, our lives are measured in success or failure-- that carries over into not just career but also marriage and fatherhood. A divorce is seen as a "failure" and when men fail we feel ashamed. Unfortunately, for some divorced men, they look at their children as reminders of failure and it makes them feel ashamed. Upon reading that I felt rather crushed for these men-- Can you imagine any time you look at your child being reminded of a failed marriage and thus feeling shame? Feeling shame when you look at your own kids?

Unfortunately, that only compounds the problem. In being so ashamed of their failed marriage these very same men end up failing at fatherhood which only compounds that shame... A vicious self-perpetuating cycle. Keep in mind, I'm not referring to deadbeat dads here. I'm referring to the dads who do pay the child support but are noticeably absent from their children's lives.

To extrapolate this back out to the bigger picture-- I read another article awhile back (which I've long since lost the link to, unfortunately) that stated that in many troubled marriages it's actually more often the husband than the wife who is willing to work to save the marriage. This was/is largely due to the whole success/failure mentality. The men having a mentality, "if I can't even make my marriage work, I'm a failure at life."

This isn't an issue that touches me directly-- my parents have been married for over fifty-two years, all of my siblings are currently in happy, healthy marriages. I know their marriages aren't always perfect or easy but I also know they've found whatever model they need to follow to work through the rough spots. And being relatively new to the marriage gig (just under 3 years) I know I'm still essentially just a tenderfoot, I'm still working on that model with my wife. But I'm also a strong proponent of men's rights.

We're so often portrayed as violent, cold, uncaring. And admittedly many men are assholes. There are some real jerks out there who give the rest of us a bad name. The trouble is, we don't tend to hear much about the "good guys"-- which I honestly believe is most of us. There have been enough of jerks, creeps, perverts out there to put women on their guard and to make it that much more difficult for us to "connect" with one another as people. And the mass media only further complicates this by focusing on and perpetuating the negative stereotypes... Not just of men, but of women too. Some of those stereotypes as a result become self-fulfilling, life imitating "art" (I use the term VERY loosely in this context).

I guess I'm just trying to do my part to break down some of those barriers, shatter some of the stereotypes, and maybe give some of the other "good guys" who are still out there a reasonable chance at meeting that special someone and maybe help some women better understand us.

For my wife...

Tonight I was thumbing through my paper journal and found a couple of entries I wrote before I got married:

So here I am, somehow I finally feel some sense of home. The thing is, it's not a geographic location. It's not my apartment, where I grew up, or any of the places I've lived. Home is where it finally just feels right. It's not where I lay my head at night, it's not the place where I eat my meals. Home to me is who I come home to, it's the sum of my experiences with her-- the inside jokes, the smiles, the laughter, the shared tears, all the points in between the highest highs and the lowest lows.

Home is where life feels complete, where everything feels right with the world. Home is in her smile, her laugh, the way she knows me like no other. Home is the way she curls up in my arms on cold winter's day.

But what it all comes down to-- all the experiences we share-- it's not any one thing about her. It's the sum of her parts-- the sum of OUR parts-- all the experiences we've shared, all the experiences we're yet to share.

Home is, in a word, "us."

And a few months later:

In my heart lie all the words that describe my feelings for you. And no matter how much I say, no matter how much I write those words will never be spoken nor written.

They are too deep, too far down-- buried so deep inside me that they shall never escape. Some, most, if not all of those words don't exist yet, they may never.

They are the blueprints of all I feel for you. Every thought, dream, wish, just waiting to be imagined into existence.

You are the muse behind every word I write or ever will write-- you are the inspiration forming my feelings-- my being-- the sum of all that I am into something far greater than I ever imagined.

I give you all of me because it's already yours. I give you every smile, laugh, nod, kiss, hug-- I give you all of it.

I give you all of it because you keep me believing, you keep my imagination flowing because with you-- every dream, every wish is that much deeper because I get to share it with you.

And you know in the time since I wrote those things, it's only grown stronger. I see the future in her eyes and I feel incredibly lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend.

Are men really afraid of commitment?

In a recent blog entry, Sam de Brito addressed/answered “Why your boyfriend doesn’t want to get married.” He addressed commitment-phobia and other possible reasons. But much like Sam’s blog often does, he got me to thinking… Are men really afraid of commitment? Or is it more a matter of them taking the commitment of marriage more seriously than women?

