Tag Archives: marriage

What’s Your Source – A Game

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In my early 30s, I gave up climbing as a favor to my family. It was a choice that left me starved of my core need to exercise alone in nature. The “gift” I gave my family had the unintended consequence of starting me down a path that lead to triathlon, as well as my divorce.

Do you know what provides deep personal satisfaction?

Anger, drug and alcohol abuse, fear, depression, gluttony… in my life, these are a sign that I’ve fallen away from a life with meaning.

As a husband, and father of three young kids, I can feel good about putting marriage and family first in the short term. However, if I lose track of my own needs then I end up depressed, angry and full of resentment for the people I was trying to help!

Here’s a game that you can play to stay on track.

Think of yourself and fill in this blank 2 or 3 times…

I am most myself when__________

In my case, I came up with when… I’m riding, uphill, at altitude, in a forest, on a cool day.

Another visualization was when… I’m standing on a ridge line, far above the valley, in the sun.

Another… I’m standing in a forest, it’s snowing and very quiet.

When I see my essential self, I tend to be alone and up high. Mountaineering was a good fit for me.

Then shift your focus to your spouse. In my case…

Monica is most herself when__________

You are likely to find that you skew your view of your spouse based on how you see yourself. I saw my wife swimming (alone) in a pool.

After you’ve had a chance to think through each other, compare notes. I found out that I got my spouse-vision completely wrong!

Monica’s self-image surprised me (at first) because the visions were about helping people. She’s in a good spot as a mom and swim coach – those roles are how she sees her true nature and consistent with some profiling that we’ve done (Myers Briggs).

I hadn’t realized that swim coaching was feeding a core aspect of her personality. It turns out that coaching is a source of energy, satisfaction and meaning for her. It was an important realization for our marriage – we’d be smart to keep that work!

With a young family, you’ll be tempted to lose yourself for the benefit of the kids, or your spouse. You will need your spouse’s support to keep your essential nature in the marriage. The visualization game is one way to start the conversation, and far better than the trouble we cause ourselves when lost in a relationship.

If you keep a daily dose of your essential nature then you’re likely to be a better, and happier, parent and partner.

And now, I’m off for my walk in the forest (uphill, alone, at dawn) after writing my article (quiet, alone, sharing).

It’s important for me to remember that the value of time alone isn’t in the leaving. The value lies in my ability to continue to do work in the world.

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Further Reading: How To Make Love All The Time by De Angelis (yes, I read it)

Moving Through A Depression

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Tropic Coffee

50 is coming and I can feel that I’m spending my ‘middle’ worrying about money and getting yelled at by my kids.

The challenging thing about depression, or any of my other irrational feelings, is my inability to shake them via conscious thought.

Sharing my fears and concerns helps put them into a more rational context but my cure is always based around actions, rather than more thinking.

I smile when I re-read the paragraph above because (of course) thinking about “thinking too much” doesn’t work!

What does work?

Most helpful was the realization that I needed to make my life more difficult, while not adding stress.

I did this by purchasing a light alarm clock and changing my life so I get up two hours before my kids, who are thankfully good sleepers. By pulling the two hours from the end, to the beginning, of my day – I was able to write, exercise and sit without disruption. Writing, silence and exercise are the best antidote to the despair that I feel around kid noise.

In the heart of winter I reached out for help and attended a parenting workshop. The workshop gave me insight on how fantastic my kids are – nothing like listening to other parents to make me grateful for my own kids! However, despite my kids being normal (and desirable), I find their noise debilitating and draining.

What about the noise?

Some families cope by having constant background noise (TV and radio). For instance, the best parent that I know wears a radio walkman while she works in her house.

Other families ‘cope’ by yelling at the kids and emotionally beating them down. Effective, but not me.

I’ve been wearing earplugs to take the edge of the most intense moments, which rarely add up to more than 90 minutes a day.

People that cope well with noise will tend to find my choice of earplugs rude. Their reality is incapable of understanding what kid noise does to my internal life. I ask them for forgiveness and share the story of the great parent with the walkman.

