As I mentioned in my last blog post, Eric and I are now in Texas and just finished a weekend of activities surrounding his 20th high school reunion. We went to the football game last Friday night for the homecoming game. Now to be honest, the entire time I was in high school, the concept of “homecoming” escaped me completely. At that time, it was simply an excuse to dress up and be given a huge mum with all sorts of bells and whistles draped from it (literally). For those of you who did not have that tradition, allow me to put a picture here for you:
Now that we are older, the term “homecoming” has an entirely different meaning. Scores of alumni from different years (5, 10, 20, 25, 35 years) came home to watch their old team play football and – in this particular case – lose. Eric went to a private school which has grown tremendously since he graduated. When the new campus was built, the alumni room was placed strategically in between the basketball gym and the football stadium with huge picture windows overlooking the court on one end of the room and the and field at the other end of the room. Designed to allow the alumni the privacy to catch up with each other AND watch the game, it was indeed the perfect place to visit.
And so we did just that. While a pitiful few showed up for Eric’s reunion, it was nevertheless enjoyable to meet with these people who had known my husband two decades ago and hear the stories from their perspective. For years, I have been besieged with reminiscings of the “good old years” and to hear the stories retold through the eyes of others was nothing short of hilarious.
This got me to thinking about Schmuly Boteach and his book The Kosher Sutra. His perspective on eroticism is that when we begin to see our lover in the same old way, the passion fizzles. We stop looking for the new things that are blossoming in our lover and we fall back on the assumption that we just know them. And after a while, that knowledge actually contributes to a certain boredom which sets the tempo of our relationship. Is there comfort in the knowledge that you have built years of history with this certain person and they understand you? Absolutely. But when all the mystery of who they are becoming as a person is removed and replaced with an arrogant assumption of knowledge and understanding, then your relationship gets in trouble.
This weekend, I had the privilege of seeing my husband through the eyes of people who had not seen him for years. I was able to watch their expressions and hear their comments. Some reflected the man I know. I heard stories of mischief and sacrifice and how rarely he got “caught”. Some described a man foreign to me. One lady talked about how nice and sweet my husband was in high school. Now, I think my husband is the most incredible man alive, but “nice” and “sweet” wouldn’t even crack the top ten list of words which spring to mind when I describe him. But that again is because I have a certain perception of who he is as a person. And her perception was radically different. And she gave me new insight into how people perceive him to be – at least twenty years ago. And that is good information to have too.
Being open to seeing another perspective is important. Because we can often get blinders on about our spouse and we neglect to see what is right in front of us. When his co-worker raves about something he did that was amazing, do you think of all the things he has failed to do around the house or do you catch a new glimpse of how he succeeds? When a man’s gaze lingers a little bit too long on your wife, do you label him a “creep” or do you have a renewed appreciation for what it is that he is looking at? Do you even notice at all?
You don’t have to be at a twenty-year reunion to pay attention to how people react to your spouse. Next time the two of you are out in public, pay attention to how others treat him/her. How do the people around you behave? Do they appreciate things that you have missed? Have you assumed too much for too long? How can that change your perception of your relationship?
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