marriage

My Husband’s Quiz

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“So this is thirteen?”

I only smile.

“Right?”

“I’m not telling you.”

We are both playful grins.

“Come on. I lose track.”

“Well, what year were we married?”

His eyes travel to the dim ceiling of the restaurant as he visibly counts with his lips. I take another bite of tilapia that resolves any ill feelings I’ve ever had of this man. Because it’s that fantastic.

“Thirteen?”

“All your answers are coming out as questions.”

I smile again, unable to resist his boyish laugh. His real laugh.

“We were married in 2002 so it’s twelve,” I say.

“Twelve. Wait,” he says flicking his fingers to check. “Wow. Twelve.”

“No.” And I can’t wait to see his face. “We were married in 2001 and it’s thirteen.”

“So I was right the first time!”

I giggle. Dessert, please.

Fewer Words

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“Women, who feel shame when they don’t feel heard or validated, often resort to pushing and provoking with criticism (‘Why don’t you ever do enough?’ or ‘You never get it right.’). Men, in turn, who feel shame when they feel criticized for being inadequate, either shut down (leading women to poke and provoke more) or come back with anger.” -Brene Brown

Or she could have just written Chase and Brittany in large, bold letters. That would have been fewer words.

Worth It

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Dizzy with anticipation, he drives the car under log beams that look as if they defined the word “lodge.”

There’s a lot of hype over a planned weekend away. We say goodbye to our normal routine and our little ones who will gorge themselves on grandparental spoils. For a few days we sleep. Actually sleep, until we cannot sleep anymore. We eat when we please, like breakfast at 10:30 a.m. and without dropping platefuls of food on restaurant floors; we speak full sentences in an absence of tugs on our pants or burps in our ears. We do, what we want. 

My cheeks were still cold from walking in. “Just two,” I told the long blonde hair in glasses at the counter. I wanted to add, Can I tell you we’ve left three of us at home, on purpose? 

“OK, I have you in a King, Mountain View, for two nights.”
Pinch. Me. “Yes.”

Our room key was an actual key and much more charming than the bright, blue, accordion ribbon attached as a bracelet. My knee-high boots clanked on hardwood through the lobby with a roaring fireplace and a view so other-worldly I couldn’t soak it in enough. It was the same view out the wood slatted shutters in our room.

“Where should we eat?”
Anywhere. Everywhere. Twice. “Let me check Tripadvisor,” I said, pulling out my phone with finger smudges. 

Oh, Tripadvisor. We have become quite close the two of us. You should really be named something much more honorable like, Salvation Reviews or, What Not to Eat or simply, My Precious Guide for not Picking the Jamaican Dive Who Will be Out of Business the Next Time I Visit that Serves Pasta (?) Under Green and Black and Yellow Lights and Sees the Same Two Patrons Every Night at the Bar. You know, something like that.

We wanted something a little more…digestive, if you will.

Deciding to opt out of Rasta Pasta, we picked a highly acclaimed burger place. Our hands reached out over a speckled concrete bar and we relaxed with a Tequila and cinnamon hot chocolate, which the waitress recommended and I, do not.

All was hunky dory. We were dancing, romancing, financing.

Later, when I ignored the clock and drifted to sleep I could feel cold hit my neck, so I pulled up the covers. I tossed and drifted and still, the chill. I grabbed the extra blanket and settled back in. But there it was again, sneaking it’s way to my core.
This stupid blanket, I thought. It isn’t cozy. It’s like Berber carpet. How am I supposed to wrap carpet around my shoulders?
I looked to the other side of the bed.
And how can he be sleeping so soundly in this icebox? Doesn’t he feel the wind as it literally whistles through the windows?
I warmed only with anger.

Fifty. Five. Degrees. That’s what the thermostat told us by morning.  

“Hey, has anyone ever complained about the heating in room One-Oh-Eight?” Chase asked the morning shift. So respectful. It was good that he was taking care of the situation. I wouldn’t have phrased things in quite the same manner. 
“Yes actually.” I think he was shaking a little. I felt sorry for him. A little. “The mechanic is on his way. We’re having trouble with the whole first floor system.” He looked out the front door more than once. Poor chap. 

Breakfast was cold. Brushing our teeth was cold. Dressing was cold. My heart was growing cold.

We spent the day like the tourists we were. We walked through homes from the 1800’s, learned the influence of a slave and a naturalist. We had lunch by a rowdy group of college students who knew everything, were phased by nothing, and talked like surfers. We ordered coffee, watched the sun slide behind ski runs, and compared the different snow suits we liked. Until it was time to head back to our room.

Please, for the sake of that dear, scared boy in the lobby, let the heat be on.

Fifty. Five. Degrees.

Oh. Oh my stars. And freaking garters.

The mechanic was called. “Well we got the heat working this morning but I’ll take a look,” he said. With his digital thermostat he checked the numbers by the floorboards. “Wow, it’s over a hundred degrees on this side. It’s working but sometimes these older systems take a while so give it about an hour and it should be better.” Old system, makes sense. I’m still skeptical. 

Two hours later, Fifty. Nine. Degrees.

I was marching at this point. Knees to my chest, jaw jutted, marching.

“Our room is at fifty-nine degrees and I want some serious compensation for this.”