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My son goes to school with the child of a social worker, who shared that her professional training hits a wall when she meets the reality of her own children. Her advice: stay two-steps back from the breaking point.

In applying this advice, I dropped lunch time workouts and replaced them with working in an absolutely quiet environment. This change took a lot of fatigue out of the back-end of my day. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday – I was swimming so intensely that I’d be mentally flat in the afternoons and exhausted by the evenings. Swapping my swim training into an early morning forest jog does nothing for my athletic fitness but it makes a huge impact on my overall mood.

Not swimming is complicated (in my head) because my swim coach is my wife and not spending time with her triggers my fear that my marriage will end and it will be my fault!

So…

The other bit of stress release is to tell my spouse the whole truth with how I am feeling, especially my fears (spending concerns, that I’ll act when I feel despair, that she will leave me, that I’m not a good man).

I have persistent themes that build internal stress – these all get shared with her (and pretty much everyone through my blog).

Most of this is article is to remind myself what to do – I had a tough 48 hours and started writing at 5am in a quiet house!

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What makes a difference?

Do something physical and spend a bit of quiet time in advance of the most stressful times of your day. For me that means short, solo, moderate workouts in nature done early morning and late afternoon. Each workout is short enough that the endurance coach in me wants to repeat the entire thing. Physical release and balancing the noise of my home life with quiet periods in my work life.

For the parents that deal with commutes and live in crowded cities – I don’t know how you do it. I’d be at risk for heavy self-medication and persistent deep sadness.

If you’re in that position then wait it out and don’t act on despair.

If I take responsibility for doing what I know works then I always move through a depression. When I’m really beat down it means that I’m very close to things improving.

See the beauty in the good moments.

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Serious athletes might find value in an article I wrote about athletic depression and training mania.

Five Years A Father

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Denver Zoo Spring Break 2014Five and a half years into parenthood, what stands out.

First, you don’t need to make the kids a priority. Babies, toddlers and preschoolers are extremely effective at expressing their needs!

Second, I’d strongly recommend being a binary parent with your core values. If you’re not into physical and verbal abuse – give yourself a blanket no hit and no yell policy. This saves you having to decide if a situation merits abusing your kids or spouse.

It’s surprisingly easy to fall into abusive habits. I’m a lot more aggressive than I realized pre-kids. Part of why I volunteer is to atone for the remorse I feel with regard to my thoughts about my children!

Don’t worry about the difficulties. Everyone deals with the same stuff and our minds do a good job of forgetting about misery. Two practical tips here…

Spend time listening to other parents talking about their situation. It will always make you feel better.

When fellow parents ask how you are doing, answer them “I’m OK now” or “I’m good now” or, perhaps, “I’m great now.”

The second tip is an effective tactic to avoid carrying the past into the future. Only a small minority of moments will be truly miserable. These moments can be high energy and, therefore, easily remembered. I can be bring myself to tears if I focus on my strongest memories of despair. Not a good habit. On the flip side, when things get so bad they become funny, those are the memories that make a marriage.

A Flower For DaddyOne of the most surprising things has been the moments of pure bliss. Sometimes I get so happy that my body tingles. Transcendental experiences.

Christmas 2013Take a lot of pictures. Print out the pictures that trigger joy in you – I can feel my heart as I look at the photos that I share this week.

It’s not possible to have too many positive triggers. There are days, and nights, when you’ll need them!

Screen saverBased on our home life, there are three things that you, and your spouse will be tempted to let slide: sleep, marriage and health.

Further, you’re likely to get so washed out, that you’ll be grateful if your spouse drops sleep or health to make your life easier.

Carving out time to maintain your marriage is inconvenient. However, it’s essential to avoid finding yourself lost. Your kids are going to keep on rolling either way.

Laugh as a family.

Overcoming Difficulties

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Earlier this summer, we were having a lot of discomfort with our oldest. Things built up to where she’d start most days by raging at us.

One morning, after a particularly venomous outburst, my wife banned electronics for the day. Escalating, I extended the ban for a month.

Not wanting to backdown, I was stuck with having to come up with something to replace all the iPad time we had built into her day. As well, I had to acknowledge my personal laziness with using electronics to replace engagement. Time Magazine calls us hypocrites but the reality, in my life, is laziness.

