Advice

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When Something Is Deeply Important to One Spouse and Not the Other

What I want to talk about today is having something in your life that is deeply meaningful to one spouse but not the other.

I think this could take various forms. Let’s say you are very religious, and your spouse is not. I imagine that not having the same level of interest in religion could present some difficulties.  You might be thinking, well, that seems like something you should have talked about before you got married. But maybe there wasn’t such a vast distance between you at first; maybe you were a moderately religious person, and accepted that your spouse was an atheist… and only over time did your religion grow in importance to you, while your spouse remained an atheist. While people DO make this work in their marriages, I see how it could be potentially very difficult.

Or maybe when you were first married, you were both politically moderate. But over time, one of you has begun to edge into more conservative territory while the other has become more and more liberal. I cannot continue with this as an example because it’s stressing me out.

So: what about something that sounds less like it might cause a marital crisis?

What if you are really passionate about CrossFit, but your spouse just can’t get too excited about it? Maybe you can get your spouse to do a Paleo cleanse every now and again, but your spouse has no interest in exercising and really doesn’t want to wake up early to go to your CrossFit events and would rather watch Game of Thrones than the CrossFit Games. Even if you have friends who are also in CrossFit, I could see how it could be frustrating if your spouse did not share your interest.

Or what if your dream is to visit all the major league ballparks in America? But your spouse has zero interest in baseball. Your spouse might indulge you by planning vacations in cities  that have major league teams. But maybe your spouse has no interest in touring yet another ballpark, or going to yet another endless baseball game in the full glare of the sun. I can see how it would be lonely to attend a game by yourself, or frustrating to be pushed to do other tourist activities when all you want to do is walk among the bleachers of some historic field, imagining the crack of the ball against the bat, and the roar of the crowd.

I think we can all agree that spouses can and may – and even should – have different interests. And maybe we can agree that it’s important for spouses to respect one another’s interests, even if they don’t understand them or like them. We might also be able to go one step further and say that it would be in the interests of the marriage to at least try to support the other spouse’s interest. And, on the other side of things, for the spouse-with-the-interest to be respectful and understanding of the disinterest on the spouse’s side, and not to press to hard or get too bent out of shape.

My example of this is kind of frivolous, and really only becomes an issue about once a year. But I spend a lot of energy fretting about it and wishing VERY HARD that I could force my husband into not just respecting my interest but into LOVING it as much as I do.

My parents live in the middle of a picturesque forest in a wide valley between two mountain ranges. It is indescribably beautiful, so I will post a photo of it to give you the mere glimmer of an idea.

cropped-holland-lake1.jpg

I didn’t grow up there, in the mountains. But my dad spent summers there as a boy, and so we visited the area every summer. At one point, my parents bought a swath of land and built a little one bed/one bath log cabin powered by a generator, and my whole family would go there for weekends or weeks throughout the summer. There’s a little lake nearby, and my parents have a boat, and we’d water ski or tool around the lake or lie on the dock in the sun. We did lots of hiking, even though hiking isn’t really my jam, we played Scrabble in the evenings, and we spent many, many hours reading in the clear mountain air, with only the sounds of sandhill cranes, the thrum of hummingbirds and industrious bees, and the distant whir of a motor boat to disrupt the pure calm.

But this idyllic beauty comes at a price: My parents’ home is difficult to get to – most of a day of travel from my home. And it’s isolated – there aren’t any bars or movie theaters or malls or really many restaurants you can get to without a long drive.

To me – and to my parents, who live there – these are pros rather than cons.

For my husband, who was born in a city and has lived in a city of one size or another his whole life – at least I think that’s the defining difference between us, here – they seem to be more con than pro.

He goes, without hesitation or complaint. We book our flights each year, and he talks about looking forward to taking a break, and about how nice it will be to see my parents. But I don’t think the idea of being completely off-grid is as appealing to him as it is to me. No cell towers anywhere nearby. No cable television. Nowhere to drive if you get bored (!) by the beautiful scenery, unless you want to spend an hour or more in the car. (We do, now, have electricity; my parents eventually built a two-bed/three-bath home with all the amenities.)