If I were camping? No problem. I’d expect to be that cold. Colder, in fact. But for what we were paying, no. Nuh-uh.

“Absolutely. I can definitely get you one night comp’d if not two. For now, let me get you a couple space heaters.” 
“Thank you very much.” And they better work.

 This is marriage. We plan, we form expectations. We don’t just vow to love and cherish, we vow not to do marriage the way our parents did. We promise that no matter what, we’ll work it out. We anticipate that the years will hold arguments, hard days, sure. But nothing can break the bond we have formed. We’ll do it right.

Until the room gets cold and the repairs aren’t working. All of a sudden it’s not so hard to see why someone would want to move to another floor find a nicer hotel.

We woke up on the last morning warm. Hot, even. In our haste to have heat we had turned up the knobs a little much. 
We stayed until there was a solution. One that included an apology, a refund, and a will to try something else. Something, that worked. 

Our weekend didn’t go as we thought. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. And if we hadn’t stuck it out, we wouldn’t have known that it could get warm again.  
  

 

 

Parenting Grown-Ups

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Arms folded tight across my chest, my jaw jutted out (Chase does a great impression of this) I was thinking, “I’ve got him. I’m beyond right, I’m brilliant.”

Often, I was. But is that the point?

I grew up an only child, caught in the crosshairs of a civil divorce. What they say is true, a great divorce is still a divorce. Luckily, I’m close to all my parents. But one of the aftereffects of this was my uncanny ability to relate to people older than me. Add to this the fact my mom worked at a college campus where I spent many of my post-school hours and summer days. I was surrounded by them: grown-ups.

After kindergarten I’d go straight to the president’s office (the father of my mom’s best friend) and schmooze him with my charm. He’d give me snacks. I returned daily.

I hung out with 20-something’s on a regular basis, was really good at P-I-G because I had a basketball rim at my constant disposal, and knew all the professors on a first-name basis, though I still said Mr. Then I’d go home to my mom, another grown-up.

It was a couple years into marriage that I realized my husband didn’t have the same appreciation for these stellar relational skills. In fact, he thought they were downright annoying. Recently I’ve also learned that I tend to communicate aggressively when things don’t go my way. Said husband would also say this is not a becoming quality of mine.

But so became our toxic dance.

“You come home and just check out.”

“Nothing’s ever good enough for you.”

Round and bitterly around we went for a long time. I was the parent who was always picking up the slack. He was never reaching the bar.

We both wanted to be seen. I wanted him to know that when he was in the room, I still felt alone. He wanted me know that all his hard work all day long was for us. I wanted him to know that connecting was important to me. He wanted me to know that he was doing that the best he knew how.

“He’ll always fail you, you know. He can’t really fill you. No human can,” said an oh-so-wise woman to me once. 

Huh. Are you sure? Because I’m pretty certain if he acted exactly like Westley in The Princess Bride everything would be fine.

Of course she was right. People let me down, all the time. They’re people, I’m people and that equals mess. I haven’t mastered this perfect balance of give and take, love and let live. It turns out, grown-ups can think for themselves. It turns out, so can I. And when I do, I have a lot more to actually offer.

Parallel Wrinkles of Time

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When he’s old they won’t go away as he relaxes, those lines that parallel above his eyebrows like a notebook. And when I’m two years younger but just as crinkled, I’ll think they’re endearing. I’ll remember being at the threshold of our thirties and him giving me that heavy look. “We’re sinking.”

I always take this news not with a grain of salt, but a whole salt block because my husband, God bless him, is a proverbial tightwad.

“Ok. Everybody calm down,” I say. “Let me see.”

My arms tighten and my breathing becomes shallow as I scroll the mouse down the alleys of Quicken charts. I become downright afraid. 

How did this happen? Sure, the new car in the garage contributed but we had some here and some there and…where did it go?

I dig. Deep into the depths of my heart at what is going on in the tick-tocks of this moment. At what I want to avoid with everything in me.

It’s saying “no.” No grande half-caff mocha, two pumps caramel, skip the whip; no salsa and chips and tips; no date-night movies where Chase slurps at an ICEE and we piously roll our eyes at what we looked like 12 years ago; no camping trip with the family; maybe no dream property that we’ve been praying about and saving for. 

As the monologue between my ears slows, we settle into our roles. He panics and I rationalize. Sometimes we trade, but usually those cute wrinkles on his forehead increase with intensity and stature while I try to juggle numbers and search for what checks are due us. Except I can’t juggle anything but schedules. Sometimes. You see the predicament.

We could have to utter them. The two words we’ll do anything not to say. “We can’t” Can’t eat it, can’t drink it, can’t go.

At first glance this feels embarrassing. Shameful.

At a second take, I see that I still have coffee every morning. We eat healthier at home (Although the rest of my family probably doesn’t care and would still claw for the Hot-N-Ready if it was in front of them… Who am I kidding? So would I). We’ve never gone without shoes or meals, pillows or blankets, or Halloween costumes. In fact, sometimes the blanket IS the Halloween costume. And instead of popcorn and the sloping tiers of amphitheater seating we have the best date of our lives watching stars among the pines.

We have each other. And I’d rather live poor with you, than rich without you.