Episode 31 – Marital Magic

‘s Up, Bees?!

Lean in close today because I’m about to share a Toone family secret.

We have a superpower.

I don’t know how we got it, but we’ve got it.

We beat the line.

Like consistently beat the line.

At Restaurants. Grocery Stores. Coffee Shops. Drive Thrus.

We join a short line (or get there first) and almost immediately a GIANT line forms behind us.

It happens A LOT.

Does it happen every time?

Of course not.

But we still tell the story that way because it’s fun.

It feels good to think of ourselves as special and favored by the universe in this one small way.

It bonds us together to look for lines we beat and it brings us joy to remind each other of our family superpower.

How do we beat the line?

I genuinely don’t know.

Maybe it’s luck.

Some might say it’s law of attraction – we think we’ll beat the line and so we do.

I like to think of it as a kind of magic.

And I like to remind myself that we don’t have to know how the magic works, we just know that the magic is there – waiting to take care of us.

Which is the whole point of this podcast episode.

I understand if you’ve been listening in here because you’re looking for concrete tips and tactics to improve your marriage.

I get it if you want actionable solutions and strategies for getting along with your guy.

I have been sharing a lot of all that – a lot of the time and I plan to continue.

So stay tuned.

AND be sure that you leave room in your relationship for marital magic.

For good fortune that you can’t quite explain.

For the tide to unexpectedly turn your way through channels you wouldn’t have expected.

Purposeful tactics and focused strategies targeted toward specific outcomes ARE important.

Keep doing them.

We’ll keep talking about them here.

And while you’re plugging away doing your part to make your marriage work well, keep a sliver of wonder open to watch for the magic of how you’ll be taken care of in ways you weren’t expecting.

Whether you believe in God’s hand, the universe’s benevolence or the magic of luck – do yourself the favor of leaving the window open for good vibes and fairy dust to find their way into your life and your marriage.

Expect that your needs will be met – and be willing to let that happen in an unexpected way.

Here’s an example from my own life – I went from ticked to tickled over the course of 12 hours or so – just because I was willing to expect that things would work out without me having to twist and bend to make that happen.

As you’ve probably heard, my family is in the midst of a remodel. We’re on the tail end now… which means going through the phase where we can put all of our personal belongings back in most of the newly renovated spaces.

I spent half a day cleaning out our bathroom closet – checking each individual bottle for expiration dates, tossing stuff we hadn’t used in year, dusting the shelves and floorboards before lining everything back up according to category for easy access.

It looked GORGEOUS when I was done. Really – I was quite proud of my effort.

Husband was gonna work on the downstairs bathroom later that day – cuz that one had gone unused for a couple years and – he said – it had dead spiders in it.

Yay to him for tackling the spider graveyard and saving my heart rate.

Notice that I just made it a point to see – on purpose – that he volunteered to take one for the team there and I consciously practiced appreciating his gesture.

(There you go – a practical tip in the magic episode: practice appreciation on purpose… even when it would probably have been easier to complain about the spider corpses being there in the first place.)

Back to the story – there he was, down in the basement doing his thing.

I was upstairs doing my thing – a thing which called for me to grab some supplies from the newly organized upstairs bathroom closet.

I opened the door to reveal… DISASTER.

Husband had dumped out the things I’d carefully, thoughtfully placed in a plastic bin and left the contents scattered on the shelf.

Oh. No. He. Didn’t.

I knew he’d made that choice because he wanted to use the bin to carry cleaning supplies downstairs.

I guess that sort of makes sense from his perspective for his goals.

AND – I was pretty ticked that he seemed to have disregarded my perspective, my goals and all of the hard work I’d just done.

So… I shut the door and walked away.

I needed some space for my big feelings.

Also, I still wanted to appreciate his work as spider undertaker, so I decided to put a pin in my pain for the moment.

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do – so I didn’t do anything just yet.

Didn’t do anything that is – other than leave my mental/emotional door open for some marital magic to swoop in.

I told myself – I don’t know for sure what was going on for him when he dumped my stuff out.

I left room in my brain to believe that it was possible for my needs and wants to be accommodated even with all this mess.

I focused on how everything was still in motion here – he was actively cleaning after all – and I gave space to the idea that everything will be okay in the end – if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

That’s all I did.

Just left my brain open a crack.

Didn’t mention it to him.

