So many married couples claim that they are married to their “best friend.”

But is your spouse really your friend?

In true friendship, we really try to bring our “A” game. We give the very best of ourselves to another person. We share. We confide. We laugh. We feel. The best of friendships can have feelings so intense, real and wonderful, the relationship can transform us and inspire us to be our best selves.

But do we have these feelings with our marriages?

The examples of marriage that we are shown ever day in the media don’t usually look like friendships. They look like men and women constantly at odds, playing games to meet selfish and nefarious ends against each other.  Women are in it for the money, men are in it for the …ahem, well you know…and nowhere is it ever mentioned that marriages should be based first and foremost, in respect, love and friendship.

And if men and women are friends, they inevitably fall in bed, “fall in love” (usually in that order) and somewhere along the way the “friendship” gets put aside so the couple can pursue a “relationship.”

Why aren’t these things the same?

A relationship, by definition, is a a connection, association or involvement, based on a mutual emotional bond or by blood. But most modern marriages are portrayed as a game people play.

Your marriage is a RELATIONSHIP.  You spouse is not just your spouse. Remember that at some point, you became friends.

Try treating your spouse like you do your best friend: laugh with them. Share jokes and trade secrets. Discuss things. And, even when there is nothing to talk about, just be. In the same place and the same place, enjoying the physical proximity and sacred silence. Don’t let resentments fester — talk them out. Get to your good friend space — together.

In the end, it will all come back to the two of you. The kids, the jobs, the commitments, the friends — one day, they will all be gone and all you will have is your spouse.

Hopefully, they will also be your friend.

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

Hi. I’m the ModernMarriedGuy, and I am guest-posting on my wife’s blog. I don’t like to blog, and I don’t even like to write, but I do love her and will do anything to make her happy. She asked, so here it goes:

After ten-plus years of marriage, here are my observations:

The Rest Of Your is the inner essence of one’s self. Everyone is a person and in marriage, you are that “one” person who is a partner of another “one” person. For the rest of your life, you have to remember that you are working with and in love with a person, another human being. For the rest of your life, you have to give the rest of yours. The rest is up to you.

Saying things like PLEASE and THANK YOU. Helping each other through hard times, sharing each other’s burdens, understanding each other’s ideas, accepting each other’s faults, and putting aside misguided prejudice of each other’s habits takes a lot of practice and patience. But you have to understand that one’s person’s likes is another person’s dislikes. A small example, if your spouse likes sugar on their rice, so what. If you spouse likes mayonnaise with fries, so what.

My wife has this saying that goes something like, “Know who you marry, and like what you know.”

Because if you don’t, things will get old rather quickly, for The Rest Of Your Life.

Cheers,
ModernMarriedGuy

Contact the ModernMarriedGuy at:
Live: labanex@live.com
Lync: aedward@sereant.net
Y!, GTalk, AIM: labanex

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

Well, all truth be told, this has been probably the one of the best weekends I have experienced in 2011 — and not just because it was my birthday (although that didn’t hurt either).

What made it so great was that I took TIME.  I slept. I ate. I cooked. I cleaned. I vegged. I wrote. I Twittered. I Facebooked. I dreamed. I laughed. I read. I walked. I enjoyed. I even blogged.  All the things I haven’t had time time to do regularly in about a year, I took a whole three days to experience and relish.

And what didn’t I do?

Worry. Stress. Get angry. Feel sad. Long for. Wonder about. Obsess over. Feel disappointment or loss. At no time during this weekend did I  engage in any long-term negativity.

And, boy, did that feel good.

I received presents, in the form of material goods, but also in lovely tweets and well wishes on Facebook and via phone. And all this positive energy feed my soul in the best ways possible.

I found my center.

So I am done with starting over. I am now only forging ahead.

What a weekend.

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

Yesterday, I turned 43.

Another year older. Definitely wiser. Much more grateful. My eyes have been opened to what is real and what is reality — and to how we create our reality.

I celebrated my 42nd birthday in Chicago, at mother’s house, ashamed and sad and awash with feelings of guilt over all I had lost personally and professionally.

I vowed that day I would die fighting to get it all back, but not the material things. I would fight to get back the thing that really mattered: my pride, my esteem, my sense of self, my center.

I had lost my way, and all I wished for on that cold, grey, empty November 4th in 2010 was for life to get better, to be fuller, richer and happier.

The most important thing? I knew I could do it.

