We all want a strong, fierce, independent man. The kind of man that can build me a deck, get in a bar fight because some guy slapped my ass, and win, then pick me up like a rag doll and carry me off to the bedroom. A guy with muscles, a sexy smile. A guy that won’t take no for an answer.
This kind of man is my dream man. Was my dream.
Until I decided to marry him.
As usual, here at Glitter, Bliss, and Perfect Chaos, there is A LOT going on. I’m working on a new six book series. It’s a big project, with lots of characters to profile, lots of plots to build. As you all heard last week, I’m redoing my daughter’s room. And college football season has started, so that means making the ten hour drive to Lincoln for the Husker football games. It’s also nearly homecoming, so we’ve been dress shopping, and I’m getting ready to create the traditional Texas homecoming mums. As in the bigger, the better. My son travels out of town to race his karts or practice most every weekend. I’ve written and am now editing the sequel to That Boy, called That Wedding, and am hoping to have it ready for a late fall, early winter release. Which means in my spare time, I’ve also been planning a WEDDING! The full thing. I’ve picked out her dress, the bridesmaids dresses, the table linens, the princess crown napkin rings, the cocktails. You name it, I’ve planned it! Oh, and I’m doing a blog tour in October, as well as writing this blog, taking care of the house, oh the piles of laundry…sorry, I’ll stop now. We were talking about weddings.
So, it’s been awhile since I planned my own wedding, but I’m trying to conjure up every feeling. From the pass my candle, giddy, happy, flash my sparkly diamond in love feeling, to wishing the diamond weighed more so that when I chucked it at his head in a fit a rage, it would do some damage. From taking my millions of Barbie dream weddings and making them a reality, to telling my dad not to make any deposits he couldn’t get back.
Hubby and I had a lengthy two-year engagement. There’s lots of feelings to remember. One strong memory was how, seemingly over night, he went from not being able to stand it when I stuck out my lip in a pout and was unhappy, to telling me NO and having an opinion on EVERYTHING!
Come on! It’s MY wedding. What happened to saying, Whatever you think is best, dear? Wasn’t he supposed to listen to all my amazing plans, get fitted for his tuxedo and just show up at the church on time? Apparently not. All of a sudden the independence, strength, and opinions that made me fall in love with him, were driving me crazy.
He had an opinion on everything and wanted to be a team while planning the wedding. When I suggested my dream of pink for our wedding color, he said, I’m sorry, I can’t do a pink wedding. He didn’t want chick food served at the reception. The beer needed to be free. When we registered, the tines of our forks had to be a certain length. I couldn’t get the dish pattern I loved because the bowl was too shallow for eating cereal properly. Um, excuse me, who cares? I just want them to be pretty!?
The boy Jadyn is planning to marry in That Wedding is also pretty strong-willed. He lets her have her way most of the time, but he also stands up to her and there’s an issue between them that he won’t seem to budge on. Her little pout and puppy dog eyes don’t work. Her getting mad doesn’t work. All her usual tricks can’t change his mind. I thought about what she should do, how can she realistically get her way, but grow up some in the process? I think that’s what relationships are all about. Learning to compromise. How much are we willing to give for the other person? We give too much, we lose ourselves. We don’t give enough, and they lose the qualities that probably attracted us in the first place.
After one particularly frustrating day, I found myself sitting in my grandma’s teeny yellow kitchen talking to her while she made dinner. This is the woman that could make delicious gravy for thirty people with a quarter-sized dollop of bacon grease. She also managed to get my stubborn grandpa to do what she wanted him to do most of the time, without fighting with him.
She gave me some advice that day. She told me that if I marry a strong, opinionated man that my patience would be tested every day. That I needed to learn to stop fighting him and start planting seeds instead. Of course, I had no freaking idea what she was talking about and dismissed her advice. I mean she was the woman who told me that if I didn’t learn to drink coffee, I’d become a social outcast, and that happily hadn’t happened so far, so I decided I’d just try using sex. Again.
A few days later, hubby-to-be and I were discussing cakes. Back then, there were two kinds of cakes at a traditional wedding. The wedding cake was white, the groom’s cake was chocolate. There were no fancy fillings, no different flavors. This is what was expected, it was tradition. I had seen a little article in a magazine where the groom’s cake was a different flavor. I said, You love carrot cake, wouldn’t it be cool if we had that for your groom’s cake instead? To which he replied in his that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard tone, Why would we want to do that?
I flipped him off in my mind, vowed to have pink frosting on my cake, even though our colors were now black and gold, and forgot about it. A few weeks later, we were having dinner with his parents, and his mother asked him about the groom’s cake. This is what he said. I was thinking it would be cool to have carrot cake, you know it’s my favorite.
