How to Solve Marital Problems, Part 1

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My hair dryer is older than my marriage. I know this because it used to be my husband’s hair dryer. It’s the same hair dryer he owned when I moved in with him. It has remained with us this long mostly because, until recently, neither one of us used it all that often. I didn’t use often because I preferred to air-dry. My husband, I’m sure, had his own reasons.

Anyway, not long ago, I appeared on FOX’s Dr. Manny Show and the lady who styled my hair offered some blow-drying advice, because, well, I probably looked as if I really needed it. Since then I’ve been practicing the art of blow-drying my hair.  The results have been quite amazing. About a week ago, one of my friends said, “Your hair looks great. Did you just come from the salon?” I said, “No, I just blew it dry.” She was impressed, I’m sure, that something so simple could render my hair so transformed.

The problem, though, is that our ancient hair dryer only has enough juice to blow dry my hair once a year—which is all I ever asked of the poor thing until recently. Now that I’m using it much more often? The thing smells like smoke and occasionally catches on fire. This is no exaggeration.

And in case you are wondering just what this hair dryer story has to do with marital problems, just you be patient.

So this morning, I stopped at a convenience store to buy a new hair dryer. The convenience store has two entrances, one on Main Street and one on a side street. I usually use the side street entrance for reasons that have nothing to do with anything other than the fact that that’s what I usually do. But the side street was closed, which kind of sucked because I’d already driven past the Main Street entrance. That meant I had to make three lefts in order to get back on Main Street going in the opposite direction. That was mildly annoying, to say the least.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed an older lady. She was one of those older ladies who smell like a combination of Ponds cold cream and a mall perfume counter. Her hair was styled in a tight perm, and its color was a very unnatural shade of orange.

Ponds-Smelling Lady was standing in the middle of the parking lot—which at that time of morning was empty—and she was talking to herself. Periodically she would turn toward the store, take a couple steps, only to turn back to face the street, throw her arms up, and talk some more.

I won’t go into the various not-so-nice thoughts that popped into my head when I first noticed her, because I’m quite sure that writing them down would be bad for my Karma. Let’s just say that I made it my morning goal to get out of my car and walk past Ponds-Smelling Lady as fast as I could.

As I overtook her, though, she said, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get out of this place! The entrance I usually use is closed, and the only entrance that is open doesn’t allow me to make a left. What do they expect me to do? How am I supposed to get home?”

She seemed on the verge of tears, as if she would have to live at the convenience store until the construction workers re-opened the side street.

I mustered up all of my early morning, pre-caffeine kindness and said, “All you have to do is make a right. Then turn left. Then turn left again. Then turn left again. Then, you’ll be at Main Street and you can make a right and go in the direction you want to go.”

She looked at me as if I were a gift from God and said, “Oh.”

And (finally, I get to my point!) the exchange made me think about marital problems. Often, like the Ponds-Smelling Lady, we get so focused on the obstacle in our path that we fail to see the solution. Rather than try to solve our problem, we stand and rage at the world. While raging alone in the parking lot, Ponds-Smelling Lady was probably saying something like, “Damn construction workers! Why did they need to close MY road when I needed it?! Now what am I supposed to do? I can’t make a left out of the one entrance that is open and I need to go left. What have I done to deserve this?!”

In marriage, the rant is similar and goes something like this, “My good-for-nothing spouse never does what I want and is the sorriest excuse imaginable for someone to sleep next to at night. I don’t know how I got myself into this mess. My friends all have much better spouses than I do. Why did I have to end up with the good-for-nothing spouse?! What did I do to deserve this?!”

And so, by focusing all of our energy on complaining about and railing against the problem (ie the closed side street), we forget that there’s a way out of the marital parking lot. Like the Ponds-Smelling Lady, we get stuck in one place. And some of us mutter to ourselves, too.

We end up treating marital problems as roadblocks, but they are not. They are really just detours. We might not like that we have to take a detour—as I didn’t this morning. But sometimes there’s just no other option. Sometimes you have to use the solution that is available to you—even if it’s not pleasant or convenient.

And so, the first step in solving your marital problems is acceptance—realizing that everything that you have to do to get to a better place is probably going to bite the big one—but there’s no other available route. This is the person you married. This is the marriage you have. These are the raw materials you have to work with.

But, just like Ponds-Smelling Lady, you are not stuck in a parking lot with no entrances and exits. You have options. You have solutions. Take one and see where it leads.

Next: My 7 step plan for solving any marital problem

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