The Man Chair: Romance in Marriage

The Man Chair: Romance in Marriage

In the Man Chair: Dave Baird
Age: 50
Occupation: Realtor
Marital status: Married
Children: Yes
Website: David.baird@utahhomes.com 

Question: How do you keep the romance alive when you've been married a long time? 

Dave's response:

I have been thinking about this for quite some time now, and I really don’t have the perfect answer. I do know that most of us have the same goals. We want to die shortly after our spouse, to spend evenings watching the sun set while holding hands together, and to have others see us as we see ourselves—totally committed to each other.

To get there, we need to go back to the beginning of the relationship. I think many of us have this erroneous thought that when we first met or married our spouse, we were romantically in love, and that this love sometimes goes downhill because there wasn’t tons of effort put into the relationship to keep it alive.

I believe that we are in love with the idea that someday this person, that has agreed to run away with us, will actually stay with us forever. This thought is just enough to make us say, “I do.” We hope that as our spouse gets to know us and as we get to know them, we will have enough good times and bad in common that neither person will run away screaming.

I believe at this point, the “I do,” “Yes,” “umm hmm,” whatever you said that committed you to this life contract with your spouse, is where the fun should begin. This is where you start convincing your spouse that he/she loves you.

Here is where you will begin a series of activities to create memories that form a bond called “love.”

This relationship will last forever.

My wife and I started making memories by having water fights in the house with a hose, camping in the rain, covered by a tent with no poles (honeymoon), and driving across the country multiple times without ever turning on the radio because we love to talk to each other. My wife has gone to so many guy movies with me that I think she is a true Clint Eastwood fan.  And yes, I have sat through just as many chick flicks with her.

She loves riding motorcycles and watching me work on the car. She lets me fix things and loves to eat what I cook. She goes on walks with me and even holds my hand when I want to. She loves to dance but doesn’t force me to dance if I don’t want to. She loves hearing me sing and always listens when I do. She never complains about a lack of anything, including material possessions. She has given me the coolest kids in the world and has made them so smart and, of course, gives me all the credit.

After more than 25 years with my wife, when I think of why I love her, I think of the lady that stood by my side when we were poor—so poor, our power was shut off. She didn’t call home or run to the neighbors. She just told the kids that we were going to play pioneer for the week and were going to do without a few things. During times when we had more than enough, she never ran out and spent lots of money but still acted like we were average.

I do everything I can to make my wife happy. After all, she ran away with me and has never gone back home. She has stuck it out in the most difficult of times with me and has never told a soul about what we went through.

As I look at the things I have written in this post and realize that our romance is still alive and that I am very much in love with my wife, I also realize that most of this happened after we got married.

She took a chance on me, I took a chance on her, and then we made it work. She is number one in my life. End of story.

So, how do I keep the romance alive?

This romance was born the day I said “I do,” and we just keep feeding it like a little baby. Some days it surprises us, and other days it does just what we thought it would. It grows every day with new needs and wants. Like a parent, we would never deny our little romance anything it needs or wants because it’s too much fun to watch it grow.

Where will we be in 50 years? I think holding hands, watching the sun set. I don’t know if it will be on the porch of our home or from the top of a cloud, but it will be with my wife.

As we get older, well a little older, we find that we can't remember all the details of the things we did when we were younger.  This is for our benefit I am sure.  Last week our computer hard drive crashed.  It actually had a head on with the side of the desk.  We then came to realize that all the pictures we had been saving for the last 25 years were gone.  What were we to do...

Start over was our only conclusion.  We still had two kids at home and they couldn't remember half of the things that we did when they were two and three any way.  So this week it begins with a trip to St George.

We arrived late Friday night with nothing to do but go to bed.  So we stayed up and watched movies for a while.  This had us getting up a little later than usual on Saturday.  We talked the next morning about the fun times we had in St George and realized that the two youngest kids didn't remember the trip to the Grand Canyon.  Not really that great of a trip, all the kids threw up and we got there and froze to death.  We decided that because it was only an hour and a half a way why not run over and check it out.

On the way there we ran into a sign that said the road was closed and we had to take a detour.  We didn't mind because we had all day, right?  We kept going and came to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  A little colder than we expected and the large "road closed" sign did not do much for my kids spirits.

