Are You the Flower or the Gardener in Your Relationship?

“People in relationships are either flowers or gardeners. Two flowers shouldn’t partner; they need someone to support them, to help them grow.... Flowers bloom; gardeners tend. Two flowers, no tending everything dies.” Rebecca Serle

This concept was made popular following the movie, I, Tonya. One person is the gardener - nurturing, supportive and works to make the right environment so the flower can grow and bloom. The flower on the other hand uses the support to be the best they can be. There is a saying that behind every great man is a great woman. This doesn’t have to be gender specific. Often behind any person of note, there is a team that helped them get to where they are: parents, coaches, mentors and, yes, spouses. My father achieved much in his life and those that know of him, probably don’t even know my mother’s name. He got to where he was because my mother believed in him and supported his efforts.

I believe I could ask this question to a heterosexual couple separately and have each claim to be the gardener. Likely, almost no man is going to claim to be the flower. The way this works may not be straightforward. A gardener may be the one that brings in all or most of the income, but not necessarily. There are sports superstars raking in the big bucks while their partners may only make a pittance in comparison. The partner is in the background, taking care of the kids, home and life, letting the flower bloom. Men, on average, continue to provide more of the household income in many marriages. They could make a case that they are the gardener. Women, even when they work full time do more of the housework and childcare. They could make a case that they are the gardener.

In the emotional sense, some people require a lot of attention, they are like exotic orchids that need exactly the right conditions to thrive. Some people need everything to be about them. If they are not getting enough good attention, they will seek negative attention. If you are with a high maintenance person or a drama queen, you are likely the gardener. One’s Love Language may come into play here; someone whose language is Acts of Service fits naturally into the Gardener role.

In real life it becomes less clear who assumes what role. I believe in all relationships there are times and ways in which each person is the gardener and ways in which each is the flower. Over the course of the relationship we play both roles, swapping back and forth in these roles. A woman that put her spouse through school and helped them get a great job, now has a high risk pregnancy and needs months of bed rest. It’s now her partner's turn to be the gardener. There are times in everyone’s adult life when they require some nurturing. No matter how tough one is, when we have lost a significant parent or are extremely ill we need someone to provide us with a little TLC. The question is, can or will they be the gardener when it’s needed?

I can foresee problems in continually being the gardener. Without a balance between the roles one could burn out. We help our partner to bloom, we work to put them through school. We do all the housework and child care so they can study. We help them with their resume. They finally make it. Now that they have bloomed will they may want someone that is more in line with their new version?

How will you take turns in each role as your needs change over time? If all one does is take, this can take a toll on the relationship from which you may not return. While I can’t find any studies on the matter, I would suspect couples where one is continuously the emotional and physical gardener the divorce rate is higher. I think we should look at the relationship as a garden and each of us as a gardener working to make it a fertile environment so that the yield is abundant.

What Happens if There is Infertility?

Co-Written with C.J. Fitzpatrick

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage” Nursery Rhyme

For most heterosexual couples, that’s how they expect marriage to go. I, for one, expected that when we started trying it would just happen – immediately, with little or no effort. It took some time, more than I expected, but happen it did. I believe that had it not, I would have been devastated.

According to the CDC, among married women aged fifteen to forty-nine years with no prior births, about one in five are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying, which is the clinical definition of infertility. Despite such a staggering statistic, people tend to put little forethought into the possibility that this might happen to them and are therefore unprepared if and when it does.

This is definitely a conversation worth having, seeing as a study done by the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynaecology found that following unsuccessful fertility treatments, couples were three times more likely to end their relationship than couples whose treatments were successful.

Not everyone enters into a long-term relationship with the intention of having children. This is a good question to start off the conversation: do we want to have children at all? Some people enter into marriage without even having put much thought into the matter. They assume their partner is simply on the same page as them. Sometimes, couples have had the conversation, know they’re on different pages, and simply assume the other will change their mind. There are likely couples who have entered into marriage knowing their partner is on a different page, said they will think about it, all the while knowing they’re never going to change their mind. Is this fair?

Should infertility become an issue, how devastated would you be? Is having children a dealbreaker for you? Infertility can affect one partner, but not the other, or be an issue for both partners. Would you stay with someone if they were the problem, but you were fully capable of having children?

