I have a theory about the Seal & Heidi breakup

January 27, 2012 by Tom 1 comment »

Is it just me or is every celebrity marriage dissolving in front of our eyes? I mean, Russell Brand and Katy Perry is one thing – not even they can have imagined it would last as long as it did – but now the news that Heidi and Seal are to divorce? It’s just too much.

The interwebs are aflame with disbelief. Not Heidi and Seal! they say. Of all the celebrity couples out there, we thought at least they would last.

Am I the only one who thinks a white scarf runs the risk of making you look like Mumm-Raa from ThunderCats?

This got me thinking.

Why is it everyone was so convinced that Heidi and Seal’s marriage was so goshdarnit perfect? It’s not like any of us could tell how well they communicated, or how well they physically clicked and used intimacy as a glue to hold their relationship together. We don’t know what their respective love languages are, and how fluent each was in the other’s.

I did a quick google of all the blog posts and news items and it turns out that everyone in the entire world who thought they were a solid couple based that belief on one main factor.

They renewed their vows each year in a lavish ceremony.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s definitely a risk that if you do a lot to outwardly show how in love you are and what a great couple you are, it’s either an attempt to mask the fact that you’re a terrible couple, or at the very least it’s an activity that takes your energy and focus away from actually spending time doing the real things that will sustain and improve your marriage. Melissa thinks that the fact I’m making this statement on a blog all about our marriage is hypocritical. But the difference (I think) is that this blog is reflective of the amount of work we put into our marriage. When things aren’t going so well, we share it.

I’ve got nothing against vow renewals. Melissa is desperately trying to convince me that we should have one, as a way to mark the amazing improvements we’ve made in our marriage over the past couple of years. TLHP alum Alisa Bowman and her husband Mark had one because they turned their marriage around from the brink of failure.

But an annual vow renewal has all the power stripped out of it because it becomes a foregone conclusion. Which means you stop thinking about whether you want to renew your vows, and start doing it because that’s what you do. It’s a little like giving medals to all the kids who take part in the race. Sure, it makes it look like everyone’s a winner, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find someone crying under the bleachers before the afternoon is over.

Do you think there’s more to the Heidi and Seal situation than meets the eye? What’s your theory?

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New wedding film trailer: Bobby & Megan at Hotel Marlowe, Cambridge

January 25, 2012 by Tom 2 comments »

We worked this past New Year’s Eve – a state of affairs that we were actually pretty happy with. We didn’t have to make any plans or get dressed up, and although we didn’t get to drink or smooch our way into the new year, we had a blast.

The work in question was the wedding of Bobby & Megan. Although they live in Tampa, Megan is originally from the Boston area, and their wedding brought people from all over the country together at the Hotel Marlowe in Cambridge.

This was possibly the weepiest wedding we’ve worked to date, with everyone from the bride and groom themselves, to the father of the bride, the maid of honor and the best man all shedding a little tear at one point or another. The reason was clear: there was major love in the room. Not only between Megan and Bobby themselves, but for them from everyone else and vice-versa.

New Year’s Eve weddings work best when they fall on a weekend, and sadly that’s not going to be the case again until 2016. But if you’re planning to get married in five year’s time, we heartily recommend it. The celebration at midnight gives all your guests a reason not to duck out early, and your wedding anniversary will always be a celebration.

 

Venue: Hotel Marlowe, Cambridge, MA
Photographer: Zev Fisher
DJ: Mike Paganelli

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My word of the year, and what it has to do with our dog

January 23, 2012 by Tom 2 comments »

As part of our insanely thorough goal-setting process this year, we each came up with a word of the year – something that summarizes how we want to live our lives in the next 12 months. This is an exercise Melissa did for 2011 and it really helped shape the way she approached the year. So, for 2012, I joined in too.

A pup's-eye view of the world

As I walked our dog this evening, it occurred to me that I sometimes approach life the way that Angell approaches his walk. You see, he wolfs down his food as fast as possible so that the walk can get going. And although he can be persnickety about getting his leash on, once it is on, he’s desperate to get out of the door. In the elevator, he waits with his face jammed up against the door, which he helps open with his snout. Outside, he consistently strains at the leash, and if you speed up, he speeds up too, to make sure there’s no slack in the line whatsoever.

