shimmer

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage

By AMY SUTHERLAND
New York Times
Published: June 25, 2006

AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.

In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.

Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.

I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.

But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.

Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

(Read the rest of: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage)

I may have mentioned sometime in the past that I have two children, both teenagers now. My daughter, 17, just graduated high school, but my son, who will be 15 in a few days, just flunked out his freshman year. Of the 24 credits he should have earned, he earned 3. Yes, that's right, just the three.

This is not just about adjusting to high school. This is a battle we've been fighting for years now. My son has never done well in school. It's not because he's not bright--he's exceptionally bright, something he tells me he's really sick of hearing. But he doesn't do the work. Indeed, he spends more time and energy getting out of homework than it would take to just do the work. I've tried to explain that to him, but he just refuses to get it.

So, anyway, he has to go to summer school. Unfortunately, he can only make up one class in summer school, but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Plus, it's algebra, so he should be able to handle that OK. He's capable of doing it, and there won't be any big projects to keep track of. That always seems to mess him up.

This morning, I woke him up to drive him to school. Unfortunately, it turned into our usual morning fight:

Me: Get up, it's time to get ready for school.

C: OK. (Remains in bed.)

Me: Get up, please.

C: OK. (Remains in bed.)

Five minutes pass.

Me: Get up, please.

C: OK. (Remains in bed.)

Five more minutes pass.

Me: HEY! PLEASE, will you get up?!

C: I AM!

Me: NO! You are awake, you are looking at me, but you are in bed. That is NOT UP! Get UP and get into the shower!

Five more minutes pass. No, I'm not kidding!

Me: C! Get up right this minute and get into the shower!!

He finally gets up. He gets in the shower, and stays there for 15-20 minutes. He gets out and goes into his room with a towel on.

Me: C, you have only five minutes to get dressed before we need to leave.

C: OK.

Three minutes pass.

Me: Are you dressed? Go brush your teeth, we have to leave in two minutes.

I open his bedroom door. He is still in his towel, but he does have a pair of boxers in his hand.

Me: What? Aren't you dressed yet? We don't have any time left? PLEASE hurry up and get dressed! We need to leave!

C, still in a towel with his underwear in hand: I AM getting dressed!

Finally, we leave, ten minutes later than I wanted to. He tells me I'm mean to him. He says he doesn't have any trouble getting out of bed at his dad's house. I ask why, and then he says I'm too nice when I ask him to get up.

My head explodes.

What?!? Am I too nice or too mean? You can't have it both ways.

It seems like C's always in trouble because of school work. So for summer school, we're going to try something different. Instead of punishing him for not getting his work done, I'm going to let him earn computer and/or video game time for homework. I think maybe a half an hour for every assignment completed. Maybe a carrot will work better than a stick, although generally I feel like we've tried everything already.

And lest you think the article above has nothing to do with my post, I will definitely be trying some of the techniques Sutherland mentions: completely ignoring it when he talks back to me, maybe? I'm afraid if I ignore his staying in bed, he just won't get up.

Sigh. We'll see.

Posted by Jean on Thursday, July 06, 2006 at 10:52 AM | Permalink