Chapter 24: Dealing With Problems

“What’s the matter?”

Greg had just dropped off the second from the last carpooler and he was alone in the car with Jim. Coming to a stop at the sign, Greg glanced over at his passenger and answered, “Things kind of fell apart at home last night.”

Jim Green looked concerned and asked, “What happened?”

“I don’t really understand what happened. The kids were in a bad mood and that seemed to infect all of us. Everything just fell apart. All of the work we’ve done to fix the marriage was going down the drain. My wife was upset and after a short discussion, she stormed off,” Greg answered. Dinner had been horrible. It was as if they had turned back the hands to time to three months earlier. No one was talking to anyone. The traffic cleared and he turned onto the road.

“Let me guess what happened. You suggested that you have a swim so that you could clear your head to think about the problem. She felt that you were running away from your problems,” Jim said.

“Yes.”

Shaking his head, Jim said, “You don’t understand women, do you?”

Laughing, Greg turned the corner and headed towards their housing development. He said, “No man understands women.”

“You wanted to solve the problem. Of course, since a solution wasn’t going to come immediately, you wanted some time to reflect on it. Am I right?”

“Sure.”

“She wanted to talk about the problem and got angry because you wanted to drop the subject. Am I right?”

Feeling a little less confident, Greg answered, “Yes.”

“You see that’s a difference between men and women. Men want to figure out what actions to take to correct a situation. Women want to discuss their feelings about the situation. You two were working at cross purposes and that’s why things got out of control,” Jim said.

“I don’t get it,” Greg said glancing over at Jim. The glance lasted just a little too long and he had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of him. Embarrassed, he said, “Sorry about that.”

Jim wasn’t all that concerned about Greg’s driving. He said, “Look. There’s a fundamental difference between men and women.”

“You can say that again.”

Looking over at Greg with irritation, Jim said, “This is important for you to understand. If you don’t bother to try, I guarantee you that you won’t improve your marriage.”

“Okay,” Greg said. Greg pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped. Once it was parked, he turned to face Jim.

Jim said, “When a man sees a problem, he wants to fix it. If you don’t fix it, how’s it ever to stop being a problem. Right?”

Greg thought about it for a second before he finally answered, “Right. So what’s the problem with that?”

“There’s no problem with that,” Jim answered with a smile. He added, “It is just not the only way to deal with a problem.”

“You can ignore it,” Greg said.

“That’s true, but there’s another way to deal with a problem,” Jim said. He knew that what he was going to say was going to blow Greg out of the water. He added, “I call it the female approach to problem solving.”

“What?”

“You figure out why the problem bothers you and you change yourself so that you aren’t bothered by it. If you are successful, then it stops being a problem,” Jim answered.

Stunned at the twisted logic behind Jim’s statement, Greg stared at him. It took him a full thirty seconds to generate a reply. “That’s crazy.”

“Not at all. It’s a perfectly reasonable solution to a problem. I bet you’ve practiced it yourself,” Jim said.

“No way.”

Turning so that he was facing Greg, Jim tried to find an example that the other man would understand. It came to him and he said, “You used to drive a VW Bug, didn’t you?”

“Yes, the Lady Bug,” Greg answered. Just a simple mention of his old car was sufficient to bring a smile to his face.

“You loved that car.”

“Sure did.”

“It broke down fairly often, didn’t it?”

“Well ... I guess you could say that,” Greg said. He’d spent a lot of time fixing up that car so that it would run.

Jim asked, “How would you react if this BMW was as unreliable as that old car?”

“I’d be pretty pissed off considering how much I’m paying for it,” Greg said.

“See, you have two different reactions to the same situation. It was okay for the Bug to be unreliable, but it isn’t okay for the BMW. When the Bug broke down, it was a chance for you to work on it and put a little more of yourself into it. It was an inconvenience, but not a problem. When the BMW breaks down, it is an inconvenience and a problem,” Jim said going for the coupe de grace.

