Tag: marriage pain

Evolution Series: Christmas Card

Evolution Series By Kelly 2 Comments

Christmas Card

Audio version now available.

 

It’s Christmas card season. I took last year off for many reasons. I had, for 21 years, come up with the concept, outfits, and the wording of my family’s cards. I also ordered, addressed, stamped, and sent the cards for over two decades. So last year it felt invigorating to NOT send a card. So invigorating that I decided to NOT do it again this year.

 

But I still had to gather photos, design, write, and order cards for my mom’s Christmas card. I took that job on about five years ago. This meant texting my three siblings for photos of their kids and pets, and putting something together that my mom approved. I care that she can tell her friends and our family about her grandchildren. I’m proud of that story.

 

But is she proud of me? Does she understand, fully, what has happened?

Elephant Around the Christmas Tree

Alcoholism, Marriage By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Elephant Around the Christmas Tree

Audio version now available.

 

The Christmas Tree lights are off and the house is quiet. I’m slumped over on the loveseat, my neck sore from the unnatural angle created by the upholstered arm. This room was full of people, my people, when I nodded off. Christmas music and laughter and footed pajamas. A note was being penned reminding Santa that the carrot is for Rudolph. In the dark, I can make out the shadow of the Santa gifts next to the fireplace. The remnants of a glass of beer–about an inch left in the bottom–is on the coffee table next to the plate of cookie crumbs. Warm and flat, I drink it down before stumbling to my bedroom.

Masculinity that’s NOT Toxic

Emotional Masculinity By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Masculinity that's NOT Toxic

Audio version now available.

 

At the opening of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, the narrator insists that we accept the fact that Marley is dead. “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.” As a kindred spirit to Ebenezer Scrooge, I have always wanted to use that quote. In the spirit of the season, and because it fits the point I shall attempt to make, now is my chance.

 

When I talk of the critical necessity that men adapt and evolve into Emotional Masculinity, I am not misogynistically suggesting that women embrace femininity as some sort of retro, throwback, stone-age counterbalance. And yet, when women I know well–women who have weighed my pros and cons and decided to trust me–when my closest female discovery warriors hear me talk of Emotional Masculinity, they instinctively bristle.

A.B.D.

Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 4 Comments

A.B.D.

Audio version now available.

 

I subscribed my wife, Sheri, to a paid Spotify account for her birthday several years ago. To help you gauge how incredibly cheap I really am, I think a Spotify account is like $10 a month. Or maybe $15. Or maybe it was $10 back then, and now it’s $15. Anyway, the point is, $10 a month took thoughtful consideration for me. “That’s $120 a year, don’t you know. Why can’t you use the free version? Do you really need to be able to create playlists? Can’t you just sit by your boombox and press the cassette record button when the radio plays your favorite songs like the seasoned Gen-Xer you are?” Generosity just oozes from my thoughtful consideration.

 

This gift for Sheri allows for three logins using the same username and password. I immediately signed my phone into her account, and within a week, I found another of my devices I could use to occupy the third loggin. Happy birthday, Sheri. I’ll be commandeering 2/3rds of your cheap-ass gift.

 

Believe it or not, that’s not the end of the Spotify story.

Dudes on the Struggle Bus

Emotional Safety By Matt Salis, MPS 17 Comments

Dudes on the Struggle Bus

Audio version now available.

 

Nothing frustrates me more than hearing a man complain that his wife doesn’t love him unconditionally.

 

He’s right. She doesn’t love him unconditionally. And she’s not supposed to. It’s a stupid thing to complain about. It would make more sense to complain that his lawn mower does a shitty job shoveling snow.

 

How can a relationship that starts with a long list of conditions be expected to magically morph into unconditional love? People partner up for a variety of reasons–popular among the categories are aesthetics, intellect, wit, and charm. If he is looking for unconditional love, maybe he should look to a relationship that’s not completely dependent on so many conditions. His anger is misdirected. But honestly, it’s not his fault.

 

He’s likely never been loved unconditionally.

Do You See What I See?

Alcohol, Marriage By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

Do You See What I See?

Audio version now available.

 

Three drinks for two people. That sure looked familiar. He carried them triangle style – two beers in plastic cups secured in the semicircles of both of his thumbs and index fingers, with her plastic wine cup precariously squeezed between his two middle fingers. His priorities were made clear by which drink was least secure in the very likely event that he stumbled. But he didn’t stumble. At least not yet.

 

They heard the upbeat music from the beverage tent, and drifted over looking for the party and his people. But this was a brass band playing at a summer outdoor festival for a food-truck lunch crowd, and so early in the day, he was one-of-a-kind. A kind I recognize. He was me from a decade ago.

Who the f&@% is this guy?

Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 1 Comment

Who the f&@% is this guy?

Audio version now available.

 

Most of the active or sober alcoholics who listen to our Untoxicated Podcast or read our Sober and Unashamed blog are referred to our stuff by their partners. In most cases, the partner has tried to implement some of what she has learned from our experiences into her own growth and recovery. This means that the majority of the alcoholics who are introduced to our stories are already feeling the pain of emotional detachment and a lack of compassion from their partners when they first find us.

 

Most of the referred alcoholics greet our words with the same question: “Who the fuck is this guy?” Sheri is not met with this level of venomous aggression. Maybe it is sexism, or maybe her fearlessness and confidence are obvious even to new listeners. Regardless, I think the portion of our audience that we enflame is wise to direct their aggression toward me as Sheri takes having no more fucks to give to a whole different level.

Accumulation

Alcoholism, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 10 Comments

Accumulation

Audio version now available.

 

I listened to a podcast interview of Anne Applebaum, a journalist and historian who has been, for the past 35 years, studying and writing about how budding aristocracies grab power and, eventually, destroy economies. I learned a lot and found the interview both fascinating and terrifying. But I missed some of what she said because I was distracted. I was distracted pondering the fact that I don’t have 35 years.

 

I study and write about intimacy and addiction. In 35 years I’ll be in my late 80s, and no one wants to read about sex from a person approaching the century mark, although Betty White cracked sex jokes all the way to the end. But I’ll be an old man, not an old woman, so where she sounded spunky and vibrant, I’ll just sound creepy and perverted.

 

The clarity of permanent sobriety is mostly a good thing. But the clarity brings with it a growing sense of lost potential. Like what if I started my half-century quest for knowledge in my 30s instead of my mid 40s?

Selling Out

Alcoholism, Family, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 10 Comments

Selling Out

When Sheri saw the “For Sale” sign in our front yard as we pulled into the driveway on Saturday afternoon, it choked her up. We’ve been working so hard to get ready for this, but preparation doesn’t dismiss the emotions when they come. I took a video of our house – this inanimate object, this material possession – when it was painted and staged and as clean as it has ever been, and I was surprised to have to fight back tears as I narrated the ways we used each room over the past twenty years.