To me, having grown up with this space in my life, it has become synonymous with peace and relaxation. So I just don’t get why my husband doesn’t love it the way I do. I want desperately for him to love it. Not just tolerate it. But to LOVE it, to feel the pull of the tamaracks and Ponderosa pine, to long for the brush of ice-kissed mountain breezes on his face, to ache for the enormous wide-open skies and gleaming silence.

It has recently occurred to me that maybe I am being unreasonable.

If I were to be a passionate marathon runner, I can envision wanting my husband to be supportive of my efforts to get into shape and eat a healthy diet. I can envision wanting my husband to make every effort to attend the actual marathons, to cheer me on and to be there at the finish line. I can even envision myself wanting him to share with me the exhilaration of pushing my body to its limits, and the euphoria of accomplishing such a physically and mentally punishing goal. But I cannot envision asking him to get up at 4:00 each morning and run 10 miles if he doesn’t want to.

I am a writer. Some of what I write is poetry. My husband is supportive of my writing, even proud. He has been to readings with me. He tolerates it when I read him poems from the New Yorker. He has bought me books of poems he thinks I would like. But he does not love poetry, or even like it. I cannot envision asking him to read books of poems just because I love it.

These things seem like reasonable deviations in our interests. So why am I so fixed on trying to get him to love visiting the mountains?

I have gone through stages. The wheedling stage: just try it, please please for me, and maybe you’ll like it! The petulant indifference stage: well, I’m going to have a good time whether you do or not. The placating stage: let’s do exactly what YOU want to do, and maybe you’ll enjoy it more! The frustration stage: there must be something wrong with you; what’s not to like?!?! The despair stage: how can I spend the next fifty years trying to get you to love something you just don’t love? The melodramatic stage: does this incompatibility mean we are destined for divorce?

Maybe the next stage is acceptance. Maybe I have to finally realize that my parents’ magical forest hideaway is just not my husband’s kind of thing. Maybe I will have to get to a point where Carla and I go visit my parents by ourselves, and don’t pressure my husband into making the trek. (Although I don’t necessarily think he’d like THAT; he doesn’t like to be away from me and Carla, for one thing, and he also wants to see my parents.) Maybe I just have to let him support my interest by coming with me, even though it’s not his idea of The Best Time Ever, and allow him to feel slightly bored and slightly uncomfortable. Maybe, over time, he will come to enjoy it more, and maybe I just have to stop pressuring him. Or maybe not. Maybe it just shouldn’t matter. After all, he may not LOVE it, but he Shows Up, and that should count for more than I’ve been counting it. And I guess I have to respect and support that as much as he respects and supports my need to have this kind of retreat in my life.

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Meal Planning Challenge: Guests with Food Restrictions

We are having guests over for dinner in a couple of weeks, and they have some food limitations. It is making meal planning a challenge – but a FUN challenge, because I want to find the correct combination of things that will make it enjoyable for them. The limitations are as follows:

  • One family member has celiac disease and cannot eat gluten.
  • One family member cannot eat milk products.
  • One family member is vegetarian.

I keep thinking of The Perfect Food! and then realizing it is totally not perfect. (Mushroom lasagna! I’ll just use gluten free noodles! Oh wait. Cheese.) The best option I have come up with is a make-your-own-sandwich bar, where we provide lots of meats and cheeses and veggies and breads – and include some gluten-free rolls on a separate plate. But… then again, what might a vegetarian eat on a sandwich? Marinated portabellas? I don’t like sandwiches, so I am not really the best person to plan a sandwich bar, I guess.

Maybe what I am talking myself into is, in fact, a big SALAD bar. Then I can completely skip the bread issue by not having ANY and I can include some chickpeas and kidney beans as proteins for the vegetarian?

But I am learning that gluten is a sneaky bugger, and so I will need to be really careful that none of the dressings have gluten. And now I am thinking, sadly, that maybe children will not be as diggety-down with the salad bar as the adults might be. I can picture my daughter eating a handful of cherry tomatoes and then filling her plate with air. She eats air most days, so it wouldn’t be a big departure but I try not to purposely make food I KNOW she won’t eat.

