His comment:
“I have had to learn to shut my mouth to keep the peace at home. Smoking weed helps me with this so I don’t call out my wife’s behavior. I am not going to risk my marriage or my family over stupid disagreements. I just light up a joint and go do my own thing. I know it sounds dumb, but that is the best way to keep the peace as an aging man with a family.”
My response
Dear Friend,
Thank you for being open about what you shared. That acknowledgment alone takes courage.
I know a few men that think the same thoughts, feel the same fears, but never speak them out loud.
I hear how much your family and marriage mean to you and I respect that immensely. Family comes first.
But here is one concern …
Peace bought by silence or passivity is a fragile peace. It is understandable to want calm, to avoid the sparks that might start a fire, but sometimes avoiding hard conversations quietly builds a different kind of distance.
Real closeness, the most respectful and fulfilling kind, comes when we can stand in our truth and still hold each other close.
That is the hard work.
If you were my brother I would tell you to refocus your aim for a relationship where you can be yourself without having to sedate a part of who you are just to keep the peace.
That, or what the heck?!? Do you really need the weed that badly just to not be a jerk?
And I say this without preaching. I know weed can help with delivery. I know it can soften the edges.
Yet, the most difficult thing any of us will do with the women we love is find the hard words and speak them with enough care that they become a bridge instead of a wall.
Tough stuff. Worthy pursuit.
I am not criticizing. Honestly, half the time smoking weed and retreating to your own thing is probably the right call.
But I want you to know this. It is not dumb to admit what you admitted.
Many men fear losing their families as the years pass, but in my experience the deeper loss is if you were to slowly lose yourself along the way, and never make that realization.
Food for thought. Grist for the grindstone. Thank you for bringing the realness to the table.
Keep going. Keep growing.
Eric “just a guy that has tried and failed at this stuff, too” Walker