It took Greg a minute to realize the difference between the two cases was how he felt about them. He sat back in his seat and stared at the dashboard while shaking his head. Confused, he said, “So you are telling me that my wife was looking for some way to feel good about what was wrong.”

“Exactly,” Jim said. He leaned forward and said, “You thought you were helping her to solve the problem when you were actually preventing her from solving the problem her way. She wanted you to help her understand why she was so upset so that she could stop being upset. You’re over there trying to change the situation.”

“What in the hell was I supposed to do?” Greg asked.

“You were supposed to help her explore her feelings,” Jim answered with a smile.

“What does that mean?”

“You are supposed to ask questions. Things like ... How does that make you feel? What makes you feel that way? What would you like to have happen?”

“Oh, I’m no good at that kind of stuff,” Greg said with a definite whine in his voice. He knew that the moment the conversation headed in that direction, that she’d be asking him the same questions.

“The rewards are great if you figure out how to do that,” Jim said glancing down at his watch. He was going to have to explain to his wife the delay in getting home.

“What kind of rewards?”

Jim smiled and said, “It can give you a lot more time to address real problems without it being a crisis. A woman can put up with adversity much easier than a man once she understands it emotionally. She will be happy about things that would drive us crazy as long as she knows that it is temporary, that you are working on it, and that you are aware of her feelings.”

“I’m not sure that I believe that,” Greg said. The idea that you didn’t have to solve a problem was just so bizarre that he didn’t know what to say.

“Trust me on this,” Jim replied with a smile. That had been one of the hard lessons for him to learn. He was fortunate that he had learned it early in his marriage.

“So what do I do to fix the situation? Last night was pretty horrible,” Greg said.

“Well, the first thing you have to do is apologize.”

The idea that he had to apologize was irritating. It seemed to him that it was always up to the man to apologize even when things weren’t his fault. Greg said, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, you did. You weren’t supporting her the way she needed,” Jim said looking Greg in the eye. He asked, “What if you were trying to solve a problem and she was continually interrupting your thoughts?”

“I guess I’d be pretty pissed at her,” Greg said.

“Well, that’s what you were doing,” Jim said.

“Okay, I’ll apologize,” Greg said feeling as if he was conceding something important, but not quite sure what he was giving up.

“Next, you have to ask her how she feels about the situation of the previous day,” Jim said.

“I’m not supposed to tell her that I love her?” Greg asked.

“You should be doing that at least twice a day no matter what,” Jim said shaking his head in wonder at the state of most marriages.

“Twice a day?”

“Yes. You should tell her that you love her at least twice a day. Don’t do it at the same time each day. You don’t want it to become a habit,” Jim answered. It was real easy for the words to become part of a meaningless ritual. The same words whipped out while kissing his wife goodbye every the morning ended up not being heard or felt.

“Twice,” Greg echoed doubtfully. He thought about Jack’s advice that women needed to hear the words. Jack may have been right, but he didn’t know the frequency.

“You have to let her know that you are thinking about her all of the time and that your thoughts are of love. Surprise her with those three magic words when she is least expecting it.”

“Sounds like a lot of work for something that she should already know,” Greg said staring out the windshield of the car. He tapped on the steering wheel while thinking about it.

“Look, she deserves to feel like she is the center of your universe. If you can manage to do that, she’ll make sure that you are the center of her universe. Believe me, it is very nice to be the center of someone else’s universe,” Jim said with a knowing grin.

Greg walked into the house carrying a bouquet of flowers. For the first time since they had started having their special hour every night, he was worried about what he would find at home. He went through his normal actions, getting dressed for an evening by the pool. Still carrying the flowers, he went to the back door and looked out. The kids were seated by the pool, but Sharon was not there.

He went to the kitchen and found her putting some cheese cubes on a plate. Her posture hinted at the tension in her body. She was worried that all of the gains of the past few months were lost. The thought of returning to the previous life was just too horrible to bear.