Okay. So we could… grill hot-dogs and hamburgers and some meat-free burgers or portabella steaks. (I read that hotdogs can have gluten, so I will need to be on the lookout for that.) And have gluten-free buns. And gluten-free-mac-and-cheese for the kids. That seems doable, I suppose. The problem is, always, the weather. Which may or may not cooperate. I would rather have an inside-the-house kind of option, I guess. That also ensures that my husband isn’t stuck at the grill all night.

We could do a taco bar… but we did that the last time we had this family over, and I had black beans as the non-meat protein and even though my vegetarian guest was super gracious and didn’t say ANYTHING, I don’t think it was the most satisfying meal. Plus, I have served tacos the last two times we have hosted people (two separate families, don’t worry) and I am kind of sick of them. I want to flex my hostessing muscles, you know?

I was playing around with the idea of a make-your-own-pizza kind of thing, with gluten-free crust as an option… and providing a bunch of meats and cheeses and vegetables and sauces… But I wonder if the absolutely delicious-sounding-to-ME idea of a rosemary and onion and thin-sliced potato pizza would actually appeal to the dairy-free guest. Plus, the logistics of getting everybody’s pizza into the oven at once or on a rotation that wouldn’t mean half of the people are starving makes me feel a little panicky. Possibly I could make small pizzas for the kids and then two large pizzas for the grown-ups? And both could be vegetarian and dairy free? THAT might be fun!

Then we get to dessert. I am planning to make macarons with jam filling, because they tick all the boxes. And I was thinking about buying a few pints of ice cream (we have a local ice creamery that makes vegan ice cream, which is gluten and dairy free) and having some sprinkles (although around here they are called “jimmies”) and chocolate flakes available. The kids would like that, I think.

I really really like this family. Our kids get along. We have a great time together. And it would be so nice if I could gain some comfort with cooking for them, so we’re not always trying to wrangle our kids at restaurants or having to bring in takeout. And, of course, on the flip side, it would be really nice if they could see me as a TRUSTWORTHY host, who would have things they can ALL eat, things that taste decent and are filling.

I suppose the smart thing would be to just call my friend and ASK HER, but I a) want to figure this out myself and b) don’t want to put her in the situation of being all, “Oh, whatever you do will be fine!” and then not enjoying herself.

So: Do YOU have any experience in making meals for anyone with the above food restrictions? Do you have any experience BEING the person with food restrictions? Do you think my pizza idea is totally crazy? HELP.

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If You Have Strong Opinions About Gliders, This Post Is for You!

Internet, I need your advice.

(Let’s be honest, I need your advice about a LOT of things. I get into a panic about pretty much All Things Baby. But let’s start with one simple question and… see where that takes us.)

When planning for our nursery, my husband and I knew that we would want a chair of some sort for reading and breastfeeding and general cuddling-and-shushing purposes.

We went into the nursery-planning process with the idea that we would buy as much transitional furniture as possible. We have a guest room established, and an office, so we figure this will be The Baby’s Room for… until The Baby has turned into The Sullen Teenager.

We (or actually my far-too-kind-and-generous parents) got a crib that is one of those “Lifetime Sleeping Apparatus” things that adjusts to a toddler bed and then can be easily converted into a full-size bed down the road.

(Here is where I say that I only ever had a twin bed, and so did my husband, and we both turned out FINE and clearly we are already spoiling the stuffing out of this kiddo.)

Instead of a “real” changing table, we (again, my wonderful parents) got a dresser that has a changing table attachment. That way, the kiddo will transition nicely over the years from diapers and burp rags to snarls of underwear and mismatched socks and Whatever-the-Kids-Wear-in-the-Future.

(Here is where I say that the prospect of having a teenager never really entered into my initial I Want a Baby thinking, and the whole thing kind of renders me gape-mouthed and stunned.)

(Not stunned enough to stop typing. I’m sorry.)

We wanted to apply the same “transitional” thinking to our choice of chair. So we found a beautiful arm chair at Pottery Barn Kids that starts life as a glider and has feet you can install down the line (sold separately) to transform it into a regular old armchair.

Here is the armchair:

 

This is the color we'd want. Probably we'd have to enrobe it in plastic or something though, right? To protect it from spit up ETCETERA? (Photo from PotteryBarnKids.com)

This is the color we’d want. Probably we’d have to enrobe it in plastic or something though, right? To protect it from spit up ETCETERA? (Photo from PotteryBarnKids.com)

Isn’t it lovely, Internet?

