Think him dead, bring life to your marriage
My husband is young and healthy. He doesn’t smoke. He’s not overweight. He exercises. He’s Type B. His cholesterol is low.
He’s not dying anytime soon, but I have his entire funeral planned out anyway. I know who will attend, what they will say, and even what they will wear. I know where I will hold it, what caterer I will hire, and what foods I will serve.
It was about 3 years ago when I planned most of these details. At the time my marriage was about as strong as the type of toilet paper used in public restrooms.
Guilt consumed me whenever I imagined the heart attack or the car accident that would claim Mr. Strong and Silent’s life. I felt particularly guilty if I was planning his funeral when I should have really been worried, say because he was home later than usual. Rather than worry, however, I felt hope. Perhaps he wouldn’t come home—ever.
Then I felt even more guilt intermingled with disappointment when I heard his car pull in the driveway.
THE WORST WIFE IN THE WORLD
I thought I was the worst wife in the world. I thought I was evil. I thought I should be locked up somewhere and fed a lifetime supply of uppers.
Then, one day, I read an email forward about a “Mom’s Perfect Day.” On this perfect day, Mom wakes to see her son’s picture on the Wheaties box and her husband’s picture on the milk carton.
I laughed. More important, I thought, “Wow, I’m not alone.”
As I look back on those dark days of our marriage, I can clearly see that my funeral fantasy helped to save us. After all, it helped me to fess up to the fact that my marriage was in big trouble. I’m sure happily married wives think their husbands dead from time to time, but I’m doubtful that many happily married wives do it several times a day.
The funeral fantasy forced me to come up with a eulogy, and the eulogy forced me to see that my husband was not 100 percent bad. At first, the only eulogy I could come up with went something like this, “He talked to me as if he thought I was stupid. He was never home. When I had post partum depression, he ignored me.
When I asked him for help in the middle of the night, he pretended not to hear me…”
I imagined the uncomfortable looks on my guest’s faces. No, even as a fantasy, those words wouldn’t do.
DOES HE HAVE A GOOD SIDE? ARE YOU SURE?
So I worked on it and I worked on it. As I mentally tinkered with the eulogy, I physically tinkered with my marriage. He evolved. I did, too.
Over time, I allowed myself to see his good side. It was always there, by the way. I just refused to allow myself to acknowledge its existence. And as I allowed myself to see the good parts of him, the words to the eulogy came together.
I have it now, saved as a file on my computer, written as a letter to our daughter. It starts with the line, “Your father was a difficult man.” This isn’t my attempt at a put down. For one, it’s true. Even Mr. Strong and Silent would agree that he’s difficult. Even his mother would. Two, I now, oddly, find his difficult side endearing. What I once despised, I now love, most of the time anyway.
I go on to describe the man that few people know, the one who gets excited by the first flowers of spring, the practical jokester, the sports fan, and the overly competitive cyclist. The last line, the one that says, “Most of all, he loved you and he loved me,” makes me cry every time I read it. I cry because I know it’s true, but I also cry because I didn’t always know this. Just two years ago? I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he hated me.
Now that our marriage is strong, I rarely think him dead anymore. Of course, I have my moments. We occasionally fight. I occasionally get madder that I should, and it’s during those times that I go to the death fantasy. Yet, now, the fantasy is comforting in a different way. Now I have the eulogy, the reminder of all the reasons I love my husband. Once I start reading it or adding additional lines to it, the anger fades, the love returns, and I welcome him back to the land of the living.
TODAY’S PROJECT POINTERS
• When you find yourself thinking your spouse dead, don’t waste mental energy feeling guilty about the thought, fantasy or emotion. Rather, spend your energy on doing something about the problem—on the hard work involved in making your marriage better (or in getting out of a truly bad one).
• Talk to your spouse about your death fantasies. Say something like, “I was so mad at you that I gave you pancreatic cancer.” It lightens up the situation as it makes the point. From there, you can then talk about your anger and disappointment and move on to what you will both do about it.
• Start your eulogy with any random thought, even if it’s negative. Go ahead and write a Eulogy Rant if needed. Over time, however, insert the good qualities. Eventually, you’ll be able to accurately capture the essence of your spouse. You’ll know you have it right when the bad qualities are somewhat endearing and humorous, and the good ones bring tears to your eyes.
• And if you can’t, no matter how hard you try, come up with a single positive thing to put in that eulogy—even after months of trying to strengthen your marriage—take that as an omen, too. It might be time to call it quits.
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Tags: bad marriage, eulogies, marital advice, marital problems, relationship advice
November 13th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Wow. I can finally breath a little bit easier having read this post. I am struggling each and ever day with such a rotten marriage and I’m finding myself imagining him dead and planning how we (the kids and I) will move on in life. Haven’t written the eulogy but have imagined that car accident, the disease, etc. How did you do it? There has to be a reason we got married to begin with but for the life of me, 8 years later, I simply cannot connect those dots. I guess I just feel better knowing someone has been here and survived. Thank you so much.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:04 am
I am sooooo relieved I do this EXACT thing, I havent started using this as a tool to help my marriage yet, but I hope it works. Something has to give my husband has all but shut down all communication with me except goofy fun or extremely mean and hateful including saying things a man should NEVER say to his wife if he respects me like I think he should. I’m not a foolish girl. My husband is a good man but after having the role models in his life growing up he definitally has issues he needs to work through and he really has a sweet heart but he is afraid to express his feeling. When we fight it always goes in stages first comes sarcasum, then denial of the fact that we have any hope of making it and should find a divorce lawyer already, to rage, then tears and expressing feeling of love and frustration. Hes not a violent man he is simply not good at saying what he feels and expressing his feelings. I am convinced that running away and starting a whole new life would be A DREAM COME TRUE, but I still love him very much and for the 90% of the time when were ok there is no other place I’d rather be and truth be told I’m not ready to throw in the towel. My husband needs someone to teach him what a healthy loving relationship means and I’m going to try my hardest me help him become that man. Thanks for letting me get that out. WISH ME LUCK.
March 5th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Great, thank for sharing your post, I learned alot from it.