Before scoffing at such a bold concept, climb aboard my train of logic. Men generally are very results/success driven. That is to say, by and large, we like to be successful in ALL aspects of our lives-- Sports, career, life, love, marriage, family, etc. etc. With the divorce rate being as high as it is, is it really that much of a stretch to believe that men don’t want to contribute to that negative statistic? We want successful marriages and as such we’re a bit choosier, more methodical in our search for the perfect mate. If and when we commit we want to be assured of a high likelihood of success.

To extrapolate on that is the high divorce rate due to:

Couples not taking marriage seriously enough?

Couples having unrealistic expectations of what marriage should be and giving up when those marriages fail to meet their unrealistic expectations?

Divorce being far too common?

A combination of any/all of the above?

I don’t honestly believe that many guys are really that afraid of commitment, I believe it’s more a fear of failure of that commitment working out. Men do tend to be more driven by logic than emotion—it’s not a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just the way many of us are wired.

Marriage is an “investment” for us, not so much a financial one (although that still does play into it in some regards), but also a tremendous time and a rather overwhelming emotional investment. And despite divorce being so common, it’s not exactly easy to do legally or emotionally. Before making that “investment” men like to make sure—at least within reason, that their investment will be a sound one and that they’ll see a positive return on it (lifelong companionship and eventually a family). We want success we don’t want to file for “bankruptcy” (divorce) if we can at all avoid it. And I believe that is what makes men so tentative when making such an important and life-changing commitment.

Another factor in the perceived male fear of commitment is that men are generally more resistant to change than women. If things are going well, why rock the boat? Right? So if a man is happy in a relationship, things are going well—marriage is a change in that. For many yes that may be a positive change, but it’s still a change. When you pair a woman eager to enact positive change with a man who is generally resistant to change, there will be friction. I think what makes successful relationships is the realization that changes happen. You can’t force it any more than you can resist it. Once both people in a relationship realize and accept that they stop expending so much energy in trying to force change (her) or resisting change (him) and more time growing and changing together.

Thoughts, ideas, opinions? The floor is yours, discuss amongst yourselves.

Exchanges with wifey

One night last week on my way home from work, my wife called me:

W: Where are you?
Me: In my car.
W: I get that, but where are you in your car?
Me: The driver's seat.

Current Music: Queen - The Great King Rat

An interesting weekend..

In a nutshell:

Friday: I didn't get out of the office until after 5:30. Blech! Wifey had called earlier in the day to let me know she was going out for drinks with coworkers at Anyways (a bar that's conveniently located about equidistant from our respective offices). I was going to go straight home and start the laundry but the thought of a nice thick malty Guinness was too much of a temptation for me to resist. So, anyways I met wifey and her coworkers at Anyways. One of her coworkers, Julie, is Australian and she had her 25 year old son, Brendan, with her. So I was relishing the delightful Australianess of the evening. :-) One of the things I love about the Aussies is that they lay all of their cards on the table. They don't mince words and they get right to the point. It's quite refreshing.

Saturday: Wifey and I went househunting with our realtor. After seeing some rather sketchy townhomes in some rather scary neighborhoods we finally saw a place we liked. The trouble was, after some of the dives we'd seen, a heated outhouse might have been appealing by comparison. We let our enthusiasm and our realtor's pressure get the better of us and we put an offer in.

Sunday: We went over to our friend's home to watch the World Cup Final. Our in-laws drove by the home we put the offer in on and told us we should pull out of the deal if at all possible. Considering how many times they've moved I trust their advice implicitly. There are certain matters I feel more comfortable listening to my parents on-- but when it comes to real estate, I'm much more apt to listen to my in-laws. So we pulled out of said deal. Just over 24 hours had passed so we're able to get our money back.

We're thinking of changing realtors and have even contacted another realtor with whom wifey has been in touch with in the past. If our realtor from this past weekend comes to the table with some more attractive options for us and backs off a bit on his pushiness then we might end up sticking with him. But we're going to give this other realtor a try first.

At any rate, to get more bang for our buck we're going to have to move further west. It will mean longer commutes but given the suburban sprawl of Chicago, even if we do move further west, within 5 years I anticipate whatever area we move to will be quite fully developed (unless of course we move out clear to the Iowa border, but I don't forsee that happening).