Angell is in a rush: to get to the next smell, the next patch of grass, the next disgusting thing he can snarf off the street.

And when we’re done, he’s desperate to get back into the apartment – the same one he couldn’t wait to get out of twenty minutes earlier.

I can be the same. I can spend a lot of time striving to finish one task so I can get onto the other. I’m desperate to achieve and complete so I can find new things to achieve and complete.

So my word for 2012 is savor.

I’m going to savor everything the year brings, because I’m certain it’s going to be a great year, and I don’t want to let any of it slip by unenjoyed. In particular I’m going to savor my marriage, and I’m certainly going to savor all the time we’re going to spend together.

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Can subway ogling really lead to true love?

January 19, 2012 by Tom 1 comment »

There was an interesting piece in the New York Times recently about London website TubeCrush.net where users post pictures of attractive men they saw (and photographed) on the London Underground. The people behind the site have now launched a version for the NYC subway, and – crucially – are engineering a way for those photographed to contact their furtive photographer.

This is a new twist on the age-old idea of the missed connection – you lock eyes with a stranger across a crowded subway car but lack of nerve prevents you from striking up a conversation, so instead you scurry off and post a message on Craigslist.

A quick peruse of Craigslist’s Boston missed connections makes for pretty bleak reading. Half of the posts don’t seem to be genuine missed connections at all, but insipid declarations of unrequited love from people who probably secretly know that the chances of their crush ever seeing the message and being able to identify themselves in it are virtually zero. The other half of the posts are real missed connections – gentlemen exchanging flirty looks at the gym locker room, a curtailed conversation at Costco that could have led to more, etc – but you can’t help but wonder how ridiculous the odds are of these messages even leading to further contact, let alone a happily ever after.

Of course, there are success stories, like the remarkable tale of Patrick Moberg and Camille Hayton. Back in 2007 Patrick spotted Camille on the New York Subway and was so enamored by the very sight of her that he went home, drew a picture of her and posted it to a new website, NYGirlOfMyDreams.com. Within 48 hours the mystery woman was identified, the press latched onto the story, the two of them were reunited and they started to date.

Happily ever after.

Well…. not so much. They lasted a couple of months and then split up.

The truth is that when people talk about love at first sight (like Melissa did recently) what they really mean is love at first sight, and smell, and body language, and conversation. As great as my hair looked the night we first met, what really drew Melissa to me was the way we could talk like we’d known each other for years. That and the dog pheromone cologne I was wearing.

The danger with spotting someone across a crowded room and deciding that your relationship should progress to anything deeper than that of ogler and oglee is that you are inevitably going to project. You have no idea what that mystery guy or girl’s voice is like, so you assign them a sultry, seductive tone. You have no idea what their politics are, or their opinions on the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, or their religious views, so you fill in the blanks with what you would like all of those characteristics to be, and suddenly you convince yourself that this person is your soulmate, when all you really know is that you think they look hot.

So if you’re looking for the one, here is my advice: don’t decide if someone is the one until you’ve at least had a conversation.

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What a skittish cat taught me about relationships

January 17, 2012 by Melissa 4 comments »

Letting yourself be loved. It sounds like the easiest thing in the world, right?  But it’s not, or so my cat Mini reminded me.

A rare sighting of Mini

Mini has always been an unhappy kitty. She is deeply suspicious of pretty much everything, but especially people. Tom and I have worked hard to draw Mini out of her shell. We’ve sprayed kitty pheremones around the house. We approach her carefully, trying to avoid alarming her in any way. We never yell at her, chase her, or otherwise lead her to believe that we would cause her any harm.

But, despite all evidence to the contrary, Mini remains firmly convinced that we’re plotting against her. She will only approach us when we’re lying in bed, at which point she’ll let us pat her for about 3-4 minutes before getting a wild look in her eyes and running away. Around the house, she slinks around the peripheries of rooms, ensuring she keeps a watchful distance between us. She spends a lot of time hiding under furniture. Sometimes, if she’s in the wrong mood, she becomes convinced that we’re using her dinner to lure her into a trap and won’t come out to eat. When we push her bowl under the couch, she hisses at us.