I knew that I had it within me to rise up from the ashes like a phoenix, rise above our circumstances, to lift myself up with wings of hope and faith and soar majestically towards a better future.

And you know what? I did.

With an awesome life partner by my side, I worked hard, I kept the faith, I persevered and I succeeded.

By my 43rd birthday, I had it all back, plus more: a job, a home, a car and my sense of self.

My center.

But I had so much more: a deep sense of gratitude, a new admiration for my partner, and for the strength of our union. I also had a new appreciation for own continued strength and forbearance.

And there are other gifts I have since received, that I will reveal in later posts.

But what a joy to be able to give the gift of self back to you.

Happy 43 to me.

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

I received my very first blog award from the beautiful and accomplished AttorneyToBe!

I really love the spirit of the award; not just to be lauded in one’s own right, but to spread that blog love, similarly gifting other talented bloggers.

I am very happy to do so, as there are so many other amazing writers inthe blogosphere, sharing their stories and their lives with words and images. It is wholly satisfying, educational, inspiring and wonderful.

So in the spirit of passing the positive energy forward, I will post the rules of the award and my nominees to be the next recipients

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

In days of old, marriage was approached in a very pragmatic fashion: it was more of a merger of sorts. It united land and goods of families, ensured the continuation of blood lines, even stopped wars between tribes.

Marriage was a business, and the act itself constituted a very serious contract for all involved.

Somewhere around the Victorian age, marriage started being less about the merging of lands and more about the merging of hearts. No longer was marriage considered an ends to a means, but an end to a courtship. Stoic pragmatism gave way to a more fanciful romanticism, and people entered marriage more and more with little reason other than love.

While love is a wonderful reason to marry, marriage is such a serious commitment and the institution deserves more consideration than it is usually given. Today, couples spend more time and energy planning for their wedding than they do for the marriage, so it’s little wonder that while the wedding itself goes off without a hitch, the marriages they herald failed at an increasingly alarming rate.

When you fail to plan, you inevitably plan to fail.

Most people start any endeavor, be it a trip, a job search, returning to school, moving to a new place, or starting a new business, with a plan. They outline goals, determine the steps needed to achieve the goals and identify possible obstacles. Marriage is one of the most endeavor upon which many people will embark; an endeavor whose failure will negatively impact the lives of everyone involved.

Marriage truly is a serious business — so plan it!

Creating a marriage plan is not an exercise for those not yet married. Whether you are newly engaged, are still newlyweds or have been married a decade or more, creating a marriage plan can help couples identify and work together toward shared goals, can outline the couples’ vision for the marriage and can help map the future of the relationship.

My husband and I have been married over 10 years, and we are just now creating a marriage plan. For the first decade, we sort of drifted through life together with no real definable goals or shared purpose. We just love each other, so we got married.

But through times of adversity, as we found out, that may not be enough. A good marriage plan can also work as insurance during tough times, providing guidelines of how the couple will work through adversity together, and the steps they will take to turn a negative situation around.

You can modify a general business plan template and use it as a starting point to create you marriage plan. Together with your spouse develop a marriage mission or purpose statement. What is your purpose for being together? To create a family? Support a partner’s career? Travel the world together? Share a passion, hobby or lifework? Write it out! Make it clear to each other what your shared mission together is in the marriage.

Don’t forget to include financial data. More marriages are ruined over negative financial situations than for any other reason. Have a thorough understanding of each partner’s TRUE financial obligations and income. Then map out each partner’s personal financial goals, as well as the financial goals you wish to accomplish together as a family.

Once you have sucessfully crafted your marriage plan, have both partners sign and date it. Create a copy of the plan and keep it with your other important documents. Refer back to the marriage plan when things seems to hit a marital rough patch, or the money train seems to be going off-track.

Periodically update your marriage plans as old goals are accomplished and new ones are established.

Creating a marriage plan is just one of the things a couple can do to ensure they have a happy marriage for years to come. I encourage all couples to try it!

Sincerely,
The Modern Married Chick

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

When we think of facing adversity, we usually imagine that we would be stalwart, stoic and strong; we would face all challenges head on, refusing to allow hard time to dissuade us, move us, bend or break us.

And in the current ecomonic storm (more commonly known as “The New Economy”), many are doing just that: staying strong and staying put, regardless of the many signs that indicate going a different way.

