I have been with my husband for almost 15 years and after awhile, you run out of things to do.  So it was with great disappointment that the uber-cool place that we were going to on Friday didn’t happen because of our uber-not-so-cool bills.  It happens and we made do with a nice dinner out after a magnificent display of restraint when my husband decided to go for a walk to clear his head.  At 8 in the morning.  Without telling me. 

Our son walked around the house yelling for his Daddy and I just assumed he was somewhere with the laptop and headphones.  I joined the search after a few minutes and found that yep, the kid was right, he was missing.  I grabbed the keys, threw a coat on the kid who was still in his pajamas and started out the front door just as my husband was coming back in. 

I did one of those “Where were you, don’t do that to me” slaps on the shoulder.  You know, it’s the thing where you’re so annoyed but relieved at the same time, nothing mean about it.  I just wasn’t prepared for my husband to scream in my face and I’m sure he wasn’t prepared for me to tell him to get out. 

I’ll be honest.  I grew up with that and made it my little marriage mantra growing up “I’ll NEVER marry someone like my dad”.  Well, I did in many ways and my husband hates that I think that.  What he doesn’t realize is that his screaming at me, completely out of nowhere was more like my father than he will ever know.  After that little display of love we talked for a long time.  Stress over money tears us up and while money can’t buy happiness, it can buy choices of which we have very little right now.  It’s hard but again, we’ve been at this for 15 years now.  I’ve had him in my life longer than I haven’t and he never realized the importance of that until the other day.  His fear in life is me leaving because he “can’t get his sh*t together”.  Honestly, if that was going to happen, I’d have done it years ago because the man has never had it together and here’s a secret, mine’s not all that neatly packed either.  Plus there’s the fact that I do love my husband, our family and life so much that “irreconcilable differences” are something that we learn to deal with.  I guess that means they’re not really irreconcilable though. 

Anyway, in the end, he apologized for screaming, I apologized for swatting him because apparently it stung and his last comment on the episode?  “Now do you believe me when I say that I would never hit you” which begged the question, “Now do you believe me that I would kick your ass if you did”. 

That’s love right there.