This Sunday morning I lay in bed with my two other pets snuggled up happily at my side. Mini, meanwhile, crouched in the doorway, alternating between glaring at us and howling. I realized that deep down, she wanted to curl up in bed with us. She really wanted to be loved. But somehow, she had convinced herself that trusting us was a dangerous thing and that love would lead to harm.

Mini has let perception shape her reality. Where our other pets see a chance for a cozy morning nap, she sees a hotbed of hazards. And how often do humans do the same things in their relationships? We assume the worst, we anticipate problems, we fear letting down our guard, we lack trust. And just like for Mini, those negative thoughts manifest themselves as the reality of our relationships.

Letting go of those fears and giving over to love is without a doubt one of the most frightening and vulnerable things you can do. But the rewards are worth it. I hope Mini can figure that out one day, and until then we’ll save a spot in the bed for her.

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If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it: why I love wearing my wedding ring

January 13, 2012 by Tom 11 comments »

We tweet a lot. Or, more accurately, Melissa tweets a lot on our behalf.

In need of a polish

Some of the things we tweet garner little attention, but others provoke a lot of response. Like this story about how some football player never takes off his wedding ring, even though leaving it on could be an injury risk. Most responses to our question about whether people wear a ring echoed @kaitlinmaud‘s, who said ” yes. Because I love it (1) and it’s a symbol of the commitment I made to @AJScissorhands & myself & our marriage (2)”.

Last year, Prince William announced that he wouldn’t wear a wedding band because he doesn’t like jewelry, and I felt a little bit sorry for Kate that he wasn’t prepared to get over that for the sake of making an outward show of commitment. I mean, he did allow his wedding to be televised to a worldwide audience of millions, so that’s something…

I never take my wedding band off. When I’m sleeping, showering, working out, washing the dishes, it stays on. It’s always seemed important to me to keep it on, but I’d never really thought about why.

Now, after nearly five years of marriage, I like that there’s a permanent indentation on my ring finger. I like that, even if I took it off because I wanted to obfuscate my marital status, there would still be a mark there. I like that there’s a part of my body paler than my legs, and it stays wonderfully hidden under a quarter inch of white gold.

I like that it’s a little beat up from having been worn while doing manly things with my hands.

Ultimately I like being branded. I like being marked out as someone’s.

And I think that’s because I really like the someone I belong to. If I was a woman, I’d probably feel all sorts of feminist guilt about feeling that, but as I’m a dude I can totally get away with it.

Do you wear your wedding band all the time? Or at all? How do you feel about having an external marker that tells the world what your status is?

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Death, snow and unpainted walls: remembering our first year in Boston

January 11, 2012 by Melissa 4 comments »

January, 2008. Four years ago this month, Tom and I (plus our little cat, Pedro) moved from London to Boston.

We had been married for just under a year. A year defined by endings and good-byes. Our new life hung before us like a blank canvas, waiting to be painted. It was the start of an adventure.

View from the window, January 2008

But I don’t remember feeling like I was on an adventure. When I look back at those first months in Boston, I recall an omnipresent anxiety about getting our lives in place, making decisions, becoming established. I had a peculiar sense of disorientation as I tried to settle into a place that hadn’t been my home for more than eight years. The bewildering familiarity. The foreign sense of sameness. Like trying on old clothes that don’t fit anymore.

I always said that I would never move back to Boston in winter. Yet there we were, arriving in hard, frosted January. The ground was piled with snow and the drifts got deeper with each week’s storms. It was a frigid winter. The cold got into my bones early and left me chilled for the whole season; I never felt warm that first winter no matter how many sweaters and socks I piled on my shivering skin.

We were staying with my brother, who had just bought an old colonial house in the suburbs. A place called Melrose, it was small and neighborly with a little Main Street and not much to do after 8 PM. You needed a car to get anywhere and we didn’t have one. Couldn’t get one until we got jobs. After London, Melrose felt like Mars. The house my brother bought was a “fixer upper” which he would soon make over into a beautiful home.

Our bedroom at my brother's house, January 2008

At that point, in the winter of 2008, it was a crumbling relic. The wallpaper had been stripped and the walls were yet to be painted, the ceilings were cracking, the furnace was on its last legs and the kitchen looked like time had stopped in 1972.

