BUT I'M AN ARTIST....

I used to wonder why so many musicians, entertainers, artists and other creative people had such a hard time staying married. As I began to listen to and watch some of my fellow musicians, I saw a pattern in their relationships. As far as they were concerned, the relationship was basically all about them. The attitude was basically this, "What I'm doing is important. So, let's you and me get together and help ME achieve my dream." And when it came to the spouse's needs, the attitude was, "I don't have time for that mundane stuff. After all, I'm an artist." Now these thoughts may not have been verbally expressed, but, nonetheless, they were lived out.

The artist, the creative one, always seemed to think his or her dreams and needs were more important than their spouse's. If they did condescend to listen to how their spouse's day at work went, they did it grudgingly as if they were doing their spouse a favor. But, they expected their spouse to listen with bated breath, hanging on to every word and totally engaged as they talked on and on about their own careers. An interesting observation, when I first got into ministry, I saw this same attitude in ministers toward their spouses. Only there was the added declaration, "After all, I'm doing God's work!" How could the poor spouse compete with God?

So, you have the spouse of an artist (or minister) giving all the emotional, physical, psychological, financial and moral support she or he can and getting none or almost none in return. Meanwhile, the artist has this sense of entitlement in the relationship. He or she is pouring all of himself into his art form so, he deserves to be supported. She deserves to be understood. It's kind of like the artist is saying, "Let's both get together and fall in love WITH ME!" But, the spouse, on the other hand... After a while, the spouse gets tired of all of this self-centeredness and leaves. Another marriage bites the dust and the artist can't even see what he did wrong. "She (He) just didn't understand me." It's always the spouse's fault.

Now the CATCH is, in order to be good or great at anything (especially artistically speaking), you HAVE TO BE self centered. There is no other way to accomplish a high level of professionalism in your craft. It doesn't matter if you are an actor, singer, dancer, musician, painter or writer, you have to have a degree of self-centeredness to excel in your craft. Some art forms, such as painting and writing are very solitary crafts. Your best work is normally done while alone. Practicing to improve your dance or playing skills is normally done alone. Thinking out the way you want to express a certain move or musical figure is done alone. Artists spend a lot of time alone. Other artists understand that. My brother-in-law is a sculptor. I write poetry and music. We understand each other and our need to isolate ourselves in our respective creative caves. But, do we have the right to expect our wives, who are not artists, to automatically understand? How can they if we don't let them into us?

The problem is not in being self centered. The problem is not knowing when to turn it off. Most entertainers that I came up with were self centered all of the time. They never learned to turn it off. After seeing so many marriages break up (and most of them had some really cool spouses), I learned. I could be self centered when I was into my creative thing getting it together. But, when I came out, it was time to focus on my wife and family. My wife is a teacher. At the time, she was teaching 2nd grade. Not that I have anything against 2nd grade, but, ordinarily, I wouldn't care to be involved in a conversation about the 2nd grade. But, I was interested in my wife and she was interested in the 2nd grade, so I became interested in the 2nd grade. If I wanted her to share in and understand my world, I had to do the same for her. When I was home off the road, I tried to take full advantage of our time together. We tried to make the most of it because I never knew how long I would be home. A lesson learned from that is, after all these years, we still try to make the most of our time together.

I wanted to excel at my marriage and I wanted to excel in my music. That meant, in order for me to do both, I had to give up something. That something was sleep. When I was home, the early part of the evening was spent with my son. He was in bed by 7:30. I would spend time with my wife until she fell asleep (usually around 11or 12). And then I would do my creative thing. Being a night person, working on my craft until 3 or 4 in the morning was ideal. During part of that time, I was taking a class and had to be at school at 7a.m. So, I averaged about 3 hours of sleep a night. It worked, we are still together.

The bottom line is I had to learn to think like a husband and she had to learn to think like a wife. She did not marry a musician, she married a husband and she deserved to have one. I was a musician on stage. I was a husband off stage. Entertainment marriages can work. Mine has. Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis worked out great together. If you want something badly enough, you will do what it takes to make it work. Want your marriage and you will do the right thing.