"I want you all to take the next ten minutes,"  Gaylord tells the hundreds in the room in his evangelist's twang, "and create your mission statement.  And when you're each through with your mission statement, I want you and your spouse to exchange statements and take the time to read each other's."

"Oh, brother!"  Becca thinks, and rolls her eyes.  This seminar wasn't her idea.  She'd rather be home cleaning the toilet bowl than in this room, listening to this hokey pseudo-expert telling her and her husband how to save their marriage and "reignite the passion."

The passion has been gone for years.  Now it's about getting to work on time, keeping the bills paid and trying to keep some organization in the clutter of their home.  Jeff thinks they need to "save their marriage," and that's why he hounded her to come with him to this seminar today.  Becca doesn't think there's much left to save.

Edmond Gaylord, bestselling author and frequent talk show guest, has spent the past several hours lecturing them on their relationships with their spouses and how their marriage will never be strong until they realize that each partner is an individual and that each needs to be successful in their own right before they can provide support and nurturing for anyone else.

Pretty words, Becca acknowledges, but in her own experience, that's not how a marriage works.  Marriage is simply two people trying to get through life together.  You do what you have to do to keep things going.

She's still sitting there thinking about it when Jeff pokes her gently in the side and when she looks up, he points to her notebook meaningfully.  Sighing, she picks up her pen and titles the page "My mission statement."

What is a mission statement, she asks herself, and when she's satisfied she has a conceptual understanding of it, she begins to write.  Her list grows quickly, and before she knows it, Gaylord is telling her it's time to put her pen down.  She doesn't want to.  She's on a roll now and thinks that she could put down something really meaningful if only he'd give her more time.

Jeff hands her his notebook and holds out his hand for hers.  Reluctantly, she hands it to him.  "Now take the next few minutes and look at your spouse's statement,"  Gaylord tells them.  Becca thinks that for the $200 dollars they've shelled out to be here today, it's pretty ballsy of him to make them do so much of the work.

Becca looks down and tries to decipher Jeff's scratchy handwriting.  It's not easy, but she finally makes out that first statement:  "To provide for my family."  She feels the bitterness rising within her as she reads.  The truth is that her paycheck does the majority of the "providing."  Jeff's job as a mechanic doesn't pay half of what her job as a programmer does.

"Have a good relationship with my family," Jeff's second item reads, and Becca thinks that he's never home long enough to have any relationship with them, good or otherwise.

"Have a good relationship with my wife," she reads, and realizes that Jeff has no imagination whatsoever.  She hadn't thought about it before, but knows it's true.  She knew exactly what was going to happen every birthday, anniversary and holiday, because Jeff never varied.  For her birthday he bought her appliances; for their anniversary, he bought her appliances; for every gift-giving occasion, more appliances.

He'd never once surprised her with flowers, jewelry, a night on the town, a vacation to an exotic destination.  Nothing but appliances in fifteen years of marriage.  She thinks he views her as an appliance of sorts, something he needs to make all the other things work.

"Try to be a good person," she reads, and tries to recall whether or not Jeff had been a boy scout.  That is all there is.  Jeff has summed himself up in less than thirty words.  Suddenly, she feels a stab of sadness for him so acute that she wants to cry.

The truth is that for all of the problems in their relationship, he is a good person.  His kids adore him, although they seldom see him, and even her parents dote on him.  He is the same person that Becca married.  It is Becca who's changed.

She looks over at him, noticing the frown on his face as he reads her list.  He is in pain, as she'd half-expected  -- no, half-hoped -- as she'd written her list.  She feels a twinge of guilt, then looks away and remembers his face as he begged her to come here with him today.

"Becca, honey, please.  We need to do something about this," he'd pleaded.  "Things aren't right between us.  Let's try to get back what we had when we first got married."  She'd been about to make a sarcastic comment when she looked in his eyes.  "C'mon, sweetheart, I miss you."  Jeff had added softly, and she'd agreed.  Not because she shared his feelings, but because it seemed to mean so much to him.

But in the week between then and now, she'd had time to grow resentful again.  It was her $200 they'd wasted on this seminar, not to mention the $90 it would cost her for a babysitter.  And no one would be doing the housework or cooking dinner while she sat here.

All that would be waiting for her when she left here today.  Jeff would probably go out to the garage and putter around there as he did whenever he was home, then after dinner, he'd probably go down to the corner bar for beers and a couple of games of pool.

He always asked her to go with him, and she always refused.  Originally, she'd refused because she was still hungry for him and hoped he offer to stay home with her instead.  But he never understood what she wanted, and over time, her "no, thank you" became more of a ritual than something intentional.

"Alright folks, now you've read what each other has to say," Gaylord interrupts.  "Take a few moments to think about it on your own."  Jeff's face is blank now.  He's holding Becca's notebook in his hand, but he can't possibly read it at that angle.  He's staring straight ahead, and Becca's tempted to wave a hand in front of his face.

But something warns her, and she sits back with her hands clasped over the notebook in her lap, looking down over the sparsely worded page.  Jeff has boiled himself down to less than thirty words, and not one of them was mean, petty or contrived.  It is exactly who he is and what he wants out of life.

Gaylord clears his throat, and Becca hears all the other people around them suddenly figeting in their seats, murmuring to one another and rustling the papers in their hands.  "Finally, I want you to sit with your spouse and quietly talk to each other about what you've written and what you've read."  He crosses the stage and took a sip of water from the glass on the table.

"I want you to do it with these ground rules.  Number one, whatever your spouse wrote on the page, *you* don't have any right to judge it.  That's who *they* are and how *they* feel.  Number two, make sure you understand it.  If there's something you read that you thought was vague or confusing, ask them what they meant by it.  Tell your spouse what their mission statement meant to you, just to be sure that your understanding matches their meaning.  Number three, realize that the whole purpose of this exercise is to come to a better understanding of who your partner is and how you can help him or her be more successful at fulfilling his or her mission." 

Gaylord sets down the mike abruptly and walks to the edge of the stage to confer with one of this assistants.  She turns to Jeff.  He's still staring off into space and once again, Becca feels guilty about being so brutal in what she wrote.  She leans over and touches his arm gently.  He starts, then turns toward her, looking at her as if he'd just found her in bed with another man. 

Silently, he gets up from his seat and walks out of the auditorium.  Becca wants to call after him, but doesn't want to embarrass herself.  She looks around to see if anyone has noticed.  Everyone else is deep in conversation with their own spouses, earnestly recapitulating each other's mission statements and genuinely seeking to understand each other a little better.  But when she glances at the stage, she sees that Gaylord is staring at her.  He has seen her husband leave her. 

She grabs her purse and the notebook and hurries out of the auditorium, but sees no sign of him in the lobby or the parking lot.  Their car is still there, though, and feeling the beginnings of panic, she drives home to wait, wondering if she has anything in the refrigerator to cook for dinner.   And after she's remembered that she took a package of hamburger out of the freezer, and that she has a couple of cans of crushed tomatoes and a pound of vermicelli in the cupboard, she wonders if Jeff will come home tonight.