Every day, Tom and I applied for jobs while a parade of painters, contractors and appliance delivery men worked around us.

And then there were my grandparents. My grandfather, unable to breathe without an oxygen tank and painfully underweight, couldn’t get out of bed one day in April. He asked why there was a bird perched on the wall, watching him. We took him to the hospital and that’s where he died, a few days later. My Grandmother, his wife of more than 50 years, didn’t want to live in their house alone. Never the easiest woman, she didn’t want to go anywhere else either. She went through hired homecare workers like tissues, none of them strong enough to last with her.

My Grandmother was lost and scared, but it was hard for any of us to be patient with her. She wanted every member of our small family to be with her at all times, so Tom and I spent many nights and weekends at her house. Tough, draining nights and weekends that defined our first year in Boston, our second year of marriage.

Weeks after my Grandfather died, my Grandmother was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in her lungs and liver. She succumbed in October, on a hospice bed in the formal living room at their house; the all-white room that no one ever sat in. She was the first person I saw die.  She didn’t seem ready to go.

In the midst of all this, Tom and I got jobs. We bought a car and a house, too. We filled the house with furniture, we painted the walls and landscaped the garden. We were getting our lives in place, but none of my anxiety was easing. The job gave me little satisfaction. I resented the long hours and dreaded the commute from the city to the suburbs. I was convinced there was a ghost in the house. I hated to be there alone. I looked at the paintings on the walls, the flat screen televisions, the vases, the lawn furniture and flower pots and I wished they didn’t belong to me. They pressed on me like a weight that I couldn’t get out from underneath.

A lot happened that year, but none of it felt like it happened to me. It happened around me, I was present, but I wasn’t really in it. Later, Tom and I would talk about some of the decisions we made and neither of us could really remember who made them, or why. Big decisions, like about buying the house. I thought you wanted to buy a house in Melrose. No, I thought you did.

Oh.

We could have got stuck there, at the place where we started four years ago. But we didn’t. Sometimes I’m surprised we made it through. But we did. Looking back, I remind myself that we wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t start there.

But I also thank my lucky stars that January, 2008 is far behind us.

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What a Scorcese movie taught me about marriage

January 9, 2012 by Melissa 2 comments »

Over the holidays, we watched Living in the Material World, the Martin Scorcese documentary about George Harrison. It was utterly fascinating and I could write a whole blog about what a compelling, paradoxical, talented and larger-than-life character the “quiet Beatle” was.

For me, the most interesting moment of the documentary came during an interview with George’s wife of 30 years, Olivia Harrison. She made a simple, but brilliant, observation about the secret to staying married for so long:

I’m not one to say that people should stay in a miserable marriage no matter what, or claim that divorce is evil. I support people’s right to call time on their marriage if it’s not working. But I loved what Olivia Harrison had to say about the commitment she made to her marriage, and the rewards she reaped for sticking with it through good times and bad. She was glad, in the end, that she stayed with George even though he wasn’t always the perfect husband. She felt her life, and their marriage, had been enriched by the hardships they endured.

It’s an interesting frame of reference the next time you hit a tough patch in your own marriage. You can look at it as a reason to walk away. But you can also look at it as an opportunity to work through a challenge with your partner. I know that one of the darkest and most troubled periods in my own marriage actually led Tom and I to make incredible discoveries about who we were and what we wanted as a couple. Funnily enough, we wouldn’t be as strong and happy as we are today without enduring a period when we wondered if our marriage would survive.

There are rewards to sticking with it. So take inspiration from knowing that the toughest of times can be the making of your marriage.

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We had the best holidays EVA! Here’s the evidence…

January 5, 2012 by Melissa 5 comments »

Me, being non-Grinchy with the pup

Tom and I just spent our 8th Christmas together and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was the best one yet. Frankly, the competition wasn’t tough as I have been a notorious Christmas Grinch. But as regular followers will know, this year I vowed to kick the Grinch out of my marriage. There’s definitely something to this whole power of positive thinking concept. Once I decided to have a good attitude about the holidays, they magically became amazing. I don’t want to claim I have the power to control things with my mind… but it kinda’ seemed that way.

