It has been a couple of exciting weeks here in the Trenches, not much of which has been spent in the office. First, Mom came up to visit, bringing with her my brother-in-everything-but-the-law and her dog. Then, I helped lead the annual Collaborative Divorce Training sponsored by the State Administrative Office of the Courts. I'm back here this week (and swamped with work, obviously), only to head off to Tampa next week to watch Daughter graduate from college (Has it really been four year?). In between, we're here in the Trenches. Of course, all of this is why the blog posts have been sparse.
Right now, I'm worried about my puppy girl. If you recall, she's not actually a puppy, but a 14.5 year old dog. She's my rock. Puppy girl always lets me know how long a walk she wants, and that's how far we go. No, I'm not kidding. She knows exactly how long is each of our normal routes, and she decides which one to take on any given day. Woe to us if we try to take her a different way - she just won't go. Every night, she gets her medicines and supplements at 8:00pm, not 7:00pm, not 8:15pm. She tells me when it's 8:00pm. It's uncanny; even when the time changes, she's never wrong. Puppy girl is also my stoic. She never complains unless the dog bowl is empty or you're late with her treats. That's good and bad.
Lucky for us, we have puppy boy. He goes absolutely nuts when his girl is ill. He's so good at diagnosis that the vet takes him quite seriously. He has never been wrong and has even detected serious illness days before the medical tests. Puppy boy is going crazy. I'm afraid he's going to hyperventilate. Obviously there is something wrong with his girl and he wants to make sure we all know about it. The vet will get a call tomorrow, and given our girl's age, every illness scares me to death. Our girl? She's the calm in the middle of puppy boy's whirlwind. You'd never even know her crazy boy is obsessing over her.
Here in the Trenches, I can't tell you the number of clients who come in absolutely blindsided by their spouse's announcement that they want a divorce. They thought everything was just fine. They and their spouses went along with their normal lives and that was fine with them. Not with their spouse. Things were obviously quite wrong with their marriage. Does that mean that they were simply oblivious to what should have been obvious? Sometimes, yes, but often the answer is no. Like with my puppy girl, sometimes what is wrong is not obvious to the naked eye (or even sophisticated medical tests). Sometimes even the person who wants to end the marriage doesn't realize anything is wrong until it's very wrong and unfixable.
On the other hand, sometimes the client knew the marriage was in trouble. They saw things weren't right. They asked their spouse what was wrong. They asked if everything was alright. Their spouse said nothing was wrong, that everything was fine. Were they lying? Sometimes, again, the answer is yes. Many times, the answer is not so clear cut. Many times their spouse didn't realize anything was really wrong until it was brought to their attention. Sometimes, they just had a niggling feeling but couldn't put their finger on what was wrong. Other times, nothing was wrong until their spouse began asking them incessantly what was wrong (unlike puppy boy, humans can be needy without a medical condition). The bottom line is that any time one partner or the other is inordinately nervous, any time one or the other of them suspects something is wrong, it's time for both to pay attention. Why let something small become something serious because you're afraid of what you'll discover? Why not trust your gut? That's why the vet is getting a call tomorrow. If the marriage counselor or the clergyman does too, or if two partners just sit down and talk, there'd be a lot fewer folks here in the Trenches. That would be a good thing in my book - here in the Trenches.
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