Marriage in the Real World: No Jury of My Peers would Convict Me

Travel hockey was the bane of my existence. Both my husband and my son live, eat and breathe hockey. When our son (here after called Ebenezer, not his real name) was about 11, after a year of skating lessons, his father gave into his pleas to play hockey. “He won’t be very good, he is starting too late for us to worry about travel teams, don’t worry it’s just a house league”, proclaimed my husband, Ebenezer’s father. Moreover, I believed him. This was the man I pledged to love, honor, cherish and obey (yes I did) and until this point there was no reason not to believe him.

Turned out the kid was good. Very good for a southern born and bred boy, may be good period. One year of house league later, I was being told, “Don’t worry; there are lots of goalies in the area. He won’t make a travel team but we (we meaning, the boy and his dad, who was still my husband) just want to see how he will do”.

Turned out the kid was good. Maybe even very good. He made a team and we entered the travel hockey cult. Cults take your time, your money and your thought life. Travel hockey takes time, (practice plus to and from the rink time, in our case 45 minutes each way plus the actual weekend travel), money (email me if your husband is even thinking about buying your kid a pair of skates, I’ll send you the mid-five figure amount we spend for 4 years) and you have to think about extra coaching, conditioning, how to get school done etc. Fortunately we home schooled the first 3 years of our hockey cult life so school and spiritual growth were not a problem.

The last year of travel hockey, Ebenezer played at my insistence. His dad thought the boy’s heart was no longer in the game. I insisted he play because he was starting back to school in a public high school after being at home for 4 years and because of his girl friend. I wanted him to have something he was good at while adjusting to high school and something to take up some of his time besides the girlfriend.

And he was good. I saw for the first time what my husband and son loved about this game. There is something about seeing my child excel at something, that combination of passion and talent, which melted my heart. For the first time I could knew the sacrifice was worth it.

Ebenezer threw it all away for the girl who wanted him by her side on the weekends. She made it clear that he could not have her and hockey and he chose her. You might think we could have forced him to play. You can force outward obedience but you cannot force passion, the drive to excel, which athletes at that level of hockey have to have. We let him quit, knowing he would regret that decision.

A year later, the girl friend dumped Ebenezer for the fourth time. This time he decided to stay dumped even though she is making a concerted effort to change his mind. (That situation will make a great post once I can be unsnippy about it). Meanwhile we have had a year of normal family life. Our budget is not tight. Ebenezer is active at church and growing spiritually. School grades, well you can’t have everything.

Two days ago, my husband mentioned to Ebenezer there was a hockey team he could try out for in August. Then Ebenezer mentioned that to me.

I swear there is not a jury of my peers that would convict me for putting my husband in the doghouse (or on the couch) for an extended period of time. What was that man thinking starting the whole hockey insanity again? Has he forgotten the time, the money, the loss of family life…. I could just beat him with a noodle!

I traveled with Ebenezer that last year, I know what my husband was thinking…

The kid was good.

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[Charla]

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