Much like the story of Job, even though there are trials and tribulation, our faith and ourselves shall not be moved.

And while there seems to be across-the-board approval for Job’s handling of adversity, the reality is that may not work for those of us currently experiencing hard times.

When my husband and I lost our employment through layoffs, we stayed put for as long as it made sense, and for us, that meant as long as it took to get affairs in order, gather up what was reasonable to take with us, and move to another area to try and start over. We moved from Phoenix, AZ to go and live with my mother in Chicago.

While in Chicago, we managed to find jobs. The jobs didn’t pay very much, nor were they in our normal field of IT or technical support, but we were gainfully employed when so many others weren’t, and we were grateful. We saved our money over six months, with the single goal in mind of moving back to the southwest to live.

While traveling to Austin, TX (where we eventually decided to live), we stopped in Nashville, TN, for an overnight stay. We were unfortunately robbed of all the money we saved for the trip, as well as a few other items of value.

Most people would have thought this would be the end for the ModernMarrieds.

Not so! We managed to find daily manual labor work that paid between 40-60 dollars a day. We saved it daily sans what we needed for food and gas. We lived and slept in our car the entire time. It took couple of months, but eventually we made it to Austin, where our car was promptly repossessed.

No matter. It was an SUV and drank gas like it was water. We actually saw losing the vehicle as a blessing. It provided an opportunity to find a more economical mode of transportation.

Once there, within a week, we employed at decent jobs. Within a month we had an apartment, a new (to us) car, and furniture. Within that month, we were homeless, but made use of some resources (non-governmental) available.

The most important thing that we did is we remained flexible and open to different solutions to our problems. While neither of us is particularly used to or well-suited for manual labor, when the situation arose, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. When the job market in Chicago did not seem to yield the types of jobs we wanted or were qualified for, we did research to find an area in the country that did have such a job market and we moved there.

We moved, we worked within the circumstances presented, we downsized.

Whatever it took to get back on our feet, we did.

Many people suffering through this frightening economy are not willing to change, to look for unqiue solutions, to try different things.

In a storm, while the winds are howling, the graceful willow tree bends with those winds, moving in tandem with the direction that the winds blow, while the mighty oak stands strong in the face of the winds. But when the storm is over, how many willow trees are uprooted? Not that many.

The oak trees, on the other hand? Branches gone and more than likely uprooted.

When people are faced with the winds of change during a storm of adversity, they would do better to emulate the willow: assess the direction in which the winds are blowing, and go with it. Work within the circumstance. If the job situation in your immediate area is poor, research and find an area where more jobs are offered. If the housing situation in your area is dismal, find where the housing situatiuon is  better. Be open to the possibility of having to move where true opportuntiy presents itself.

Many people use the excuse of not wanting uproot family, or have children who don’t want to leave school or friends. But if your situation is dire, you’ve not been gainfully employed for an extended period of time and you stand to lose everything, why sit and wait until the complete sky falls in? Be proactive! The family will be happier with stability and security in the long run — no matter where that is, because luckily, as a species, we humans will and do adapt.

The Starting Over moral of this part of the story? Be Flexible. learn to bend with the winds of change during a storm of adversity, so that you can when the storm is over, you can strong on your own once again.

Sincerely,
The Modern Married Chick

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

It had been one of those days, and the ModernMarriedGuy and I had been having one of those arguments.

It had been a long week, full of stressful moments at work and at home, and both of us were exuding signs of the stress.

Certain conversations lead too easily to arguments over unresolved issues bubbling just beneath the surface of our normally drama-free zone, otherwise known as our marriage.

Just one sentence was all it took. Like a match dropped casually onto a trail of gasoline, the gun had gone off and the verbal wrestling match was ON.

Being married as long as we have, our arguments, as our lives, had fallen into a predictable pattern. My husband is slow to anger, and doesn’t think quickly on his feet. I, on the other hand, have a gift for gab and a command of the language that I wish I had over my emotions.

Over the years, we’ve also gotten lazy with our arguing. I immediately blame the MMG for whatever ills have befallen us, and basically hold that position until I have calmed down long enough to just chalk the whole thing up to his ever-present ineptitude with a sigh and a roll of my eyes, moving on to the next thing.

What I hadn’t been doing was taking a step back. Taking time to see my part in the situation and what I could do to make the present situation better or could have done to alleviate the entire mess in the first place.

My focus was solely on my husband — HIS faults, HIS shortcomings, HIS failings.

