096 – The Burning Man Blues - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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THE BURNING MAN BLUES…
So…as you know on Friday’s I kind of talk about whatever happens to be on my mind…as it relates to being a better man of course.Right now what’s on my mind is the fact that I am going to be a bachelor until next week, because my wife went to work at Burning Man.  For those that don’t know what burning man is, its a huge art and music festival out in the middle of a dessert in Nevada.  It’s huge…there are like 80,000 people out there.
For the past 12 or 13 years my wife has volunteered as a Ranger at Burning man.  What the rangers do, is they are kind of an interface between the participants and law enforcement.  They help keep people safe and the event running smoothly.We went together last year and it was quite an experience.  I couldn’t go this year because I’ve got too many things going on.  So when she told me she was going to go, without me…it caused a little problem for me.
It was one of those moments when I had to check myself, I had to take a nice long hard look at myself and make sure of what I thought and felt about it, so that I could communicate it well…without causing more problems.  In other words, it presented an opportunity for me to be a better man.I told her I wasn’t happy about her going alone.  Initially she assumed it was because I didn’t trust her or something but I quickly corrected that, because I trust her more than I have trusted anyone, ever. 
I explained to her that the problem for me was that she is traveling outside of my bubble of protection.  I feel personally responsible for her physical safety at all times and when she is away from me physically, in another town another state, surrounded by people that I don’t know…I can’t help her, she’s out of my reach, and that feeling makes me very uneasy. She listened politely, and then said something like, she went there alone for years before she met me and she was fine, she knows how to take care of herself, and don’t worry.
So then I had to explain that my feelings in no way reflect my opinion of her competence.  On the contrary I think she is brilliant, and extremely competent, and she knows how to deal with other people very well…but, believing all that doesn’t change how my protection bubble works.  Her level of competence is irrelevant because the bottom line is that she weighs around 125 pounds…she’s an attractive woman, and there are a lot of very bad people in the world, and if anything were to happen to her I would feel responsible.Now…a lot of guys in a similar situation would just put their foot down and forbid their wife from traveling outside of their protection.  They wouldn’t “let” her go.  I put the word let in quotation marks.  I did that because I hate that word when it is used in a relationship.
Whenever I hear people say things like “My wife wouldn’t let me” or “My husband would never let me do that” it makes me cringe.  It makes me cringe because these are adults talking about other adults.  They don’t own each other.If I respect my wife and believe her to be an intelligent, rational, responsible adult human being on the same par as myself, then I feel I should trust her to make decisions about her own life, even if I don’t agree with them.  If I didn’t think she was all of those things, then I would not have married her in the first place.
In return, she gives me the same consideration.  She never uses the word let with me, she trusts me, even when she doesn’t agree with me.  I have never told my wife what to do or what not to do, and I never will.  I expect the same treatment in return.Instead, what we do is have conversations. We express our concerns, motivations and thoughts to each other in a calm respectful way…and we listen to each other.  Sometimes that will have the other person change their mind of their own will. 
Like if I want to do something and my wife expresses to me that she doesn’t like it,...

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