Absence makes the...

 Marriage isn't always easy, and it can be particularly challenging when opposites attract and commit to one another.  My husband and I are about as different as two people can be.  These differences were never more evident than during the pandemic and the Presidential campaign season.  There were many times when I had to leave the room, and sometimes the house, just to avoid saying or throwing things I would regret.  

As I wrote in a previous blog, I am not a calm person.  Things get to me.  Sometimes I get so upset or nervous or worried that I become physically and mentally incapacitated.  Really. There have been a few times (not many, but enough to haunt me) when I became so overwhelmed that I lost my ability to speak.  Looking back, one of those times was when my husband had moved to Maryland for a new job and I was home in New Jersey with my three- year old daughter and my newborn son.  My husband called to check in and I was literally speechless, so overcome with...everything.

Recently my husband spent a couple of weeks in Fairbanks, AK visiting our son.  I admit that I was looking forward to some alone time, having survived the election and the pandemic with just the two of us in the house, different as we are.  I thought, "Oh good, I can eat what I want and not have to cook dinner, watch what I want on television, listen to my preferred music and news coverage, spread myself out on the entire queen-sized bed...this will be fun!!!" 

It just took a few days before I realized that being home alone wasn't all that great.  I called my husband and told him the truth: I missed him terribly and I realized how much I had taken for granted all that he did.  My husband and I have never been the type of couple who are always saying how much we love each other.  I say it to my kids all the time, but not so much to him....He and I have been together for more than 40 years, and it's easy to get accustomed to the other person's presence.  Yes, it is "for better and for worse," but his absence made it clear to me that most of our time had been "for better."   I will work on being better about letting him know that he is valued, appreciated, and loved even when he is right next to me. It shouldn't take absence to make me appreciate that he's a good man and I love him.