So much to write about, I have to pace myself. This is my story of why my husband is the perfect human being, and I am so not worthy of him.
We married old. He was 38 and never married; I was 37 and divorced. I had two children, and we decided before we married that we would have one more, after a year of figuring married life out.
One year and three months after we married, I was pregnant. It had been a long time (12 years) since I'd been pregnant, and I had forgotten how yucky the first trimester was. I was exhausted. I worked from home, but if I was able to put in 6 hours in front of the computer, I felt like I'd had a successful day. I couldn't do anything else. So he did everything else. He cooked. He did laundry. He washed all the dishes. He vacuumed. He did this after a 9+ hour workday for six to eight weeks, until I got some energy back.
The second trimester was great. I had energy, and we were both excited about the baby. But during the third trimester, I went a little nuts. I burst into tears if he even looked like he might be thinking about thinking about something critical (that's not a typo; read it slowly). Apparently, he decided that the most reasonable course of action in dealing with my demi-hysteria was to cater to my every whim.
I realized he was doing this when one night, at 12:30 a.m., I asked him to "put the dishwasher away." The dishwasher was a portable, not installed, and it needed to be connected to the faucet on the sink to wash the dishes. I meant for him to disconnect it and move it into place. He said, "Now?" I looked at him, puzzled, and said, "Yes, now," in a friendly way. He kind of rolled his eyes and proceeded to unload the dishes! I realized right then that I would have to be very careful, for the rest of my life, to not make unreasonable demands, because he would honor them. I stopped him, explained what I had meant, and hugged him extra long that night.
The only thing that has changed since I'm not pregnant is that instead of being endlessly patient with just me, he is endlessly patient with our little boy, too.
My husband says that the secret to a successful marriage is to marry a woman whose first husband was a real idiot. Then, even if you're just average, you look wonderful in comparison. But I think he's wonderful all by himself, even without the idiot to compare to.
We married old. He was 38 and never married; I was 37 and divorced. I had two children, and we decided before we married that we would have one more, after a year of figuring married life out.
One year and three months after we married, I was pregnant. It had been a long time (12 years) since I'd been pregnant, and I had forgotten how yucky the first trimester was. I was exhausted. I worked from home, but if I was able to put in 6 hours in front of the computer, I felt like I'd had a successful day. I couldn't do anything else. So he did everything else. He cooked. He did laundry. He washed all the dishes. He vacuumed. He did this after a 9+ hour workday for six to eight weeks, until I got some energy back.
The second trimester was great. I had energy, and we were both excited about the baby. But during the third trimester, I went a little nuts. I burst into tears if he even looked like he might be thinking about thinking about something critical (that's not a typo; read it slowly). Apparently, he decided that the most reasonable course of action in dealing with my demi-hysteria was to cater to my every whim.
I realized he was doing this when one night, at 12:30 a.m., I asked him to "put the dishwasher away." The dishwasher was a portable, not installed, and it needed to be connected to the faucet on the sink to wash the dishes. I meant for him to disconnect it and move it into place. He said, "Now?" I looked at him, puzzled, and said, "Yes, now," in a friendly way. He kind of rolled his eyes and proceeded to unload the dishes! I realized right then that I would have to be very careful, for the rest of my life, to not make unreasonable demands, because he would honor them. I stopped him, explained what I had meant, and hugged him extra long that night.
The only thing that has changed since I'm not pregnant is that instead of being endlessly patient with just me, he is endlessly patient with our little boy, too.
My husband says that the secret to a successful marriage is to marry a woman whose first husband was a real idiot. Then, even if you're just average, you look wonderful in comparison. But I think he's wonderful all by himself, even without the idiot to compare to.
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