How to Make Your Marriage the Best Ever

The power of patience in a relationship

Photo by Andrew Itaga on Unsplash

The other day I attended a wedding by myself. The daughter of one of my husband’s best friends was getting married, and I didn’t find out until the night before that my husband couldn’t go. Instead of dwelling on my irritation, I opted for patience. I’ve come to believe it’s a hallmark of a successful marriage.

Beware of Disappointments

I’d been looking forward to the wedding, an opportunity for my husband and I to have some fun on the dance floor. The last time we did that was for a friend’s wedding five years ago. I bought a new dress, new shoes, even an underwire strapless bra, all of which felt like a violation of my tomboy self.

The night before the wedding, when I said that the weather looked promising for an outdoor ceremony in Oklahoma in July, meaning it would be 85 degrees instead of 95, he broke the news.

“That’s tomorrow?” he said. “I can’t go.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We’ve known about this for months.”

His IT job required that he work the late shift. They were low on manpower, they said. The project wasn’t going well, they said. Sorry, no memory-making for you, they said.

My husband would miss an important moment in a friend’s life. We would miss the opportunity to dance together, to celebrate our six years of marriage and the start of the newlyweds’ journey together.

Even as I write this, a twinge of anger rises. At first, I directed it toward my husband. Why didn’t he take the day off? They wouldn’t have let him, he said, not for a wedding. Now, I direct it at the appropriate source — his crappy job.

Cherish Your Wedding Day

After accepting my dateless status, I thought about words of wisdom to write on the wedding card I bought. The first thing that came to mind: patience.

I’m not talking about being patient with a bad marriage. Life is too short to stay in a negative situation. I’m referring to the little things — dirty dishes, strewn socks, forgotten weddings— the small stuff that we can either keep small or blow up into exaggerated proportions.

No one’s perfect. We all have our quirks, which may stay hidden until well after the last piece of wedding cake is gone. What remains when the honeymoon phase wears off and we’ve removed the rose-colored glasses?

The card I picked out popped up into a scene of a couple on a bridge over a stream meandering next to a willow tree. It made me think of the wedding venue — a lush landscape of thick oak and hickory trees, a lawn like carpet, a low waterfall built from native stone surrounded by the pinks and purples and yellows of wildflowers, a view of a lake sparkling in the summer sun.

“Cherish this day,” I wrote inside the card.

I didn’t write anything about patience or how their love will change over time. They’ll figure these things out on their own. They don’t need me to tell them.

But in those words, I hope they get my meaning. When the going gets tough, when your spouse does something that makes you want to throw up your hands and walk away, remember your wedding day. It happened for a reason.

Return to the Beginning

When I get frustrated, I think about what made me fall in love with my husband — the way he makes me laugh every day, the way he cooks me meals better than what most restaurants offer, the way he supported me through my Ph.D. and supports me in my writing, the way he makes me feel important.

I remember the way he loves me unconditionally. He does the same for me when I’ve done some boneheaded thing.

Patience isn’t the only trait necessary for a lasting marriage. Love, of course, and open communication, honesty, fidelity. They’re all crucial. But patience is up there on the importance scale.

In something of a bonus prize, I’ve found that practicing patience with my husband has made me more patient overall, including being patient with myself. I’m my own worst critic, and patience is the way I’ve found to lower the volume of my inner critic’s voice.

The next time you find yourself getting impatient with your spouse, try remembering what made you fall in love in the first place. Then ask yourself who suffers from your impatience. Likely, it’s both of you, which means the marriage suffers as well.

I think where any relationship is concerned, a Greek proverb says it all —

“One minute of patience, ten years of peace.”

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Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on July 25, 2019.

Altered Perceptions

What kayaking taught me about the nature of illusions and the power of perspective

Reflections on the water (photo by the author)

How often do we find ourselves perceiving one thing, convincing ourselves that our perception is the way things are, only to discover that we’re looking at things the wrong way? What if we turned the lens? What might we see differently, and would we accept it? My husband and I were faced with these questions one summer day a few years ago when we first tried kayaking.

