I am a Husband

I am a Husband

I am a husband.  I’ve been a husband for 44 years now.  That isn’t as long as many but probably longer than most marriages right now.  They have been good years, though I have not always been as good as I should have been.  I have certainly been treated better than I deserve.  I have been richly blessed being the husband to my wife.  That is not to say that there have never been rough spots in our marriage.  There have been a few.

We have been fortunate in our marriage in that neither one of us is inclined to argue much with the other.  Oh, we have our disagreements and we work them out over time.  There have been occasional cold wars when silence was the only communication that took place, but those have been few and far between.  Some marriages work quite well by resolving differences through heated arguments, but that has never been us.  Neither one of us want to go there. 

I attribute the success of our marriage to three things.  We have learned to let go and to unconditionally forgive simply because we know the love we share is stronger than any disagreement we may have.  We have never—not ever, not even once—mentioned the “D” word toward the other.  That word is not in our vocabulary.  Finally, we began our marriage with the end in mind.

Not long after we married we moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico.  Los Alamos is her hometown.  How does the saying go? “Marry a son and lose a son.  Marry a daughter and gain a son.”

Los Alamos has a floating population of between 17,000 and 20,000 depending upon who occupies the White House and the current state of world affairs.  Needless to say, in a small town like Los Alamos, everybody knows everybody else and in spite of the secretive nature of government scientific research in that town, there are no secrets.  And, since I worked for the police department, everybody knew me.  People there today still know me as Officer, Detective, Sergeant, Captain, or Chief Talley, all depending upon when they lived in Los Alamos and where I was in my career.  I mention this for a reason. Susan would often be asked by people in town if she was Officer Talley’s wife or Captain Talley’s wife, and so forth.  She finally got tired of the question and answered, “No, he is my husband!”

As her husband I’ve found it important to understand our division of labor.  Yes, there are chores around the house such as lawn care and laundry and those other household tasks, but those are only minor compared to the single most important division of labor.  Keep in mind that I did not establish this protocol.  She did!  Simply stated, it is my job to earn the money and it is her job to spend it.  Actually, she is a great money manager and I trust her completely with how and where she spends our money.

We had been married over 25 years before our good friend Richard Brecht taught me the secret to being a good husband.  He told me that there are three phrases that I must always remember.  They are fallback phrases and frankly they are pretty good.  They are (1) yes, dear, (2), anything you say, dear, and (3) whatever you want, dear.  With all seriousness aside, the compliant husband makes for a happy wife and a happy wife makes for a happy husband.  You reap what you sow.

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The reality is that I enjoy being her husband.  Aside from the fact that there is never a dull moment with her by my side, especially when she is giving me driving directions, life is pretty good.  She has perfected my dry sense of humor and often turns it on me.

She is always looking out for me, looking out for my best interests.  She is my confidant and the one person in the world that I trust beyond measure.  She is often the voice of my conscience.  She has made me a better person.

I enjoy being her husband.  I enjoy travelling with her, especially by car.  It gives us uninterrupted time to talk of the past, present, and the future.  Goal-setting often takes place in the solitude of the car on long road trips.  You don’t have that intimacy on an airplane.

I enjoy being with her.  We do not follow each other around in the house.  She is often in one end of the house and I am in some other corner, but knowing that she is “in the house” brings a great deal of comfort to me.  And, I don’t go with her when she goes to get her hair cut and she doesn’t sit in the barber shop when I get my hair cut.  (However, we have dentist appointments coming up soon and for the very first time in our marriage we have them on the same day and back-to-back.)  I enjoy our morning routines, like our walks together.  I enjoy sitting next to her when we both need to be on the computer at the same time.  I enjoy being able to touch her hand when we sit together at church.  I enjoy holding the car door and building doors open for her.  I want to hold her jacket for her when she puts it on.  I really want to do those things for her.  And, there is a deep emptiness when I kneel down to pray and she is not by my side.  I miss not being able to give her a quick kiss before bed time and not being able to give her a quick love tap on her – uh – fanny.  When she is not with me I miss not being able to tell her in person that I love her.

As I write this I see a lot of the use of the word “I” and it draws to my attention the fact that I really am self-centered.  I am also very spoiled by a woman who is always there.  The thing is though that it really isn’t about me, but it is about us.  She does so much for me that I sometimes forget that.  There have been two supernal women in my life.  My mother gave me life.  Susan made me live.

I should be a better husband.  I need to be a better husband.  And, in spite of my need to be a better husband, she makes me a better man.

I am a husband.  I am the husband to Susan Schofield Talley, and that is a good thing.