I once had a friend who didn’t believe in love. “Love is nothing more than the state of being incredibly comfortable with someone.” Being a die-hard romantic, I didn’t believe him—or should I say, I didn’t understand him—at the time. Love is intense. Love is all-encompassing. Love is the idea of not being able to live without one another. My all-time favorite movie quote, from one of my all-time favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, is “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Now that is love—running through the streets of New York City at eleven fifty on New Year’s Eve to profess your feelings to the just-realized love of your life. So when I heard his theory, I simply couldn’t accept the idea that love was nothing more than being comfortable. However, as I delve ever deeper and deeper into my relationship with my husband, my concept of love is gradually shifting from the can’t-live-without-you notion to the comfortable notion.
On those days (weeks) when he’s driving me absolutely crazy, when I feel underappreciated, when it’s all I can do to not punch him in the face, I think about how much easier life would be if I were single. Oh, the things I could do! I wouldn’t have to clean up after him all the time—picking up dirty socks from every corner of the house, always doing the dishes (or redoing the dishes because he loaded the dishwasher wrong or forgot that sometimes you have to clean the outside of a pot, too), gathering chocolate milk glasses from both of the tables and the floor of the living room, constantly fluffing and rehanging the hand towel in the bathroom since apparently it’s difficult for him to dry his hands while the towel is neatly folded on the hanger. I could watch whatever I wanted, instead of flipping between episodes of North to Alaska and Gun It With Benny Spies and Deadliest Catch. I wouldn’t be updated on the fishing report every Saturday morning via Outdoor GPS on Comcast SportNet. I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I could go on a vacation without having to worry about being gone too long, knowing that he doesn’t sleep (even more so than usual) when I’m not there. I could make a date with my girlfriends without having to double check on his plans, only to get a text halfway into my mojito: Where are you? When are you going to be home? Your son is being a brat.
Despite his drawbacks, there are some fabulous things about my husband. It’s certainly not that he’s perfect—far from it, as am I. But, thus far, we’ve been perfect for each other. We have the same essential political, philosophical, and spiritual views. We both have an incredibly sarcastic sense of humor, spending most of our time bickering and name-calling, but always with a sense of love. We both like our me-time. He’ll plan a five-day hunting trip, and while his friends’ wives are complaining about their husbands being gone so long and asking why they can’t just do the trip in three days, I’m making plans for a girls’ night out, a girls’ night in, and a night of staying up too late writing and watching Lifetime Television For Women. I’ll eat shellfish every night, since he’s allergic to it and I never cook it at home, and wolf down the entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie in one sitting. Five days of not having to entertain and clean up after and feed my husband. He comes back and we’re both refreshed. He and I are both homebodies, preferring to stay in and rent a movie On-Demand. Although he’s quite sensitive and in touch with his feminine-side—he is usually the one to initiate a conversation about our feelings, cries at movies and during every episode of A Baby Story and lets our son paint his toenails—ultimately he is a man’s man. He knows how to fix a clogged toilet and an electric short and can open a jar of pickles. He hunts and fishes and keeps our freezer full of meat. And I like that because those are all things I can’t do and have no desire to learn about. He dresses and looks like a man. His attire consists of a jeans, a graphic tee—his favorites being Rocky, Tom and Jerry, and a brown one with some kind of fish logo on it—a baseball cap, and depending on the weather, either New Balance tennis shoes, ropers, or a pair of slippers that look close enough to real shoes he thinks it’s okay to wear them outdoors and in public. He shaves occasionally, maybe weekly, and if I ask nicely, for special events. But I like that. I don’t want a man who waxes and tans and plucks. I want a man’s man. If I wanted to be with someone girly, I’d be a lesbian (a line partially stolen from my gay friend Robert, who used to complain about drag queens and transvestites, stating that if he wanted to sleep with someone in a dress he wouldn’t be gay).
But as much as I love my husband, as much as we do fit together, as much as the things about him that drive me crazy really aren’t that bad, the real reason I don’t want to leave my husband is that I’m just too damn comfortable. I don’t want to start over. I think back about all my old boyfriends and the one significant thing that separates them from my husband is the level of comfort. We may have had things in common, had a physical attraction to one another, enjoyed each other’s company, but when it came down to it, I was never completely comfortable being myself. Of course, that thought continues on, and I think about how I wouldn’t want to be single forever. I like having someone else around, like waking up with someone, like having someone to eat dinner with. Although I certainly enjoy having some time to myself, being a part of a couple is a nice feeling. It makes me feel safe, all warm and fuzzy. But I’m fairly good looking, pretty smart, have a reasonably good personality. With a wax, a pair of Spanx, and some good concealer, I could get myself a new man. I could experience that first-date, first-kiss feeling once again, the butterflies in the stomach, the check-ins with girlfriends So this is what he said…What do you think that means? Does he like me, like, like-like me? Or is he just trying to get in my pants? Maybe he'd send me flowers to work, or actually buy me a birthday present. So I think about starting over, finding someone who appreciates me, someone who’s around more often, someone who knows how to clean a bathroom, someone who knows what he’s doing with his life, someone who can easily answer the question “So, what do you do?”
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