Tag: love

Marriage is Like a Football Team (Part 4)

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short Stories13 Comments

A Man’s Guide to Relationships

My Five Rules of

Football and Marriage – Rule 4

Let’s start off by saying that I am not a licensed therapist or a professional counselor. My observations of my mother and father, who were married for over fifty years before my mother’s death and my own very happy marriage to the same woman for forty five plus years is my only source of expertise. I believe that I have learned some very valuable lesson in that time and feel it is my duty as a fellow man to pass these things on to whoever might benefit from it.

You’ve spent years preparing yourself for the day. You’ve trained, tried out for the team and have been selected. Now what? It turns out that when you were in school and your coach was teaching you the fundamentals of football, he wasn’t just teaching you football but was teaching you the things you needed for creating a lasting relationship. Who knew that coach ‘Earl the Squirrel’ was so damn smart?

Rule #4 – Communication:

The art of getting thoughts, feelings, or information from one source to another, without losing something in the transaction

In football, hand signals, headsets, signboards, huddles, cameras and clipboards are all used for one thing… communication. Without proper communication, the game is over before it gets started.

You are a member of your relationship team. In order for you to do your job properly, you must have the right information given to you and you must relay your information on to the other member of your team.  You can’t be expected to carry the game on your shoulders any more than you can expect your partner to carry it on theirs. Everyone on the team has a major role to play, and with each down, the role is different. Sometimes, you will need to stay in the pocket and throw the ball, others, you will need to scramble about in search of making something happen from what seems to be a desperate situation. True, you might get sacked a few times, but you always get back up, talk to your team about what just happened, and start all over.

Just imagine what kind of game it would be if the coach didn’t send in the play to the quarterback or the quarterback refused to relay that information to the rest of the team. No one would know what was happening and chaos would ensue, tempers would flair and fights would soon break out.

The number one problem with most couples is that when they begin to hit a rocky patch in their relationship, all forms of communication cease. It becomes easier to just be quiet than it is to risk making someone mad. So whether rebuilding a relationship or trying to save one, just as communication was the first to stop, it must now be the first thing to start. You can’t solve a problem without communication. I repeat… you can’t solve a problem without talking about it.

This will require cooperation from both sides of a relationship. You can’t begin to repair a relationship until you can talk to each other. Set down with your partner and make an agreement that you talk about anything and everything. I don’t mean that you have to agree with everything they say or even like it. But you must respect them for sharing. If you find that you just can’t agree on something, then you need to calmly and rationally discuss it until you find a mutually satisfactory solution. If the head coach did not agree with a play that the offensive coordinator sent in, he would call a time out and they would discuss it rationally. Sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong answer so you may need to call a time out with your partner and agree to discuss it at a later date.

One of the greatest keys to true communication is the ability to listen. The offensive coordinator listens to head coach, the quarterback listens to the offensive coordinator and the team listens to the quarterback and so on. If everybody is talking at the same time, then no information is getting relayed. When you’re in the huddle, you listen to what the quarterback has to say to everyone. If the fullback is supposed to run off your left hip, then you definitely don’t want to block left. So pay the same attention to your partner even when they’re not speaking directly to you. If you hear them tell a friend that they would really like to have Chinese food for dinner; then surprise her with a night out to her favorite Chinese restaurant. Show them that you are really paying attention to the things that they are interested in.

Don’t forget to listen to yourself. Listen to how you talk and how you try to convey your own message. Many times, in a game, a quarterback will use a certain inflection to his voice to try to draw the other team off sides. The words he uses will be the same ones, but the way he says them will have a very different meaning. In a relationship, it often becomes easy to settle into a pattern of communication.

“What would you like for dinner?”

“I don’t care,” or “anything is alright with me.” Is not really communicating, it’s just going through the motions. Too many times we will only reply with a grunt, a nod, or just a negative answer. So pay attention to not only what you say but how you say it. Which would you rather hear?

“So how was your day today?” A good start to any conversation; it shows your interest in their work. Perhaps an even better wording might be something like this.

