A Tale of Two Spouses

This June my husband and I celebrated our 10^th wedding anniversary. That was a pretty big milestone for us, and it got me to thinking about how different we both are today, as compared to how we were back when we got married.

For example, back when we were newlyweds my husband had a habit of going around and making definitive proclamations about how everything HAD TO BE, and I had the habit of believing that I had no choice but to follow each and every one of them to the letter.

Like the time that we ran out of vacuum cleaner bags and my husband declared that before I could buy any new bags and continue on with my vacuuming, I had to shop around, compare prices, and find absolutely the best value that I possible could.

Because, when faced with the need to buy something my husband compares approximately 800 jillion styles, prices, sizes, locations, options, and, please, somebody, kill me now and end this misery! Whereas I decide what I need, go to a store that sells it, find something that meets my needs, and buy it. His method works great when you’re buying things like cars, washing machines, and computers, but it can be a real problem when you run out of something like, say, bread.

So I tried to shop around, I truly did. But what I never knew until I became a vacuum cleaner owner myself is that, just like each human being has their own personal blood type, and some blood types are more rare than others, each vacuum cleaner also needs its own particular type of bag. And apparently our vacuum uses the AB- equivalent of vacuum cleaner bags, because I could not find those suckers ANYWHERE.

So the pressure was building, and the carpets were dirty, and I wanted my husband to approve of me, and then one day…I discovered online shopping. I just entered in our type of vacuum cleaner bag, and up popped this luscious list of bags, all ripe for the buying. And I thought, “I just can’t take it anymore-I MUST be able to vacuum!” And so I bought the very first package I saw. And then I sat and waited for the earth to crash into the sun, because I had just made a decision to do something other than what my husband wanted.

Surprisingly it actually turned out to be no big deal. And I began to suspect that I might not need to take my husband’s proclamations quite so seriously after all. So I began to make cautious little experiments here and there, and slowly my confidence began to grow, and eventually I began to trust in my own abilities to buy things like closet organizers and crock pots all by myself. And now I have become such a Brazen Consumer Hussy that I recently bought myself a brand new MP3 player while my husband was off in a whole other state, and I never consulted him once.

So we eventually worked our way through the thorny issues involved with taking each other seriously-or not-and then we smacked right up against our deeply held and completely unquestioned belief that, “MY way is the only right way to see things.”

I think the most vivid example of this particular impasse took place back during our first year of marriage when my husband, who is himself an Eagle Scout, worked as a volunteer with a Boy Scout troop and I, caught up in the flush of wanting to impress my new husband, agreed to go along on one of his troop’s camping trips.

I really should have known that I was in over my head when my husband and I went to the outdoor store to buy me some gear. We did not go there to buy a cool backpack, or a kicky bandana, or a nifty trail tool. We went so that I could buy my very own, neon orange, plastic poo shovel.

But I stuck to my decision to go on this trip, so we packed up all our gear, drove to the mountains, hiked all the way up the trail to the spot where we were going to camp that night, and then things kind of took a turn for the worse. Because foolishly, we had drunk all the water we’d packed, so my husband went down to the river, filled our two plastic bottles with water, ran some iodine through the bottles, and handed one to me. I looked at the bottle, looked at him, and said, “It’s brown, and there are bugs in it!” And he looked at me and said, “The bugs are dead. And we have this lemonade mix to add to it.”

Even now, nine years later, I can’t think of this story without experiencing total incredulity at his response. And to this day my husband insists that we would not have even had this problem, if only he had packed a darker colored drink mix. Hm, so I guess we haven’t actually changed very much at all in that area. Oh well.

But eventually we did get to the point that I guess most couples do, where we realized that we in fact going have to at least consider being flexible and compromising in some areas, so that we could work out all the different roles in our marriage in the ways that worked best for us.

I believe this process officially began three years into our marriage, when we bought a new house and then six months later experienced a severe ice storm.

We thought the worst that happened was that we lost power, but we soon discovered just how wrong we were when I walked into our bedroom and saw a GI-NORMOUS tree sticking through the roof.

Naturally I called for my husband, and he responded by saying, “What?” Now I’m sure you can picture this situation, so you know the tone I was using. It was not, “Could you please come in here when you get a minute, hon?” It was, “COME! NOW! BAD!” Fortunately he decided to amble in and see what was going on. That was good because I only had the one yell in me, and then I lost all ability to speak and was reduced to quiet whimpering.

So he came into the room while talking on the cell phone to his dad, saw the giant hole in our roof, and… started describing it in precise, rational, scientific terms to his father. Like, “Hm, the hole is about the size of a dinner plate, and the tree is protruding approximately eighteen inches down from the ceiling.”

And I’m standing there looking at him, the love of my life, the man I waited seven years to marry, and I’m thinking, “Who are you, and what is the MATTER with you?! Why are you not freaking out when CLEARLY that is the response called for in this situation?!”

So that was the point where we decided to take a whole, “division of labor” approach to our marriage, deciding that in times of stress it works best for us if my husband is the person in charge of Being Calm, and I am the person in charge of Getting To Freak Out.

So here we are seven years later (still living in America), and we’ve gotten our routine down pretty well. He is in charge of Things That Sting, Time, Calling People On The Phone, and Knowing How To Get Around In Any Given Location, and I am in charge of Funny Smells, Sneaking In Decluttering So He Doesn’t Notice It, Knowing Things About People, and Holding His Drink When We Go Out Somewhere.

It works for us.