Dick Wulf's Tongue-in-Cheek Newsletter to Improve Relationships
slightly off-the-wall BUT better than graffiti

The Connecting & Making Sparks Fly Issue
© June 2002, Dick Wulf, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Goodbye to loneliness and dissatisfaction in relationships. Forget divorce. Hello to connectedness and great life together.

NOTE: This is supposed to be humorous so we can look at ourselves and have fun. We are all of us a bit off the mark. We can cry about it or have fun and laugh at ourselves. Laughing at ourselves and not taking ourselves too seriouosly allows us to view ourselves just seriously enough to change, but not so seriously as to inhibit our improvement by condemnation or defensiveness.

CONNECTING?   WHAT'S THAT?

You've heard about connecting, right? Either you want to connect to the most important people in your life and want them to connect with you or -- you are already completely lost in this discussion before I have finished two sentences!

Even if you don't have a clue, don't stop reading. Reading is good for you. It exercises your retinas - and if you're lucky, you might even learn something.

For many people and most men "connecting" means plugging the male extension cord end into the female electrical receptor. So it's not so surprising that most men think that connecting with a woman is the same basic thing.

Check this if you're lost Stop Thinking Sex.

So, when the subject of "connecting" with people comes up, women salivate (they're hungry for it) and men scratch their heads in hopeless confusion for the 10.8 seconds it takes to get to the fridge for something alcoholic.**

But, some men don't drink and some run out of beer. So they have to think about this connecting mystery. "Hum. Let's see. What might connecting be?" When a couple of us can't find a quick and suitable diversion (alcohol, sports on tv, or whatever), we begin to figure it out. Or so we think.

First, we men think connecting must mean agreeing with the woman. So we let our wives/partners have their way, sure that they will feel connected and be happy with us.

Wrong! Imagine our surprise when the complaint is voiced again, "I don't feel connected to you." We rush for a beer or suitable diversion by instinct.

Failing that, we again face our confusion. That's after we have told ourselves that the relationship is more trouble than it's worth. But, eventually when we get over feeling sorry for ourselves, we start again to try to figure things out.

Then on a good day, one where the sun aligns with our brains, we start to get it. Connecting and sharing life together are related; they are pretty much the same thing. This insight can really be a death blow to those whose brains have already been maxed out. But, every now and then, one of us men has room upstairs for another thought or two. And that guy better let the rest of us in on his discoveries. Or we'll flush him down the bloomin' commode.

** Hey, gals! Sometimes it is you who don't get it. And, many, many times neither husband or wife get it -- which works! Both can be really happy, because they don't miss being connected. They also stay strangers for life.

CONNECTING?   IT'S THIS !

In my opinion, (hey, I don't have your opinion to go on, so just let me say mine) CONNECTING involves relating to each other while keeping both of you in mind. It involves caring about the other person, even if you disagree with him or her on whatever. It involves relating to the other person as he or she really is, not how you have figured he or she is or how you want her or him to be.

Connection, not television or movies, the internet or video games, is the answer to loneliness. That is why so many people who hang together are still quite lonely. They don't understand enough about each other to relate sensitively - instead, they do things or watch something on a screen together. Or they talk about "stuff" without tuning-in to who the other person is.They get counterfeit relationship and avoid true connection at the person-to-person level.

Down deep, people get married to be connected with someone, not just in the same room talking with a spouse. People get married to not be lonely. People become friends for the same reason - to connect and not be lonely.

To avoid loneliness, folks could hang out at WalMart 24/7. Or the bus station. Or they could work at all-night gas stations. Sadly, this is as much connection as many people get.

But, being on the same page only once in a while is not what connecting, relating and being together is all about.

So, why isn't greeting people at the all-night convenience store sufficiently fulfilling? It matches most marginal marriages for superficial connection. Like those relationships where Joe Beer Can comes home from work and briefly recognizes that his wife looks tired, sometimes by a complaint that she needs to work on her hair. Note: at the 7-Eleven store she can get similar connection - without the snide comments and with more talk about her exhaustion.

Here's a half-baked theory for you to consider: Connection gets harder the more complicated life becomes.

During courtship, connection is easy. In fact, I often hear women (and, would you believe it? even men) say that they felt connected at the start of their relationship, and, sometimes as long as the first few years of marriage. Why? Because life without children can sometimes be so simple that connection is easy. During courtship and early marriage there is one common interest - physical attraction and you-know-what. It is easy to feel that the other person knows what you are thinking and feeling when it is the same hormone-driven thing.

Even after marriage and before children, it is easy to feel connected. Now life consists of you-know-what and making money and spending it on fun. Some problems with connecting start to show up when one person doesn't take into account what the other likes to do for fun. But, in many cases, the you-know-what masks the disconnection.

Bring that first baby on and let him or her grow for a few weeks (after the common thrill of having made something special together wears down), and problems in connection may really take off. For the next 20 years connection might occur only around the kids, hiding that there is little connection anywhere else.

Any dissimilarity between husband and wife is a chance for disconnection. For example, if one parent is thrilled with a child and the other is not, they will begin to argue their positions and disconnect, rather than asking about the other parent's experience, thoughts and feelings in order to connect and help.

