It was spring break 2003. I was head over heels in love at
this point, and I just asked her to marry me. Since we had some time off from school, we
took the opportunity to visit each other’s family. We drove down to where she
grew up, a decent sized town where her family has been living for 5
generations. We spend the day visiting her Grandma. She has a spare bedroom in
her house where I am going to sleep that night. My wife is going to sleep at
her parents’ house to avoid any improper premarital fraternizing. Anyway, we
spend the evening at her parents’ house, socializing.
It becomes about 11 in the evening, and she asks if I will
be able to find my way back to her grandma’s house. Neither one of us had a cell
phone at this point, so she is worried I will get lost. I tell her I will be
fine. Well, I drive my pickup over to the area, and I just cannot find the
house. I circle around and around for about an hour. Frustrated, I give up. I
have a sleeping bag in the back of my pickup, so I drive out of town and find a
random dirt road and sleep the night. It wasn’t a big deal to me.
However, when I get back, the first words out of her mouth
was “Where were you?”. She called her grandma, expecting to find me there. I
told her that I slept in my pickup. In response, I would have expected “Oh OK”
but instead, she carried on about how worried she was that I might have gotten
in a car wreck, and I should have came and got directions and blah, blah, blah.
Now, for me, it wasn’t a big deal at all. I slept under the
stars many times, and I didn’t want to wake up people in the AM just so I have a
cushy bed. I tried to explain this. Eventually, we just brushed it off and carried on…….
Sixteen years later, variations of this argument is probably
the biggest source of contention between us. Last fall, I was irritated at her
for some reason and so I kissed her on the cheek and told her I was going out.
What started off as a short walk to cool off ended up being an adventure, I
went up this mountain and just kept going. 3-4 hours later, just after
midnight, I make it home. By this time I had a chance to cool down, and I tell
her where I went.
A few days ago, we take a trip to Salt Lake City and leave
the kids at home. On the way home, just making conversation, she brings up that
incident last fall. It kind of ticked me off that she would hold onto things
like that. The following morning, I was still irritated and couldn’t sleep. So, I go on a walk for
maybe 90 minutes and watch the sun come up. Part way though the walk, I get a
phone call from her, asking if I’m alright. Maybe she thought I was cheating
(ok not really), or I may have ran into trouble (it did start to rain, and that
is scary I know), or maybe I got attacked by a wild animal and it ran away with
my shoes.
The point is, people don’t change very much. Despite all her
worrying and nagging at me to be safe, I will still go out and do things on my
own from time to time. I feel it is a part of my autonomy to be able to do
things which she doesn’t know exactly where I am. Despite all my telling her to
relax and not worry about every detail of my life, she will continue to stress
if she doesn’t know where I am at all times.
I’m not saying that in 2003 I should have ended it right
then and there. I love my wife and we get along very well compared to most
other couples. Nobody is perfect, and if she was more relaxed about being safe and knowing where I am, maybe that would
manifest badly in other ways.
Just deal with your differences, or if your differences are
too great to handle, move on as soon as you discover them, before you make any serious commitments.
Getting someone to change by bickering with them is an impossible task.
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