I love to read relationship books. Whenever I read something that reminds me of my relationship with SG I marvel at how intuitive, how clever, how well researched the author must be. When I read something that doesn't fit us at all, naturally either the author is a charlatan or we are the exception to the rule. My husband is more than a standard deviation from the mean, if you know what I mean.
Anyhow, this current book I'm reading is all about how Attachment Theory is really what comes into play in our love relationships, that our primary relationship with our partner follows many of the same patterns as child/parent attachment. Similar to the way a healthy parental attachment fosters a sense of security and the ability to be happily independent in a child, a healthy attachment in an adult relationship makes each partner feel safer about indpendence - both theirs and their partner's. According to this theory, then, a clingy, jealous or insecure partner isn't just being a jerk: they're dealing with abandonment issues.
Makes sense. It helps me see my distaste for SG's road job in a different light; a person whose standard motto regarding relationships goes something like, "Everyone leaves. Period." isn't likely to feel too secure about having their partner off living the single life for a couple of months at a time.
Time and love do much to cure the places we are broken, and SG and I have seen a lot of that happening over the course of our relationship. I'd love to say that I'm completely without insecurity, but I would be lying. I am, however, much more secure in this relationship than I can recall being in a very long time.
Which is good, because we're pretty sure he's going to end up going back on the road.
Its not that his in-town full-time job is a horrible job, or anything. But its not what he's used to. Its not what he likes or wants to do. He likes the road. He likes his solitude. It doesn't mean he likes being away from me or that he doesn't want to be with me. But its work and pay that agree with him, and if being alone for several weeks at a time are the price, its one he's happy to pay. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing what they do for a living. Hell, at best we choose between several imperfect options and pick the one that's simply the least worst.
We've had some very long and occasionally very intense discussions about this of late. We've spent time exploring our feelings about our relationship, about ourselves, about what we want out of our lives and where we want to be ten or twenty years down the road. We've talked about what's hard about him being gone for me -- being lonely very much the primary issue, followed by being overwhelmed -- and about what's hard for him about about the current situation.
Compromises in relationships don't mean each party gets what they want and then they hold hands and skip down the primrose path while rose blossoms fall from the sky and birds sing love songs. Oh, no. Compromise means sometimes I have to give up more than I think I want to and other times the short stick gets drawn by my husband. Compromise means maybe my husband goes on the road, but at the same time we get someone to come help with the housework and the yard so that I at least get a break to do things that I want to while he's gone. Compromise means maybe he doesn't take the six month job that would bring a much bigger payout, but takes fall and spring work and spends the winter at home. And lets be honest, the days he's here and I get to go gallivanting off on my horse while he stays home and wrangles my offspring there is absolutely no doubt about who is getting the short stick.
So little in life is absolutely perfect. I would say, if pressed, that SG is the perfect man for me. I think he would probably say I'm the perfect woman for him. I know there are times both of us will tell you how the other is driving us insane or irritating the crap out of us, but even then there are billion reasons its worth it to get to the other side of the trying days.
Remind me I wrote this come fall, will you?
Remember weeks ago when I said SG had a job offer here in our area? The start date finally materialized. He had to wait until the holidays were over for the HR people, who are located in another state, to get their stuff together and get him scheduled for his background check, a DMV report and a physical. The DMV apparently is slower than the social security office because after a whole month they decided to just get him started with the DMV report as a contingency. (They also made him get a spinal x-ray - but no drug screen. Weirdest hiring protocol I've EVER heard of.)
So he passes all his screens, gets his offer, quibbles over it for a few days, then accepts. He finally started on Monday of this week.
While the weeks at a time of wrangling life at home on my own was a serious challenge, the upside was is that SG was also home for weeks at a time. Home to get the kids dressed and fed and on the bus, the animals fed, dinner made, groceries shopped for and household chores done. If a child ended up needing to be picked up at school due to illness or behavior, he was there to take care of it. I got used to coming home to dinner on the stove and kids with finished homework every day.
I was spoiled. I had a househusband.
