The first step toward fixing a problem is admitting I have one.

Hind-site - Monday morning quarter backing - there are so many expressions which all come down to 'If only I had known then ...'

I’m all over the map this morning. I’ve tried my usual settling techniques like listening to my favorite music from the 70’s:

but my mind is still jumping here and then there. I have a theme, well maybe two that I’ve been working on in my mind for some time now. I work the best when I’m just drifting off to sleep.

I’ve had this image of Lauren Bezos on my desk top for two months. Lauren is the poster child for too many women who believe their primary value is being eye candy on their dominant male patriarch’s arm.

Please tell me I’m wrong, but look at her waist. To narrow it to this point after having children requires either having ribs removed or the ribs shaved down. There is no other option.

I read an interview with her. She said all she wanted was to be happy.

Is she now?

Onto the topic currently on my mind.

Marriage is not for the faint of heart, including hers … or mine.

Then we first see our future partner they just look so damn hot, so perfect, as we do to them. Unfortunately we all come with a little luggage tucked into our back pocket. Out of site. Out of mind. Some of us come with a trailer full of fearful survival rules. If we come with that package, it’s likely we will find a partner with their own trailer full of unresolved shit. It’s a match, but boy oh boy, what a mess.

Acknowledging the whole package that comes along with that to-die-for sexy partner requires patience of which I have sooo little. Empathy? He had sooo little. And a deep desire to listen and truly know your partner, all the parts they work so hard to hide especially from themselves.

That’s hard work. In hind-site we all know that. So often we duck but ducking is the lava boiling up right under the surface of the relationship. Ducking is fatal every single time.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you. You’re thinking, oh this misunderstanding, this little blow up will blow over. It always does. We’ll just ignore it like it never happened as we always do. Reality? A trust has been broken that you are safe to expose your underbelly. It doesn’t go away. It just goes underground and feeds that lava that’s working its way to the top.

When conflict arises, that’s the time I can learn about my husband’s operating system that he downloaded into his brain in the first five to seven years of his life. That’s where both of us learned what the rules of survival were. How to behave to not get kicked off the family island. That’s when the survival cement sets in and boy is that hard to reshape. It can be done with empathic listening … not once but probably four million times before we can really say to ourselves and our partner, ‘oh that’s where that anger or withdrawal came from.’

Here’s my last example with my husband before he died.

It was Mount Vesuvius. Kaboom!

Setting the stage for you:

My default through my hovering, symbiotic, anxiety laden mother, was to let her make my decisions for me, that I was not capable. That whatever decision I made was by default - simply wrong.

My husband’s default through his father’s early death and having to become the man of the family at a too early age was to believe that his job was to take care of everyone. If he didn’t, they would die and everyone would blame him. He would be shamed for life. Sounds like an exaggeration but if you are working in a four year old brain, this is what survival looks like.

Two months ago my earbuds needed replacing. I decided I would buy a new pair. Our normal procedure would be a discussion, i.e., he would check my work to see if I had picked the ‘right’ pair. But I didn’t do that this time. I was feeling belligerent about having him approve of everything I did. But, immediately I could feel my anxiety rising. What if I made a mistake? Maybe I shouldn’t be so bold.

Well, I found a pair on line and ordered them. Immediately I got a fraud alert from my bank. Do you want to continue with this purchase of ear buds from Sudan?

Oh, oh. I am now rising off my seat with anxiety. Have I made a mistake? What should I do. OMG!!! The world will end!!! I will be crushed … well, in hind site probably not. But maybe. Don’t take that chance. Save yourself!

I got confused and pushed ‘yes’ authorizing the purchase. As soon as I did, I realized I should have said ‘no’. Panic. Heart stopping panic. I will be excommunicated from the world. I will be known as stupid. These are the rote loops I have always played in my head.* (see below for explanation)

I made the mistake of telling my husband that I had just been scammed.

He was well aware that his death was closing in on him. In his mind his role as my protector was ending. He would die and leave me to the wolves - in his mind. He would be judged as a failure - in his mind. And shamed for not protecting me - in his mind. Someone at his funeral service would point out his failure to protect me. He wouldn’t go to heaven, etc. I could go on but hopefully you get the idea, especially since all of our brains operate this way.

What he said was, “Don’t make any purchases without asking someone for help first.”

Want to guess how well that went over?

Not well.

My response?

I stood three feet in front of his frightened eyes, slammed my fist on the stone countertop, enough to feel the vibration, leaned into his face and growled

Enough! How dare you insult me!!

Oh boy. Eventually we both apologized but this is what happens to a marriage when our base book of early rules is not examined, empathetically discussed to find and dissect each and every rule our subconscious is operating under.

Oh how I wish I had followed my hard earned advice over our 43 years together. Of course I didn’t know we were both playing by our four year old playbooks until I undertook some serious longterm therapy.

Up until three weeks ago, I assumed everyone wanted to examine the unknown rules they lived by. My therapist punctured that bubble by assuring me that many, many, many do not want to look under their hood. It’s scary because looking is the contract with oneself to change.

Me personally??? I love going to therapy every week. I continue to learn little pieces about myself that still stand in my way of the life I truly want to live. But I adore the excavating. That and working out with Jervaughn to challenge how far I can expand my muscles, especially at my age, is mind blowing.

I just love it!

I am going to end with a photo I took a couple of years ago down on the waterfront. A lama magically appeared. I don’t know why. But fortunately I was there with my trusty infrared camera. I love the photo. Period.

But I haven’t been able to find a way to add it to a story. Today? Screw that. I don’t have to have a reason to show it other than I just like it. I hope you do too.

• I didn’t really learn to read very well until the 8th grade. I did not know I was dyslexic. The grade school and middle school didn’t know either and consequently labeled me as slow. I did not know until recently another side of dyslexia is an inability to spell. I have always been this way. I did not know that that was how my brain was organized. I accepted, as did my parents that school was just not for me. Consequently I labeled myself as stupid from a very early age.

How stupid is that? I am actually quite smart. Anxious? You betcha. But smart none the less.

c