Didn’t figure out a new way to store my stuff.

Just opened my mind to possibility and let it be.

And you know what?

Later that night, when I opened the bathroom closet again – all the stuff was put back as it had been before.

This is VERY unusual behavior for my husband.

The guy who is constantly rifling through folded laundry and leaving it in a disheveled heap.

The guy who leaves blankets out on the couch and pans on the stovetop.

I could have assumed that he’d handle the bathroom supplies in the same old way (ahem, NOT handling it) and gotten worked up over his disrespect.

OR

I could choose to make room for marital magic and be willing to be surprised when things work out better than I expected.

Like what we do when my family beats the line.

It’s so energizing to think of ourselves as special and cared for and then find examples of how that’s true.

I’ve been hanging on to that bathroom closet example as a reminder to keep looking for examples of marital magic taking care of me – without me doing anything at all.

The bathroom closest memory prompts me to stay open to seeing magical ways that things in my marriage resolve without me pushing and planning and doing all the work.

Will marriage issues always resolve on their own?

Probably not.

But wouldn’t it be fun to watch for and appreciate when they do?

I’m willing to bet that your husband and the universe really are caring for you and giving to you in ways that you might not be noticing.

Not because you’re grumpy or ungrateful – just because you’re hustling your hardest to make everything happen and make it all work.

You’re responsible like that.

AND

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to discover that you’re not actually as alone as you’ve been thinking you are in doing the work to make your marriage run?

Wouldn’t it be such a relief to see ways that you can really can rely on the marriage vows you made to each other all those years ago?

On the day I married my husband, I vowed – in front of all our friends and family – to believe him.

Believe him when he said that he loved me.

That I was beautiful.

That he was signing up – on purpose – to be there for me from now til forever.

Some of our guests smiled and giggled politely when I said that out loud.

But I knew believing him was something I’d probably need to work on.

Because it’s so easy to doubt and retreat when something doesn’t go as expected – we are all biologically programmed with instincts to pull away.

Looks like this:
A couple years ago one of my lovely Bees did something in her marriage that she really wishes she hadn’t done.

Two months into our work together, she was still beating herself up and keeping her husband at arm’s length. She didn’t see how he could ever forgive her.

Except he’d told her repeatedly that he had.

He’d said he understood. Loved her. Wanted to move forward as a couple again.

She wanted that too.

But she wasn’t letting herself go there because she just didn’t see how the kinds of things he was saying – the things she wanted to hear – could be true.

She didn’t believe him. It seemed too magical – too good to be true.

Strange thing our brains do.

We believe, often without question, ALL of the hurtful comments tossed our way.

The kind, accepting, forgiving comments though?

We tend to shrug those off.

And the generous possibilities available in our marriages?

Most of us never let them breathe at all.

Why?

Because it seems safer.

Like if we hang on to the hurt and hold doubt close, we won’t be surprised by pain in the future.

We think there’s nothing to lose.

Except we’ve already lost what we really wanted.

A close connection. A magical marriage.

My client wanted desperately to reconnect with her husband.

Her inability to believe him was the only thing standing in her way.

She kept him at a distance so they “wouldn’t have to hurt over what happened” long ago.

Except… they are BOTH hurting anyway.

Both longing for connection and feeling lonely instead.

Both wanting to move forward but staying tied to the past.

Choosing distance might seem safe.

But it’s still distance.

Which probably isn’t what you want.

So check it out, Bees.

Where are you doubting your husband’s offers of kindness? support? love? connection?

How are you closing off to magic that could be making much desired movement in your marriage?

Where are you believing: “Ha! He’s just saying that.” or “He doesn’t really mean it?”

Or “That’ll never change. There’s no possible way.”

And why?

My good guy friend once told me: “If you husband says something that can be interpreted in two ways and one of them makes you mad or sad… he meant the other one.”

What if that’s AWAYS true?

What if you left room for your guy to surprise you? For the universe to cradle you close? For God to bring you your wildest dreams come true?

The worst that could happen is that you’d feel hurt, lonely or disappointed.

Which… maybe… you already are. Right now.

So consider cracking a window to let some fairy dust in or setting a place at the table for good vibes from the universe to influence your marriage.

You deserve to be happy. To feel connected. To be loved.
Make room for all possibilities and possibilities will come your way.

Let’s try it together this week. You in?

Choose courage, Bee and keep on flying!