It seems that women are often more willing to accept that they’re the ‘problem’ – and therefore more willing to seek treatment options – while men may have more difficulty accepting their infertility. Oftentimes, a man’s virility is seen as being a sign of his ‘manliness’ and when infertility strikes them, they may feel as if they’re less of a man and it becomes a very shameful secret. Would this become an issue for your relationship, should this happen to you?

It’s also worth mentioning here that this is an issue that equally – if not moreso – affects LGBTQ+ couples for whom there isn’t always the luxury of an unassisted pregnancy.

1. Are you aware and prepared for the costs of fertility treatments? Have you considered additional expenses, such as travel costs, etc.

2. Are you aware of the different types of fertility treatments and are you open to any/all of them?

3. Do you have a limit of what you’re willing to spend and/or try? What is your time frame for trying?

4. What if the treatments are unsuccessful?

5. Is adoption something you’ve considered and are comfortable with?

6. Would you be willing to adopt an older or disabled child?

7. Would you use a surrogate if fertility issues only effected one member of the couple?

8. If you had a child that biologically belonged to only one member of the couple, would you feel differently towards that child?

9. Would you feel comfortable talking openly about your fertility issues or would it be secretive?

10. How would you feel about fostering children?

11. If you’re going the adoption route, would you want to adopt from a foreign country?

LGBTQ+:

12. Would you both want to try to become pregnant?

13. Would you want the sperm/egg donor to be someone you know?

14. If you’re using a known donor, are you prepared to accept that person’s medical history?

15. Have you done research into the laws concerning biological parent rights?

16. Should you later split up, how will you navigate the legalities if one person is biologically related to the child and the other not?

17. If using a known donor, would they have a role in the child’s life? Would you tell the child and if so, when?

Having a child is a serious decision and it’s not one that should be made lightly. Facing infertility can then feel like navigating a field of landmines, but the first step should be having conversations long before it ever becomes an issue.

Disability Worksheet

1. Have you updated your will and beneficiaries on all accounts?

2. Do you have power of attorney or enduring power of attorney?

3. Who should have POA if neither of us could?

4. Who would I want to make medical decisions?

5. Do you have a medical directive or living will?

6. Who would I want my executors to be?

7. Do both of us know where important legal documents are kept?

8. If incapacitated would you want a family member or a professional to take care of you?

9. Who is an emergency contact other than your spouse?

10. Who would you want to take care of any children if you both died?

11. If you knew you were dying how would you spend your last days?

12. At the end would you like to be heavily drugged or lucid?

13. Would you want to know when you will die?

14. Do you have any existing conditions?

15. What diseases run in your family?

16. What have your close relatives died of?

17. Will we purchase life or critical illness insurance?

18. How will we handle aged parents when the time comes?

19. Would you want a memorial donation made?

20. What would you like your obituary to say?

21. Do you want a funeral and if so what should it look like?

22. Would you want to be cremated or buried?

23. Do you want to be an organ donor or have your body be donated to science?

24. Who do we want as beneficiaries, money and possessions (other than your partner)?

25. How would we cover medical or funeral expenses?

26. What treatments would you want or not want?

27. Does your religion preclude some treatments?

28. Would you consider alternative or experimental treatments?

29. Would you want to die at home?

30. Would you consider medically assisted dying?

31. Do you believe in extraordinary measures to save a life?

32. Would want to be kept alive on life on life support?

33. Scenario 1: Your spouse has been kidnapped. The kidnapper has asked for ransom that would mean selling your home, cars and emptying your retirement fund. The police advise not doing it since the perpetrator is a killer but has not kidnapped anyone before. What would you do?

34. Scenario 2: Your ninety year old father-in-law is on life support and won’t recover. Your spouse is not ready to say goodbye yet so doesn’t want to pull the plug. You have to cover the $1000/day bill and are trying to save for a house. What do you do?

35. Scenario 3: Your wife is in her first trimester and you are both excited to be having your first child. A severe traffic accident puts your wife in the hospital with unsurvivable injuries. The doctor advises she can be kept on life support until the baby is deliverable, she is however in tremendous pain. What do you do?

36. Scenario 4: You are rock climbing with your spouse when they fall. You climb down and find them extremely injured but breathing. It would be difficult due to the terrain to carry them out but to summon help would require you to leave them. Either way they won’t survive. What would you do?