With increased 1-on-1 engagement, improvement came quickly and the level of rage dropped within ten days.  Difficulties pop up, but they are age appropriate and mostly diffused with a hug and time spent together. I’m grateful to have the time to spend with the kids.

Some additional tactics that have worked:

  • With three kids, it important to remember that the oldest remains a kid (she’s 4.75).
  • Offer a change of activity before removing from the situation
  • Give more of my time to get better behavior. The fundamental conflict is over time and attention.
  • Let them know when it is their time. Take pictures of it. Post pictures where everyone can see as well as beside their beds.

Become aware of my desires for revenge – break the cycle of revenge by training myself to avoid all forms:

  • Not to pass along gossip
  • Not to correct
  • To agree as much as possible

The above are simple, yet surprisingly difficult to execute. They are near impossible on the Internet and ignored by the media. Would anyone even watch a show that was void of gossip, conflict or correction?

Because it is difficult to see my role in creating my life, I pay attention to how my peers talk about others.

Do you aspire to revenge via negative humor at the expense of others?

Only One Childhood

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If I knew the changes that would be required before I had kids then I would have probably not had kids. The irony is that would have been a mistake because I didn’t know the scale of the changes that were coming, regardless.

In my life there wasn’t any real impact until my oldest was two-years old then I was faced with a decision:

  • Let my wife’s mental health suffer and risk the health of my marriage
  • Get involved

My choice, somewhat reluctantly at the time, was to get involved. At first I didn’t notice much change but it became clear that to be at my best as a parent, I had to avoid being tired. Here’s the dilemma of the parent-athlete:

  • Parenting is misery when exhausted
  • Fatigue is an essential component in the journey towards improved athletic performance

So, you’re likely to find yourself at a crossroads for a period of time. I suspect that time will last until our youngest is about five years old. Within my own family, I’m guessing that 2010 to 2017 is going to see a reduced focus on athletic performance. I have many ideas about being an athletic parent that I’ll share in an upcoming article.

At the end of my family’s preschooler phase, I’ll be faced with another choice, ramp my training back up (perhaps Monday to Friday during school hours) or put that time into an area that benefits my family directly.

When my youngest starts her formal schooling (2017) will be the same time that my oldest has the intellectual capacity to begin to absorb the lessons that I’ve picked up outside of school. My teaching style is instruction via “hanging out.”

I suspect that my children gain more from having a healthy and engaged father than a parent who chooses winning over spending time with them.

At the other end of a spectrum, a famous parent once shared that his #1 focus is being the fittest masters athlete in the world. I felt for the children in that family.

The rationalizations elite athlete-parents spin in their heads color their judgement in all aspects of their lives. For me, the likelihood of regret: for my marriage and for my kids; makes that path unappealing.

That said, I have a passion for sport and sustaining a personal passion makes me a better parent.

As a group, the actions of elites and elite AGers show that we value winning over all else. My kids learn far more easily, and deeply, from observing my choices, rather than listening to my words. Don’t let our twitter feeds convince you otherwise – look to our choices and our daily actions.

Our children only get one childhood – opportunities for personal glory will remain far beyond their school years.

Structuring A Family Day

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We’ve been tinkering with getting the kids into a routine that starts on Friday night. I thought I’d share because we are close to the point where everyone looks forward to it.

Friday afternoon – I wrap up all urgent work projects, ideally by mid-afternoon. Some weeks I grab a late-afternoon massage then do my final errands to prepare for the weekend.

Pulling The Plug – I power down my iPhone and computer by 6pm, Friday. This is huge for me.

Family Dinner – I start by having the kids pick out small candles for each person in the house, special relatives and our cats. We have 6-10 candles each week, depending on what’s up. My oldest lights the candles and we share our favorite part of the week with each other.

When we started these dinners (kids are 4, 2 and 7 months), it was chaos but we stuck with it. It took the kids four weeks to get into the new routine and now things run as smoothly as can be expected given their ages. A spin-off benefit was they were really well-behaved at my grandmother’s memorial dinner.

