There was this one story my husband and I could only laugh at. It was about an elderly couple in their 80’s who, following a feud which led to the woman hitting the man with a wooden object, led the neighbors to call authorities. Upon the arrival of the police, immediate questions were asked to investigate what led to the altercation.
Both couldn’t remember what they had been arguing about.
At yet another laugh my husband and I shared upon coming across another time reading, an elderly couple was interviewed to gather as to the reason for the success of their long-lasting marriage. The man calmly suggested that they just don’t let things get to each other much.
As an example, he recalled, “Well, just the other day, when I asked my wife to pass the salt across the table, she said, ‘You ruined my life, $&@#*£%!’”
I don’t count how many couples my husband and I used to know, at times dining and laughing away only to arrive to, sometimes, just a few years down the road, seeing what used to be one, having gone into two separate ways.
Some have told us about the five to seven years “itch”. And then, there were those who forewarned us about the around sixteen year mark. And as my husband and I were getting ready to pass our twenty-five years of togetherness, we were reminded of marriages that never made it to their thirtieth.
Listen to those “prophetic” remarks and I suppose my husband and I would have gone our separate ways during our very first, what I realize now, when looking back, quite critical test in trust and marriage.
I recall, in small talk, agreeing with a neighbor of a comment she had made about a sanitation driver she had called to tell me about. That was it. My conceding to a remark. That’s all it took to open up the possibility that I would take note of anyone other than my husband.
I thought nothing else of that conversation after I hung up the phone. I was a stay-at-home mom who always enjoyed having phone conversations with my husband while he was at work. Those were fun times in our first home where checking in on each other were priceless and enjoyable for both of us. To this day, while our lives have irregulated such moments, having started back in the days where we used to fall asleep while on the phone talking to one another, our phone conversations, no matter how brief at times, continue to be a meaningful piece of our life together.
In the weeks to follow after that brief phone conversation with my neighbor, I sensed a hesitant silence in my husband. I’m not one to pry for answers so I just waited to see if whatever seemed to distance him would be something he’d share.
While what followed was within my scope of understanding, my belief of how it ramified was a definite moment of maturity for me in coming to the realization of how people and the world works to try and contribute their time into a space they’ve been given.
Here’s the briefing with every piece in me desiring to keep it short because anymore would suggest I enjoyed any bit of the attempted drama that tried to take my marriage down.
While keeping to the yard, my husband had found a contraceptive on our lawn, right by the sidewalk where a very wide road with countless students and bus riders regularly walk past.
Although to my disappointment, but with greatest understanding of how my husband only saw promiscuity of all women who raised him, he kept to his silence as he later told me the discovery started to nag at him. While he certainly thought of the amount of traffic occurring daily on that sidewalk, he is human after all, with, to add, a wife who stayed at home all day long.
He quietly confided with a neighboring father who just by chance happened to be the husband of that brief phone conversation I had several weeks before.
Voila!
After days and weeks of my husband hardly eating, losing immense weight, he finally, to his belief, gathered enough evidence and thus, courage to approach me about his concern.
When he calmly and quietly came to ask me, what I am repulsed to even suggest here, I just looked at him in silence- at first.
There are two ways, the way I have come to understand myself, the innocent respond to a preposterous allegation, calmly deny the absurdity of any parts to what has been presented, or, when clearly that approach doesn’t work, let’s just say, behaviors of the feels of injustice is what you shall receive.
I stood my ground. I kept my stance. I was done the first time I answered.
People will wrong you. I have seen it happen as a child numerous times. As I have said before in previous reflections, I have witnessed what rumors and instigating remarks can do to break a happy home. All it takes is to allow destruction to destroy and it shall.
To this day my husband doesn’t like to recall that very first big trial in our relationship. To this day and even after that same neighbor came to my door to give something to our children as perhaps a silent peace offering, I had always forgiven and kept my silence.
Even the good will be tested. Actually, in my own travels, I can attest the good get tested all the time.
Relax. Breathe. Let go.
Another silent victory until the next time.
There are no guarantees for what our trials and tribulations will be and where they will take us.
While my husband and I have countlessly high-fived each other, have given each other long, loving embraces in all the years we have been together, we can only move forward and away from the many daggers and arrows thrown our way.
What has kept us strong is our understanding of such attacks from our very first ones.
People don’t know any better at times than to be ruled by their dark spirit that has fooled them to believe they have power and dominion all of a sudden over you.
There is no control over what people will do. All the control that you have is the value and morals you uphold for oneself and each other.
Toil with the dangers of destruction and it shall destroy. To importantly add, however, if, and only if, you let it.
While I do not hope to forget why I have struck my husband with a wooden object in my eighties or to even gather (the strength and risk of hurting my back to lift such weight at that age) any reason to want to hurt him in such a manner or to spitefully acclaim across the table that he has somehow ruined my life (as if allowing such would be to the fault of another), I laugh now.
Why? Because life is a mindset. If the plate at times looks empty, you just have to Peter Pan the moment and rejoice.
Focus on the joyful abundance (without any wooden object around or expletives in the air) and you will feel the splendor of such power in the heart, mind, body, and spirit.
See peace and laughter while the symphony euphonically plays your victory song.
Close your eyes. Relax. Breathe. Let go. Live. Laugh. Love. Enjoy.