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Feyodi Park on the Arkansas River, Northeastern Oklahoma

The wind catches the brim of my turquoise sun hat as I get out of the car. If not for the strap dangling beneath my chin, it would already be in the river.

“It might be too much to go out today,” I shout to my husband over the gale. “What if the boat flips or something?”

One moment the water is an orangey brown, the river’s bed of clay and sand churned to the surface by the wind and reflecting the sun’s rays, a muted sister to the red dirt that defines Oklahoma. The next, it’s the gray of an artist’s putty rubber, yellow light of day absorbed by graphite clouds moving in and out of each other in a rhythmic dance. A shocking crest of white appears on the water with every gust, waves propelled down the low valley of the river’s path as if rushing to catch the last train to some nameless haven.

“The boat won’t flip,” Derek says. “It’s practically impossible given how it sits in the water.”

My husband’s demeanor betrays the nonchalance in his voice. Wind whips his long hair in a frenetic dance around his shoulders, protected from sunburn by a red and yellow tie-dyed T-shirt. He grips the brim of his Detroit Red Wings ball cap, eyes squinting against the sun, lips pursed against the grit of blowing sand.

Our kayak arrived yesterday, and we are like children on Christmas morning with their favorite toy, unwrapped and ready for play. Derek inserts the nozzle of the plastic bellows into the valve and steps repeatedly until the boat begins to resemble an oversized Pillsbury Doughboy, limbs swelling and curling into a protective fold with each successive rush of air.

“Ready?” I ask when the boat appears seaworthy, although I’m nervous about Derek paddling for the first time in this wind.

“Think so,” he says as he slides on his life jacket, cinching the straps tight before situating himself in the boat’s only seat.

Between growing up with hydrophobic parents and living in the countryside with the closest body of water a small roadside creek, Derek never learned to swim. Given the stability of the boat, his life jacket, and the narrow stretch of river, its sandy bottom a few feet below the surface, I’m not concerned. Not too much, anyway.

I grab the front handle of the kayak and lead it and my husband into the river. The boat’s rhythmic bobbing becomes more exaggerated with each step. When we’re far enough out, Derek starts paddling toward the opposite bank, there and back again according to our plan. I watch him glide away from me and think he’s doing okay despite a bit of wobbling with the waves.

Suddenly, mixed with wind’s shrieks, I hear shouts and barely make out the words: “We shouldn’t have done this! This was a bad idea!”

Confused since he’s directly in front of me, I yell at him to turn around.

“How?!”

Dang, I think. We should have gone over this before we started. Not everyone was on the crew team in college. I yell out strokes as fast as I did when I was a coxswain and steered my team away from a dam we didn’t expect, but the wind snatches my words. After several minutes of fighting to keep the paddle from flying away, Derek manages to turn the boat around. He sees me straight in front of him, twenty yards away, and I hear wisps of laughter float to shore.

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My husband experienced an illusion of self-motion. The waves created by wind blowing across the water’s surface at an angle to the opposite shore gave him the impression that he was drifting downriver, a branch separated from its trunk floating anchorless to destinations unknown. He perceived himself in danger, but once he refocused the lens, he saw the reality of the situation.

When we attempt something for the first time, it’s easy to perceive it as daunting, as something larger than it really is. Moving out of our safety zone, becoming open to the idea that things are not always as they seem, is a risk we must all take at times. Otherwise, how would we know who we are and what we’re capable of?

If my husband had been so shaken by his fear that he vowed to end kayaking right then, we never would have experienced the quiet of the water when no one else is around, the sudden burst of pelicans from a tributary tucked around a bend, the silky feel of the paddle as it slips beneath the surface, the soft lub lub of the boat bouncing on gentle waves.

If my husband had let his perception color that day, we would have lost these shared experiences, these moments that we treasure.

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Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on July 17, 2019.

The Road Home: An Essay in Photos

When the journey away leads back to where it all began

Untitled oil painting purchased by the author’s parents in 1975 (author’s photo)

ONE. Start here with a crystalline blue river, quaking aspens along its banks, the water’s edge a reflecting pool for the murky greens and rusted yellows of fall. Follow the river streaming from the mouth of a mountain to its end, the wall of your family’s living room, hung there when you were four. Authenticated by World Art in Oklahoma City on September 17th, 1975, an original oil painting by a man named Monte. Start here in a house in the suburbs of middle America.