37. In the above scenario you decide to stay to be with them when they pass. It is now two in the morning. You are exhausted, have built a fire, eaten the granola bars you had but your partner is still breathing but with difficulty. Would you stay, leave them or suffocate them to end what would end anyway (no one would ever know)?

38. Scenario 5: A large building collapses during a time when your spouse was running errands in the vicinity. Your spouse doesn’t come home after that but their body is not found in the rubble. Do you spend time and money putting up flyers, hiring private detectives to look at other scenarios or have them declared dead?

39. Scenario 6: Your partner is paralyzed from the neck down and sex is either impossible or unwanted by this person. How would you manage this need?

40. Scenario 7: Your spouse is injured and requires assistance while they recover (injections, wound care and bedpans). It will likely be six months to a year. They want to recover at home with your assistance only. Your boss will allow you to work from home during this time. Because of the

round the clock nature of the care you would rarely get to leave the house. How would you deal with this?

41. Scenario 8: Your spouse is an organ donor and has told you they would want their death to have meaning. They have had a brain injury and doctors aren’t hopeful. You have been approached by two doctors. One wants to use their organs to save a twelve year old and a mother of three small children. The other has an experimental treatment that is highly controversial and has only a twenty percent chance of improving brain function. What would you do?

42. Scenario 9: You have been on the transplant list for years. You have so much you want to do with your life but have been too sickly to do so. A friend of a friend says they can find you an organ on the black market. You have heard they do this by stealing from hospitals, killing people already on the transplant list or killing people for their organs. Would you do it?

43. Scenario 10: You are on a runaway train and make your way to the engine car. Your spouse is tied to the tracks up ahead. There is a switch coming up but if you take it the train will crash into and kill a crowd of school children. What do you do? Now imagine your children attend that school and may or may not be in the crowd. Does that change what you would do?

Would You Stay With This Person If They Were Disabled?

“A disability is not inability.” Unknown

It is hard when you are young to imagine what it is like to grow old. When we envision the future, it is not us trying to get around with a walker or needing care to meet our bodily functions. We may vow to grow old together with visions of being the active seniors featured in ads for senior living facilities and not for extended care homes that have round-the-clock nursing care.

We marry a young healthy partner with the knowledge we will both age, but may not have the commitment to handle whatever the world throws at us. I have been witness to marriages where one partner suffers a medical incident that challenges the commitment to through sickness and health. In my youth, I met a man in his thirties that was in an extended care facility. He had come there after suffering brain damage in a fight. He was always very calm and polite, but mainly just sat and smoked cigarette after cigarette, never participating in any activity. His wife had divorced him following his injury. I can’t speak to if they had a good relationship prior to this incident, but it saddened me that it seemed he was just dumped in this place. But what would I have done in her place?

Medical science has increased our lifespan and, as such, we are far more likely to have one or both partners suffering from something that leaves us with less than our full capacity. Given this, at some point in their lives, many couples will face this question. In most situations where this comes up, the couples are elderly and have been together for many years. In these cases, the marriages often survive, though it may look very different – perhaps with one partner at home and the other in a care facility. Studies confirm that if an injury or chronic illness happens when the couple is young, the marriage is more likely to fail.

The word disability covers a wide span of circumstances. Steven Hawking is wheelchair-bound, but a genius that contributes much to the world. Some disabled people have no more than deafness. Some are just missing one limb. Others are in a persistent vegetative state. What disabilities would too much for you to handle? Could you attend to bodily care like wiping your partner after toilet use?

While it may seem gruesome to delve into disease and death, it is this very person you are committing to that will likely have to make important decisions should anything happen. You might even want to put your wishes on paper. Terri Schiavo certainly didn’t marry thinking about the vegetative state she would be in six years later at age twenty-six. Terri’s husband and parents spent the next fifteen years in a legal battle to determine her fate.

The chances of something awful happening when you are young are small. Often, when something happens, it is more treatable and temporary. Marriages survive all manner of crises with the right mindset and commitment. “Some people said their partners were instrumental in their recovery, which they acknowledged could be difficult. People often depended on partners for emotional support and sometimes for physical care, and some needed them to be supportive and to give them hope throughout their recovery,” says Healthtalk.org. We continually grow and change in our relationships and they often don’t look like what we once dreamed. They say you need to fall in love over and over again with the same person. Healthtalk.org went on to report, “People sometimes felt their partners needed to grieve for the person they’d lost and accept that things were different now.”

