Changemakers Confidential: Walter & Regina

Real people. Real stories. Real change.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Changemakers Confidential, where I share the change stories of real people and real change.

I have the good fortune to be related to the two individuals of this week’s update: Walter, my father-in-law of 22 years, and Regina, his lovely wife and muse. Aside from being lovely to chat with in general, they have a reflective, philosophical nature about change that I’m excited to share with you today. 

The main topic of our discussion centered on relationships. They’ve done a lot of reflecting on the impact of their previous relationships (both have been married before), and what those experiences have meant to them as individuals, and now, as a couple in their eighth decade of life. 

“We’ve had constant examination and discussion between the two of us about why it {the relationships ending} happened. Of course, there’s a part of us that still wants to blame the other person, but we know now, fifty years later, that we also had a role. The question now becomes one of, how did we take what we learned from our earlier relationships into future ones? How were we impacted? Our children? How will our grandchildren be impacted? Who did we become as a result of those experiences? We’ve become wiser with each other, we look at things differently. ~Regina

We’ve had multiple tides streaming across our lives at this point. We’re in a spiral of time, a mountain of time; today, we have a broader perspective to draw and learn from. ~Walter

In both of their previous marriages, they mentioned how there was a practical quality to those relationships: it made sense to get married to those individuals. We talked about how, at times, it can seem easier to make life decisions that are “head-led,” informed by what you’ve seen modeled to you, what’s expected, or have seen play out in your past experiences. That tendency to rely on what’s logical and “makes sense” is strong. And yet, we can’t ignore indefinitely what the heart feels and wants, and the overall emotional responses we have to the decisions we make and changes we navigate in life. 

With Regina, my heart spoke…and I listened. ~Walter

Walter shared how he believes his previous partners became less invested in the relationship over time, because of how the relationships started: they “made sense” for different reasons, yet lacked the heart that was needed to sustain the marriage over time and through life events and changes relating to career, raising children, and personal learning and growth. He also talked about how before Regina, he had never allowed himself to be truly loved. And so, if I didn’t expect that of myself, my partners got the message that it wasn’t expected of them, either. Finding true love and care in Regina as his partner, creates cause for pause today when the two of them disagree: she loves me in a way I’ve never experienced before. So, what am I going to do differently in this relationship? 

Another interesting point they made was on the tendency to look at your partner/spouse as a home improvement project, rather than accepting that people are who they are, and you’re not going to “fix” or “change” them. If you look at them that way, you’re gonna have problems! You can’t go to Home Depot to buy the parts to “fix” them! ~Walter 

To become, there needs to be a focus on self: an awareness of what makes you tick, how do I compromise, resolve differences, take in fresh input. ~Walter

Who you are is the basic foundation; this is who you are. You can learn and grow from life experiences, and while you don’t necessarily change your interior, how you respond to the world around you can change. You gain wisdom about yourself and how you react, and can then apply it more thoughtfully and intentionally. Maybe those are the changes that happen. ~Regina

The topic of how things are said (or not said) within a relationship is an interesting one, and Regina stressed the importance of vocabulary: we have to figure out how we are saying things in order to understand the other person. Vocabulary is something we build together, even though we may say things differently. To which Walter responded, in true poetic style (he is an actual poet, by the way), In poetry, words are the vehicles, the postage for what our hearts are trying to say. And it’s not just in words: the camera is always on. You cannot escape that. He encounters his parents in some way, every single day, so how and what do we choose from that infinite collection of memories, that inexhaustible supply of recorded tape we have on the metaphorical shelves in the library? 

One detail about these two is that they knew each other in junior high/high school; they’re both originally from the east coast. They reconnected at their fiftieth high school reunion, and when they eventually became a couple, Walter decided he would join Regina in Arizona, rather than ask her to come to Minnesota where he was. She’d always been the one to uproot, to move, to get re-established, and he didn’t want to ask that of her again. They lived in Arizona for approximately six years, and then: the pandemic arrived and with it, brought yet another major reflection and change for this couple. 

As COVID started to make its presence known in Arizona, they found themselves thinking: we’re not getting any visitors. We’re not going to visit people for a while. It’s hot, our tribe isn’t here…then, they started asking themselves, what the hell are we doing here? They looked into other places, but found themselves drawn back to Cape Cod and the east coast. The land, the ocean, the climate, their shared history…it all started calling to them, and they decided to heed that call. They found their house because of Regina’s family connections; at one point, it was owned by Regina’s  grandparents. It was synchronicity. And being by the ocean is amazing! ~Walter

There are two different types of change: change imposed from the outside, by way of circumstances, other people, the timing of things. Change is also what’s going on inside, what’s happening with or without a specific change taking place. Sometimes it’s the quiet, and the sameness from the outside, that allows you to give your heart the space it needs to speak, so you can listen. ~Walter

Change is change within yourself. ~Regina

If you’re willing to ask why, you also need to be brave enough to stick around to hear the answers. And then sometimes, you have to just go for it, and figure it out the next day. How inspiring, coming from two lovely humans, closing in on their eighth decade, to be open and willing to jump into change, knowing that in the end, it does all eventually work out, and we are better for the experience, if we choose to look at it that way.

Much gratitude to Walter and Regina for sharing their thoughts on change with us. A personal thank you to the two of them for their vulnerability and honesty in sharing their life stories, and I ask their humble forgiveness if I’ve transcribed/edited anything they shared in error. If you enjoyed their story and would like to hear more real stories from real people on real change, please subscribe to Changemakers Confidential, and share it with other changemakers you know. Thanks for reading - see you next week! 

Warmly,

Kristina

Chief Change Maven, Changemakers Confidential