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Author’s car ready to leave Oklahoma City for Oregon (author’s photo)

TWO. Continue to here, April 2nd, 1995, a Sunday like any other except you are headed west. Say farewell to your family. Your mother and sister wipe their tears, your brother-in-law hands you money after a hug. Load your rescued black lab mix into the passenger seat and wave goodbye.

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Highway through Flagstaff, Arizona (author’s photo)

THREE. You’ve traveled far by now, Flagstaff to be exact, over halfway through the second day with only your dog for company. But you like it this way. It’s what you wanted, and you’re nearly there. One more day. Push away the doubts that creep like ghosts, haunting you since leaving Albuquerque this morning. Yesterday, too ebullient to care.

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Turnoff for Death Valley (author’s photo)

FOUR. Rest for the night in a Nevada town called Beatty near the southern California border. Dine at the truck stop attached to the motel, your dog asleep in your room. Semis roar past on the highway, mountains on one side, barren landscape on yours. One wrong turn away from the valley of death, the ghosts on high alert.

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Mountains of northern California (author’s photo)

FIVE. Daylight peering through the gap in pilled and faded polyester drapes awakens you. The third and final day. Drink weak coffee and eat burnt bacon and watery eggs in the diner. Walk your dog to the car and notice the air smells different here, fresher, even if by the side of a road. The ghosts from yesterday hold their tongues as the highway leads you past northern California’s snowy foothills and closer to the towering white peaks of your dreams.

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Road to Black Cap Butte, Lakeview, Oregon (author’s photo)

SIX. Arrive at a town 15 miles north of California, 45 miles from the Three Corners Monument — Lakeview. Only there’s no lake to see at midnight when you park your car at the town’s only motel. Receive a key to a room arranged by your employer, a person you’ve never met, in a place you’ve never been. The next morning, the butte that hugs the town calls your name. Although the day is gray and heavy and rain turns to snow as you drive, you persist on dirt roads that wind up and up to where the ground meets the sky.

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Road out of Lakeview toward central Oregon (author’s photo)

SEVEN. Months later, as winter’s haze gives way to open sky, the road out of town beckons. Four hours to the northwest, glacier-capped mountains cascade through your mind, your reason for being here. Lakeview closer than Oklahoma. A mantra repeated each day that you look upon scrubby sage and barren slopes, the foothills of your dreams.

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Road through Lava Lands near Newberry National Volcanic Monument, central Oregon (author’s photo)

EIGHT. Find yourself gaining altitude, hillsides reaching higher, trees growing taller, mountain peaks drawing closer as you climb until, abruptly, you discover a landscape like Mars, the reddish tint of volcanic remains, the aged blacks and browns of hardened lava, trapped by its birth into a world it was never meant to know.

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Author and her dog exploring a road in Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (author’s photo)

NINE. Although the road winds back to present day, your mind lingers on a time when the world churned with fire of its own making. But then you see a sign for a hiking trail and turn in the direction it points. When the road disappears into dirt, you decide to walk, your dog at your side, to points unknown.

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Hiking trail in Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (author’s photo)

TEN. The trail appears and you are here, at last, walking among the trees, towering Douglas firs and western hemlocks. Refracted rays of sunlight glimmer between branches, and their perfume scents the air, clean and crisp and exactly what you hoped for.

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Metolius River with Mt. Jefferson in the distance, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (author’s photo)

ELEVEN. Emerge into a clearing that leads to a river. It’s hard to see, in the piercing light of mid-day, but it’s there if you look, a mountain peak glimmering in the distance. Experience déjà vu, a tickling in your brain that confuses you. Until you remember an oil painting by a man name Monte. End here with a crystalline blue river, coniferous pines and black cottonwoods along its banks, the water’s edge a reflecting pool for wild grass browned by the white-hot light of summer. Follow the river streaming from the mouth of a mountain to a painting. End here in a house in the suburbs of middle America.

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Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on July 2, 2019.