We take the opportunity to discuss any tricky issues that the kids have brought up during the week. Examples are: (a) wanting to destroy another child’s artwork; and (b) how we speak to each other.

Saturday morning – I’m usually first up and relight the candles for everyone to see as they get up. Some weeks I get a window for quiet time by myself.

Monica heads out the door around 8am for her long run. I stay with the kids and start doing the housework. Some weeks I focus outside, other weeks inside. Visible vacuuming is golden for my marriage!

Late morning, Monica takes a kid (or two) goes shopping and I stay at home, still cleaning. She comes back, grabs our oldest and takes her to do something just-the-two-of-them. This time is very valuable to our oldest, who competes for time with her mother.

By lunch time, the house is clean, the groceries are bought and we have a sitter arrive. I head out for my workout (usually a ride).

Monica returns around 2pm, all the kids nap and we get to spend time together.

Evenings are either with friends, each other (date night) or I take one of the kids out to dinner (usually our oldest).

I’m back online late afternoon and can still offer 24-hour turnaround on urgent matters.

Forcing myself to stay offline creates space for the little things that I tell myself I’m too busy to achieve (cleaning, decluttering, taking the kids to the park, reading, organizing).

Mid Life Transformation

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In 2003, I shared a conversation:

“Gordo, you know what a REAL mid-life crisis is?”

“Tell me, buddy.”

“It’s when you realize that the woman, the job, the body that you think you just might be able to have (if conditions were juuuust right). Well, you realize that there’s no way that’s going to happen and you are forced to look at the reality of your life. That can be hard. Seeing that your dreams ain’t going to happen.”

A longtime reader asked me to look back and share how I found the journey from my mid-30s to my mid-40s.

I started the process by making a list of all the “bad” things that were done to me. Isn’t this how we tend to see the past? A series of challenges that we have had to overcome.

Our personal history is created by our minds back fitting a heroic (or tragic) journey where we arrive at the present. We take credit for the heroism and assess blame for the tragedies. Sitting in judgement over everyone with whom we’ve shared our journey.

So I have my sh*t list and two thoughts come over me:

  1. “If I could wave a magic wand over my list then where would I be today?”
  2. “What use is sharing this list with ANYONE?”

I’m prone to depression but I’ve never been so depressed that I wanted to swap places with anyone.

I’m also aware that we never see the tragedies that we’ve avoided.

So, I thanked my list for delivering a wonderful spouse, three great kids and a family to serve.

Then I asked myself, what’s useful from the last decade?

Reread my buddy’s quote and you’ll see mention of the three gods of the modern world:

  • External validation through sex
  • External validation through money
  • External validation through vanity

If you look at the motivations of men then these gods feature highly. As a former elite athlete, much of the honor we receive is related to the gods of vanity and victory.

It would be easy to write that I transcended these false gods through meditation and fasting!

Truth is, at times, I took each as far as I could and had a lot of success at what others told me would make me a successful person…

…and I saw it wasn’t very satisfying.

My advice would be to look past the sex, money and vanity. What’s on the other side? Is penetration, wealth or beauty going to transform your life situation? Or might they bring a host of new problems along?

My sh*t list, particularly the worst setbacks, gave me an opportunity to ask what’s important and work on being a better person.

What lies on the other side of goodness?

I arrived at my 40th birthday (2008) and my world was falling apart. However, I was a much better person, and that helped me manage my way through. Five years on, I look at my life and am grateful because I missed setbacks that would have been far, far worse.

I’m the age (today) that my friend was a decade ago when he shared his advice. What can I offer that’s useful?

You’re going to be fine.

Keep working on yourself.

If you choose to have children then you will be faced with a choice. The choice is one of openness or closing yourself off. If you choose to be open then you will have to release many of the self-centered beliefs you’ve created. If you choose to be closed then you are likely to feel regret once the window for a relationship passes.

Either way, you will be fine.

Choose kindness.

Two Luxury Vacations

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In each of April and May, my wife and I left the US (and our three kids) for about a week.