No one knows until they find themselves in this place and even then, might be tortured over the choice. The statistics tell us that should someone develop a disease or severe injury happens during their marriage, the likelihood of divorce increases. Economists postulate it is due to the loss of future income, but I feel it can go so much deeper than that. Pondering this question might have you looking hard at the reasons you want to marry in the first place. Depending on the disability, it isn’t just income you are losing. It can be someone to help with household chores, it can be someone costing you money in terms of medical supplies and nursing costs, it could be a loss of a sex life. Would having a partner that needs extra care and attention cause you to not get out of marriage what you are after?

We can’t know for sure what the future holds, we could get hit by a drunk driver walking into work tomorrow and be paralyzed. What we can do is look at the family to see if there are illnesses like Alzheimer’s or Huntington Chorea that have a genetic component. When you are finding out your partner’s medical history, you are also looking out for your children and future generations.

Let’s be honest... Our vows say: for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, but most people aren’t interested in the worse or the sickness. That is why the divorce rate is so high.

How Will You Deal With the 'Seven Year Itch'?

“The classic 'seven-year itch' may not be a case of familiarity breeding ennui and contempt, but the shock of having someone you thought you knew all too well suddenly seem a stranger.” Kathleen Norris

This phrase has been around since the early 1900’s, but didn’t gain popularity until the 1955 movie starring Marilyn Monroe. It is the idea that at seven years, a couple starts looking around to see what and who else is out there. It can also mean that one or both parties are dissatisfied with the relationship or circumstances they are in. Some experts don’t think it’s a real thing, but any long-term couple will tell you that there have been times they felt this way, though not necessarily at seven years. Some suggest it is more likely the four year itch, but it seems to depend on where you look. The US Census Bureau reported in 2001 that the average first marriage that ends in divorce lasts just eight years, seeming to give credence to the seven year itch.

The early years of a relationship are called the honeymoon phase. It is that time when you can’t get enough of each other, think everything about them is wonderful, and can’t wait for forever to begin. The excitement or happiness we feel over any situation fades as it becomes part of the fabric of our life. When you first buy a new car, you can barely contain your excitement. You tell everyone, you post pictures on social media, you can’t wait to drive it. After a month, you barely think about it. It becomes routine.

Relationships are the same way, though it is difficult when you are so in love at the beginning to wrap your mind around this. Real life sets in, you go to work, figure out who does what chores. You fight about money. Babies come along. You see each other sick. The phenomenon doesn’t happen because of any big relationship issues, but real life setting in. Part of your vows say: in good times and in bad. Several years in, you are clear on the bad. It makes sense that after seven years you have probably seen who your partner really is.

Part of the blame falls on the way our bodies work. Research has shown that the hormones and chemicals surging through us when love is new is similar to being high. After the honeymoon, our levels of these substances returns to normal. If you’ve ever done something stupid while drunk, you know what it is like the next morning when you sober up.

Research shows after the honeymoon phase you are going to experience some decline in relationship satisfaction. A German fifteen year long study concluded that the honeymoon phase ended and the partners returned to their baseline of happiness two years after their marriage. “...the findings from a 1999 study at Wright State University in Ohio, US, that involved hundreds of newlyweds completing annual psychological tests over the first 10 years of their marriage. The couples’ marital satisfaction tended to drop off sharply over the first four years, then to stabilise (sic) for a while, and finally to begin another descent after seven years – that last result apparently supporting the folk notion of a ‘seven-year itch’.” (Christian Jarrett in Science Focus)

Romantic movies and songs lead us to believe we will always feel this heady feeling we have when we fall in love. Even the fairy tales we were read as children led us to believe it was all rainbows and sunshine after 'I do'. They always ended with '...and they lived happily ever after', rather than with the prince clogging the toilet yet again and the princess spending too much on shoes. We look at our parents and think they must never have felt the way we do.

Studies on happiness suggest we have a set point of happiness. That is, we have a baseline level of happiness determined by our genes, personality, and early experiences. Our level of happiness will rise temporarily in response to circumstances - like falling in love - but will always return to our baseline.