“How was your day, honey? Did you and Debbie have a good lunch? I know you have been looking forward to spending some time with her.” Think about what you are meaning to say before you say it. Remember, a small compliment will travel a long way.

 Rule #4a (Bonus) – Always Maintain Eye Contact:

Words can be rehearsed, but the eyes will always convey the true feelings behind a conversation. In the heat of the game, sometimes there is more information conveyed with the eyes than with the words actually spoken. The same is true in a good relationship. Always…always…always make eye contact with your partner when communicating. This may not sound important to you, but think back to what was the first thing that attracted you to your partner. More than likely, it was their eyes. Perhaps it was just a glance at each other across a crowded dance floor or looking into those ‘baby blues’ as you shook their hand when first meeting them. Remember that old saying, “The eyes are the window into your soul.” Looking into their eyes shows them that you are paying attention and truly care about what they are saying.

Marriage is Like a Football Team (Part 3)

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short Stories9 Comments

A Man’s Guide to Relationships

My Five Rules of

Football and Marriage – Rule 3

Let’s start off by saying that I am not a licensed therapist or a professional counselor. My observations of my mother and father, who were married for over fifty years before my mother’s death and my own very happy marriage to the same woman for forty five plus years is my only source of expertise. I believe that I have learned some very valuable lesson in that time and feel it is my duty as a fellow man to pass these things on to whoever might benefit from it.

You’ve spent years preparing yourself for the day. You’ve trained, tried out for the team and have been selected. Now what? It turns out that when you were in school and your coach was teaching you the fundamentals of football, he wasn’t just teaching you football but was teaching you the things you needed for creating a lasting relationship. Who knew that coach ‘Earl the Squirrel’ was so damn smart?

Rule #3 – Stay Positive:

Constant negative press can hurt a team and a negative attitude toward a relationship can destroy it.

The problem with men in a lasting relationship is that we think that one of the greatest mysteries of the universe is what a woman really wants from it. There have been thousands of books and movies on the subject over the years. We believe that women are so complex and complicated that the only thing that will appease them is beyond our ability to give. We have been so brainwashed by the negative that we know that no matter what we try to do, it will be totally wrong.

It’s not really such a “great-unknown” mystery… women like change. Just like the offensive coordinator needs a variety of plays in his play book in order to keep the other team surprised, you need to give them variety. They crave it as badly as we desire consistency.

So the question is…if men hate change and women crave change…how will we ever get along?

 

Marriage is Like a Football Team (Part 2)

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short Stories14 Comments

A Man’s Guide to Relationships

My Five Rules of

Football and Marriage – Rule 2

Let’s start off by saying that I am not a licensed therapist or a professional counselor. My observations of my mother and father, who were married for over fifty years before my mother’s death and my own very happy marriage to the same woman for forty five plus years is my only source of expertise. I believe that I have learned some very valuable lesson in that time and feel it is my duty as a fellow man to pass these things on to whoever might benefit from it.

You’ve spent years preparing yourself for the day. You’ve trained, tried out for the team and have been selected. Now what? It turns out that when you were in school and your coach was teaching you the fundamentals of football, he wasn’t just teaching you football but was teaching you the things you needed for creating a lasting relationship. Who knew that coach ‘Earl the Squirrel’ was so damn smart?

Rule #2 – Variety is the spice of life:

If you run the same play every down, the other team is going to clean your clock. Men by nature are creatures of habit. Most of us have faithfully supported the same football team since we were old enough to turn on the TV. We fish in the same spot where we caught that big one at age twelve, even if we haven’t caught anything there in years, and we have had the same best friend since Kindergarten. We could go weeks without shaving and be perfectly happy. Honestly, we could probably go days without even changing clothes (or even wearing pants for that matter). Men like things to be comfortable. We don’t want to have to think about our actions.

“If it worked once, then it should work again,” is our motto.

But remember how practice was though, when you ran the same plays over and over until they become second nature. You began to lose interest in them. What do you think would happen if you ran that same play every down in a game without ever changing it? No matter how good you were at running it. Eventually the other team will begin to get wise to you and will have a counter play. So it all boils down to the fact that the team that comes out of halftime with the best adjustment to their game plan will win.

