A VALENTINE STORY

Here is a little something I wrote several years ago, when I first moved to Wimberley full-time, but hubby was still working in Houston. I hope it provides encouragement for any of you who might be struggling in one of those "middle stages" of marriage.  I call it...

 THE CIRCLE OF LOVE

Did I ever tell you how I met my husband?  When I first got to the University of Texas, I took a job in my dorm’s cafeteria. I had only been there a short time when my roommate caused a rather embarrassing incident.  She was quite the head-turner, with glossy hair falling down past her tuckus.  She was also very near-sighted, but too vain to wear glasses.  When going through the cafeteria line together, I had to describe the food choices to her, since she was unable to see them.  One Sunday, she looked up at the guy serving us, and said in her deep, sultry voice, “Hey Gordon, that was some date we had last night.”  I jabbed her with my elbow, but was ignored. Dropping her voice further, she leaned forward, saying, “I had a really, really good time!”  I cleared my throat, said, “Pardon us please”, then shoved her down the line, growling “That wasn’t Gordon numbskull, that was John!”  Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw John staring at us, with a cocky grin on his face.  “Well, great!”, I thought.  “And another one bites the dust.”

  

The oddest thing happened though.  Usually, when working in the kitchen, I cleared trays that came down the conveyer belt.  Suddenly I began finding little notes on them, and when I glanced out the tray-feed window, there was that same cocky grin.  The notes were pretty corny (under a bowl of peaches I found one that read “What a peachy girl!”) but I’ve always been rather fond of corn.  Top it off with a mischievous grin and twinkling eyes?  Well, I was a goner in no time.

* * * * *

Now, looking back, I can see a sort of “seasonality” to the stages of our forty years together.  The first stage was the idyllic one - he’s wonderful, I’m wonderful, and everyone’s deliriously happy.  Some call it the honeymoon stage, and for us, it actually was.  John took a job overseas at the end of my junior year.  Neither of us was any good at expressing our feelings verbally, and not a word had been mentioned about marriage, so I feared this move might be the end of us.  As it turned out, we happened to be superb letter writers.  We made up for lost time by pouring our hearts into those letters, and soon felt closer than ever.  John also discovered that adventures are better shared. We married the minute I graduated, and set off on a three year honeymoon.  Since ex-pat wives weren’t allowed to take jobs in Indonesia, I spent my days turning our thatched-roof bungalow into a cozy nest, entertained his friends from my improvised kitchen, and waited with bated breath for hubby to come home each evening.

    

The honeymoon stage ended abruptly upon returning to Houston. Suddenly I worked 60 hour weeks, including every Saturday, expected John to share in the housework, and was way too exhausted to entertain.   Though the letter writing had ended when we married, our verbalization skills had yet to improve and, since we both tended to avoid confrontation, many issues just got swept under the rug.

Stage three began when our first child arrived. If you know someone who thinks a baby might help their marriage, just slap them and yell “Snap out of it!”  Nothing is less likely to make things easier. Although our relationship was still strong, I knew my life was about to change dramatically, and was prepared for that. I assumed John’s life would change equally.  Silly me.  I think poor John assumed that we would go back to the honeymoon phase, now that I was no longer “working.”  Silly John!  His rude awakening came the first time Alexis had colic.  Instead of coming home to a scantily clad wife with welcoming drink in hand, he was greeted by a frazzled wife, still in her robe, who thrust the baby into his arms and said, “Here - your turn!”  

Not long after child number two arrived, hubby awoke to discover a monstrous burden crushing him with its weight.  He found himself thinking, “Wow! These kids are expensive, and I’m responsible for their future. I must make more money!”  As Dad became more and more caught up in his career, Mom became caught up in raising children, and we as a couple became less and less caught up in one another.  One day, I realized that we rarely talked of anything other than the kids.  When I mentioned this to John, he replied “Well, what would we talk about?  You never even pick up a newspaper.”  Not a smart thing to say to someone who’s trying to cook, with a baby in one arm and a toddler on her ankle, while hubby sits reading his paper.  It’s probably the closest I ever came to bopping him with my frying pan, and it’s when I began to feel rather boring and unattractive. When John's job began requiring more and more overseas travel, I developed navy-wife-syndrome.  I was expected to hold down the fort while he was away, make rules and handle emergencies, but when home, he often tossed my rules right out the window.

Thankfully, we stumbled upon a gifted counselor, who gradually reeled us back in towards one another and taught us how to communicate.  I often wondered how anyone survived stage three without a counselor such as ours.  I soon realized that many don’t, upon seeing how many of our friends bailed out on their own marriages as soon as they entered stage four -- the "kids-are-gone-now-what-do-we-do" stage.   I worried that we might have a relapse ourselves, once the last child left home, and worried again when John suggested I might move on to Wimberley, where we planned to retire, ahead of him.  Were we strong enough now to withstand that separation? 

Over dinner last week, I looked up to find John smiling and staring intently at me.  “What?”, I asked.  “Oh, just thinking about how you’ve grown and changed over the years.”  Suddenly I felt like the most interesting woman in the world!  Whenever John leaves voicemail messages these days, they usually begin with “How’s my Treasure?”, and I’ve just spent hours planning what to cook for him when he arrives for the weekend.  Yesterday his email said, “It’s very dreary in Houston, but then, every day is dreary, whenever you’re not here!”  Pretty corny, huh?   Then it hits me.  We’ve come full circle.  In fact, you might say we’re taking a second honeymoon!