After 13 years, I finally walked around in Pete's shoes...

It may be a stretch to say this, but I think weight training might be a substitute for marriage counseling. Well, at least in my case. Let me explain. 

My food meltdown of last week culminated one evening when, after locking the gym I walked across the street to the market,  grabbed a Chunky bar, paid for it and exited like an armed robber. I ate it on the drive home, furtively, under the glow of the dashboard lights. Then, with the stain of chocolate still on my fingers, I walked into the house, sat down on the couch, and I consumed an entire box of Teddy Grahams.

I woke up the next morning feeling strangely content. But the memory of the previous night's eating spree suddenly popped in my head like an instant message from a smug Satan, and I squinted and groaned. The night would have been a caloric nightmare in a normal situation, but with less than 8 weeks of wiggle room for my competition, it was like death. I pulled myself upright and climbed the stairs. 

My husband eyed me as I poured a cup of coffee. He nodded at the empty box of Teddy Grahams, lying on its side on the kitchen counter, "Was that you?"

"Shit! Yes." I grabbed my head with both hands to emphasize my hysteria. "I am totally out of control. I think I have lost my mind."

"It happens." He said this calmly, lacking any judgement, and I actually felt a burst of love for him that 13 years of marriage had dulled. 

"It does?" I wanted to hear more. 

As a veteran wrestler, who spent his teen years trying to make weight for countless tournaments, my husband understands hunger. 

"I used to get up in the middle of the night and make muffins," he said.  "Once my dad heard me banging around and got up to see what I was doing, so I hid the batter under my bed. I pulled it out from under there three days later and still baked it. "

I laughed so hard I spilled my coffee. And I suddenly felt lighter.

It is important to understand that one tired old complaint in our marriage is that my husband either doesn't speak, or he speaks about wrestling. 

Ask him what our phone number is and he will pause before he can answer. Ask him to rattle off the weight each of his team members in 1978, and he can do it, with ease. I suspect that when we are both old and Alzheimer's has ravaged our minds, that this man may not remember my name--the woman who slept beside him for most of his adult life--but he will still be telling stories about his first coach, Sam, the man who introduced him to wrestling. 

And I have grown to understand that for him, wrestling and breathing are kin. For over a decade, I have pretended to listen to his wrestling stories, and he has kept telling them. It works for us. 

But this morning I begged to hear more. 

"How did you make weight after you lost control of your eating?"

"You run." He said. "You sweat if back off. You get really good and sweating it off again."

I nodded, my own hope returning as he shared his secrets about his struggles with cutting weight. I imagined him as a hungry, high school kid sitting in a garlic induced coma at the table of his New Jersey home, surrounded by mounds of pasta and "gravy" night after night. 

I listened to him talk until the light rose in the windows and carried away the moment. He expressed his empathy for the kids on the wrestling team at our high school who have to carry bags of candy bars during fundraising season. Sometimes they eat the whole bag themselves, and who could blame them? 

Later in the day, when we'd both gone our separate, busy ways, it dawned on me that wrestling is in that man's blood because he worked so utterly hard at it. It struck me how excruciating it must have been to have that kind of discipline at that time in his life--as a seventeen year-old boy he probably dreamt more about cannolis than canoodling. The power of food. I now understand his journey.

Despite our breakthrough, I've not become a wrestling fan; this is a marriage, not a Disney movie. But I have become a bigger fan of my husband. That morning conversation filled me with hope and put my head back in the game.

And I am understanding more and more that while you are responsible for much of your own success, it is important to listen to your people: family, friends, mentors. Words and stories sink in--and matter. They just might have the power to keep you from quitting when it feels too hard.

No wonder he still talks about that old coach, Sam.