Your relationship is the same way. If every day, you come home from work, eat dinner, and sit down to watch television without ever saying a word to your partner… well, who could keep that going without eventually losing interest.

To Be Continued

Marriage is Like a Football Team (Part 1)

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short Stories17 Comments

A Man’s Guide to Relationships

My Five Rules of

Football and Marriage – Rule 1

 

Let’s start off by saying that I am not a licensed therapist or a professional counselor. My observations of my mother and father, who were married for over fifty years before my mother’s death and my own very happy marriage to the same woman for forty plus years is my only source of expertise. I believe that I have learned some very valuable lesson in that time and feel it is my duty as a fellow man to pass these things on to whoever might benefit from it.

You spent years preparing yourself for the day. You trained, tried out for the team and was selected. Now what? It turns out that when you were in school and your coach was teaching you the fundamentals of football, he wasn’t just teaching you football but was teaching you the things you needed for creating a lasting relationship. Who knew that coach ‘Earl the Squirrel’ was so damn smart?

Rule #1

com·mit·ment: Responsibility, obligation, loyalty, devotion, dedication, allegiance, oath, pledge, or guarantee.

The first practice on that very first day you gave a promise to your coach, to your team, and to yourself, binding you to a course of action. Now here it is…how many years later and you would still lay down whatever you were doing and run to their aid if they needed you.

That same promise is what you gave to your partner. I know you’ve heard the speech a thousand times. You must be willing to give 110%…100% of the time, but it’s true. There are no free rides. It requires hard work and commitment.

Sure in the beginning everything was fresh, new, and exciting. You had brand new uniforms, new teammates, and new coaches. With so much to learn and so much to do, the anticipation of the unknown was enough to keep you stimulated.

It’s the same with a relationship. Exploring the wonderland of each other’s feelings, emotions and learning their reactions in the beginning was enough to keep the relationship moving forward. As my old coach was so fond of saying, “if you ain’t moving forward, you ain’t moving.”

Eventually though will come the dreaded ‘end of the honeymoon’. That’s the point when you know your partner so well that you can finish their sentences. Things begin to get tense and soon you’re feeling like you’re trapped in a rut and it will take something drastic to end the cycle. You wonder what went wrong. I mean, you react to your partner the same way today as you did when you first met them. Things worked well then so why not now. You were very happy and life was great. You haven’t changed a thing over the years so why is your relationship falling apart now?

Now is when you have to dig deep and draw on that commitment that you made to your partner. Live up to the promise that you would always do your best to not let them down. The same as if you were halfway through the season and had not won a game. You wouldn’t just give up. You’d buckle down, stick your nose to the grind stone, and try harder than ever. Doesn’t your relationship deserve the same effort?

The thing to remember is that anyone can have relationship problems whether it is with your spouse, lover, parent, or child. When asked about it, usually there are very few people that can explain what’s wrong with their relationship. They can, however, explain in great detail what has happened and who has done what to whom.

If you find yourself in a relationship that is less than satisfactory you need to be able to answer a few questions.

A: How did we get to where we are now?

A losing team or a bad relationship doesn’t just happen. They are born, fed, and nurtured into becoming what they are. To turn the season around or to fix a bad relationship you must first look at what role your performance has contributed to the problem. You must be prepared to accept the responsibility for your actions even those that were brought on unintentionally.

B: Do you want to put in the effort to repair your relationship?

No one wants to be, nor should they ever need to be, on a bad team. By no means am I trying to tell you that you should be chained to an unfulfilling, unsatisfactory, or outgrown relationship. That choice and that responsibility belong to you. But what I’m saying is that no season should be let go without giving it the best of your abilities to live up to your commitment. No relationship should be abandoned without putting forth your best effort. It’s not fair to assume it’s always the other person that’s at fault. But sometimes, even the best football team can fall apart if all the players just aren’t compatible. When that happens, someone usually ends up on the free agent list.

C: I’ve decided I really want this relationship to work. Where do I begin?

