Marriage, the Perfect Complement
(To see the earlier Blogs, Page Down)
I wrote a blog titled “Love Trumps Compatibility” on 1/31/19. You might want to read that before taking on this one. It’s background on my opinion.
We moved every two years for more than twenty years. Each move involved one more person, one more bed or crib, another bike, another GI Joe Footlocker, more books. The scenario was always similar. Dave shows up at lunchtime one weekday, unannounced, and says, “What would you think about living in…? We have this opportunity.” There wasn’t any screaming or throwing things. It meant a quick trip with toddlers to the library (this was before google) to check on this other world that would become our next home.
Our “final” move was to Atlanta with seven kids, one starting high school, one having her first birthday. Twenty years later, our “final-final” move, with no kids, was to build our romantic retirement house in the mountains of NC. Our “final-final-final” move, twenty years later, was to this small house in the downtown historic district here in Edenton. (Now, you can pick up where you left off in that other blog about compatibility, and our lack thereof.)
Dave had his eye on this house. I didn’t like it at all, at all. (A mannerly Southern way of saying I hated it.) I looked at it every day, disliking it less with the passing of the three weeks we were here. I still didn’t like it. He loved it. When push came to shove, meaning a decision had to be made, I thought about my mother and her mantra. I said, “You know, all those years of buying houses, I never knew what you liked. You chose the house that was best suited for our family, that we could afford, and where the most amenities were that we needed. Didn’t matter how close to your office, or how close to the airport; you would always manage. Now, this is our final twenty years. If you like this house…I think you should have it.”
Now, before you women-libbers get all hot and musty, this doesn’t mean HE won, or I LOST! It doesn’t mean I caved. It means I relooked at the situation and made the grown-up assessment that I could be wrong about this house. And here we are, over one year later, both loving everything about this little house, and no one saying “I told you so.”
I said, “You know what would be perfect in the Little House? (That’s what I call the guest house out back, the Little House.) A Murphy bed! Folks staying would have more space, then just pull down the bed for sleeping.” He thought it was a terrible idea. No. No Murphy bed. That was final. I was really surprised when one day he called me to his computer to look at a beautiful Murphy bed he’d been researching. That doesn’t mean I won and he lost. I wasn’t right, he wasn’t wrong. He relooked at the idea, and rethought his opinion. Mature people do this.
Now we’re working on the landscape. He said we needed a path to get to the Little House; right through the new sod. No! I said no, no, no. Bad idea. But, the Ditch Witch cut a swath through the sod to lay the electric wires. I looked at that from the gate. Huh. It’s a path. Doesn’t look bad. We could do this, and ... I called him out to look with me. He isn’t gloating, or doing a victory dance. He didn’t win. I didn’t lose. I relooked at his idea and together we decided it could work.
I’m so tired of reading articles on Women vs. Men, as if our coexistence is a battle, or even a war. Women should have this because men do; men should do this because women do. Equality. The more moderate suggest give and take, but with a take-turns attitude, begrudging but necessary, to keep the peace. Be the hero. Who’s smarter, stronger, more compatible? Baloney! Marriage has nothing to do with gender competition. It has to do with maturity, humility, and a loving attitude. This is how it’s done. 57 years makes me an expert. Gender is not a competition. It’s the perfect complement.