Finding Mr. Right in a World of 7 Billion People

In case you've missed the headlines, the global population hit 7 billion sometime today - yes, today. Somehow, we can estimate the number of living people in the world with this degree of accuracy. I find this amazing since the repair guy coming Thursday morning can only say he'll be by sometime between 9:30 and 2.

Obviously a population of this size raises some questions: how do we maintain a sustainable planet? Feed and educate everyone? How can we provide access to clean water? What's the maximum number of Facebook friends you can have? How can you find Mr. Right when you've got roughly 3.5 billion options?

I have some single friends that are asking some variation of that question. Fair enough. I can't take issue with asking that question, though I can take issue with one aspect of it: the implication that there is one right person for you, and everyone else is Mr. Wrong.

If you're already married, here's what I believe to be the truth: with some rare exceptions, whoever you're with is Mr. Right (or Ms. Right, depending on your preferences). Fairy tales that involve destiny and Prince Charming and a convoluted, poisoned-apple paved path to find each other, are romantic but misleading. When you're single, it leaves you on the look out for a miracle. And once you're married, it leaves you wondering if you might be stuck with a frog when you were really expecting a prince.

In an earlier post, I asked the question, Are you happily married because you picked the right person, or because you got lucky? Today I'm reminding myself that out of 7 billion people, I am married to the right person. He's right for me because I decided he's the right one: not because of a miracle of fate, serendipity (which was a terrible movie, by the way), or destiny. It's the dozens of daily decisions that keep us right for each other, not the dozens of twists of fate that led us together.

(Some people might argue that God brought us together - and isn't that like destiny or fate? Sure. But I believe God is more honored by the daily ways we decide to stay together than by the way we met 12 years ago.)

Making the daily decision to see your imperfect spouse as your Mr. Right isn't easy. I'm imperfect too. Sometimes we act like frogs. But it's Halloween: kiss a frog - you never know what might happen.

Protecting Your Marriage's Blind Side

We are a Bears family. For proof of this fact, simply ask our almost-five-year-old son who our family's favorite team is. He will declare, "The Bears!" Note, that there is no need to mention which sport or distinguish between college and professional. There are billboards throughout Chicago declaring, "One city. One team." The advertising wizards behind this campaign have clearly connected with our household. Although, I probably get more credit (and/or blame) for this family's collective devotion. My kids wore their first Bears clothing within hours of returning home from the hospital, and we've been known to watch "Pure Payton" as Saturday morning entertainment. The aforementioned ad executives have nothing on this guy.

So, for the better part of three years now, our family has watched every single Jay Cutler snap. This has sometimes proven painful, both because of the manner in which the man gets pummeled by opposing defenses and because of his tendency to throw into double coverage. Let's ignore that second trend for now (and let's also ignore his habit of making pouty faces on the sideline). This particular post is about what it means to get someone's back. In Culter's case, the meaning is fairly obvious. When a Bears "offensive lineman" - note that I place that in quotes - inexplicably imitates a revolving door, Cutler typically finds himself laying on the ground under a pile of humanity. This happens at a pretty regular clip. In the game pictured above, Cutler was sacked 9 times...in the first half. Oh, and he suffered a concussion. It's not that bad every week, of course (although he's been sacked 106 times in the last three seasons, which is - you know - pretty ridiculous). Still, it's fair to say that Cutler's often uncertain whether his offensive line has his back. Every single play, there is a giant man barreling towards him from behind, and his teammates' track record in these situations is not exactly stellar.

A few weeks back, Amber and I gathered with some other married friends and the discussion turned to whether our marriages were intentionally supported by people in our lives. Essentially, the question was whether there were people in our lives that had our backs. Afterwards, I commented to my wife that I don't actually know what "intentionally support" means sometimes. Sometimes it's easy enough to recognize:

• A friend asks his buddy, "How's your marriage?"
  
• Two couples chat about life and relationships rather than just watching a movie.
• A neighbor offers to babysit so a couple gets date night on their anniversary.

Those actions and moments are critical, for sure; the network of support that exists around a marriage can make a huge difference on a day to day basis. But that's probably not the equivalent of a 300 pound defensive lineman sprinting towards you, right? Because that's easy enough to recognize too:

• A husband berates his wife in front of dinner guests.
• Several office colleagues are discussing relationships when suddenly one person starts crying.
• A wife confesses to her friend that she's been cheating on her husband.

