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Kevin Bacon Surprises Students at High School Where ‘Footloose’ Was Filmed — Announces He’s Visiting Them for Prom

After some very serious lobbying from students at Payson High School in Payson, Utah, where “Footloose” was filmed, Kevin Bacon announced Friday that he would be returning to the high school for this year’s senior prom. 

“My Last Thought Was a Desperate Plea to God, ‘Lord, Give Me the Strength to Die Well’”: Mom With ‘Invisible Illness’ Shares Her Harrowing...

"'Help me to not look like I am suffocating,' I prayed. 'Lord, please protect my son’s heart from this.’ And I faded away."

“My Husband Turned Blue to Gray”: Wife In Shock Over the One Drink That Killed Her Husband

"The doctor's exact words were 'People drinking these drinks are playing Russian Roulette with their lives.' I was blown away and couldn’t believe just one drink could do this damage"... And KIDS can buy these anywhere.

Confessions of a Terrible Wife: 3 Marriage Mistakes I Made (So You Don’t Have To)

For four years I studied relationships. I read all of the current research about how to make a relationship work, how to fix it if it is broken. I read books, attended lectures, watched videos, literally learned more than my brain’s capacity to retain about healthy relationships, healthy systems, and healthy families. I can sit down and watch your family interact for five minutes and know what kind of background each of the parents came from and what kind of parenting style the kids have become accustomed to.  (Friends, don’t be alarmed, I don’t study your families when we are together, my therapist hat is off when I’m not working.) I KNOW relationships. I know families. I know marriages. What I don’t know is why it’s so unbelievably hard to apply all of these wonderful things that I know to my own family.

I was thinking this morning about the wonderful, kidless graduaversary trip (graduation/anniversary, and yes we went as far as to name it and then call it it’s cute little name while we were there) that Kyle and I took in January. It was amazing. Blissful. Exhilarating. Relaxing. Pretty much the best vacation ever. But I wasn’t thinking about the volcano that we climbed, the four waterfalls that we rapelled, the surfing, or the 60mph zipline we did 600ft up from the ground in the middle of the rainforest. I was thinking about the walk that I took alone on the beach. The walk that, in 45 min, had me convinced that I should just leave my family, move to Costa Rica and start over.

The day didn’t start with the walk. The day started about six hours prior to the walk, with a cold wake up and quiet breakfast. My husband is not a morning person but had been surprisingly pleasant to wake up to all trip. I knew something was off when he woke up tense, snapped at me a few times and hardly spoke to me at breakfast. Instead of following my intuition and asking what was wrong, I ignored his smug attitude and went about my business as usual.

Mistake #1: Instead of turning into him I turned away from him. I had a chance to lovingly open up communication that would have inevitably brought us closer together but I chose to walk away.

We proceeded to make or way to our favorite pool side cabana, set up shop and continued the silence. I was so absorbed in reading my book and basking in the sun that, for a split second, I forgot all about my husband’s attitude. I forgot that I was playing the part of the emotionally detached, better-than-you-because-I-don’t-let-other-people-affect me, wife. I was reminded quickly, though, when I tried to make small talk and was ignored.

By this time I was done playing cool. I now felt very sorry for myself. How dare he try to ruin my day?! The final straw came when I put aside my feelings toward his smugness and nicely asked him to get me a drink from the bar. He was fully clothed, I was not. It was in no way unreasonable for me to ask him to do that one small favor, or so I thought. But I was attacked. I was called names. And I was left feeling worthless. And when I feel worthless, I get mad. 

He stormed off to the room and I stayed perched by the pool, fuming. I was so angry that I couldn’t even focus on reading my book. Then the thought occurred to me. He’s only mean to me when he has a need that is not being met.

Mistake #2: I became aware that he was in some sort of emotional pain and instead of approaching him and asking how I could help, I used that awareness and insight to fuel my resentment.

Within a matter of minutes, I had recalled all of the times in the recent past that he had made me feel worthless. Sure, he had needs that he had failed to communicate to me but his needs were not of importance right now. My feelings were. In that moment, the feelings that HE made me feel were much more important than any of his needs.

I thought about all of the hurtful things he had said and done and found myself calling him selfish, inconsiderate and childish in my head. I let over an hour pass before I headed back to the room, ready for my apology. Surely, that was enough time for him to realize what he had done and make amends for it.

Mistake #3: I looked to reconnect through receiving, rather than giving.  

Upon returning to the room, I found him lying in bed watching golf. I putzed around the room for a few minutes, waiting patiently for him to say those magic words. They never came. And I certainly was not going to apologize because I had done nothing wrong. So instead is saying something like “I’m sorry you are having a bad day, do you want to talk about what’s going on?” I said this:

“Are you seriously going to pout in the room all day? What a waste of a very expensive vacation!” 

Then I got dressed, told him if he wanted to stop feeling sorry for himself he could join me and I left. He did not come. My generous offer to put up with him as long as he stopped pouting must not have sounded very enticing.

Christine Suhan
Christine Suhanhttp://www.feelingsandfaith.net/
Christine Suhan is a wife, stay at home mother to three wild toddler boys and writer/creator at www.feelingsandfaith.net. She has a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and enjoys helping people through openly and honestly sharing her journey of life, recovery, mental illness, marriage, parenting and more. You can also find her on her Facebook page.

Kevin Bacon Surprises Students at High School Where ‘Footloose’ Was Filmed — Announces He’s Visiting Them for Prom

After some very serious lobbying from students at Payson High School in Payson, Utah, where “Footloose” was filmed, Kevin Bacon announced Friday that he would be returning to the high school for this year’s senior prom. 

“My Last Thought Was a Desperate Plea to God, ‘Lord, Give Me the Strength to Die Well’”: Mom With ‘Invisible Illness’ Shares Her Harrowing...

"'Help me to not look like I am suffocating,' I prayed. 'Lord, please protect my son’s heart from this.’ And I faded away."

“My Husband Turned Blue to Gray”: Wife In Shock Over the One Drink That Killed Her Husband

"The doctor's exact words were 'People drinking these drinks are playing Russian Roulette with their lives.' I was blown away and couldn’t believe just one drink could do this damage"... And KIDS can buy these anywhere.