You know you’re with the right man when you have a text message exchange like this one, and the next morning you have this conversation:
Me: Oh my goodness … I just found the text I sent you last night. What does this even say?!
Robbie: It says “Almost home.”
Me: How do you know?
Robbie: (Gives me a look like that was a stupid question.)
Me: Oh.
I’m happy to report that I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth. Hooray! Right?
RIGHT?!?!?!
I’m currently having a very restful (code for “kid-free”) vacation with Robbie. This time of year is so insane, it’s kind of ironic (code for “stupid”) that we decided to take some time away NOW, but fairly often we do things that don’t make sense. Like go to a 3-hour-long timeshare presentation in exchange for $75 in Bass Pro Shop gift cards. Or stay at an inn that Marie Laveau used to reside in.
New Orleans is normally not my favorite place to visit because it typically smells gross and is hot as hell, but New Orleans in December is magical. I’m not just saying that because we are kid-free … although now that I think about it, perhaps that has skewed my world view a bit.
There are Santas and violinists on every corner, with the same festive air that is normally found here, just more so. Everyone is merry. It’s nice.
On an unrelated note, I have eye crinkles. I worked very hard to get them, so I’m working very hard to not freak out. This has brought on a lot of deep breath-taking and repeating of phrases like “This is normal, I AM NORMAL,” and “35 is not THAT old.”
Hold me. I’m terrified.
This.
This is why I fell in love with my husband, and why, despite all the things he does that irk the SHIT out of me, I still fall in love with him every day.
We don’t agree on every issue. We bicker. A lot. There’s a lot of eye-rolling. Even so, sometimes I step back and look at what we have been through in the past few years, and I’m really proud of what we have managed to overcome without completely falling apart.
According to the Meyers-Briggs personality test, we are opposites in every way (except that we’re both extroverts). The things I may have found fascinating about him in the beginning of our relationship, before kids, now sometimes make me want to rip his face off.
But … this.
Back when I thought tanning beds were a good idea and we met while working at the grocery store on the corner of Perkins and Essen, I saw glimmers of what you see in this picture and I just knew. What makes us work, with all our individual and joint flaws, is the love that underscores everything we do.
Obviously there are things that make living with another person easier, like compatibility, disposable income, lack of family drama and overall health. But my belief is, when you strip away all the fancy words and put away the self-help books, LOVE IS REALLY ALL YOU NEED.
I can’t wait until I have the time and emotional energy to write about the long and painful road I traveled on my quest to find a husband, which ended when I finally gave up and said eff this shit.
And then, I found him.
I didn’t marry this man for money or power or because we were raised in the same religion and that is what you’re supposed to do.
I married him for love, and I’d do it again and again.
Oh, boy.
Let me preface this by saying, please don’t go any further if you are my mother, my grandmother, my mother-in-law (oops, too late) or anyone else who may be offended by inappropriate language and/or knowing about my naked body. Although, if that is the case, is this really the website for you?
(It is not.)
But for everyone else, HI! THIS IS A REALLY BIG DAY FOR ME! One of my essays got published on Mamalode, and I’m super proud of myself — but also cringing a little on the inside. If you read it, you’ll see why.
Some people have asked me, “Why are you writing such personal things?” Well … I really don’t know. I have a deep well of stories that just need to come out. I don’t really put a lot of thought into the why, I just know what I must do, and what I must do is write. I have so many things to tell. So, so many.
Just wait.
(Want to read my essay? Click here to check it out!)
This morning I totally lost my temper in a crazy kind of way that I’d like to just pretend never happened.
Sometimes … a lot of times … everything just bubbles up and it’s all too much. Women carry around a lot of things, you know. Robbie has learned not to say “Why are you so stressed out?” because he knows I’ll sit him down in a chair and TELL HIM WHY.
That terrifies my husband, the idea of being held captive as all the worries rain down upon him. It’s not because he is emotionally incapable of listening, or can’t handle being there for me. It’s because he can’t fix any of my problems. He can’t make Thanksgiving go away. He can’t make our kids sleep or travel well. He can’t make my hormones level out.
He can’t bake the cookies we’re supposed to bring to Alabama on Wednesday, because he knows they wouldn’t turn out right. He can’t fix the bathroom light or deal with the yard right now, because he needs to be at work. He can’t stop tracking dirt through the house, because THAT IS WHAT HE MUST DO.