Of course, it also comes with a price tag that will make you consider taking up carpentry just so you can build your own chair instead.

But, honestly, I have no idea what to pay for a stupid glider, and it seems comparable in price to other gliders out there.

I shared our choice with a few people, and one mom suggested that such a sinky, comfy chair might pose difficulties whilst holding a sleeping baby. Namely, that it might be difficult to RISE from the chair with a baby in my arms.

Sounds reasonable, and it was something I hadn’t thought of. I didn’t have any spare babies lying around, but the next time I was in the area, I stopped by the PBK and sat in the chair with my purse cradled in my arms (football hold style) and tried to get up. It wasn’t… impossible. But it wasn’t… easy.

Then again, I’m not sure it would be easy EVER. In any kind of chair. Barring a chair that could mechanically stand me up and push me out of it, that is.

My stomach muscles aren’t really working as well as they have in the past, after all.

Otherwise, the chair was still lovely: comfortable, with thick padded arms and that nice rocking feature. There’s an optional ottoman you can get with it (for another arm and a leg). The wingback style is nice because you can rest your head against the “wings” and take a little snooze. I mean, that’s what happens when you stagger out of bed in the middle of the night to feed your child, right? Snoozing? What do I know.

Anyway, once I had the idea planted in my head that this chair maybe wasn’t ideal, I started looking around.

The first thing I noticed was that these armchair-style gliders are POPULAR.

(And expensive.)

In fact, it’s difficult to find NON-armchair type gliders. At least in the three stores we visited. Which… please don’t make me go to more stores. The three I’ve visited are overwhelming enough.

But the stores/websites I visited had another style of glider that seemed, well, less popular but still not unusual (this one is also from Pottery Barn Kids):

 

I also really love the side table here. And the color scheme. And the wall.

I also really love the side table here. And the color scheme. And the wall. (Photo from PotteryBarnKids.com)

My husband and I tried a few of them at non-PBK stores. While I don’t mind them, he is not a big fan. And even I have to admit: most of them are kind of ugly. (I know, I know – personal preference and all that.)

But, while they are still ridiculously expensive, they are LESS expensive than the PBK armchair.

My husband points out, however, that this version of glider is much less flexible in terms of Future Use. It would always be a glider. (I grew up in a house with a glider in the living room, so it seems like a perfectly normal piece of living room furniture, but I think it screams Baby’s Room! to my husband.)

And then another mom pointed out that THIS version of glider has lots of moving parts. Which would be dangerous for little fingers.

So now I have visions of our poor baby’s mangled hands floating through my already-anxiety-addled brain.

It seems like there is a third version: the Straight-Up Rocking Chair.

 

The least expensive option, but still not FREE.

The least expensive option, but still not FREE. (Teeny tiny photo and giant chair name both from Overstock.com)

But Internet… I don’t know.

This chair looks functional.I don’t find it… UNattractive.

It just… I just can’t picture hours of cuddling in that chair with my baby. I can’t picture us curling up together to read Babar’s Travels or Corduroy or Goodnight Moon. I can’t picture myself feeding a snuggly sleepy infant – comfortably – in that chair. And I certainly can’t picture myself getting a few more winks in while the baby – safely – finishes a meal.

As with all things related to babies and parenting and the seemingly endless array of Things You Just MUST Have, this glider decision is fraught with so many issues! Safety! And Comfort! And Cost Effectiveness! And Functionality! And Durability! And Other As-Yet-Unconsidered Considerations! And and and!

But YOU. You MUST have The Perfect Glider Answers to all my glider questions, right, Internet?

Here goes:

What glider did/do you use? Why did you choose it? Why did you choose NOT to get other versions? Are there options I’m overlooking here? Do you think it’s smart or foolish to try to buy furniture for the baby that will last for the next decade or so? Do/did you use your glider after the baby grew out of it? What, for the love of cupcakes, is an actual REASONABLE price to pay for a glider? And WHY, WHYYYYYY is everything baby-related SO EXPENSIVE?