What does "intentional support" look like then? Those were the moments flashing before me when I started struggling for a real definition. Getting someone's back is not always easy to define, after all. If supporting your friends' marriages just meant date nights and good conversation, that would be easy enough. Then again, if Jay Cutler always had 10 seconds to find the open receiver, that would be easy enough too. That's just not life.

I think intentionally supporting a friend's marriage might actually mean asking some hard questions. But it also could mean shutting up. I think intentionally supporting a friend's marriage might mean calling him out for infantile behavior. But it also could mean taking his side. There's no manual for getting someone's back, just like there's no manual for a perfect marriage. Every decision is split second. Every situation is different. Every single play could go wrong somehow. Still, you need someone that gives everything they have for you, for your relationships.

The Bears' offensive line played pretty well the other night, and all was right with the world. But this city's collective memory is pretty short and there's another game on Sunday. Cutler needs someone to get his back every single week. You know what? So do I.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)

Why Ziploc Won't be Sponsoring this Blog

Ziploc: Guaranteeing freshness for your
left overs and arguments in my kitchen. 

Product placements are hard to avoid in film and television these days, but some of the most awkward I've seen are on The Biggest Loser, where the contestants and trainers repeatedly break from food prep to smile at the camera and say:

"I just love the way Ziploc keeps my food fresh. It's so easy to save these healthy leftovers with my [insert even wider smile] fabulous Ziploc bags."

This is not how conversations about Ziploc go in my kitchen. If you read yesterday's blog post, Are You Grounded or Stuck?, then you'll understand this confession: Cliff and I are stuck when it comes to Ziplocs. Or at least we were until last month when we declared a truce in The Great Plastic Baggie War of 2011. 

Here's the situation:

I insist on washing and reusing plastic bags. I do this for three reasons:

1. It's better for the environment.
2. It's better for my budget.
3. It's wasteful to throw away something that's still useful

Cliff loves the environment and is equally frugal. And for the first eight years of our marriage, he washed plastic baggies mostly without complaint (there might have been some muttering involved). But a year or two ago, he drew a line in the metaphorical sand: no more washing bags. He hates it, and was just too nice to tell me for the first several years of my insistence.

Out of respect for my feelings, he doesn't throw them away either. He places them in the sink for me to wash, or puts unwashed bags in a kitchen drawer so he can reuse them for the snacks he takes to work. 

There's just one problem: this annoys me. I don't really like washing them out either. And that stack of crumby Ziplocs was really getting out of control. 

The Great Plastic Bag War of 2011 came to a rather undramatic end last month when I, barely able to close the kitchen drawer where the dirty bags are housed, complained to a friend. "These are so gross. What am I supposed to do with them?" 

Cliff, who was standing near by, gave the obvious answer: "Wash them out. I told you I wasn't going to do it."

We then launched into a good-natured but vigorous defense of our own positions that probably sounded something like the old "Whose on first?" routine. It ended with our friend saying, "Promise me you'll write about this on the blog." (Promise kept, DF.)

It was all comically ridiculous, in a cheerful sort of way. But it left me with a realization: I guess I can't be angry about a situation I've created, right? Because the truth is, if I want to improve our family's environmental footprint, or save more money, or even waste less, there are better places to start than Ziplocs. 

It's easy to get caught up in these worthless cycles of debate over relatively meaningless topics. You're stuck. So was I. Until I realized I was stuck in a crumby Ziploc jail of my own making. 

So what happened? Nothing. There's still a stack of used, crumb-filled Ziplocs in my husband's desk drawer at work...he just knows better than to bring them home now. There's probably a freshly washed bag in the sink, too. It's okay for me to hang on to my miserly Ziploc ways, as long as I don't blame Cliff for drawing a different line than I do. 

"I just love the way these fabulous Ziploc keeps my marriage fresh." [Insert wide smile].  

Are You Grounded or Stuck?

Yep. This doesn't look good.
(Borrowed photo from here.)

Last weekend Cliff and I were at our church's annual retreat, which is (frankly) usually most memorable for the apple orchard trip on Saturday afternoon, and the "after party" on Saturday night. But this year I walked away with a little gem of wisdom that I've been ruminating on for the last 72 hours or so:

Being grounded is different than being stuck.

