Now, we open up, with our readers to share a personal story on the difficulties we faced and the ill-mannered behavior we chose. To come far from that and share with pride the length we've fought through. Read with an open heart and open mind. It is our gift to you as we welcome you into our most vulnerable moments, and life-changing turning points.
ALFRED:
I met Lucy at a social gathering after High School prom. From there on it was like my eyes turned into little red hearts and I walked around with my tongue sticking out. I told Lucy that I had found a needle in a room with hundreds of haystacks.
We would stay up talking for hours, our childhoods were similar and that made it seem as if she could understand exactly where I was coming from.
I felt a lot of acceptance and understanding from Lucy. She was very attractive and comfortable to be around. Time seemed to fly by whenever I was around her.
LUCY:
I thought Alfred was very attractive. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me. He was very respectful of me; he didn’t push me, and allowed me to take my time to get to know him.
Our first dates were full of deep conversations. We could talk about many things like our childhood, our goals, dreams, likes and dislikes, and found so much in common with each other.
I definitely felt very comfortable sharing my true feelings with him on various subjects that I found normally very difficult to share with anyone else. When he told me that he saw me as his wife, that didn’t scare me away and that seemed to make perfect sense to me. I didn’t see my life any other way.
ALFRED:
We got married on June 24, 2004 and moved into our own place together. Now that we lived together it wasn’t so easy to avoid her when we got into arguments before calling a truce. They say some men and women are like “cats and dogs,” we were more like “T.Rex vs King Kong.” How did we go from being able to talking about everything and anything… to this?
We didn’t know how to resolve conflicts, we didn’t even really know how to talk respectfully to one another to get our message across.
How could we know, we had never seen this role modeled in our homes and it’s something we certainly didn’t learn in school.
Five months after we were married we got news that we were expecting a baby. I had a strong awareness that we were having so much trouble in our marriage. We both knew that we needed to break this cycle.
LUCY:
Growing up I got my way often, more than I should have. When I didn’t get my way, I had mild tantrums, but I simply expressed my feelings and advocated well for myself. I was told that I would be a good lawyer someday.
When I would disagree with my husband, I advocated for myself like an erupting volcano. We had considered divorce and yet, I didn’t really want to fail at marriage.
We knew we needed help and so we read several books for troubled couples and attended marriage education classes.
I expected the change to happen fast and be permanent. I wanted my marriage to be perfect. The advice I got from the books I read weren’t to tell my husband what he needed to change rather to address the things I needed to change in myself.
I actually had to work on myself. I knew it was going to require effort to sustain the change and time to not fall back on my bad habits.
ALFRED:
My son and my faith helped give me the awareness that I needed to take action and make fundamental changes. I love my wife, so I told her that our insurance had now added family therapy to the list of services offered.
We began going and it proved very useful in getting some of the unspoken stuff out in the air. Once this happened we were able to begin solving some of our issues, with help ofcourse.
I learned that what I didn’t share with my wife, would only go under the rug and later erupt like a volcano. I had to begin being very honest with my feelings. Therapy wasn’t enough for us, we also read and listened to several books on marriage and relationships.
We attended couples classes and began learning about some of the crucial techniques that improved our communication. The process of improving our relationship was gradual, we fell back into destructive patterns at first but as we continued to uphold our commitment, things got better and better.
The most important decision I made in the course of this time was the commitment to always be respectful in conflict and to use “I statements.” Using “I statements force me to speak about my own situation and avoid interpreting the things my wife was saying and doing.
We stopped wasting so much time arguing and disagreeing we became more efficient and started fostering real intimacy between the two of us.
LUCY:
I learned to make a gradual change through the marriage courses we took. I must have read the wrong books, because I lost hope by reading them. It described our arguments to be destructive and without repair. In contrast, the diverse marriage education classes gave us lots of hope and taught us skills.
To really change, we decided to have date nights, and that all of our date nights would be at a marriage education class. So there would be structure and productiveness.
I began to mend the fear I had of losing my way. I didn’t know that a win-win situation did exist. As I was more patient and less nagging, I began to notice a change in my husband.
I learned to share my feelings in a skillful way to obtain his cooperation. I also learned to hear him without bombarding him.
I got to meet the true Alfred and see how beautiful he is inside. I realized how lucky I was that he chose me as his wife.
ALFRED:
We’ve come a long way from where we started 8 yrs ago when we first met. We have learned that it’s best to keep bad influences away from our marriage. We’ve replaced our old bad habits and patterns with respect, listening, turn taking and conversation.
The stability and nurture that I get from my marriage today is something that nothing else in this world can give me. In conclusion, I can say without a doubt that it was worth the journey.
LUCY:
It has been an incredible change we have faced together. A change I am proud of today.
As we continue on our journey, it is wonderful to share this with our son and most importantly, share our life together.
I feel confident that our marriage can face any challenges with the foundation we build it for on a daily basis.
