"Where am I? Is this a dream? What in God's name is going on here?"--Elaine, who just wants to be seated and eat from the episode, "The Chinese Restaurant"
Much like Elaine from this very funny episode from Seinfeld, we often wonder what is going on when things don't go our way. Obviously, it is a bigger deal than waiting to be seated at a restaurant. Just the same, we don't like it, and when thing don't go our way it throws us off, way off. It really depends on what is not working. It can be as simple as your car not starting in the morning before a long work day to finding out you don't have a job anymore. Simple, but not fun.
Within relationships, when stuff doesn't go our way, whatever the situation is, puts pressure on the relationship. What kind of pressure? Stress for one. How do we as individuals handle stress? Some eat, some drink, some escape, some get angry/snippy/crabby, some of us shut down, whatever it is, we all have ways of coping with stress but when you add another person who handles stress differently, then you have pressure. Who is going to be the cool headed one? Who is going to fly off the handle first? How and when do you talk about the situation in a problem solving way without excess emotions? Tricky stuff for sure, whether you are married or been dating a while.
My current wife and I encountered a situation a few years back. We wanted to start a family and we just moved into our fabulous 1000 sq ft home in which we purchased at the height of the housing boom. We took some cash out of retirement to put some $$ down. We asked questions about taxes etc...so we buy the house. The next year rolls around, take our info to our tax person and come find out we owe $10,000! How did this happen? Well, when we took money out, it bumped us up to the next tax bracket. For whatever reason(our ignorance) we didn't ask that question nor did our tax person mention it as a possibility. What this meant more than paying money which we didn't have, was we had to put off starting a family. When you are over 40(me) and close to 40(my wife) waiting to start a family is harder. Time is ticking, we ain't getting any younger!
When I called the tax people to get an update on the tax situation fully believing a refund was in order(I was a homeowner!) the news was devastating. No family start, and 10K in the hole. Pretty sucky. I waited until my wife got home from work to tell her. She laughed. Not because it was funny but because it was so out of left field for our plans that there was nothing left to do. I was mad. Then she got mad, and I laughed. It was quite the process. We both were grieving because we thought this would almost kill our family plans. That was our feeling and perspective in the moment.
There were possibilities for blame here but we didn't go there. We found additional work cleaning churches for a guy my wife knew. We had accepted responsibility mutually and set our minds to fixing the $$ problem. I am proud of the fact that we stuck together working the problem together not knowing the outcome. We just weren't making very much $$ on the side. My dad wanted to see me so he flew me up to Alaska where he lived. He asked me when we were having kids and I(being a proud person) was very hesitant to tell him but I told him about the tax issue and how it was holding us back from affording a child. He said, "don't worry about the $$, I'll give ya the money, just give me a grandchild". Wow! What a relief! Sure enough, Dad gave me the money to pay the IRS and we were on the way to makin' a baby!
Not like making a baby happens on your schedule. It took over a year to get pregnant with all the fears, frustrations, and disappointments that go with that. But again, things don't always go your way, and how are you going to deal with it as an individual and as a couple? Don't know?
I can help!
Talk to me, Shawn@coachingthrough.com
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