Over the course of December, we rested, relaxed, baked, caught up with friends and family, went on lots of fun dates and it all culminated with a whole week off between Christmas and New Year. My birthday is on the 27th, another reason why I’m usually grumpy around Christmas (because it always overshadows a day that’s supposed to be about ME, ME, ME.) This year, I decided to get over my usual birthday bad attitude and enjoy the day.

Birthday girl, shot with new lens

Tom, as usual, went out of his way to make it extra special with the crowning highlight of booking me in for a one-hour massage at my favorite spot (bliss, bliss). I also got so many amazing presents including my favorite make-up from my in-laws; beautiful jewelery, clothes and a watch from my parents; and for all you photo geeks out there, a Canon 50mm macro 2.5 from my brother and a Canon Speedlight 580 EX II from Tom (i.e. a fancy flash).

 

 

 

New birthday necklace from the 'rents, also shot with new lens

 

Unusually for us, we used the time off to primarily kick back and unwind, rather than work. Ok, we did sneak in a little bit of work: we filmed an incredible, uplifting, can-you-feel-the-love-in-the-room wedding on New Year’s Eve. And we also had an inspiring 2012 goal-setting meeting at Top of the Hub, a local restaurant with epic views over Boston. It was the ideal setting for blue sky thinking and we came up with a long list of professional and personal goals and plans for 2012 that we’re so excited about including a creative, marriage-focused project that we’ll be sharing with you soon (suspense!).

Tom looks ahead to 2012

 

So all told, we finished 2011 on a high note and I’m actually a little sad to see the holidays end (so weird for a reformed Grinch). We’re excited for the year ahead on this blog, with our business and in our marriage. We’re really looking forward to seeing what comes next.

How were your holidays? Did you manage to relax and recharge? What are you excited for in 2012?

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Boston Magazine successfully challenges stereotypes about singles, but perpetuates an outdated view of marriage

January 3, 2012 by Melissa 3 comments »

The cover story of the January issue of Boston Magazine is called “Single By Choice“. The piece, by Janelle Nanos, focuses on the rising number of people who remain single; the reasons behind their decision not to marry; and the discrimination they face from employers, smugly married friends and (worst of all) the U.S. Government. According to the article there are more than 1,000 federal provisions and benefits that favor married couples over singles. Seems pretty unfair, especially when you consider the growing trend for people to stay single longer (the median marrying age here in Massachusetts is 30), if not forever.

Here at The Long Haul Project, we’re about respecting how people to choose to live their lives: whether it’s gay or straight, religious or atheist, married or single. We’re all for articles that challenge stereotypes (not all single women are crazy cat ladies) and address misconceptions (a lot of the studies claiming married people are happier, healthier and wealthier don’t stand up to scrutiny).

BUT ( and that’s a big but) one thing we didn’t like about the article was that in the process of debunking stereotypes about singles, it enforced stereotypes about marriage. This article equates marriage with kids and white picket fences. It says that many married couples are in “greedy marriages” where they hide away (in their house in the suburbs with the white picket fence, perhaps?) and never talk to their friends or neighbors again. One quote from the article that typified the way it portrayed marriage was from Trish Hogan of Cambridge, who said she never got married because “you find that life is just so interesting.”

When you look at it that way, it’s no wonder people are choosing to stay single in their droves.

We think the picture Boston Magazine painted of marriage in this story is as outdated as the idea of calling an older, single woman a spinster. When we got married we bought into this misconception, too. We thought: Single= fun and exciting. Married= boring and complacent.

What we learned over time, and what we like to share with others, is that your marriage can be whatever you want it to be. You can choose not to have kids or wait until later in life to have them. You can travel and have adventures together. You can live in the city and have a rich social life. Your career can flourish.You can try new things, take up new hobbies, change and grow. Most of the married couples we know, and those that we’ve met an interviewed for this project, are nothing like the marriage stereotypes in this article.

Your life is as interesting and rich as you make it, married or single. So while we love Boston Magazine celebrating how great the single life can be, we’d love for them to reconsider what marriage means today.

Anyone else out there read the Boston Magazine article and have any thoughts to share?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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