magic feather: The Honeymoon Period

I love being married. I was single for a time and I just got so sick of finishing my own sentences. Brian Kiley

We sleep in separate rooms, we have dinner apart, we take separate vacations--we're doing everything we can to keep our marriage together. Rodney Dangerfield

My husband retired after twenty years at a job that he loved. He traveled home each week end from another city and we relished the bits of time we had together. All of that changed two weeks ago when he arrived home looking for all the world like a homeless vagabond who lives out of his car--it was was filled to capacity. The unpacking alone took the better part of that afternoon and evening. Boxes are still strewn all over the upstairs.

People frequently ask us in a disparaging tone of voice, "what are you two going to do with each other?" as if the dreaded "for better or for worse, but not for lunch," equation would ruin an otherwise ideal arrangement. I say, "Hey, we actually like each other and have been looking forward to this retirement for years."

A man's friends like him but leave him as he is: his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else. G.K. Chesterton

However there are differences. I am a tidy, 'everything in it's place' person and he loves and is loyal to objects, especially paper, and he likes them out where he can see them. Stacks of paper, bills piled in no particular order, very discouraging to me. When we lived separately we agreed that I had to give him three days notice prior to my visits. And if I couldn't do that I had to take what I found at the house and shut up about it. Such a model of restraint I was! Funny, but he disagrees. One of my tiny flaws besides my impatience is my ability to get huffy over silly things. I know I'm doing it and it seems so right at the moment. One of my better qualities is the ability to admit when I'm dead wrong and apologize. I do, frequently. Both: I'm dead wrong and I do apologize.

So far, since he is busily getting my office ready in our guest house, I haven't bugged him too much about putting his things away. However I did offer, quite nicely I might add, to do it myself and surprisingly he declined. Hmmm, I wonder why? I am so full to the brim of ways he could live his life if he'd only take dictation...Melding these two opposing lifestyles is a challenge but frankly one I've been looking forward to for twenty years.

This is the end to many things. No more scrambling around to get him to the ferry each Sunday and picking him up on the week end. No more making a few extra meals to send with him [his idea of cooking is cheese and crackers]. No more sleeping alone during the week. No more doing virtually everything by myself. Now I have a buddy and a friend and it is really nice to have him home at last.

I have somethings to get used to as well. My pattern of more than twenty five years is to religiously check my messages at my office at least three times a day, morning, noon and night. Now that I've moved my office home I catch myself wanting to check those messages and then remember, "oh yeah, that phone is no more". It feels great though peculiar to be home as much as I am. My cat Rufus adores it. Granted I have been whittling the amount of time at my office for at least a couple of years. I worked four and a half days for most of my 25 years in private practice and it is only in the last few that I cut back to three days and now it's down to two days, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Feels good but weird. I feel like I'm getting away with something and someone is going to accuse me of being a slacker at any moment. Could be part of my 'fast twitch' personality or the fact that I've voluntarily and happily worked since I was fourteen years old.

If a man speaks in a forest and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong? Jerry Dennis

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Phyllis Diller

Ours is not a boring marriage. As I mentioned we are different in so many ways [tidiness, height, temperament, slow twitch muscles vs. fast twitch muscles] and similar in many more [love of family and friends, politics, ideas, ideals, dreams, activities, fiestiness, logic, do good-ism] . Seems to me that marriage is not a word, but a paragraph. In a good marriage there are a kaleidoscope of colorful views for each couple that they dance with and mostly meld. The most successful ones in my book still have their arguments but do so quickly and with exasperation rather than fury. We're just not going to agree on each detail of life and god, help us if we did, how boring would that be? We have all the same arguments, they're just quicker. I recommend this for the couples that I see. I also add, throw in humor whenever appropriate. It helps. Better to laugh and make fun rather than pout and withdraw.