Disconnection occurs as mom and dad have more and more different reactions to the kids, different family duties and different lives. For example, husbands may be totally tuned out (for their own benefit, of course) to the fact that they only do a quarter of the housework and raising of the kids, even though both parents work. Wives are feeling tired and resentful, but the husband doesn't see it. Or, if he does, he does not respond. Disconnect!

Different experiences can quietly cause disconnection. This is very dangerous. It happens when each person does not show interest in what the other is doing when they are not together -- which is about most all of the time. If they don't know what the other person is going through and how that person is responding to life, then interactions become less sensitive because of the lack of connectivity to each other. And, remember, it only takes one of the partners to be disconnected for disconnection to take place.

As the kids get older, more and more activities make it harder and harder for mom and dad to have time to relate. They will be having hundreds of differing experiences, thoughts and feelings that are changing them little by little. By the time the kids move out, they may hardly know each other, not being much connected in years.

TROUBLE!

Many people, because they use the same shower curtain, assume their spouse thinks and feels the same about everything. They expect the other person to know and respond to their own perspective, since it just has to be the same perspective as their's. Right? Not quite!

Or they react to the other person as if he or she sees and experiences life the same. Which doesn't happen often.

For example, in the first year of my marriage, while I was in my first year of graduate school, I expected Jean to understand the pressure I was under working almost full time and attending classes and doing an internship. She did not. How could she? She might have imagined what I was going through. But, without myself clearly telling her, without her asking questions, she could not adequately connect with me. Nor did I connect to her loneliness.

So, as time goes on, husband and wife assume they are still well-connected when they are drifting apart. And, all of a sudden, they hardly know one another anymore.

TROUBLE!

Once "you-know-what" is not controlling your mind, you will each be thinking your own unique thoughts and feeling different responses to the same things. Trouble is brewing. Therefore, it is much better to assume after the first month of marriage that you are now joined in matrimony to a complete stranger - because every week each of you will have different experiences. If you remember that you are married to an "alien", you will no longer assume you know much of anything about him or her. Then, maybe you'll ask questions and begin to understand what it's like "in your partner's skin". This is an absolute requirement for connection to occur.

But if you don't do this, then, ten years later, you will have become complete strangers to one another because you did not work at knowing and enjoying one another's uniqueness, thus making life doubly good. Then one of you might connect to someone of the opposite sex, perhaps at work. Things like that happen too easily because, like in courtship, in an affair there are only a couple of things to connect about, so connection is too easy and feels complete. The superficial "friendship" relationship does not have enough confusing aspects to cause disconnection. If the disconnection at home has become unhappiness, then misery is the one thing that two people will connect on outside of their marriages. They may mistake this simple connectedness for budding love. Trouble! Sometimes, divorces and new marriages occur. Then, life gets more complicated and the process of disconnecting begins all over again.

Let's look at connection from a different angle for a bit of clarity.

Connection is easier at funerals than at weddings because a husband and wife are usually in the same state of mind at funerals but different places at weddings. Grieving or showing support for those who are grieving is simple. But at weddings men are dreaming of being somewhere else while their wives have tears in their eyes.

Here's a situation where lack of connection often occurs. The man is driving what he considers a reasonable speed. His wife is scared and, if she hopes connection is a remote possibility, she mentions her fear. Most men do not connect and respond by saying there is nothing to be afraid about. No connection whatsoever. She is scared and he is not going to relate to her and her fear. Connection would involve slowing down and discussing what she feels and thinks. Speeding back up would occur only if and when she ceases being afraid. Super connection would also involve an apology ("I'm sorry for driving too fast for you.") or a caring statement ("I don't want you to be afraid.").

CLASSIFIEDS

IN THE NEWS

LOCAL MAN GETS WITH IT — CONNECTS — SURPRISES THE BEARS

BEAR HOLLOW, ALASKA

The Feds have taken up residence in this small town, having been tipped off by the American Medical Association. Rumor has it that they are looking for illegal brain surgery. Geeeze! This burg doesn't even have a hospital. Who knows what's ever on the government's mind?

Having gone underground at the bus station (all 10'X20' of it) disguised as a garbage bin, this reporter uncovered a few clues.

I heard two people sitting in the station's four available Salvation Army chairs. They were from Contrary, Missouri and had come to visit Elmo and Alberta Zottlebanger. One of them said to the other, "This trip was a bust! They weren't outrageous anymore. The bears must have got to them. Something strange is going on in this town."

So, then I went over to the Forest Service office to investigate the bears. There I learned that the bears and other animals have returned to the area. The Forest Ranger said that after a meeting of the Town Council, a man named Elmo Zottlebanger stopped bathing with bear repellant. (Oh, that's why!)

My last stop was at the Town Council where the elected officials set the record straight. It seems Elmo did a complete turnaround. He began to listen to others and understand their points of view. He actually recognized that people wanted the bears around. Then he did what no one thought he was capable of -- he asked, "Why?"

It was such a welcome change, that this town's gone Elmo-Crazy. There are signs everywhere that proclaim, "HOORAY FOR ELMO." ***

*** Editor's Note: Such personal change IS a big deal.