About Thursday of last week panic set in. We had considered that this would mean drastic changes to our routines at home, but until it was staring us in the face we hadn't really thought it out in detail. Kids going to before- and after-school care would be kids who needed to get out of bed and ready to go an hour and a half earlier than they were used to. Dinners, especially when we wanted to create time at the end of our day to exercise, would need to be planned and cooked in advance. Bedtime would need to be pushed up, undoubtedly spawning cries of outrage. We'd need to plan around guitar lessons, obedience classes, homework and workouts.
We laid out plans for meals, we bought groceries. We identified who was responsible for what each morning and each evening. We were the parenting equivalent of Rocky training for a fight against the seemingly unbeatable Ivan Drogo.
(What was that line of Dolph Lundgren's from Rocky IV? "If he dies...he dies." Yikes.)
Sunday night, groceries are bought and stowed. Dinner has been eaten and put away and the kids have showered and are enjoying computer time before getting ready for bed. I pull all the meat out of the fridge we will need for the meal plan I've written up for the next few days.
"Honey, there's only one package of chicken in the freezer. Didn't you buy any?"
"No, I thought we didn't need chicken. Do we?"
"I don't think four legs are gonna cut it."
Swap Tuesday for Wednesday on the menu plan and forge ahead. Its only a minor setback, we're still on our feet and swinging.
So far we've dealt with:
On top of all of it, the Chihuahua has had diarrhea for three days which has added an extra half hour to each morning of changing crate bedding, cleaning the carpets with my steam cleaner, extra loads of laundry and lots of air freshener. Because we were out of clean bedding last night we had to let the dogs sleep loose in our room. Did I mention Zoey's favorite place to sleep is the bed? Between her insistence on putting her big head so close to my face I couldn't breathe and SG's habit of hogging the covers I finally ended up retreating in a huff to the couch where Iwas then assailed by the cats trying to take advantage of available human real estate to curl up on.
Its only Thursday and I'm starting to feel afraid we're headed for a TKO. Not to mention its Valentine's Day. I'm here to tell you its a sheepish thing to give your husband his Valentine's Day card when you've spent the night in a huff on the couch. To be honest, I didn't actually give the card to him, I just tossed it over onto his side of the bed after I finished getting dressed this morning. I'm not usually this chickenshit, but I'm just wiped out.
Hey, we're still in one piece. No one's lost a finger or gotten left behind at the grocery store, at least at the last head count.
I'm sure we'll have this down in a week or two. I just hope to God the Chihauahua's butt dries up.
A very smelly dog who hasn't had a bath yet is lying almost entirely on my pillow as my husband sleeps, oblivious. The stitches from her surgery haven't come out yet, so we haven't been able to give her a much-needed bath.
Exasperated, I kiss the dog on the head and shake my husband awake. "You want to move the dog?" I ask. "If you're going to let her stink up the bed, let it be on your side."
For a moment I think "He's lucky I love him." It only takes a moment or two for me to remember that I'm pretty lucky he loves me.
Sometimes its something powerful that causes you to consider the depth of your feelings for someone; other times its the mundane. Considering how often we annoy the shit out of each other, its amazing we remember at all. But remember we do.
The other day I'm sitting in the living room quietly minding my own business and he feels the need to come in, change the channel to some band I've never heard of doing a live concert and then turn the volume waaayyyyyy up.
Annoyed, I gather my things and change rooms, grumbling the whole way about how I live here too, you know, and not everyone wants to listen to music all the time. Then again, its likely he feels the same way about my tendency to try on every outfit I own and leave all the stuff I decided against piled up in the middle of the bed for him to deal with after I leave for work, or to wake him up at 5:00 in the morning because I something large and furry went scurrying when I opened the garage door and I needed him to prove it was a kitten and not a rat. And he even went along with me when I suggested that if it was actually a kitten we should probably start feeding it.
This morning I'm putting on my makeup and he comes and leans against the bathroom doorjamb, watching.
"Why do you watch this?" I ask. "How am I supposed to maintain any sense of mystery? Not that there's a lot left to the imagination at this point..."
"A woman's personality is always a source of mystery" he says, laughing and kissing me.