While it is cheaper to leave the kids at home, our childcare bill for a week away is massive – roughly equal to what we spend on all other aspects of the trip, combined.

A friend jokes that spending money to strengthen your marriage is cheaper than a divorce but it’s still a heck of a lot of cash to have flow out the door.

Given my primal, subconscious, and frequent urge to flee, I know that I’m likely to keep fooling myself about the need to “get away.” 20 hours of planes, trains and automobiles on the return leg from Italy gave me a chance to take some notes.

What Is A Luxury Experience?

Early in the vacation, I was trying to put my finger on what made the hotel feel luxurious. I came up with:

Ease of exercise (swim, bike, run) – the hotel where we stayed had multiple scheduled rides each day, all seeded by ability, all guided.

Ease of laundry – the hotel offered overnight laundry service (included in room rate) for all our training gear.

Ease of eating – the hotel catered three meals per day with a wide selection of healthy foods, and a ton of veggies.

Coffee – high quality Italian coffee for breakfast and one (or more!) cappuccino stops on every single ride!

People – Marina and her staff are extremely friendly and enjoy helping guests have a good time. They care about the little things and are genuinely happy to see the guests.

Friends – I had a chance to spend time with existing, and new, pals who enjoy living the same way as me. This was the #1 lesson for me – it is worth making an effort to meet new people and spend time with successful leaders. This is the one aspect that is tough to re-create at home, multiple days of having fun with friends.

Bedtimes – I was relieved not to have to put my kids to sleep for a week. We are going to rejig our bedtime duties so we rotate our exposure to the kids – might prove better for everyone.

Unscheduled afternoons with my wife – Monica and I rarely spend an unscheduled afternoon with each other. We should. This time together was the best part of the vacation.

When I wrote the list down, I realized that I could re-create all of the above (minus Marina and her team) at home. I simply have to get organized. Further, the money that I spent in 8 days would buy 50 similar days at home. Somehow a luxury vacation “feels” better but a ratio of 50:8 shows how I fool myself.

Until the flight back from Italy, I had been thinking that it would be nice to get away quarterly and focusing on reducing the cost of our childcare when we travel.

Much smarter to apply the lessons every-single-week at home.

Living at home makes it much more likely that I’ll maintain what’s good with my life. Being ruthlessly honest I noticed the following about my week away:

  • I drank a month’s worth of booze
  • I consumed ten weeks (!) worth of sugar, and had the headaches to prove it
  • My kids start to suffer when both of us are away for more than five days
  • Training fatigue triggers feelings of entitlement for: anger, stress, gluttony and excess

Naturally, all of the negative implications were easier to see in others than myself… another example of fooling myself.

The key lessons:

  • Make time, to spend unstructured time, as a couple
  • Consider what you really enjoy about being on vacation
  • Build “luxury” into your daily living
  • The toughest part of improving my life is creating the space for change
  • Once a week, free yourself from the self-imposed tyranny of scheduling

Upon getting home, my first restructuring act was to collapse three working trips into a single visit where everyone came to Boulder.

Let’s see if we can build these lessons into our family plans for the next 18 months.

Giving Men Feedback

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A correction from parent, or spouse, always has the potential to be emotionally tough for the recipient. In my own life, I need to be aware that I will want to push back or withdraw. So I need to be conscious of my tendencies.

Being aware of my automatic responses gets my head straight for feedback. Next, I acknowledge that I want feedback, particularly ‘bad’ news. Why? Because my goal in life is gradual improvement. I will never be perfect but I can strive for the best version of myself. The most useful feedback will always be slightly painful.

I also know that the people to whom I am emotionally vulnerable accept me and think I’m terrific. So feedback is never designed to pull me down, feedback is meant to make me even more fantastic!

NOTE: many people get caught in a habit of making “jokes” that are based on undermining the target of the humor. This is poison to a relationship and a sign of our own insecurities manifesting in a desire to pull people down.

While I want to improve, feedback needs to be limited. For example, in our home we got into a pattern of constant correction with our daughter and that spilled into everything else. We saw the problem and attacked it by removing gossip from our house and carefully picking where we want to offer correction.

