Marriage Moats-Crayfish

Published: Fri, 12/03/10

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

Sometimes I am rather snappy when John walks in the door. He is already guilty... of being late, of not having taken out the trash, of not being home when the kids were at their all time worst.

The poor man simply drove in the driveway, and I have my pincers ready.

If Aesop were writing a story about me, I wonder if he would pick a crayfish. Eyes that see in every direction, and claws at the ready. Not very cuddly.

I am trying to change, really I am. If nothing else I plaster on a smile, and ask how his day was. It is a formality though. I am biding my time to tell him how awful my day was. His day is only a backdrop for comparison to mine.

Sometimes I look through the window at him as he walks toward the house, and start practicing my monologue about the catastrophes. It does not seem like he is doing that to me. When he walks in, more often than not he just walks in. No drama in his pocket, no expectations from me except maybe good smells coming from the kitchen.

When the median age of kids at our house hovered around 4, and the ratio of children to adults was 2 to 1, John mastered the art of inquiring about the prospect of food without engaging me in combat.

"Did you have a plan for what dinner might be?" was one tactic that seems to avert my defenses.

Then I started to look in the mirror. I noticed that I was not runner up for Most Welcoming Partner. I assessed the situation. John had a credit card and a set of keys. He did not actually have to come home. Perhaps I should increase the pleasure, or at the very least safety in doing so.

I remembered how I treated him eons ago when we were first married. His demeanor was not vastly different back then. But mine was embarrassingly so.

Things are better now. I decided to take off my shell and remember that I love to see him come through the door.

Miraculously, he keeps doing it.

Photo by Andy Sullivan