"Jesus told me to grow the *%ck up": a response to the Countess

In a comment below my Monday post about men and childishness, the Countess asked:

Hugo, I know you're changing your habits. I'd like you know, if you don't mind my asking, how you've changed in relation to your latest marriage compared to your past marriages. Lots of people, both male and female, can understand what you mean by doing things around the house you should be doing anyway as "chores". How did you change your point of view on that? For instance, I understand your view of chores. I used to hate food shopping because I saw it as a chore. That has changed since I've learned that I like to cook. Rather than seeing food shopping as a chore now, I see it as preparation for what I know will be a great meal on my part. I see the end product. Hence, my view of shopping as a "chore" has changed. I'd like to hear how you've changed your point of view. You seemed to have changed quite a bit over the years, and I'm sure that will enhance your marriage. I hope I'm not being too forward or personal. If I am, I apologize. I really am curious to see how you've changed now as opposed to the way you used to be. I'm sure a lot of people can learn from that.

The short answer is, "Jesus told me to 'grow the fuck up'!"  That sounds incredibly flip and profane, but it's the pithiest way I can summarize it.  At least the lion's share of this transformation has been linked to my conversion experience.

But there's much more to it than that, of course.  When I was in my earlier marriages, I often felt like a "guest in my own house."  I ceded responsibility for virtually everything to my wives.  I remember the rock-bottom moment in my second marriage, when I walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and asked Sara: "Is it okay if I have a Sprite before dinner?"  This was about 1995; I was twenty-eight and already a full-time professor, and I was asking my wife for permission to have a soda!  Yes, she had her part to play in the dynamic we created  -- I'm not letting her off the hook.  But I was an architect of my own adversity if there ever was one, creating a paradigm where I, a grown man (the sole earner in the household at the time, interestingly) felt the need to ask if a Sprite would spoil his dinner.

And part of that paradigm of the "guest in one's own house" was the feeling that I was "doing chores."  I swept floors (badly), did laundry (mixing colors and temperatures) and ran errands (and forgot things).  And indeed, in my head it was much more about pleasing my wife (or, as I would have put it then, "getting her off my case") than it was about partnership.  I would do these chores, thinking about how I was only doing these things because she wanted me to. I thought about how if I were single, I wouldn't have to do these things.  I wallowed in passive-aggressive self-pity.  Frankly, it was pathetic.

What changed between my third and fourth marriages was the recognition that I do, in fact, have a choice about everything I do.  I tended to think of myself for years as a creature of duty and a victim of circumstance.  As I put it once, petulantly, "I'm overwhelmed by all the 'have-tos'!" And I externalized those "have-tos" (which ranged from not looking at porn to picking up my socks to sorting laundry), blaming my wife for limiting my freedom and treating me like a child.  What I came to realize, through prayer, reading, and a hell of a lot of good (and expensive) therapy, is that I was in love with my own victim mentality.  There's a lot of public discussion about how women see themselves as victims, but less about men -- and yet a lot of us do see ourselves as victims of our mothers and our marriages to women whom we choose to place in the role of our mothers.

Today, everything I do is a choice.  If I want to, I can cancel class, buy a six-pack, and go to the beach and get drunk. If I choose to, I can go to a strip club rather than youth group on Wednesday nights.  If I choose to, I can give money to the Republican party.  If I don't do these things, it's because I've chosen not to.  All choices have consequences, and only a small child demands the right to make choices without enduring consequences.  But I have set up my life professionally, emotionally, spiritually and maritally as a result of deliberate choices.  I did not choose my mother. I chose my wife, and I get to choose how I interact with her in relationship.  I can choose to cede the decision-making over the house to her, or I can choose to take an active role. 

When it comes to dishes, for example, I recognize that I still have choices. I can leave them in the sink and choose to burden her with them.  I can choose to do them, and resent her for not doing them.  I can choose to do them, and think wistfully back on my bachelor days when I ate out of a can standing over the sink and had no dishes to do.  Or I can do what I do, which is choose to see doing the dishes as a choice that gives me a clean kitchen that I too can enjoy, and something that I offer as a choice in partnership with my wife who has made her own set of choices to offer her own set of gifts to the household.

I don't know that I "chose" God.  I think He called me, and I felt compelled to answer.  To paraphrase the Calvinists, it was "irresistible grace."  But that irresistible grace has empowered me to see my life as a series of choices over which I am ultimately master. I can choose to honor my marriage vows or not, choose to teach with passion or not, choose to match my language and my life or not.  I have the memory of the "nots" fresh in my consciousness; I spent years and years thinking of myself as a victim of powerful forces (alcohol and women, chief among them) over which I had no control.  God gave me the gift of liberating me from the self-concept of a victim, and from the self-concept of the naughty perpetual child.  It's not my mother's job any longer to help me make the right choice, it's not my wife's job to insist that I do so, or to threaten me with consequences if I don't.  Every day, many times a day, I face choices small and large.  I get to weigh the repercussions, and then I get to choose -- and always, always, I take responsibility for how it plays out.

I'm not sure this makes any sense at all.  Typically, having written this in twenty-five furious minutes, I'm going to publish it without editing.  Countess, just consider this my first attempt at answering your question.

Comments

[Sarah]

Frequent reader, first-time commenter.

The realization you describe here is one that's made a really powerful impact in my own life, and it's nice to read it articulated so well.

[djw]

Curious and enjoyable post. My first thought, upon seeing the title, is that for all the talk I've heard about Jesus and God and their massive impact on various people's lives, there's something deeply troubling about the fact that I've never seen those words arranged in that way. Well done.

[The Countess]

Hugo: "Or I can do what I do, which is choose to see doing the dishes as a choice that gives me a clean kitchen that I too can enjoy, and something that I offer as a choice in partnership with my wife who has made her own set of choices to offer her own set of gifts to the household."

