the past few days have been pretty tough. we haven’t had any all out fights or anything. a few minor disagreements here and there, not really resolved, but brushed under the carpet with a kiss at least. he always likes to kiss me before he leaves, even if we had a fight. i guess that’s a good thing, but i wonder if he doesn’t do it just to make himself feel better. either way, at least it has a positive effect on our marriage and not a negative one.
i am frustrated. i have been making every effort to be a better wife. i have been keeping the dishes and the laundry done. i clean up after myself, i’ve been making dinners and desserts. i made a peach cobbler yesterday which turned out really good. and i have been making efforts to keep our “between the sheets” time active. that’s hard for me because of things in the past, but i have been really working on it and things have gotten much better.
so recently, i tried to communicate with him. he had a day off and i came to him and told him the awful thing that every man must dread one day hearing from his wife, “i want romance.”
he got that deer in the headlights look. “………………ok………………” very, very cautiously he said it. like he was afraid that if he made the wrong move, said it the wrong way, or unintentionally flinched, i would morph into a herd of velociraptors and destroy the entire base from the inside out.
“I know it’s hard for you, so I’m just trying to communicate the way that you can understand. I’m not going to hint and speak in some code and expect you to understand it. I’m just telling you bluntly, directly, and to the point. You have the day off, so I just want to have a romantic evening.”
in retrospect, maybe i should have given him time to prepare? i don’t think so, because i have done that before and it resulted in him putting it off and putting it off and then never doing it. then i get a wound that never heals because he avoids talking about it, we go round and round, it’s just bad, it’s a very bad experience for both of us. so this was just me trying a different approach. well here’s what wound up happening. he got nervous. i won’t belittle the situation, he was downright terrified. and what does he do when he’s scared? the worst. thing. possible. he makes jokes. he turns into a class clown. it’s a defense mechanism, i know, but it really is the very worst defense mechanism the poor boy could have. it made me feel like he wasn’t taking me seriously at all. i became frustrated.
i tried to stay calm. i said all sexy-like “i’m going to go take a shower” as i sauntered out of the room “maybe you could join me?”
well that didn’t go very well. it was okay, i guess. it was really just a frustrating experience. military showers are practically stand up showers. there’s a tub, yeah, but it’s like cramming two cows into the back of short-bed. it’s uncomfortable, whoever isn’t *in* the water is freezing their rat-arse off, we like different water temperatures anyway, you try to sit down and there’s knees everywhere, and at that point the person in the water (me) has water in their face, so they try to back up and there’s a person there, they try to sit forward and there’s a faucet in their face, and they’re hacking, sneezing, and spitting up water–we wound up just washing as fast as we *possibly* could and got the heck out of that hell-hole.
so next we tried dinner and a movie. well that was a flop. it wasn’t romantic. it was just dinner and a movie. we’ve done it a thousand times. don’t get me wrong, spending time with my husband is always special. but we rush through dinner, ignoring each other, and the movie is just two people staring at a tv. next to each other. miraculously at the same time. it’s not intimate. it’s not special. it’s cold and dead.
what i’m starving- literally starving- for is intimacy. romance. i want to feel like my husband said to himself “gosh i just really love my wife and i want to do something special for her. i want to go the extra mile and take time out of my day to do something just for her.”
he says “well, i make dinner for you?” well, yes. but i get the impression- considering the man loves to cook- that he’s making dinner for him because it’s what he enjoys doing. i love the food he makes, but to me, it’s like when a man goes hunting 365 days out of the year, plops a freshly murdered carcass on the counter, and says “hey babe. i did this for you.”
no. you did it because you get something out of slaughtering animals. bringing home din-din was a bonus. what would be special to *me* is a candle-light dinner with flowers and conversation. a walk in the park (which for the love of all that is holy is no longer under construction) or another camping trip. that camping trip was awesome.
it’s frustrating being a woman, because you *have* to give the man what he wants. he gets sex because it’s a woman’s duty to give her man sex even when she doesn’t really feel like. why doesn’t she feel like it? because she’s not getting intimacy. she doesn’t feel special and loved. she feels belittled and degraded because when she’s asks for intimacy, he rolls his eyes and sighs and says “well what do you want? i make dinner sometimes.”
intimacy and romance in a marriage is JUST as important as sex. sex and intimacy are not the same thing. being intimate is more than a roll in the sheets. it’s sharing secrets, inside jokes, communicating without talking, a massage, LISTENING TO ONE ANOTHER. he comes home from work and vents about how the people in his shop are just so frustrating to work with. i love him. i listen to him, i encourage him, i don’t just say “uhuh. yeah. uhuh. right.” i actually listen to what he’s saying and i hurt for him because he is so smart and such a hard worker and i know that man deserves better. i want to make his life better. what i really want is to go into that shop and snatch a knot in all their tails. but i can’t. *rolls eyes*
in return, i want my feelings justified. when i say “i’m telling you seriously, baby. it really hurts me when you come into the kitchen and make me feel like i’m not doing anything right. this is my meal, please just let me make it. encourage me, don’t tell me that instead of making the marinade, i should have just let Jack Daniels do it.”
instead, what i get is “look. you need to quit being so sensitive. toughen up.” that’s not validation of my feelings. that’s belittlement and degradation. it hurts me and it makes me even more starved for intimacy.
so what’s the solution here? how, oh how, does a woman convince her man that she needs more? i don’t know. i guess next i’ll just try doing it myself. if i want romance, i guess i’ll just have to show him myself what romance is.