Everything Girl

Marriage is all about dependence. You have to maintain independent interests and identities or you both stagnate, but you also have to have some level of interdependence or you aren’t really a cohesive family unit. Bearing that in mind, I have a confession to make: Sometimes I feel like a pathetic loser because when my husband is on business trips I miss him. Oh, not so badly that I skip meals and forget to bathe – those issues are more usually related to being absorbed by a creative project – but badly enough that when he was in Hong Kong recently, I was off-kilter the entire time he was gone.

I could blame the dogs. After all, it’s difficult to be settled and sure of oneself when two small furry beasties go to the door looking for “Daddy” at precisely 7:45. The thing is, the dogs only did this for the first two days he was gone. Then they promptly forgot his existence until roughly one hour before he arrived back home. (It should be noted that when I am the one who is away, my dogs pine for me the entire time. Just saying.)

“Marriage is all about dependence. You have to maintain independent interests and identities or you both stagnate, but you also have to have some level of interdependence or you aren’t really a cohesive family unit.”

I could blame the fact that I was suffering from a particularly nasty stomach virus the entire first week he was gone (yes, I’m fine now) and was on a lovely cocktail of uber-powerful antibiotics, anti-nausea meds that made the room spin, and Vicodin for illness-induced pain, but honestly, I was so drugged I only really noticed his absence when I woke in the middle of the night.

So we’re back to the reality. I’m a strong person with my own income who did not move from my mother’s house directly to living with my husband. In fact, until I gave up corporate America and the mortgage industry to write full time, my income exceeded his (a fact he believes concerns me. He thinks I feel inadequate because he is currently earning the bulk of our income. This is both oddly perceptive and probably valid.) Despite this, I had to fight the urge to spend two weeks in nothing but pajamas and with my hair tied up in bandannas. Okay, I have an extensive pajama collection, and my bandannas are equally fetching, and, yes, it’s true I do a lot of my writing from bed anyway, but that’s really not the point.

Another time, I would have offset the temporary separation by splurging on facials, mani-pedis, and books, but as I wasn’t feeling well, none of that was appealing. Well, the books were, but I had a stack of novels I hadn’t bothered to read and couldn’t justify purchasing more. Instead, I spent a lot of time with seasons one, two and three of ER playing nonstop on the DVD player in one room and early Gilmore Girls episodes playing in another. Comfort watching, I call it. I also baked a lot of cookies then gave at least a dozen or two away to friends because I felt guilty for baking them in the first place. The second batch I was forced to do away with myself, because I’d become distracted and left out half the flour. They ended up being like very small chocolate chip crepes, quite chewy and great with the decaf Pike Place roast from Starbucks that I’ve been enjoying lately. I sprinkle cinnamon over the grounds before I start the brewing process, but that’s another story.

Ordinarily when Fuzzy (my husband) is away, we talk on the phone at bedtime, and that soothes the loneliness a little. The problem with these trips to Asia (other than the fact that I don’t get to go, though considering the number of shoe stores and my penchant for shopping, that may not be a bad thing, entirely) is that with a thirteen-hour time difference finding a time when we’re both awake and lucid is extremely difficult.

What makes matters worse is that Fuzzy is a special breed of human male known as Midwestern Man. This means that he is generally low-key to the point of stoicism, and when I’ve called him on business trips that took place on this continent and asked, half-teasing, “Do you miss me?” his response is usually something like:

“I don’t have to miss you, I know where you are.”

As if you can only miss someone if you can’t pinpoint their location on a map.

Also, he is not a phone person. He’s not terribly chatty, ever (see the part about being Midwestern), and when he’s on a phone he becomes downright laconic, answering almost anything he can with words like “Yup,” and “Nope.”

While this behavior does make me miss him less, at least for a few moments, my frustration with him later makes the separation worse, because I feel guilty for being frustrated. It’s quite the vicious circle.

Still, I was somewhat vindicated (and comforted) when, three days into this last two-week trip we finally made contact and he said, in a very small (for him) voice, “Hi, Lovey. I miss you.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t so pathetic after all.

Melissa A. Bartell earns her living by writing articles for an SEO marketing firm, and dabbles in essays and fiction on the side. She lives near Dallas, TX with her husband, two dogs, and more computers than anyone really needs. She is the Senior Editor here at All Things Girl. Find out more about her on our About Page. You can find her at her blog as well as other places here and there.

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