He can’t guarantee that we will win the lottery or that I won’t scar our children for life or that they will maintain their virginity until they are very mature adults. Robbie can’t do anything except love me and tell me it’s going to be okay, even though both of us know that he doesn’t know that for certain. We hope it will be okay. We hope things will work out. We hope no one breaks an arm or floods the house.
All married people can do, I’ve realized, is hold hands and face life together with hope.
So far, it’s working out okay.
Here is what a 9-year wedding anniversary for a couple with three children under the age of 6 looks like:
We won’t get each other gifts because our gift is going to see a movie in an actual movie theater tonight after we eat dinner with our kids and put most of them to bed.
We can’t recall the last movie we saw outside of our living room.
I bought him a card today, the day of our anniversary. I had two small kids with me. One was destroying the card aisle while the other one screeched from the cart. I grabbed the first thing that didn’t look lame and jetted out of there.
The envelope and card are both rumpled.
I asked Robbie last night, “Did you set your alarm?” Thinking to myself that I could make a special breakfast for us to eat. “Yeah, I set it,” he said. WRONG. We overslept by an hour and he barely had time to throw on clothes and brush his teeth before grabbing me in a bear hug and wishing me a happy anniversary. So romantic.
Our children are unimpressed by the fact that our love is the same age as a third-grader.
None of this matters, because I have had 9 years with this man experiencing his selfless love. Oh, he’s an ass. But he loves me so much that he always puts my happiness first, which makes me wants to put his happiness first, and on and on it goes in a sickeningly sweet circle that just keeps growing like a rubber band ball.
Happy anniversary, Robbie Hobbs. I knew when I married you that my life would never be boring.
Sometimes I think my husband is an ass.
Sometimes I think my husband is a saint.
In reality, he’s somewhere in the middle; an Ass-Saint, just like me. Sometimes I look at him and I wonder how I got so lucky. Other times I want nothing more than to dump a box of dry cereal on his head and scream “HERE’S YOUR DINNER, MOTHER F-ER!” Do you think I’m a bad person or a bad wife because I am willing to admit that out loud? If so, then maybe you’re not so much an Ass-Saint … maybe you’re a Saint-Saint. And if that is the case, you have no business reading my blog.
Our 9-year wedding anniversary is next week and we haven’t even discussed it. I remember a time when I planned things way in advance — I would have selected a gift and a card and a special outfit for the occasion by now.
That particular season is now a memory. This season is chaotic, leaving little time for me to file my fingernails or think coherently, let alone plan ahead. I miss planning ahead. It’s one of my strong points.
Right now we are two Ass-Saints working together to raise our three children so that that they will not turn out to be Ass-Asses. And no matter what my husband may say or do that rubs me the wrong way, when I see a scene like this one, all is immediately forgiven.
Yesterday afternoon Robbie texted me something called “23 Brunch Recipes To Knock Your Socks Off.” He asked me two different times if I’d had a chance to look at it, and I just shrugged him off.
This morning he mentioned it again and, fueled by my coffee, I proceeded to explain that NO, I had not looked at it, because why should I go to all the trouble of making Nutella and Bacon-Stuffed French Toast? The kids never eat anything I cook, and half of the time you don’t either because YOU ARE SO DAMN PICKY and I have never in my life experienced a grown man who wrinkles his nose at nuts in banana bread.
Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I ranted on and on about how at the beginning of our marriage I was so gung-ho about cooking for my husband and while I tried to work around his absurd pickiness it seemed like I always fell short — the man much preferred McDonald’s over whatever I cooked at home. Sometimes I make things that aren’t fantastic, obviously, but most of the time everyone else eats it so it can’t be that bad. One Christmas I made, from scratch, a huge chocolate cake from a Southern Living recipe and brought it to our family gathering. Robbie was the only one who didn’t even want to taste it. I recall my grandpa being aghast. I just shrugged and said “He’s picky,” but really and truly, it hurt my feelings.
I don’t know why I chose this particular situation to air my frustrations over almost 9 years of trying to feed a man who won’t eat anything that doesn’t come from a box. But I did. And even as it was happening I thought, I need to shut up. But I didn’t.
A few hours later I chatted with one of my gym friends after our class. Her three children are grown now, and one is dating a boy she really likes. “I don’t want to get too attached to him,” she said. I nodded in understanding before telling her my mom tried hard not to get attached to my boyfriends after I had a really bad breakup. But then I went on to say that when she met Robbie, she really liked him even though my dad couldn’t STAND HIM for at least the first year.