I am lucky that my dear husband is a forgiving sort of fellow, he likewise that I am a woman inclined to seek the good. We're both old enough to be at peace with our respective faults, which makes it far easier to accept them in others. When I finally reached a point in my life where my self-love was greater than my self-loathing, that's when I met the person who could love me as I am. Perhaps the fact that I had come to accept and even at times celebrate my own strengths and acknowledge and forgive my own weaknesses made it easier for someone else to come along and love me too.
Even though life is busy and like most people I invest too much of my time and energy slogging through the daily grind of work, chores and bills, there are times on my long commute that I turn off the radio and pay attention. Driving through the frozen desert and the stubbled, winter-barren crop circles, I reflect on the mystery of us and one more time am humbled by just how lucky I am, at this stage in my life, to know this kind of love.
I would marry this man again in a heartbeat. Yes, I would.
Christmas seemed quiet up until about 1 o'clock Christmas Day. My kids were with their dad from their last day of school on Friday. We spent the time wrapping gifts and enjoying sleeping in. On Christmas Eve SG went to the airport in Spokane to pick his son Josh up at the airport.
We've had Josh's dog Kylie for a few months now while he transitioned from Arizona to Florida for the first part of Navy flight school. He's ready to take her home now, and Christmas was a great opportunity to come get his dog and spend some time with his dad and his extended family here in Washington.
Christmas Day we slept in, had a lazy breakfast and pretty much hung out until the kids finally showed up about 1:00. Then the fun really started.
They tore through their presents by 1:15 and were busy playing with their toys before the minute hand hit the 30 minute mark.
Once we could tear them away from the video console, we joined SG's family for Christmas dinner. The wine and the conversation were excellent. SG carved the turkey, escaping with only one sliced finger. Why do people insist on trusting my husband to handle sharp objects? Don't they know any better?
The kids and their cousins made a snowman in the park.
It was a damn fine Christmas.
By contrast, New Year's Eve was extemely quiet.
Josh flew home that day, taking Kylie with him. Roscoe misses her. We told the kids they could stay up until midnight. That would have been great, except the adults couldn't make it that long. They're still mad at me.
We're still enjoying the quiet around here. Its the third of January and my tree and outside lights are still up.
Don't judge. Happy New Year!
The nights when the kids are at their dads are simultaneously awesome and terrible. The house is so quiet. Too quiet. I shuffle around in my slippers, turning off lights, locking doors, talking to the animals as if they could understand and respond. Crazy cat lady.
Back when I was newly separated I had gotten in the bad habit of letting the dogs sleep on the bed. Three big dogs, nicely filling up the empty side of the bed and making me feel somewhat less alone. Except there's a problem with dogs and beds. Pretty soon they think they have a right to be there, and if for any reason you don't want them up there, they sit on the floor and whine incessantly. Or they growl at you when you want to move them. Or they take up so much space there's not much room for you any more. Not a problem - so long as you don't ever get remarried. It turns out that teaching your dogs to stay off the bed takes just about as long as it takes to teach your kid to sleep in his own bed: three nights, and the occasional slide into bad habits.
Cats are a different story. Cats do not take up an excess amount of space. Cats, unlike small dogs, do not burrow under the covers and do their best to put their nose in your private parts. Cats, if you are not allergic, are wonderful heat sources.
Juliet has slept with me most nights the last couple of years. If she's not sleeping with me she's in my daughter's bed, but most often she's with me. She will leap up next to me, knead the covers a bit, then plop herself down with her back pressed up against my stomach. I pet her a little, and she purrs quietly, making soft snuffly noises. At some point in the night I will roll over, and she will use this opportunity to crawl under the covers and rearrange herself in the curl of my belly or behind my knees. We have a predictable and comfortable arrangement, she and I.
There are times of late that my bed seems huge and empty, there are times when the fact that I am lonely hits me like a freight train. There are times when I realize that my closest and dearest sleeping companion is a cat. Then I start to feel a little bit sorry for myself and the tears flow. Once Fortunately Juliet doesn't mind getting a little bit soggy.
Comfort, thy name is Cat.
