Ron's Top 5 Ways of Being Present With Gayle

I came into our relationship with at least two serious problems when it comes to being present with anyone. First, my mother was always present. By the time my siblings were all gone and I was old enough to have much to say - my mom was usually saying it all, over and over. So, I developed the skill of "listening" without hearing. You know how that goes. Yes and no or uh huh every now and then, listening for my name, etc. In other words, I was not really present.

Second, while reading books on the subject of ADHD to help diagnose a client, both Gayle and I realized the books were describing me and many of my behaviors. I finally understood some of the difficulties I have always had being truly present for anyone.

So what are my top 5 ways to be truly present for Gayle? They are:

5. Look at her when she talks to me (except when driving, of course.) Making eye contact ensures my presence and minimizes distractions.

4. Spend the first 30 minutes of the day drinking coffee and planning the day with her.

3. Don't start asking questions or trying to make plans with her just as she finishes with her last client of the day.

2. Get away from the phones, tvs, and computers and have quiet time together.

And my number 1 way to be truly present for Gayle:

1. Don't interrupt when she's talking.

Gayle's Top 5 Ways of Being Present with Ron

I remember going to a party of social workers (an oxymoron for sure) the year I entered graduate school. They had their own language. While I understood what they were saying, I didn't want to "grow up" and sound like that. Today I call it "shrink-speak" - and yes - I hear myself "sounding like that" a lot of the time!

In my last post, I used the shrink-speak term "being truly present". Let's make that term a bit more usable today.

Gayle's Top 5 Ways To Be Truly Present In Her Marriage:

5. Turn the radio off in the car when we are together.
4. Spend 30 minutes drinking coffee with Ron in the morning.
3. Shut up and listen (that means quiet the voices in my head too.)
2. Clear a day of commitments and don't answer the phone.

and my number 1 way of being truly present with Ron on any day....

1. Turn off any device with a screen (yes dear that includes my computer!)

Multi-Tasking Hell (by Gayle)

My mother may have walked three miles to school, carrying her lunch in a bucket, past a band a gypsies fearing kidnap (I know that’s not PC, but in the 1920’s she was really afraid of gypsies), but I swear I’m more stressed than she was. She had to go to a well to get water (or maybe that was Jack and Jill), but I do know the only “...washers” they had at home were their bare hands and I still think I’m more stressed than she was. Sometimes they caught “crawdads” for dinner in the rain-fed creek behind her house. She started school a month late each year so she could help the family pick the final cotton crop of the year, and yet I’m sure I’m more stressed than she was. Her adrenal glands went into high gear as she approached the gypsy camp, mine pump like that when I’m in multi-tasking hell. Thanks to email, voice mail, text messages, cell phones, traffic, the news, travel, and technology (especially when it breaks) it's not hard for any of us to go into adrenaline overdrive. (I have more to say about the effects of stress on my website.)

Poor stress and time management (read as crappy self-care) kill marriages and people. They killed my father at the age of 54. Blood pressure pills, statins, and an aspirin a day might have extended his life. However, my hunch is that medication would have only given dad more days on the planet to take really lousy care of himself. (If you really want to get really stressed - read about General Adaptation Syndrome.)

One of the things my marriage has taught me is that the degree to which I take care of myself has a direct impact on Ron. Some might call it co-dependence. I think it’s reality. When being truly present in my marriage stops being one of my multiple tasks, I put Ron, my marriage, and myself in jeopardy. If you want your relationship to work better, you better know when to stop working.

"Be here now."
~Ram Dass