She laughed and asked me why. Oh … let’s see. Probably because the first time he met my parents was when they popped in at my apartment at 7 a.m. to hang blinds and I was like, “Oh, hi, you were supposed to call first. Mama, Daddy, meet Robbie.” And once it became apparent that he was sticking around for awhile, they took us to dinner and my father asked him “What do you want to do with your life?” And he answered, “I’d like to own a bar.”
But here we are, 9 years and 3 kids later and still married. Robbie and my dad work together now. We do not own a bar. My friend cracked up before saying to me: “Love your husband. Love your kids. You’re doing something right — you just keep doing it. ”
So Robbie, I’ll keep trying to cook for you if you agree to keep trying to eat it. But I draw the line at Pancake Fried Sausage Patties.
Yesterday I read a piece that one of my very favorite writers, Glennon Melton of Momastery, posted on her Facebook page.
I don’t typically love wordy, scholarly-type pieces, but I loved the SHIT out of this. Perhaps it says something about me that I considered this article “scholarly,” but I’ll own that. Part of why I love social media is that other people can filter through publications like the New York Times or The Atlantic and pick out interesting articles for me. Facebook is kind of like my personal concierge of reading material. So thank you, everyone who takes the time to read through various articles and then post it for people like me who don’t have time to peruse or chop vegetables because I’m too busy looking for the green blanket or finding batteries for the magic elephant that makes the baby sleep. I don’t do much without a toddler attached to my leg.
This is 34.
The article says that happily married couples share one common denominator: they’re kind to each other. I immediately commented, because I’m a big nerd.
Kindness. It’s so simple. But it’s so, so hard. I know this because I read that article that Glennon posted while riding in a car with screaming, tired children. I don’t think Robbie and I ever had a problem being kind to each other before we procreated. We are well-matched, enjoy each other’s company and call each other out on unacceptable behavior. I think we used to think the other person was hilarious and smart and hot and all of the things you think about someone when you’re madly in love with them. All was relatively smooth, easy, even — for a solid 5 years. And then we became parents.
All of the sudden, nothing he did was right. Nothing he said was right. There were times when I was convinced I married some asshole and I made a huge mistake and I’m sure he thought the same of me. Some of it was hormonal, some of it was just the reality of operating on very little sleep under very stressful conditions.
I saw every flaw, in both of us. It was hard to be kind. But we persisted, and we fought through that valley, came out on the other side and did it all over again two more times. It takes work and practice to be kind when you don’t want to be. When I’m trying to talk to him and kids are running and screaming, I get mad at them all, Robbie included. I want to yell at everyone, SHUT UP AND ACT RIGHT. Sometimes I do.
When Robbie forgets to take out the garbage, it takes work for me to be kind. I really just want to yell, WHAT THE HELL, MAN. THE KITCHEN SMELLS LIKE ASS AND IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT. Sometimes I do.
This is why they say kids are hard on a marriage. Children add a level of stress that is unmatched, and you just have to figure out how to deal with it and still be kind to the person who helped you create them.
Last week we took a family trip to the beach, and I was reminded once again that a vacation with small children is not a vacation at all — it is a TRIP and it is EXHAUSTING. We were on our way down I-10 and I was holding Robbie’s hand. No one needed anything. No one was crying. I let my thoughts drift, thinking how nice it was that we were all together and everyone was happy, when we heard a rush of air and realized that Asher had somehow opened the car door with his foot and was working on getting out of his carseat. “Lemme out,” he said.
Oh my God. These children.
I found myself yelling at Robbie, fuming at him for not PULLING THE CAR OVER RIGHT THIS MINUTE so I could tighten Asher’s carseat straps and put the child lock on. But we were on a bridge, and he was worried about me getting hit by a semi, so he kept going while I clung to Asher’s feet (to make sure he didn’t do it again) and yelled at him to stay put.
He responded by repeating, “Lemme out.”
Robbie drove to the nearest exit and pulled over, indignant over why I was so angry at him. He was not the one who caused the problem. He was just trying to keep us all safe. I wasn’t thinking about my own safety; I was only concerned about my child. The stress of the situation made me lash out at my partner, and I was not kind. I imagine this is what most couples go through, children or not. Life is stressful. Kids open car doors with their feet. Weird things happen.
It takes effort, real work, to be kind to the person that you love the most. I hope that when the kids are older and have a better understanding of things like gravity and the possibility of drowning, Robbie and I will have more time to hold hands and let our minds wander. It’s a good thing our kids are cute and my husband is hilarious, smart, and hot. Otherwise, I’m not sure I could handle any of them.
Modern Mommy Madness 