Never my own.

And I promise you, I am not so short-sighted that I am not aware of my own personal struggles and challenges. I am by no means perfect, nor am I deluded enough to believe whatever strengths I have make me a better individual than my husband.

It’s just easier for me to lay blame on his doorstep then to step up to a mirror and do the painful work of assessing myself.

Every marriage takes so much work, but what most couples stop working on is themselves — as individuals within the relationship.

To successfully develop the relationship, you each have to continue to successfully develop yourselves, to take time to assess, and grow and transform individually, as well as together.

And the next time you find yourself at odds with your spouse, take the focus off of them and put the spotlight clearly on YOU.

You may well find the person you are reallyat odds with is yourself.

Sincerely,
The Modern Married Chick

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

“We’re looking for new furniture. Know of a good place to get reasonably priced new furniture around here?”

I posed this question to a few of my co-workers during a slow period at work a few weeks back. The ModernMarriedGuy and I were proud new apartment dwellers in Austin after a recent period of homelessness, and I was eager to begin furnishing our new digs. I was also tired of trying to make a life in a home that consisted of two twin-sized airbeds.

Some of my co-workers were aware of our previous homeless situation, and knew my family was in process of starting over, rebuilding our lives and downsizing.

And regardless of the fact that I came to work daily, and was doing very well at the job, the looks I received were less than receptive to my query.

In fact, they looked at me as though I was crazy for daring to ask.

They looked furtively at each other, then back at me. Some looked merely uncomfortable, while other looked downright smug. One person spoke tentatively:

“Well, there’s a Goodwill not too far from here. And I think they have a St. Vincent de Paul, and some second-hand shops downtown…”

I reiterated that we was looking for new furniture, not second hand or used, and, again, looks were exchanged. One of the bolder members of the group then piped up:

“But how can you get new furniture? Can you even afford it?”

I am new to the job and my mother raised me well. those were the only things that really stopped me from 1) telling Miss Priss what I thought of her ill-mannered comment and 2) jumping over the cubicle to leave no doubt as to my thoughts on her comment.

When you are going through financially hard times, people make assumptions about who you are and how you must live, based on little to no evidence. They assume your money management skills are poor (even though they themselves may be living one pacheck away from homelessness, mortgaged to the hilt with credit cards maxed), that you surely indulge in illict, immoral and possibly illegal activities that deplete your funds and that you are just not the “right” sort of person. These assumptions will color their every interaction with you, and the perception is so palpable, it could be sliced with a knife.

And it’s these folks who have no small amount of “advice” for you about getting back on your feet. They certainly want you to have certain small creature comforts, the very basics that make life manageable.

But because you have already “screwed up,” you don’t deserve anything truly good. Not the best, and certainly not NEW furniture.

For them, you will always be “better off” making do, accepting handouts, and living in a small bubble of mediocrity or below. They will always direct you to low-budget, low-rent and second-hand resources. They will always try to let you know, in ways both subtle and overt, your place in the grand scheme of things.

Please don’t be fooled into thinking that these people are well-meaning, but just don’t know any better.

They know better. And what they know is that you don’t deserve any better.

There are conversations happening at this time, exacerabted by the current vitriol bubbling forth in the current polictical climate, that those who have fallen on hard times have put themselves in that position and deserve exactly what little they get, possibly not even that.

There are some in this world who have very little joy they are building or nuturing in their own lives, and they cultivate what little joy they can find on the misery of others. They secretly celebrate people’s misfortune, feeding off of the negativity of hard times. And with every step you take towards rebuikding your life, any measure of making positive strides towards solvency and better living gives them lesson which to feed.

They don’t like that.

So, they will urge you to make choices that will continue a cycle of negativity in your life. They will advise you to surround yourself with poor furniture, urge you to make unhealthy food choices in the name of saving money, implore you to make use of government aid whether you truly need it or not, send you information on car deals for vehicles you will barely be able to drive off the lot.

All in the name of advice. They won’t direct you to ways of building your wealth, your health or your circumstance in any positive manner.

You don’t deserve any better.

What you must remember is that you are downsizing — but you are NOT down and out. You are starting over, and you can go as far as you want to go. With a fresh start, possibilities are endless.

Of all the things you must remove during a life reboot, negative people and cirumstances must be first. Only from there can you truly start over.