I seriously about fell on the floor. My eyes got big, and I looked at him and was like WHAT!? I mentioned that to you a few weeks ago, and you thought it was dumb. He said, We never talked about that. I just thought of it. And something in the back of my brain clicked. Grandma’s words. Plant a seed and let it grow. Is that what just happened here? Did I plant a seed, and now all of a sudden he thought it was his own brilliant idea. And I JUST GOT WHAT I WANTED??
I quickly shut up. Something I don’t do very often. I conceded, said, Yeah, maybe I mentioned it to someone else. That’s a great idea, honey. And learned a very valuable lesson. How to get what I want. In That Wedding, Jadyn is also going to have to plant a seed to get Phillip to do what she wants, but she’ll learn a valuable lesson in the process. If you’ve ever seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you learned the same lesson. The mother says something like the man is the head of the house, but the woman is the neck. She controls which way the man looks.
So what do you think? How do you feel about planting seeds? About slightly manipulating your man to get your way? Is it underhanded or a necessity?
Oh, and for those of you following the room decor journey, this week I made the beer cap tray that will become a coffee table in her room. The tray is 29 x 29 inches square and took about 600 beer caps to create. Here’s a picture 🙂
And be sure to check back tomorrow on Philanthropy Thursday, where we will be featuring the announcement of my ROAD TRIP to the opening of Rachel Ashwell’s new Shabby Chic Couture shop and bed and breakfast in Round Top, Texas!!
I like this post. After reading it, I don’t consider planting seeds to be manipulation. I consider it winning. I will try to use this more often. I feel like I never win (for the record, this is never about anything big or important). Living in a house FULL of stubborn people I get stubborn right back and just want to be right about something for once. Since my two current tactics with my husband are sex or being stubborn back, I’m up for another method!
Love the tray!
Yep, your granny was right. I learned pretty quick into my relationship with the hubs that he wouldn’t budge if I threw a temper tantrum. Having never, and I mean never, been around kids, he didn’t see the point of me pouting and stamping my little foot. He would laugh and walk away. The nerve!
Seed planting became my secret weapon. If it’s HIS idea then it happened every single time. Yes!
Now? We’ve been together so long I don’t know who plants the seeds anymore and it doesn’t matter. We haven’t had a fight in so long I think I forgot how. Which is awesome.
I am more of the spoiled brat in our marriage I guess, because if it is something I really want I get my way. I will concede on some things though. If it is things like what color to paint the bathroom I just wait for him to do something stupid and then while he is still walking on eggshells I go ahead and buy the color I want and he doesn’t say a word. Because of course he is just trying to stay our of the doghouse at that point!LOL
Like I said, marriage is all about learning to compromise!!! Good to see you here Skye!!!
Planting seeds. I wouldn’t want to be manipulated, so why should I do the same? Btw, impressive work on the beer cap tray. 🙂
Oh, boy! I can’t tell you how many times my mouth has fell open when The Captain turns a seed into his idea. Frustrating really when we can save so much time just doing it, but there’s something that has to process in the male brain that women for centuries have known. Plant a seed!
Hubby and I communicate pretty openly and so far we are pretty lucky that we are typically on the same page. If we aren’t, I scream louder and therefore usually get my way. LOL!
Crying works sometimes too. In small effective doses.
I can definitely see how planting the seeds is effective. It’s the whole “let them come to the conclusion without knowing it was you who really came up with it!” I am planning a wedding right now and my fiance wanted to be very involved, so I of course welcomed it and made sure to involve him in EVERYTHING. It didn’t take long before he told me that he was done with wedding planning and he would leave it to me, my mom and sister 🙂
Well, if you are getting married, you will soon learn it’s benefits!! Although it sounds like you’re already learning. Involving him in EVERYTHING was a brilliant way to get him out of your hair on some of the details LOL 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!!
Planting seeds is the way to go. Your granny knew what she was talking about. Very cool table and I’m going to send the idea to my son who is a brewmaster (yup, that means free beer all the time – c’mon over!). There’s no shortage of caps at his place.
Dang. We need to live closer. And I’ve been saving caps for a long time. Now there are only 18 left. Hubby says he will “help” me if I have any other beer cap projects…..
When I read the tag about manipulating, right away I though “No way!”
But, if you consider planting seeds as falling under that category, then maybe I do manipulate. I married a man who overcompensates with his opinions after coming from an abusive home and a lousy first marriage. He always felt invisible/unheard, so he pushes. I’ve learned that it’s better for me to make suggestions and then let them be for a while. When he has time to think about it, then he gets to make the same suggestion, but “be the man”.
It seems silly, but it works.
I think that’s the key. Maybe with any man. They need to feel like they are in charge. (Even if they aren’t exactly 🙂