2010 June » CoupleDumb

Prostitutes make better lovers

Jun 292010

          The kids are alright. We think. Truth be told we haven’t seen our kids since the last day of school. We basically did a Costco run, bought tons of easy packaged food, bricked up our door and have been living in our bedroom. Sure we can hear them wreaking havoc and we are sure they are doing some kind of construction out there but we stay hidden writing about love myths. Today’s myth has been perpetuated for eons and continues to be among all cultures and forms of media. This myth is one of the worst things a parent can teach their child, aside from eating Cheese nips for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

          Lee says: I have been told that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I have been told that I’m talking out of the wrong orifice and that my opinions are suspect because I lack one very important thing. What could I be missing? I have a good education. I have 23 plus years of experience as a psychotherapist. I read tons of research daily. So what is wrong with my opinion?

          Myth: The quantity of experience is what is important. (Love is about quantity).

          In other words, since I did not bed dozens of men or have my heart broken on regular intervals, I am not to be trusted. How could I understand the complexity and pain of love? To the naysayers, I say I have never been bitten by a shark but I know that their teeth are very sharp.

          To these people who believe that sewing your oats is how to learn to love I give them the following analogy: I love to play baseball/softball. If I, without any coaching or sage advice decide to go to bat with a crappy swing, and play hundreds of games swinging the bat wildly without any correction, sooner or later, I will be benched and not allowed to play the game. My teammates/friends will cringe when I go to bat. My confidence will plummet. My game will suffer to the point that I may choose to stop playing all together all because I have a dysfunctional swing. As in love, swinging the bat poorly in hundreds of games will never make me successful, neither will having affair after affair.

          As parents, we tell our kids to go out there and take their swings without coaching or an idea of what they should be doing. We tell them to experience things and that will make them better people. Ultimately, too much heartbreak makes them bitter people. Also, this advice may actually have your child miss the opportunity of love. If we are so concentrated on quantity of experience we forget about the quality. We could possibly pass on the real experience of love for another batting cage of empty pitches with no base running (and that’s where we will end this silly analogy).

          I have been blessed. I did have my share of crushes but I have only loved one man. I am also a little leery whether the amount of love people report is real. Sure, you can care for people and be passionate and have orgasms and kids and all sorts of experience but are you really in love? Many people who have divorced or broken up and subsequently started a new relationship that is healthier find that they may have never really been in love with their former partner. An experience, yes, but to what end? Personally, I would prefer if my kids avoided the pain and watched for the good pitches instead of swinging at everything. And you thought I was done with the baseball references.

          Paul says: I think that I disagree. I am a fan of learning by trial. Teach a kid how to swim by throwing them into the deep end. Letting them bounce from car bumper to car bumper is a brilliant way to teach them how to cross the street. If they survive the lesson, all you need to do is shrug and push them back into danger. Yes, I like it. Love is a lot less romantic when you apply a little old school Darwin and some survival of the fittest mentality.

More Relationship Myths

Monday, Heavy Monday

Jun 282010

          Have you heard the urban legend that says all guys and girls are the same? Yeah, it goes something like a guy and a girl are in their car making out in a remote part of a forest. She hears a noise and breaks off a kiss to say ‘What was that?’ The guy, a total stud, by the way, says ‘Nothing but the beat of my heart, Baby’. She buys that stupid explanation and continues her pre-fornication rituals. This time there is a loud thud and he breaks off the intense session to say ‘What the hell was that?’ She immediately starts crying and saying how she’s fat and he doesn’t want her. He adjusts himself and leaves the car in a stupid search for whatever made that noise. Punch line to the story is that they both end up dead but their memory will live on at slumber parties and camp fires forever.

          Lee says: They say girls are made of ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ and boys are made of ‘frogs and snails and puppy dog tails’. Hmmmm. Apparently some of the bitches I have met along my life journey were some sort of the weird spice like old pantry oregano or something. And some boys I’ve met have been nothing but raw sugar mixed with deliciousness. But it doesn’t matter really. We are programmed to see men and women in a certain way and that same programming defines a very specific aspect of love myth which is:

Myth: Being an independent woman means you hate men/Being an emotionally available man means being a pussy.

          Why the myth? Why do we need to pigeon hole men and women? Why is it so important to maintain this myth?

          Easy. If we do not maintain these ideals then we run the risk of unbalancing the status quo. Society is accustomed to dysfunctional love. By letting men and women have love when they don’t play by the rules, in other words, they don’t toe the line by comporting themselves like good automatons with sweetness and machoness respectfully, then some people are gonna get a little uppity and think they can behave anyway they like. After this will come anarchy and then the dreaded people marrying their pets. It behooves a society to maintain a certain gender behavior requirement. It makes things easier, doesn’t it?

          I am one of those ‘independent thinking women’ who has been called every name you can possibly imagine because I was not dressed in pink, I did not coo or squeal with joy at the thought of puppies and I have been known to drop more than one word from the seven you aren’t supposed to say on TV. Most of those words I like to string together to paint a perfect picture. On good days I have been called a dyke and on days where people didn’t care how I felt about the insults I was called unlovable. All this because of my way-of-being, which people think was created because I did not like men. How wrong they were.

