The Weirdness That Is Marriage

Marriage is strange.

When I was a kid, I always watched my parents. My dad has always teased my mom nearly-mercilessly; not in a negative way, but out of love. And I watched it make my mom crazy. Due solely to it’s repeated occurrence to this very day, the phrase, “Oh, Michael,” coupled with a sigh, a head shake, and sometimes an eye roll for good measure, makes me feel like I’m eight years old again.

I swore I would never marry someone like my dad.

I love my dad, so incredibly much, but I didn’t want to choose to spend my life with someone who would incite so much sighing. Or head-shaking.

Fast-forward all these years, and here I am, married to a man named Michael whose greatest joy in life is to push my buttons as often and as thoroughly as possible.

Marriage is weird.

My dad accepted a great promotion at work when I was in junior high. He began traveling Europe for his job, with a crazy Dutchman named Frans who, with his public antics, made my dad seem meek.

I watched my mom’s eyes fill with tears every time we put my dad on a bus to O’Hare, and I watched those tears spill over when we picked him up again.

Suddenly, it was just the three of us – my mom, my brother, and myself – at home, for sometimes up to two weeks at a time. It was so *Quiet*. No one yelled, “Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate,” when mom asked if they wanted anything from the store. No one watched really old Westerns just to belly-laugh at the horrible stunts. I mistakenly thought, in my clueless middle-school mind, that these work trips would give my mom a break; who wouldn’t *want* a break from someone who prepped the kids to sing “The Old Grey Mare” as you came down the stairs on the morning of your birthday, every single year?

But, marriage is odd.

She wasn’t really whole when he was gone. I mean, if his traveling caused issues between them, they never wore those feelings out in the open where I could see them. But I know she was more herself when he was home.

Today, I find myself at the end of what has been an extremely busy month for my husband. January was extremely hockey-heavy.

I support him with all I have. I am incredibly grateful that he has a job he loves, and I adore the people with whom he works. (Seriously, if you want to meet the nicest guys on the planet, hang out with a hockey team for an evening.) I also struggle with envy when, once again, he’s off to some new place and I’m here with seven kids, struggling to carve out a sliver of time just to work, let alone feel like a human being.

Sometimes he’s been gone so much, and I’ve felt so overwhelmed, that it almost feels odd to have him home. I am desperately afraid of that feeling.

My grandparents divorced before I was born, for that very reason. My grandfather travelled a lot for work. Not long after I turned 30, I asked my grandmother what had happened, why they had gotten divorced.

“He was gone so much that it didn’t feel right when he was home anymore.”

That has stuck with me ever since.

When things get strange here, I think back to my parents. I never felt things get strange or distant between them, but they must have. Then I remember the times when my dad sat on the living room floor with his legs stretched under the coffee table that was littered with work while my mom puttered around in the kitchen, doing her own thing, or went off to ceramics class. It must’ve been in some of those times, when they were together but apart, that their marriage felt odd.

Like borrowing someone’s coat who is three sizes bigger than you are — it keeps you warm, and you’re grateful for it, and you love them for sharing it with you, but it still doesn’t feel quite right.

We’ve adjusted, thankfully. It sometimes takes us a few hours, but we’ve both learned that there are things we both need when we’ve been apart. As contrary as it may seem, I need to be left alone for a bit. I need to catch up on work without wrangling a toddler or answering to The Mom Chorus. Mike needs to take my place in those things because it reasserts his feelings as a Dad.

And then we need to do something ridiculously fun together.

We dance in the driveway.

We eat cupcakes.

We laugh at our kids.

And we push each other’s buttons, mercilessly. Out of love.