That sentence jumped out at me the most. I think it means you matured. That's the way I feel about grocery shopping now. I know there is going to be a fantastic meal when I get home, so I look forward to shopping. It used to be a chore. I grew to enjoy cooking, which makes a big difference.

Plus, it's important that you recognize now that you have a partnership with your wife rather than a powerful/less powerful dynamic going on, which seemed to be the case in your earlier marriage.

Thanks for answering my question, Hugo. You made a very thoughtful post.

[sophia]

wow. that's brillant.

I never could understand why I kept coming back to your blog. day after day.

and now i know. just for those surprise moments of grace i see and read. and never expected. thank you.

[Paul]

Ditto!

[evil_fizz]

Hugo, I'm really impressed. I just have one question: do you look back on your "old self" with contempt or with the acknowledgment that you were a flawed human being who had a lot of growing up to do?

[Hugo]

Evil_fizz -- and everyone else -- thanks. I'm rather pleased with this post in retrospect, especially read in conjunction with Monday's piece.

No, I don't have contempt for my past. I don't wallow in it, but I don't beat myself up for it either. I figure that my past is a resource; I can draw on a host of experiences to help me reach out to younger folks struggling with a wide variety of things. I am sorry for the people I wounded, but ultimately, I am grateful for all that I went through.

[Caitriona]

Good going, Hugo.

[mythago]

Great post, Hugo.

[erica]

What a powerfully personal post. you shared it well.

[erica]

and this from someone who sometimes has trouble refraining from telling her spouse when it is appropriate to "drink sprite"

[Breadfish]

Excuse me while I have a massive dorky moment, but that reminds me so much of Dumbledore's line to Harry at the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets about it being your choices that determines what you are. Something a lot of people never learn. I get so tired of people wanting to cry "Life is SO Unfair!" at everything, even if they don't really have anything to complain about. I wasted quite a bit of time last night (that I really shouldn't have) arguing with some random weirdo on livejournal who kept insisting that America is gynocentric cesspool of misandry that is terribly oppressing him and the evil evil feminists are conspiring to make his life difficult and horrible and miserable etc etc. There were quite a few people, not just myself, who pretty well refuted everything he said but he would not let go of it. A sort of "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" situation. I guess it's a pretty easy thing to get caught up in, because if you see yourself as a passive victim, you can just be lazy and not take control of your life and not have to blame yourself for your own screwups.

Glad you broke out of that cycle, anyway. I really wish more people would.

Anywho, I'll go be a dork somewhere else now... *skips off*

[djchuang]

Wow. Life has not been easy for you. When I saw the profile pix, I was thinking to myself: you're not old enough to be on your fourth marriage already. I've heard that divorce is the most psychologically & emotionally stressful & painful thing a person can go through. Plus, it's probably an expensive deal to file and move and all that. Good to read that you're growing and learning. Take good care of yourself and your marriage.

[Hugo]

DJ, a comment from you is an honor; I read your blog often. Thank you!

[SourAaron]

Dude-

It wasn't Jesus. It was realizing that living with a sink full of dishes really sucks, well, because, it smells like shit, amd relying one someone else to do it, is, well, unreliable. Duh.

Jesus Holy Phantasm Christ. Get over yourself. You act as though you are the first guy to hit your 30s, have your libido drop, and discover the freedom that is the ability to cease thinking with your schlong (stop looking at porn... please... you stopped because it became boring and stupid, not because of some self-professed new found ability to stop).

[Hugo]

Interesting, Aaron, that you attribute my personal transformation to diminishd libido.  That's convenient, isn't it?  If true, it would provide younger men with the delightful excuse to misbehave, because what I'm advocating would only be possible for fellows who have begun to lose interest in sex.

This is another myth I hate: that male responsibility exists in inverse relationship to male sex drive.  Absolute total garbage, but a very nice excuse to dismiss what I'm saying!

The outcome of my conversion was not the diminishing of my libido, thank you; it was the redirecting of my libido.  That's a huge (sorry!) distinction.

[Paul]

Is it Hugo? “Absolute total garbage.” I am asking because I really don’t know. Do gender studies professors study human physiology (does the “major” even require one such class?)? Are you much familiar with hormonal changes and how they actually effect of behaviors?

[SourAaron]

Nah - your personal transofmration probably has more to do with touching the "marriage stove" 3 times, and after getting burned (or more properly, burning yourself...) deciding that hmm, the 4th time, Maybe I Will Make It Work and having a better attitude about it.

You propensity to look at porn less, on the other hand... probably biological, I am afraid. Of course, since you tie the act of looking at porn to irresponsibility (something only someone with a particular set of morals will have a propensity to do) - it makes for a convenient soundbyte that turns an assertion, made by moi - about biology and level of hormone, into a conversation about morals. Bleh. I think we already had that one... and we are just gonna have to agree to disagree.

The only moral I can see you have really taken to, that might have helped, is that you stopped looking at your wife as a mommy figure. Listen dude, I can relate to that. That was probably a mistake even I made at one time. Perhaps they should make a government pamphlet that we distribute to all guys getting married prior to that age where they learn how to clean their own underwear that tells them - "hey - learn to do shit for yourself, and your life will be easier". The title of the pamphlet would be - "she is your wife, not your mom... she probably can't operate that thing called 'washing machine' either".

[Breadfish]

You propensity to look at porn less, on the other hand... probably biological, I am afraid

Like hell it is. My father is over 50 and still looks at the garbage on a regular basis (and still thinks nobody knows about it! Come on, at least have the sense to clear the browser history).

Not everything people change their mind about is a result of fluctuating hormone levels.