          I am an independent women and I adore men. I have a deep admiration for the complexity and simplicity of a man. I also know that a man’s vulnerability defines his manliness only in that the more vulnerable he is, the more powerful he is. He can handle the roller coaster of life better than a man that uses his teeth to open his bottles. He allows himself to feel the pain and joy of life. Thus, these are the real men not the two dimensional Marlboro assholes who have more in common with robots than a real man. But why listen to me? I’m just a bitter, unlovable dyke who hates men.

          Paul says: Unlovable!?! When she says things like that, I just want to cry and give her big hug. Then, again, I am just a big pussy who is obviously pussy whipped, possibly gay, and completely without a backbone. Apparently, that is the downside of being in touch with my emotions. The upside is that I love to give hugs.

Preparing For The Worst

Reader's Questions

Jun 252010

          We are so happy to have a guest writer today on CoupleDumb. She is Emmy Award winner Robin Craig (and she’s up for another Emmy this Saturday) and she will be covering a hard topic: Preparing for the possible death of a loved one. We are glad that she is doing this because we just cry too much.

         Robin says: I host a show on Mingle Media TV (Robin Craig…Live) on Tuesdays at 9 pm central. I recently had the great pleasure of being a guest on Relationship Rehab, another great Mingle Media TV show, hosted by Lee and Paul Reyes-Fournier. I talked about marriage and how one of the best things you can do for your spouse and your family is prepare for death as it is imminent for us all, and I was asked to recap our discussion.

          It’s important to have a Last Will and Testament (a/k/a “Will”) to designate how you desire to have your possessions divided and to whom you want to leave them when you die. Many are aware that the government can step in and take part of your estate if you don’t have this document, yet we don’t often feel the urgency to create a Will because we feel that we have time. The reality is that we don’t know when death will come, so it’s best to get prepared now.

          When you create your Will, make sure that it is signed and notarized and make sure that your loved ones know where this and other important documents are kept. A friend of mine said that he looked for his father’s Will for three months after the man died, and a number of business matters could not be conducted during that time which caused added and unnecessary strain for the grieving family.

          I recommend putting three choices (first, second and third) when selecting the Executor of your estate. When my husband and I married, I listed my husband as my Executor, I put my father next and then my sister. Well, years later, I’ve now lost my husband and my dad, but I do not have to redo my documents because I’m blessed to still have my sister.

          We should also have a Living Will, which states our position regarding life support. It is basically a document that is made by a person when still legally fit to do so, expressing his/her desire to be allowed to die instead of being kept alive by artificial means, in the event of being severely disabled or suffering from a terminal illness.

          I’m sure that most will remember Terri Schiavo and the court battle between her parents and husband. Terri had collapsed in 1990 which resulted in her being institutionalized for 15 years, and she was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Terri’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, battled Terri’s husband in court from 1998 to 2005 arguing that Terri was conscious and should be kept alive while Michael Schiavo wanted to have his wife’s feeding tube removed.

          In the end, the local court’s decision to disconnect Terri was carried out on March 18, 2005, and she died on March 31st. This type of situation is terribly costly and highly traumatic for everyone involved and most people would like to prevent themselves and their families from going through something similar.

          It’s also important to have a Power of Attorney, which is a legal document allowing one person to act in a legal matter on another’s behalf regarding financial or real estate transactions. We can designate someone we trust to handle our personal business and make decisions for us if we become incapacitated allowing our business matters to continue. You can delegate someone who will be able to sign your name to checks and other documents in an effort to keep things going until you are able to resume the task. Obviously, this person needs to be highly trustworthy and have your best interests at heart.

          Finally, we need to have a HIPAA form, which refers to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It was established for the purpose of medical privacy of patient records and designates to whom we give permission to receive information regarding authorization for release of our health information. I spoke at a Rotary Club luncheon not too long ago and an attorney was in the audience. He reiterated the importance of this form and stated that a personal friend of his had been unable to receive information regarding her own husband’s medical condition. Privacy is important, but we want to be able to know the status of our loved ones’ health making the HIPAA form important.

          Our world is forever changing and the Internet has made so much of our personal information available to others. We live in a legal world and we can’t get around it, so it’s better to have our documents prepared to protect ourselves and those about whom we care.

          I had an aunt who cried profusely as she signed her final documents in her hospital bed. She had a terminal illness and knew that her time was nearing, but signing the documents at that point punctuated her impending death and made the situation worse for her. It was heartbreaking to watch and could have been avoided had she created the documents sooner.

          I encourage everyone to prepare for death just like we plan our education, having children, buying a home, planning for retirement, etc. It makes things easier in the end and reduces legal and personal issues. Remember – death does not come sooner just because we plan for it. The planning simply gives us peace of mind and helps things to run smoother for everyone involved.