What do you know about your partners happiness set point? Are they like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh or like Eeyore? This is hard to determine as you likely only knew them while you were in love. Ask their parents and friends. Check out pictures of them from childhood onwards. Interestingly, frowning in childhood pictures has been found to correlate to increased likelihood to divorce.

This return to Planet Earth after the heady time of new love doesn’t have to spell the end of a marriage. Many couples move forward. Does your relationship have what it takes? Did you ask the questions before making a commitment? Are you committed to doing the hard work of reconnecting even if it means seeking outside help? Experts tell us love is more than just a feeling, it is a choice. A choice to fight for your relationship. A choice to love them even when you don’t like them.

If at four or five or seven years, you experience this itch, it doesn’t signal that this was a mistake and your relationship is doomed. Studies show there are long-term benefits to marriage. You are going have times in a long term marriage when you hit rough patches. During these times, turn towards each other and not away.

Do You Want Your Relationship to Be Monogamous?

Guest Post: C.J. Fitzpatrick

If you’ve been on a dating site and/or app in the recent past, you’ve probably encountered the acronym: ENM – also known as Ethical Non-Monogamy. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it’s a more politically correct way of saying the relationship is ‘open’.

In an ENM relationship, both partners agree that one or both parties are free to see other people while remaining within the main partnership. The key here is that it’s something both partners have actively discussed and are in agreement over, otherwise it’s missing the ethical component.

It’s my belief that this is a conversation that should happen early in the relationship and should be reevaluated every so often, in order to be on the same page about the relationship’s status. There are natural points in a relationship where there should be a reassessment of everyone’s needs and feelings – for example, if/when marriage is on the table and if/when children are on the table.

These are some (but certainly not all) of the questions I suggest discussing:

1. Have you had an ENM relationship in the past?

• If so, what did and did not work? You may have tried it and really enjoyed the experience or you have have had the opposite experience and found it not for you.

• If not, why not? For example, some people may not have grown up in a time and/or culture where ENM was prevalent.

2. What is your definition of cheating?

• Cheating can and does sometimes occur in ENM relationships, just as it does in monogamous relationships. It’s important before you start dating outside the main partnership that you’ve both agreed on what cheating looks like for you.

• This could include emotional affairs, as well as physical ones.

3. How many partners is acceptable?

• Maybe you’re just looking to date one additional person or maybe you plan on having multiple partners outside the main partnership. It’s important that you know what your partner is thinking, as well as what you can handle while still making the main partnership a priority.

• One of the common pitfalls in ENM is that someone can easily spread themselves too thin and not be able to give everyone they’re dating enough time and attention.

4. What terms do you anticipate using for the people you’re dating?

• Some of the common language includes paramour and metamour – before you start dating multiple people, you should brush up on the common lingo.

• Do you want to call your secondary partners girlfriend/boyfriend? Partners? Or do those terms denote a certain level of intimacy that should be devoted solely to your main partner?

5. Is sex on the table in relationships outside the primary one?

• This is a conversation that goes hand-in-hand with the cheating conversation. You may be looking for a purely sexual encounter in your secondary partnerships (i.e. a more friends with benefits type of relationship) or you may be looking for an emotional connection. Possibly both.

• It’s important to think about what you’re comfortable with your partner doing as well – if you’re the jealous type, are you going to be upset if your partner has sexual chemistry with their other partners?

6. Will your primary partner meet and/or interact with your other partners?

• This may be something you don’t truly decide until you have a secondary partner and know whether they’d be a good fit to get along with your primary partner. But it’s worth discussing ahead of time whether you’d prefer to keep things separate or whether it’s important that everyone get along.

7. How will you allocate your time between your partners?

• This is a big one – many ENM relationships fail because people don’t feel like they’re being made a priority. Once you add up the time you must devote to work, self care, chores, and the like, there’s limited time available to spend on multiple partners. Are you going to divide it equally between them? Does your main partner get 50% and then the rest is divided between others?

8. How much transparency is expected, wanted, and needed?

• What will you share with your partners? Sometimes less is more, in terms of what you both want to know about the other’s relationships. Sometimes, full transparency is necessary to make ENM work.

• Should you tell each other details of your sex life? Sometimes, it’s important to share because your partner may want or need to get tested for STIs.

• What’s the expectation of privacy? This is something you should bring up not only with your main partner, but with each additional partner as well so everyone is on the same page.