This is one of those obvious pieces of brilliance that we never forget but never quite remember either. So since Saturday I've been looking at different aspects of my life, and asking, "Am I grounded, or am I stuck?"

It's a fun little mental game. Being grounded is when you feel settled and at peace. Things might be a little routine, but the routine is comforting for both partners. Being stuck is when you can't or won't break out of the routine on occasion. It's having the same fight over and over. It's never doing anything but Netflix on Friday night. It's not having taken your socks off in bed since the honeymoon.

In her book "Divorce Busting" (which I highly recommend, by the way), psychologist Michelle Weiner-Davis tells a great story from anthropologist Gregory Bateson, who is probably best known for being Margaret Mead's third (and most lasting) husband.

Bateson was asked to observe some otters at a zoo. The otters, normally playful, and grown quite listless over the course of several weeks, to the point that their health was endangered because of their lazy behavior. Bateson observed them for awhile, noting their inactivity. On a lark, he dangled a piece of paper tied to a string into their pool, and suddenly the otters were wild with activity.

The otters were bored. They were stuck. All it took to shake things up was a little variation in their scenery: a simple piece of paper on a string.

What's your paper to get you unstuck? Weiner-Davis says when you come to an impasse, a place of being stuck, big or small, Change Something. Anything. Have that same fight in the shower. Move furniture around. Try a new restaurant. Get unstuck.

Seven Year Itch Letters: How China is Fighting High Divorce Rates

A few weeks ago I mentioned Mexico City's proposed attempt to lower divorce rates: set an expiration date for all new marriages. (Here's my post about the proposal, and here's a link to Colbert's "wag of the finger" to Mexico City.)

So now China is weighing in with their own attempt at lowering the divorce rate: Seven Year Itch Letters.

A website called Digital Spy reports:

Chinese postal authorities have attempted to cut the country's divorce rate by creating a mail service to combat the seven-year itch. 

Newly-married couples in Beijing are being encouraged to send time-delayed love letters to their spouses in an effort to keep their relationships alive.

Beijing residents can buy special cards for this purchase, and in other areas couples are given love letter packs when they register for marriage.

Will it work? My guess is that fixing struggling marriages takes more than pre-nuptial notes. Then again, it can't hurt. 

For more on the Seven Year Itch, click here. 

Cut the Bastard People Some Slack

Headlines should get people's attention, right? 

Perhaps you recognize the phrase "Bastard People" from the mockumentary classic, Waiting for Guffman. We watch it about once a year here in the Johnson household, and always guffaw at the scene where aspiring theater director Corky St. Clair (pictured in the movie poster) delivers a mournful soliloquy when he learns his small town won't fund a $100,000 musical about the town's history.

It's worth watching the clip here at YouTube.

Assuming you didn't watch the clip and haven't seen the movie, here's what happens: Corky sort of loses it, but in a very quiet way. And he ends up declaring that the whole town council are "bastard people" because of their decision not to fund his pet project.

We've all encountered bastard people, right? (I know some of you don't like language: hang with me anyway, okay? Besides, Cliff assures me swearing is okay as long as it's a quote.) The guy driving the car that swings into the parking spot you were politely signaling to take. The woman at the restaurant who berates the $7/hour waitress for messing up her order. The clerk at the city office who neglects to tell you to complete a certain form, forcing you to wait in the 30 minute line for a second time.

Maybe there are days you feel you're married to a bastard person: I won't even bother giving examples, because you can probably think of your own.

But here's the thing, the town council in Waiting for Guffman wasn't really full of bastards: they were probably nice family people who rescue cats from tall trees and take cookies to the widower down the street. The guy who took your parking spot was probably preoccupied, thinking about the pro bono law case he was working on. The woman at the restaurant might have just gotten off the phone with the hospice care nurse at her mother's house. That city clerk probably sings in her church choir and volunteers with the Red Cross.

We have a tendency to view other people's situational actions (stealing your parking spot) as a reflection of their overall character. This is called "fundamental attribution error." Gretchen Rubin, in The Happiness Project, explains it this way:

When other people's cell phones ring during a movie, it's because they're inconsiderate boors; if my cell phone rings during a movie, it's because I need to be able to take a call from the babysitter.

The truth is, we all behave like bastard people sometimes. And if we're all bastard people, then none of us are. Deep, I know.

