I'll admit, moving in with my husband is one of the least
challenging challenges I've had to overcome in my life. But it was a
challenge. One that was filled with fabulous, evergreen, and surprising life lessons!
My hubby and I have been happily married for fifteen years. We are as
different as two people can be (he's black, I'm white, he's a hard
working mechanic who's never left his small town Texas life, I'm a free
spirited Canadian hippy type who never learned to stay in one place,
he's twenty-three years older than me) yet our marriage is a comfortable
and nourishing one. And it was always simple, too.
Mostly because we
truly love and respect each other, but also because for thirteen years
we lived in two separate homes.
Me in the woods where the kids
(we have four sons--three are from my previous relationships) could run
wild and make unlimited amounts of noise, and he in town where he could
work on cars and watch the news. Our homes were not far from each other
and we were together often, but there is a gift in not having to learn
to live together as well.
The house I was staying in with my boys was sold and we packed up any belongings we felt compelled to keep and moved into the tiny trailer house with my husband. By then two of our four boys had moved out on their own so we weren't crowded, but we were challenged to learn life more consistently together.
At first, I was an uncomfortable mix of overly polite and quietly defensive. Not defensive for myself but for our sons and their strange habits. Which is, admittedly, defensive of myself and my parenting, but I digress.
Our two youngest boys have social issues and sensory sensitivities that make them quirky and unusual. This is a lovely thing! But for my husband, who had always known about the quirks but never had to live with them, it was hard. He was now faced with a feeling of needing to parent. Because he was there in the middle of the night when our sixteen year old son wanted to empty drawers and invent stories and tape stuff together, he felt an obligation to teach this away. And when our fourteen year old son would hide in his room singing and laughing and watching videos and burning incense and eating sporadically, only coming out to go to school or to get a drink of water, my husband would feel a need to tell him to come out of his room and stop watching videos.
At our home in the woods, we had the
freedom to be ourselves and with that freedom we grew confident in many
ways. We also grew dangerously anti-social in other ways. So I knew that
I wanted to learn life in town; life with people and social
expectations. Not so we could become what was expected of us, but rather
so we could grow more connected and compassionate. Human beings are
social creatures, and we are no exception.
So I allowed myself
to be defensive with my hubby, but I also pushed myself to keep my eyes
open. To see what others were seeing and to learn what lessons I agreed
with- to raise the bar, as my mom always says.
Because my husband
and I respect and love each other so much, and because we both believe
in and are amazed by our impressive children, it didn't take long to
love this more together life. My hubby has found comfort in the sound of
our son awake in the night building cities out of trash and I've found
pleasure in teaching him to respect our sleeping hours with quiet. My
husband understands now the toll being social at school places on our
other son and I adore the creative ways I've found to get him out of his
room.
Also, I've gotten fabulously gifted at recognizing the
difference between an annoying habit and a true problem. It's rare that
my husband and I have to work something out between us, an issue or
contradiction that's truly problematic, because mostly--as different as
we are from each other-- we're coming from the same place. So when we do
need to deal with something in our marriage, we both feel a deep
respect for each other's point of view. Sure, it's frustrating when he
keeps arguing for his wrong point of view (tee hee!!) but it's also not
something we're working on only after a mountain of itty bitty issues
have piled up. Living with my husband has given me the gift of seeing
clearly the things to simply let go of. And I've become a better sister,
mom, and friend because of it.
Our marriage has grown stronger
and our sons have grown stronger and our dreams and futures are starting
to grow more concrete. Because now we're truly and completely doing it
together.
Moving in with my husband has challenged me to learn
and value true collaboration. Not just with my immediate family where
collaboration and comfort have almost always come naturally, but from
outside of us as well. From people and places that have gifts and
experiences to offer that I may have missed if I hadn't begun to
incorporate new folks into my world. If I hadn't gained the skill of
knowing the difference between annoying and truly problematic, and the
value of allowing both the exist while collaborating and working
together.
Moving in with my husband has brought me a huge step closer to truly moving in with the world.
And that is one great big huge fantastical evergreen life lesson!
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