I also think that time spent with other couples is useful. We had dinner this week with a man that had an arranged marriage in the 1950s. He talked generally about the tragedy of marriage without love, but he was talking about himself. Then we chatted with a couple that had a son my age and the husband was bragging about his wife, after 45 years of marriage! Heart warming. The combo made me grateful, then inspired.

My tactics to influence change…

  1. First and foremost, I need to be willing to offer my time to a situation. If I don’t want to spend time, then I forget about having any ability to influence.
  2. Next, I need a long period of building trust via serving the other person’s needs. By helping people achieve their own goals, I learn about their values and their approach.
  3. Gradually, I might offer one or two tips that might help the individual achieve their own goals.
  4. All the while, I acknowledge our individual right to live our lives the way we want and the fact that my ‘way’ isn’t best. There is a wide range of successful lifestyles in the world and my choices are no better than other people’s.

Some final bullet points about coaching your husband in life…

  • When I’m truly beyond reproach then criticism falls away. Therefore, when it triggers a reaction, I pause and search for the information embedded in the info.
  • Most men crave acceptance – constant low-level correction sends a message that your man is fundamentally not OK.
  • I get more of a kick from honor but that’s probably because I’m deeply accepted by my family. Maybe there’s an insight there – to free your man to become honorable, accept what’s best in him.

Remember to aim for nine positive interactions for each correction you offer. You’ll find this discipline improves your effectiveness and how much people like you! It also gets you focused on creating a habit of enjoying your man, rather than spotting his imperfections.

Finally, if you really want to change the world then focus on improving yourself. When I overstep the boundaries of trust, I’m reminded of this truth.

Acceptance and self-improvement are powerful forces in a marriage. In many ways, my wife and I create the person to whom we’re married!

Look inward with your own desires and your actions in your marriage. If you are driven by acceptance then correcting your spouse can set up a pattern that works against your emotional needs.

Creating A Peaceful Home

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To change a habit with my wife and kids, I need to change that habit with everyone.

For example, to break a habit of snapping at other people, I need to remove that response from every single aspect of my life. That’s quite challenging!

If you’re a “yeller” then you won’t stop yelling at your kids until you manage to stop yelling at everyone. Also, many of us are yelling at people that can’t, or don’t, defend themselves. To break the cycle of yelling, it helps to drill down to the true source of our anger (often the past or ourselves).

Sometimes I can’t find the source of the yelling, and have to live with it. Here’s an example from last month. I don’t yell at anyone but, for much of March, there was a voice yelling in my head, mainly at my spirited daughter. I’ve managed to train myself not to express what’s going on in my head so there were times when a silent scream would be triggered each time I saw my little girl. Some of the things I “said” in my head were not very nice!

Having one of my kids act as a stress trigger is a tough situation, as I can’t use my typical strategy of avoidance! I’ve been trying to relax my mind by focusing on the temporary nature of the noise I experience with her. Knowing that there is an ending to every interaction helped calm me down.

I looked deeply and realized that being upset with my daughter had become a habit that was independent of her behavior – even when she was great, the internal battle raged in my mind. There were situations where I wanted her to misbehave to give me an opening to vent. It’s a very good thing that the habits of non-violence and harmony pre-date fatherhood! In the end, I removed myself for a few days, to travel to India for a wedding, and that emptied my mind of the noise.

Coming back to my original goal to speak kindly to my spouse and kids – we need to cultivate kindness with all our interactions. “Kindness to all” being the requirement to deliver “thoughtful speech” to our wives and kids. As I mentioned above, I can train myself to appear calm when there is a storm raging in my mind! It’s not a requirement to be peaceful inside to have a peaceful home (but I’m sure it helps).

I’ll share an idea from Gordon Livingston. Focus on treating people that can’t defend themselves better, for example service people. From that habit, extend towards treating everyone better. Under stress, nobody is good at remembering to treat one category of people better than another.

These habits are also a great way to lower blood pressure without the use of medication. I can see how internalized rage would be bad for one’s health.

When I find myself falling short, I remember that I can’t correct the person I was, but I can correct the person I am. My short comings become inspiration to keep trying for incremental progress.