This  is especially true of your spouse. When you're tempted to define him or her as "lazy"or "irresponsible" or "controlling" or "argumentative," remember that one circumstance does not a character make. 

When I find ungracious adjectives creeping into my vocabulary in reference to Cliff, I remind myself of "fundamental attribution error." I tell myself that Cliff deserves the benefit of the doubt. He deserves my unconditional positive regard. And, when necessary, he deserves my gentle disregard. Thankfully, he extends the same grace to me.

So the moral of today's story is, Cut the Bastard People Some Slack, because they probably aren't really bastards at all.

PS - just for good measure, I feel it's necessary to add this word of caution: Please don't Google the phrase "bastard people." You'll end up annoyed or offended. Promise.

Similar To Me

I have been interviewing candidates for a job this week. Given that I work within talent acquisition, my team is pretty highly aware of the complexities involved in hiring. Your average hiring manager has to constantly think through whether their assessments are influenced by applicants' attractiveness (beauty bias), success within irrelevant areas (halo effect) or first impressions (primacy effect). This article from Science Careers surveys these various biases very well.

While spouses have been known to joke that they "staffed for their weaknesses," I will admit that choosing a spouse is far different than choosing a new team member. Still, I would argue that one of the biases highlighted in this article uniquely affects both who we marry and how we relate afterwards. The "Similar To Me" effect refers to a well-researched tendency of interviewers and supervisors to favor those individuals who are similar to them. Put simply, people are attracted to candidates with similar senses of humor, similar conversational styles, even similar physical appearances.

As an illustration, an old friend of mine once worked for someone who went beyond simply falling prey to the Similar To Me effect...she actually embraced it with vigor. Not only did she learn her Myers Briggs personality type, but she also determined that her personality type was what allowed her to thrive. She thought to herself, "Wouldn't it be great if everyone here saw things and reacted to things just like me?" So she started administering the Myers Briggs test to every job applicant or transfer candidate, and she actively pursued people with the same personality type. Think about that for a moment: this manager actually crafted an entire department that was predisposed to certain approaches and fundamentally struggled with certain tasks. The same strengths. The same blind spots. Not exactly a team; more like the premise for a reality TV show.

Now, it's pretty easy to see this effect's impact on non-professional relationships too. While opposites definitely attract, people also find themselves drawn towards individuals who remind them of...well...themselves. Just think about dating websites: scores of people searching for possible matches and starting with those folks who have similar interests and perspectives. But this effect impacts long-term relationships long after the dating phase has ended. Once that hiring manager staffed an entire department with "mini-me's," she also had to manage them and lead them. Similarly, couples do not stop seeking out similarities once they pair off; they also attempt to persuade their partners to become even more similar to them. I speak from experience. On a weekly basis, I convince myself (although not my wife) that life would be far easier if we both understood how important it is to keep books organized by genre or clear out old television programs from the DVR. Right? Well, maybe.

Similarities are pretty important, I'll admit. If my lovely bride hated reading or ate only raw foods or watched Fox News, we would have encountered some minor turbulence along the way. But imagine if we truly succeeded in marrying people just like us. That would mean my wife was also apt to conveniently overlook house projects and interrupt during conversations. To be fair, we would also want to see the same movies and eat pizza every night. So there are some pros and cons here. Regardless, life would be a little less interesting. Complete similarity may be something we're biased towards, but sometimes our natural biases are misguided.

Remember that boss I mentioned earlier? Well, it turned out she had been scoring those Myers Briggs Type Indicators completely wrong. She hired an entire team of people that were completely opposite of her. Funny, right? One thing's for sure: chasing similarity isn't always a good thing.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)

If You're Not Happy and You Know It, Read This Blog

Does this make you happy?
You can order the mousepad at this link. 

Happiness is something I can't seem to escape - the topic, I mean. Not the state of being.

It's been given to me as a reason to marry someone: "He makes me so happy."

And a reason to divorce someone: "I can't spend my life being unhappy like this."

And it keeps coming up in what I'm reading. Here are the same concepts, presented in very different voices:

"Maybe marriage isn't meant to make you happy, it's meant to make you holy." - Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (See the Resources page of this blog for my thoughts on this book.)