All relationships, like winning teams, grow through change; they are transformed from losers to winners through change. You can’t keep blaming the quarterback because he can’t complete a pass while being sacked. You can’t throw the pass for him. So you must do a better job of protecting him. You can’t keep blaming everyone else for your relationship problems. You must begin by changing yourself. You must practice, practice, practice…with the same level of commitment that you had on that very first day so many years ago.

To Be Continued…..

Fishing

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories19 Comments

The days of summer are really only made for one thing…fishing. I recall that at thirteen I would have rather been fishing than pretty much anything else I could think of to do. Of course that was a time before I discovered that girls were placed upon the earth for something more than to just to annoy me. The Wakenda creek wasn’t good for anything more than gars and the occasional soft shelled turtle. You might catch a few Bullhead catfish or even a descent sized carp on a good day but that never mattered. It gave me all the peace and quiet I needed to try to make some sense of the raging hormones that were part of being a teenager.  Most days you could usually find me lying on the bank staring into the clear sky and wondering if I wasn’t really adopted. There were even times when my line would be in the water without any bait on it.

In most places the Wakenda creek normally ran very shallow and narrow. However in my secluded, and I thought secret, spot the water backed up into a pool of deep green. A large cottonwood tree stood at the water’s edge just off a nice sandy beach. The breeze would dance among its leaves and pluck the soft tufts from the branches and send them drifting slowly to the water below. On this particular day as I rounded the cottonwood I saw a familiar figure leaning against the tree. It was my dad.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, more than a little puzzled. You see there was more than a little age difference between me and my father so we usually didn’t have a lot to talk about.

“Today…I’m going to show you everything that is important about life.”

So I thought that this was the talk that I have heard so much about from my brothers. So I prepared myself to absorb this information. I was going to learn about girls, sex, money…you know what I mean… real life and death stuff.  It was going to be the kind of stuff that you can only learn through years and years of trial and error. The knowledge of a lifetime given to me from the one person I knew to be the wisest man on earth.

My dad placed his hand firmly on my shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. For the first time in my life I noticed his hands.  They were strong and tanned but calloused from way too many years of manual labor. His fingers were twisted from age. His touch was rough and his grip firm. But I could feel there was a gentleness that lay underneath the surface of his touch. It was a tenderness learned from a lifetime of love and caring. With the other hand he pulled a red checked handkerchief from his bib overalls and wiped his brow. His face was wrinkled and leathery but his eyes were still full of light.

I watched intently as his knurled hands threaded a large gumbo earthworm onto his hook. His tongue stuck out from between tight lips and curled slightly on the end. He held the work only a few inches from his face trying to see through squinted eyes in the dim early morning light.

“Always take your time to do it right. It’s gotta be perfect in order to get the big ones,” he said. “Leave just the right amount wiggling to lure them in…but not too much or the smart ones would just pull it right off and leave you with nothing.”

After an extensive examination of his work he nodded his head in satisfaction. Then he spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the squirming worm. A small trail of dark liquid trickled down his grizzled gray beard.

“Just so they’ll know it’s me.” He said, with a crooked grin and a quick wink. Then with one fluid motion he cast the line of his cane pole into the water of the creek. There was barely a splash as it landed within inches of a fallen tree that jutted out from the surface.

“Always know exactly where to place your bait,” he said.

After resting his pole on a forked stick protruding from the soft earth, he removed his sweat stained ball cap, ran his twisted fingers through his thin silver hair and took a long swig from his bottle of wine. He leaned back against the old cottonwood tree…wriggled his body a little in search of the most comfort. Then he spat out another stream of tobacco juice and went to sleep.

I wanted to give him the time to provide the answers at his own pace. So for several minutes I watched him lying there in the warm sunshine. The only sound was the sough of the wind in the willow trees and the long mournful whistle of the distant Burlington Northern making its way east with a load of grain. I waited patiently, eagerly anticipating the wisdom that he was going to share with me. I had so many questions that needed answers. I wasn’t sure where to begin.

“What the hell?” I asked myself. “Is this all there is? Where are all the answers about women, sex, work, politics, war and money?”

Now, nearly half a century later, I understand one thing, that no matter how paramount my problems may seem to be at the time, I always look back to that day and realize. He had told me everything I needed to know