men

Relationships are special

I am incredibly blessed with mine.

My hunny and I recently went out of town Easter weekend – from Bradenton area where we live down South to Boca Raton. My plans for us were to have a Friday night alone to do whatever we pleased, then spend Saturday at my Dad’s for my brother’s at-home wedding that started at 5p. Sunday was the travel-home day. We have the best relationship and I was so excited to spend time with him.

On the 3 1/2 hour drive down, hunny mentioned desperately needing a new laptop – he has been doing complex web designing amongst other things on the side, outside of his 50-60 hour a week full-time “real” job, bringing in more money to support our home, and really does need a updated machine.

He also mentioned having researched buying one and found a discount for one a guy was currently selling just South of where we were going to be staying and was interested in trying to make the purchase. Before our trip, I mentioned the possibility of hanging at the nearby casinos – hunny was agreeable, and even said “well I guess I know where were gonna be!” As far as I was concerned, that is the plan and I was excited for date night. Relationships with no itinerary are great if you ask me, but I was happy to have something in mind he was already digging!

We arrived at the hotel around 7:30p, both hungry and ready to be outta the vehicle. I immediately broke out my make up bag, my array of outfit choices and started getting ready. I recently lost almost 10 pounds and couldn’t wait to show it off to him. I wanted to look good for my man. Its great for relationships to go outside of your normal dating “territory”, and no matter what we did, I was happy to be with him in a location other than home field.

I did my make up, my hair and put on a sexy black dress – and he immediately looked in my direction, seemingly perturbed, wearing his already traveled in under armor shirt and jeans… “you over there dressed for prom and I am in a gym shirt… I didn’t bring clothes for that… why didn’t you tell me… and are we going to go meet this guy for this laptop or what?!”

Ugh – insert sinking belly feeling and a moment or two of the “he doesn’t love me, he doesn’t want to be with me’s” – dramatic, I KNOW! But I immediately felt unloved and shot down.

I retorted quickly and with nothing short of an attitude with my thoughts of the laptop being the last thing I wanted to do and how I didn’t think I had to tell him we were going to spend a night on the town because DUH, he loves me and he should KNOW. Again, insert sinking, overly dramatic, he doesn’t love me belly feeling (i.e. the mind-body connection).

He retorted just as quick, and in that moment all I hear was babbling… about how he needs the laptop, and he told me the guy was selling it, and we are only here this weekend, and he might only be available tonight, and why didn’t I tell him to bring clothes to go out?!

I crawled into my he doesn’t love me or want to spend time with me, dramatic, female shell. He got offended, but in retrospect he did a fairly decent job at hiding how pissed off I believe he was.

Do you see what happened here?

He felt disrespected.

I felt unloved.

It doesn’t get any more complicated, or uncomplicated, than that.

He has been working his ass off… 50+ hours day job, working through the night getting slim to no sleep on his “side” job, bringing in money and the potential of more in the future so he can continue to go above and beyond in supporting his family – me included, obvi. Getting the laptop wasn’t a social event for him. It wasn’t a “fun” plan. And it wasn’t a cheap one either… it was a NEED.

What else was he supposed to do when I was getting ready to go out, drink, eat & spend money… while he is thinking about MAKING money… my biggest concern was having fun.

Humility is tough. Humility is especially tough in relationships.

Perhaps I didn’t explain the plans, or that I didn’t really have any other than going out, drinking, eating and spending money – and he needed to be able to dress for that! Perhaps he didn’t explain his plans, that the laptop purchase was a for sure thing, and it would be smack in the middle of our Friday night.

Humility was needed on both sides as it usually is in successful relationships. Luckily, we are quite good at that. I won’t say we didn’t argue, and that I didn’t have a tear stroll down my cheek, but what we did NOT do is continue the misery of pushing each others “disrespect” and “unloved” buttons. We humbled ourselves equally, I put on some jeans and a fitted tee, we ended up not going the extra 30 minutes South to meet the stranger for the laptop, and we DID drink, eat, and spend money – most importantly, we had fun, we loved all over each other, and we were definitely not short on humility, love and respect.