Chapter 2
R = Resolve

It's often easier to give up and walk away. Relationships require a desire to stay together and a willingness to change for the better.

From Fantasy to Reality

(Kathryn)

Jon and I were engaged six months after meeting. It seemed that once he put the ring on my finger, we started fighting a lot. This is when it got real. All of our issues and insecurities reared their ugly heads. Jon was so jealous. I couldn't even talk to another guy without him getting mad. I was scared of committing and tried to break up with him several times. Jon would say, "You are just scared," and it made me feel better because I knew he was right.

I suggested we get some counseling. Jon was reluctant (as I find most men are), but he finally agreed to go. We saw a female therapist and at the first meeting we began to talk about some of the issues we were fighting about. She actually laughed out loud at us. For the life of me I can't remember exactly what I said but I know it wasn't funny! Jon and I just looked at each other. In a strange way it bonded us. We had a common enemy. The therapist who laughed at us would never see us again!

Unfortunately, this made Jon even more reluctant to go to another therapist. So I thought seeing a male counselor might make Jon feel more at ease. I found "Sean," a nice man with an easy presence. Five minutes into asking us some probing questions, Jon and I started fighting. Okay, maybe I started fighting. The therapist said to me, "Wow, you go from zero to 60 just like that!" and he snapped his fingers. Jon was smirking. I was livid. But I couldn't lose my cool because I knew Jon needed to feel like he had some leverage. We saw "Sean" for several months and he did help us iron out some things, but honestly, I think what bonded us the most was laughing at what he said to me.

To this day, anytime I get mad-and yes, I can be quick tempered; I'm Irish after all-Jon will snap his fingers and say, "Wow you go from zero to 60 just like that," and we will start laughing.

Well, most of the time.

Issues of the Past

(Jon)

Looking back, everything happened so fast. It was a whirlwind. Kathryn and I had just met and the next thing I know we are living together and engaged. I was in love but not mature enough to have a healthy relationship.

That's the thing about relationships. It brings together two people who carry with them their imperfections, flaws, issues, and wounds, and somehow, some way, you have to find a way to make it work.

Kathryn was very friendly with people, including men, and I was very jealous. I was 24 and I was crazy about her. I didn't want to lose her. My biological father left when I was a year old and it left me with some deep wounds and abandonment issues. He stayed in our life and we saw him some weekends and on some holidays, but he remarried and had a new family and my brother and I always felt like second fiddle.

I would find out later in life that he didn't want my mom to have me. They were not in a good place in their relationship and the last thing he wanted was another child-and that child was me.

My mom remarried when I was five and Joe became my dad. He was a New York City police officer who saw the world as a dangerous place and taught us to be tough and strong to take it on. He was honestly one of the most negative guys on the planet but very loving to his family. He was a great father who took me and my brother on as his own and raised us with love. But for some reason I often had this feeling that I wasn't good enough.

On the outside I was a hard worker who achieved some success at a young age. But in my relationships, I wasn't secure enough in myself. I didn't really know who I was at this point in my life. So here I am getting married to someone I don't really know well while not really knowing myself at the same time. Going to counseling helped a lot and having Sean validate me and Kathryn's quick temper felt good. But it didn't stop me from being jealous and causing us to fight. I was still insecure and would point out her flaws to make myself feel better while making Kathryn feel worse.

Even though she had a quick temper, she was very sweet, loving, and caring and unfortunately received my worst rather than my best. I would let my jealousy, fear, and stress about our wedding and future get the best of me and say something mean, which would begin another fight. Going to counseling and acknowledging our problems early on was key because we brought them to light instead of covering them up and allowing them to fester. This wouldn't heal my issues or provide a permanent solution, but it helped at the time.

It Takes Two

(Kathryn)

Jon had his issues and I definitely had mine. I grew up in a home with both Mom, Dad, and two older brothers. We were a Navy family so I moved around quite a bit early in my childhood. I went to five different elementary schools between Maine and Florida before settling in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at nine years old. My mother was an amazing cook and the house was always spotless. My father was a naval flight engineer. Dad and I had a wonderful relationship. He played the guitar and I sang from as early as three years old. So my home seemed "normal" from the outside. But it wasn't.

There were many alcohol-fueled nights of my parents having horrible fights, screaming and yelling that many times escalated into physical violence. Some of these fights were brought on when one of my dad's many trysts would call the house to tell my mom of my dad's infidelities.

So, I definitely came into our relationship with trust and commitment issues. I had a hard time trusting men and because I was scared of getting hurt, I tried to break up with Jon several times. Not to mention the fact that I liked attention and was friendly (Jon would say flirty), which fueled his insecurities. And when he would say hurtful things, I didn't just take it. I would fight back. So we had a lot of shouting matches.

Despite my issues with commitment, I did do one thing that was very helpful for our relationship. Before we met, Jon had started a nonprofit called the Phoenix Organization.It was a group of young professionals who supported youth-focused charities. He was always going to an event or organizing his own gala to raise money for organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club. I was very immersed in the social culture of Atlanta as well. There were power struggles when he thought something he was doing was important, but I thought what I was doing was important. I found myself starting to compete with him.

This was a very pivotal time for us. I realized I had to make a decision for this relationship to work. At that time we both couldn't be out there, so I had to resolve to get behind him. Now I am not saying that that is what a woman has to do. I'm not saying that's what a man has to do. There are many successful couples who can do both. But in our situation at that time, that's what I needed to do to make our relationship work. And so I did.

This was a very big decision for me because of my upbringing. I swore that I would never take a back seat to a man. It was definitely a leap of faith, but I believe that if I went the other way, our relationship wouldn't have survived.

Buying a House

(Jon)

If getting married wasn't stressful enough, three months after our engagement we decided to buy a house. My bar/restaurant had started to do very well and after the Olympics we had enough money to make a down payment on a house. Neither of us had made a purchase like this before but we decided to go for it. Even though we were fighting a lot, we were still planning on getting married and starting a family. I'm not sure why I felt we needed a house right away, but we found one pretty quickly and went through the mortgage process for the first time.

When I met Kathryn, I was renting a room in my friend's house. Now, less than a year later, I was buying a house where my future wife and children would live. Talk about stressful. Every decision I made seemed to create more stress, but I just kept plowing ahead.

Ain't No Stopping Us

(Kathryn)

To add to our relationship challenges, three months before our wedding my mother died of cancer. We were married on May 17, 1997. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in October 1996 and passed away four short months later on February 19, 1997. I was flying back and forth to Virginia to be with her during that time. I was with her when she passed that day and I'll always be grateful I was there.

When I returned home it was full speed ahead toward the wedding. The truth is, I never really grieved properly because I was so focused on getting married and making the event special. Jon was supportive but wasn't emotionally mature enough to talk about it or ask me how I was doing.

Ironically, we were getting married but we were growing further apart. We fought more than ever and really didn't like each other at the time. Yet there was still a feeling of deep love and commitment so we just kept moving forward with our marriage plans. It...