NOTE: I no longer work with those aforementioned team members; I moved to a new team with members who have no idea of what I previously experienced.

XO,

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

In the previous post, I mentioned that the ModernMarriedGuy and I are at the point where we are starting over with our lives, and to tell you the truth, as hard and as scary as it sometimes is to be at this point, it’s also pretty darn exciting to have the opportunity to start it all from scratch — and the opportunity to do it smarter and better.

So, in the spirit of sharing and information exchange, I am beginning the Starting Over series here. I want to be able to share the lessons I have learned about smart and sensible living.

Just because we are downsizing our lives doesn’t mean that we want or intend to go to the other extreme: we are not trying our hand at sustainable living. We are not making our own shampoo and soap. We’re not eschewing modern conveniences or living off the land.

There’s nothing at all wrong with that lifestyle, and many elements of sustainable living are actually some things we’d like to try. I will be starting a small potted patio garden, and will try to grow our own herbs and some veggies (we will see how that goes, as my thumb to this point has never really been green). There are also many great blogs out in the blogosphere that solely focus on that lifestyle.

But that’s just not the ModernMarrieds. We are true-to-life urban folk, who enjoy city life, modern conveniences and living as well and as comfortably as we can. We just want to find a more economically feasible way to do it.

Before, we were so caught up in the trappings, we never stopped to think that there might be a better way, a way that would allow us time to actually enjoy the things we were accumulating and for which we were paying. We were constantly working, rarely having any fun and were miserable with ourselves and each other.

And now that we were actually derailed off that track, we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to find a way that will introduce more balance , more enjoyment and more peace within our lives.

Was the Universe trying to tell us something? We were aware that at some point, something had to give, but were too scared and stubborn to let go of the life, however miserable, we had created.

So we have the chance to begin again, and for that I am truly grateful. I am even more grateful that we are together in making this change, that the hard times broke us out of our rut, but didn’t break us.

I invite you to follow this series, and hope that some of the ideas presented are helpful to those of you in a similar situation, a well as to those not in the situation to avoid it.

Starting over. For many of us, it’s the face of modern marriage.

Sincerely,
The Modern Married Chick

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.

So our story is the same as everyone else’s: Boy meets girl over internet, chats with her for 10 days and falls madly in love — sight unseen. Asks girl to marry him.

Girl decides she likes what she hears, and, six months later, takes him up on his offer.

One whirlwind weekend trip to Vegas and the deed was done. No muss, no fuss.
No bridesmaids dresses.

That was ten years ago.

Fast Forward: One stint in the Army, a deployment to Iraq, moves to Germany, North Carolina, Texas, California and Arizona, multiple  jobs, cars, dogs, apartments and houses later…

We lost it all.

And when I say we lost everything, over time we lost…

EVERYTHING.

Over a period of months, we watched with horror, with panic, with anger, with frustration, with humiliation, with sadness as every piece of the life we created was taken, repossessed, or was left behind.

And even as this was happening around us, a resolve inside us began to grow. We realized with all we’d lost, there had retained what was most important. Our bodies. Our minds. Our knowledge. Our health. Our work ethic. Our desire to do better.

And we have.

We have literally worked our way across country from Chicago to Austin over a period of six months, picking up jobs along the way and saving enough of it to fund our trip.  We slept in our car for the most part, along with our only possessions left — clothes, a few family pictures, five books, important documents — only what we could pack in our car.

The remnants of lives not completely lived.

And, once we got to Austin, life had one more trick up its sleeve. The car was taken and we were truly living on the streets and fending for ourselves the best way we could.

It was hard. It was humiliating. It was demoralizing. It was frustrating. It was…our lives.

But we were blessed to get decent jobs very quickly. After that came the apartment, the furniture, the car and even a dog from rescue in short order.

We are now at the point of truly being able to start over, and I can only think of all the good things we have been able to take from this bad experience:

We are truly grateful now for even the basics: a roof over our head, food to eat, basic mode of transportation.

Our worldview has changed and we are more aware of the true suffering that people are experiencing all around us in this new economy.

Our marriage is stronger because we never abandoned it, or each other.

So now we begin again, and here I will chronicle our lives as we start over. Some posts will be retrospective, so very much in the present, some funny, some sad, some angry.

All real.

I  welcome you all to our lives, where we have a new motto: “Downsized, but not down and out.

SIncerely,

The Modern Married Chick

© 2011, Modern Married Chick. All rights reserved.