9. Have you thought about the stigma?

• ENM is more accepted now than it has been in the past, but there is still a stigma attached to it. Have you thought about whether you’re ready to face that? Will you be able to talk about it with your friends and family? Is that something that’s important to you? What about in the healthcare setting? When talking about sexual health with your doctors, will you feel safe in discussing having multiple partners?

10. What happens if one partner wants to close the relationship again?

• ENM isn’t for everyone. After testing it out for awhile, one partner may decide it isn’t for them and want to close the relationship. But what if the other person doesn’t? Decide ahead of time what the procedure is if someone wants to pull the ripcord.

There are many moving parts in an ENM relationships and it’s important that you’ve put a lot of thought into the matter before moving ahead with this style of relationship because there are many peoples’ feelings to take into account and once you’ve started down this road, it may be difficult to close the relationship back up.

Is Respect an Issue?

“I’ve heard a lot of men say that they’d rather be respected and unloved than be loved and disrespected.” Elcrema

The male ego is a funny thing. Watch enough TV court shows and you will eventually see a case where a fight erupts over respect. Judge Judy had a case that went something like this: ‘He said something disrespectful so I followed him home and he hit me with a crowbar’. The worst part was that the victim had his girlfriend and their children with him.

Testosterone makes men do more than lift heavy rocks and spit. It makes them want to prove their superiority and protect what is theirs, even their reputation. I am not saying women don’t want respect, but when they feel disrespected, they are as likely to go to the bathroom and cry as they are to puff out their chests, get angry, and confront others. The drive for respect is so powerful that men will risk a criminal conviction to ensure they have it. In the book, Prison Masculinities, it is noted, “Fights are often about respect, one man feeling that another has disrespected him... An all-out battle over respect can end a life – or many lives.” (Don Sabo & Terry A. Kupers)

If respect is so valuable that they will put themselves in a position of possible harm, what effect will it have on your relationship? Will they interrupt a night of dancing at a club to settle a score with a guy who sneers and says ‘nice shirt’? Will they get a reputation around town as a hot head and get banned from stores and clubs? Will they put you in danger? The girlfriend in the above mentioned case claims she was charged by the aggressor. Do you want that to be you?

Another consideration: if their ego is so fragile, will they cut off or distance you from people in your lives because of it? Some families rib each other in jest; if your partner is the butt of even a joking put-down, will they lose it? Will you stop going to your parents’ because your father doesn’t think your partner is good enough for you?

Within your relationship, will they pick fights when they feel you have not shown them the utmost in respect? I am not speaking of blatant disrespect, that is clearly wrong. I am speaking of joking that he can never seem to pick up his socks or mentioning to your sister that your husband lost his job. Over time, we get comfortable with each other and stop being on our best behaviour. You may not say I love you every day and you may start taking each other for granted. For someone who needs their ego protected or stroked, this will be especially challenging.

I have written before about how men come from a place of shame. I used the example of a wife asking her husband to slow down while driving and the husband becoming angry. He is shamed because he feels he is not being shown respect. If the wife believed he is smart enough and in his ability as a driver, she would not be showing disrespect by questioning his capability in getting them safely to where they are going. It would be exponentially more disrespectful in his eyes if there were other people in the car.

Shaunti Feldhahn, a marriage expert, states, “A man’s highest need is to feel respect, whereas a woman’s highest need is to feel loved.” In a research project done by Feldhahn, eighty percent of men surveyed reported that in any conflict they are likely to feel disrespected. Feldhahn also goes on to say that while showing love is great, “...if we don’t also show that we respect them – and maybe criticize them in public or question their decisions all the time – they’re going to feel disrespected and then they won’t feel loved.” It is even suggested that a man’s need for respect is so great that if he perceives he isn’t being shown his due, he will look elsewhere for it or even leave the relationship.

Some people suggest that wives accept the anger men display as a reaction to feeling disrespected. I am not suggesting we give men (or women) a pass because they get angry for this reason. We should keep it in mind, but men can realize if his wife tells him to buy the bigger jug of milk next time, it is not meant to suggest he is a terrible or stupid person, but rather a way to make life smoother. Unless he likes trips at 9:30PM to 7-11 so the children have milk for cereal. Men should be able to grow and change to accept that not every word spoken is a slight meant to show disrespect.