Finding a Role Model for Radical Transformation

What Metallica is Teaching Me about Staying Married While Transforming

As someone in the midst of transforming, I find myself drawn to books about transformation. It seems there is this genre of books about women’s midlife transformations and spiritual awakenings. These books tend to involve radical transformations in career, romantic relationships, and often coming out as lesbian or bisexual. However, it’s not really fair to call them a genre, the books are as varied as Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Midlife Emergence by

Jen Berlingo, LPC, ATR

, Eat, Pray, Love by

Elizabeth Gilbert

and If Women Rose Rooted by

Dr Sharon Blackie

. I have truly enjoyed and benefited from all of these books, they have helped me and many women step outside of a clean “good girl”ness and toward a messy power. But there’s one problem: I’m ok with burning down a lot of aspects of my life, but I don’t want to end my marriage. 

My husband is wonderful. He is observant and attentive. His gift-giving abilities testify to this, not because they are extravagant, but because they make you feel seen. He is good at tuning into our children’s emotions or helping them explain what they are feeling. He tends to his elders, always available to help his mom, and even my parents count on him when a heavy thing needs to be lifted. We laugh a lot and his pirate versions of Taylor Swift songs are truly a sight to behold. 

Divorce stories are tremendously valuable in a world where divorce is stigmatized, women are expected to put up with being treated unfairly, and they are expected to remain a “good girl” at the expense of their own personal power. As

lyz

author of one of the most famous new books about divorce, This American Ex-Wife, found in her research, the average husband adds 8 hours of work to his wife’s week. A reckoning on what marriage means and how we rearrange when things aren’t working is long overdue. Divorce is hard, and I don’t think individual couples make the decision haphazardly. I also think that society has designated it a woman’s job to bear the responsibility to keep a marriage “good” or to stay even if it is “bad”. 

Like everything else, there isn’t one solution to how to make family work. I personally, would really value a story of a woman undergoing a similar radical transformation, but learning to traverse it with her spouse. It’s a tricky thing, right? We agree to “for better or for worse”, often before we have any concept of how much people can change and how much worse it can get. 

Just the transition to motherhood alone, (which the CDC reports 80% of married women traverse) leaves many women, present company included, feeling like a different person than they were before they became a mom. However, when I have asked men about this change, they often describe how they use their time differently, but I haven’t heard them speak of a fundamental shift in who they are. Additionally, we always think that our lives will change much less in the next 10 years than they did in the last 10 years. However, when we look back afterward, we find that it usually changed as much or more. This means that the simple passage of time could lead to changes that pull people in different directions. 

Between becoming a mother and the pandemic, my spiritual beliefs and practices have changed dramatically. I’m sure it has been disorienting for my husband. We went from mutually making fun of people who believe in ghosts, to me developing a practice of ancestral reverence. I don’t think of my ancestors as ghosts, as in haunting a house somewhere. On the other hand, I am communicating with the dead in ways that I can’t objectively see, hear, or feel. Years ago, I scoffed at a young woman on our frisbee team who sat out the game because of her period, but now try to consciously seek out rest during my period too. I am practicing expressing my emotions rather than stewing on them, so I tell him when I’m angry now, rather than waiting for it to blow over. I do this so I don’t grow to resent something that could have been easily adjusted if discussed sooner. But when you’re used to it another way, even if you know the why, it might just feel like, “God, why is she pissed at me now?” I imagine that even changes that my husband views as positive are more nuanced than just, “Yay!” Going to mass was a time of peace and alone time. Now that I’m joining him at church, it’s a bit less contemplative as our youngest child uses him as a jungle gym. I also crave a lot more interaction and community in general, and particularly in my spiritual practices, so it’s a lot more socializing at brunch in the church basement, when he would probably prefer to get in and get out. These examples are mostly light-hearted, but the real grappling is not. When someone you love deeply wants to change, it hurts that they aren't satisfied with how things are, even if what needs to change isn't directly related to you.

So, how do we actually navigate this? Like I said, I’m no expert, we’re living this evolution together, but I stumbled upon some unexpected role models last week. At Christmas, I bought my husband tickets to the Metallica concert for us to attend together. I thought it was just a regular concert tour, but it turns out Metallica really thought critically about what was and wasn’t working in how they toured. In their 60s what is enjoyable about touring isn’t the same as when they were in their 20s. 

Instead of a new city every night, they have spread their concerts out over 2 years. Every few weeks, they’ll go to a city for a weekend, in our case Minneapolis, play a show on Friday night, then another show on Sunday. In between, they have a festival on Saturday in which they promote other bands, and even go bowling at Memory Lanes. I love this because it allows these concerts to fit into their lives, then go home and be with their people. It respects how they have changed. Even though the music is still really hard, the vibes from the musicians these days are pretty dad-ish. Lead singer, James Hetfield, was often talking sweetly about the “Metallica family” and telling folks “you are never alone”. It respects their bodies and taking a day of rest is how to feel the best in their bodies at 60. It respects their creativity because Kurt and Rob custom make a guitar/bass jam for each show and they don’t repeat a song during these two days of shows. 

But it’s not automatic that this can happen for any musician either though, right? Metallica has clearly been paying close attention to what works and what doesn’t for them. This tour was inspired by some festivals they really enjoyed playing, so they thought about how they could make their work more like this festival they really enjoyed. They communicate well enough with each other and with their fans to find something that works well. Metallica also has an incredibly devoted fan base that loves them enough to try something new.

That’s true for married couples too. I have to admit that I have been so caught up in Martha Beck’s questions, “How the hell did I get here? And what the hell do I do now?”, that I haven’t really been attuned to the ways my husband has been changing over the past 5 years. There are many married couples who have fallen deep enough into midlife ennui or the overwhelm of getting everyone where they need to go on a daily basis, that they can’t get their head above water long enough to bring their attention to what needs to change. They don’t know themselves individually well enough to know what they want and, more importantly, what they need. If they do figure out what they need, sometimes their partners either can’t or won’t meet those needs. They don’t communicate well enough to negotiate something that is mutually beneficial or at least something that is mutually tolerable when it can’t be mutually beneficial (We can’t all be Metallica). They don’t love each other unconditionally enough to find the new wonderful things about each other to celebrate. 

So here are a few guiding principles from the Metallica concert, that I’m taking as goals: 

1. We know what we need and feel comfortable asking for it.

2. We know what we enjoy and find ways to do more of it (and less of what we don’t).

3. We stay curious and celebrate what is changing for each other.

4. We use our status to lift others up. 

I hope we are as successful at growing into ourselves as Metallica has been. Perhaps we should invite some folks to go bowling at Memory Lanes with us too.

How about you? What helped you and your partner evolve together? What caused you and your partner grow apart? Did you learn any marriage lessons in unexpected places?