We still had the better part of the day so we decided to make a run for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We jumped back in the Motorhome and away we went.  By 4:00 we had a time change on our hand and we were in the park.  The kids had a ball and the weather was awesome.  Sunny and warm and pictures to go with it.  

At 6:00 the park closed and we had to get on our way.  The nice ranger told up that we could make just as good of time if we went through Laughlin Nevada, there were freeways and the speed limits were faster.  So we decided to drive the long way around.  At 1:00 am I was too tired to continue on so I pulled over in the Valley of the Fire for the night.

 

The next day we caught some awesome views of the red rocks and natural formations.  We made it back to the condo by 12:00 and took a nap and had lunch.

All in all it was a crazy drive but we had a blast, got in a lot of talk time and never turned on the radio.  The good times have started again and we have a new collection of pictures to start the collection.

We still have three days and some more parks to go.  I think it will be a great trip.  Should have broken that hard drive years ago.

db

WHO DO YOU TRUST

Much has been said over time about friends and what you can/can't or should/shouldn't tell them.  What I find most interesting is how our relationships change over time.  

A person you may confide in this year, may not have your best interests in mind next year.  How and who we trust with our most important information is a tricky question. 

I have a friend, at least I think he is my friend, who I have shared most of my feelings with through out the years.  We really don't have that much in common oddly enough.  I think he makes about twice my yearly income, lives in a huge home on the other side of town, and drives very expensive cars.  On the other hand we share something in common.  We have the same view of the an organization that we both belong to.  We have our frustrations, our happy times, our sad times, and our most joyful memories all wrapped up in the same nice little package.

We go through the same day to day trials wondering at times why, and who, and if it is all worth it. But what would happen if one of us were to change inside the organization to the point where we suddenly forgot about the other one.  Would we, could we, simply forget about the other ones feelings, or even worse, would we use them against each other?

I hope not, but we will never know unless it happens.  I would think that friends would remain friends even though power might step in and try and take over.  But who is to say, does power corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely?  

One day you may read about the friend I lost.

HOW DO THEY KNOW

Just after dropping my daughter off at the MTC, I cam home and started this blog.  It won't always be about her, but the first entry was, so why not the second?

I received a letter the day after I wrote the entry explaining all my feelings.  It was from her mission President in Japan.  He said that even though I may have felt uneasy with the whole experience, she was in good hands.

Well she must be, because he knew enough to answer the questions I was having before I even had them.  It was good to get the letter from him and see the kind of people that are going to be taking care of my little girl for the next 18 months.

Not so worried any more.  

CURB SIDE CHECK IN?

Well for those of you who know me,  and I assume that no one is reading this yet, I dropped off my daughter Bronte at the MTC in Provo this week.  She will be headed for Japan in 8 weeks.

This was the third child I have left there, and by far the worst experience of the three.  

As I pulled up I was greeted by the same Police Man that, I swear to you, gave me several tickets while I was a student there 26 years ago.  He exercised all the power in his little hand to make me go the way he wanted and to park exactly at stall 19.  As I got out of the car I was met by two Elders that were checking out the situation.  ( The car, the baby in the back, the sister missionary getting out of the car, and the mom already in tears)

Without missing a beat the one stepped forward and said to me, as I pulled out her first suit case from the trunk.  "You'll want to make sure she has all her shot records in there".

Huh?

How about " Why don't you take a minute and say good by to your daughter, I'll keep an eye on this stuff for you".

Nope, wasn't gonna happen.  I turned around and there she was, she gave me a hug, the he said, as if to break up the situation, "come this way sister, "I'll show you where you need to check in".  

She waved good bye and that was it.  Away she went down the side walk.

Without any exaggeration it was less than a 3 minute experience.  As I drove away, my wife in tears, I was thinking to my self, "did I say what  I wanted to say?".  "I need to get home and write a letter!".

I know they have a lot of missionaries to get checked in now days and this must be the way to do it, I am not trying to be critical in any way, but, 30 seconds more would have gone a long way for a Dad and his daughter.  I guess that's why we had the hour in the temple to sit and talk.

Well I have about 56 days to write letters to her in the MTC before she leaves.