"F*ck happy. The point of living isn’t to be in a perpetual state of fairy-tale ecstasy; it’s to find the meaning of life, the meaning of your life." - Rachel Combe, writing for Elle Magazine (See this link to my comments on the article - includes a link to her article, 'Til Whatever Do Us Part, the best thing I've read on marriage in a long time.)

It's also on my mind because I've been reading Gretchen Reubin's The Happiness Project, a book that I'll undoubtedly blog about when I finish.

And again the topic arose today in a great article published on Psychology Today's website, Is Happiness Even the Point, by Melissa Kirk.

Taking all this into account, I'm creating a theory of happiness. So far, it has four points:


1. Being happy is most definitely not the point.
Happiness isn't the point of marriage. It's not the point of parenthood. Or friendship. Or work. Or life. It's a nice, hopefully frequent, side effect of those things. But expecting constant happiness usually leads to its opposite.

Quoting Melissa Kirk in the article mentioned above: "It made me wonder if our culture's seeming obsession with the pursuit of happiness misses the point entirely. Not that we shouldn't seek balance, but happiness? Why is happiness so important, and is it, in fact, even sustainable? And if we were happy all of the time, how would we learn to surf the waves of our emotions, and to gracefully dance with our shadows?"

2. High class problems are the source of most of my unhappiness.
Feeling stressed about your job? What school your kid will go to? Deciding which car will best replace your clunker? These are all genuine concerns, but they're also the concerns of people with some wiggle room in life. High. Class. Problems. Keeping the stress in perspective is helpful for your happiness level. (Note to self: remember this.)

3. You can get desensitized to happiness.
Monday night I went out for dessert with some girlfriends and we split an incredible white chocolate bread pudding. When I took the first forkful, my toes curled with delight. I was still raving about it on the third bite. But somewhere around bite four or five, I forgot to pay attention to just how incredible it was until the last bite, which I remembered to savor.

We place higher value on things that are new or scarce. Remember the electricity of a first kiss? How's that feel after being married 10 years?

Without attentiveness, our happiness fades over time, even if the circumstances haven't changed.

4. Happiness didn't make me who I am.
Kirk again: "The happy, peaceful time was a welcome respite from my normal worries and struggles, but if I had stayed there, I wouldn't be learning the lessons I'm currently learning about how to stay balanced in those times when things aren't going so well. Without the struggle, I learn nothing ..."


So that's my start on a theory of happiness. What am I missing? 

Mexico City Considers Setting a Two Year Expiration Date for Marriages

Mexico City lawmakers have proposed a change to the city's civil code to set a two year expiration date to new marriages. As Reuters put it, "'Til 2013 do us part."

The idea is to help couples avoid the heartbreak of a lengthy divorce process by building separation into the marriage contract: 

The minimum marriage contract would be for two years and could be renewed if the couple stays happy. The contracts would include provisions on how children and property would be handled if the couple splits.

“The proposal is, when the two-year period is up, if the relationship is not stable or harmonious, the contract simply ends,” said Leonel Luna, the Mexico City assemblyman who co-authored the bill. “You wouldn’t have to go through the tortuous process of divorce,” said Luna, from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, which has the most seats in the 66-member chamber.

So suddenly marriage is like the can of tomatoes I have in my kitchen cabinets: good now, but with a documented shelf life? Or like the library book I can check out, but have to promise to return. 

Mexico City is missing the mark. The point of marriage IS the commitment. Without the intention of making things work for a lifetime, you miss out on some of the best long term benefits of marriage: the joy of creating a life together, the way intimacy and pleasure grow over the years, discovering more of who you are through and with another person, the security of having someone who is contractually obligated to have your back. 

With high divorce rates making headlines, it's tempting to think laws like this (which, to clarify, has not yet been put into effect) can shortcut headaches and heartaches. Maybe, for a few, they can. But my observation is that divorce is always messy (pre-nups haven't changed that, right?) and no law will help you avoid that. 

More importantly, trivializing marriage by putting a shelf-life stamp on it doesn't set couples up for success. Who among us really wants a trial marriage? Will you really work at something that's set to expire in 24 months? 

Let me say it again, the point of marriage is the commitment. You can have relationships that fulfill your need for intimacy or sex or companionship outside of marriage: but your marriage relationship is most likely the only relationship in which you've both committed to create and share a life together, 'til death do us part. That's the beauty of it. Don't take that away.