The Living And Breathing Entity Of Marriage

This last weekend was especially rough for me. 3 full days of my husband home always wanting to do stuff. So much stuff, all the time. When we wake up in the morning its a quick dash to the dog park before the blazing Arizona sun rises high and hot in the bright blue sky. A snappy detour to the coffee shop and home for breakfast. Then pick the day and I will tell you the activity. Pool time, Costco, the mall, the gym...oh the list goes on and on. We are always rushing somewhere. And it is with great intensity and urgency my husband lives his life. This is the man who works 14 hours a day, then leaves work to work-out. I have a really hard time understanding how he does not want to crash or decompress after his intense and grueling work week, but he feels the weekends are the only time he has to live his life and wants to pack as much as humanly possible into each and every second.

You can imagine it does not take much time for him to quickly outrun me. My knee-jerk reaction is to either crumble into a blithering mess, still so frustrated and angry I am not the healthy girl with equal energy I once was, or get pissed off and irritated at him for being so hyper and demanding as I struggle to make him understand something he has already understood for years. And that train that is never late! The guilt train. The whole I have ruined his life song and dance. So Tuesday evening rolls around and I have myself pretty worked up. He comes home to a terse wife all uptight and bent out of shape, spewing anger and blame, but only about ¼ of that directed his way. Oh the frustrations! My life, where has it gone? The days of level 8 pain all day every day are long behind me. Being unable to leave my house for more than 30 minutes at a time is years in the past. So what on earth am I still bitching about?

And much to my surprise he told me he was having a lot of the same feelings I was! He was glad I had brought this up because he had felt the tension, the un-meshing of two lives that are deeply intertwined. And it was bothering him too. So we talked, breaking the silence of unsaid frustrations and desires. And we admitted we needed some work. Yes he did, and yes I did, but more importantly, the marriage did. The living and breathing entity marriage becomes, standing independent all on her own. She was the one that needed the attention right now. He agreed to step back and allow me some "me" time on the weekends and I got him to promise he will not hold his life back because I cannot always join him. We worked through our discord. Gave our union a little oil change and set back on the gameboard of life. And when he came home from work yesterday we had a wonderful evening together. Laughing and being silly in a way I had been too uptight to relax into. Chilling out and mellow in a way he had been too rushed to realize the necessity of. It was good.

Thanks for joining,
Leah