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It's been two weeks. Two weeks ago, my wife came home from traveling and agreed in principle to take charge of our relationship. It has been perhaps the most blissful two weeks of our marriage. We have not had a single argument. Not one. And it is not like I am stifling my dissent, choking back disagreement, and building up resentment. Quite the opposite. I have the freedom to move on from things, the freedom to put things out of my mind and live in the moment. There have been tears, yes, and my wife got angry, but in those cases we were working through long submerged issues that neither of us had dealt with in an effective way. In dredging up these old things, we were able to clean them off, put them in context, and process them in a beautiful way. We have learned and grown together.
So, two weeks without an argument. Scratch that. Two weeks without a disagreement. Even silly things, like what to have for dinner, or what to watch on TV, have not been issues. I do all the cooking, pretty much (kids help), but then I always did prefer it. I also do all the cleaning, unless she wants to do something. Honestly, who WANTS to scrub a filthy floor with a brush? Apparently her. Every morning the bed is made. Her lunch is made. Her coffee is made. I do the shopping (really having fun organizing that) unless she offers and I can use the help. I really find myself wanting to do these things.
And the sex. Let's talk about the sex. We are both exhausted after a long weekend of traveling and late nights making love. Tonight she said we would try to just go to bed. I find myself almost hoping we can just snuggle up and go to sleep. Almost. And she finds herself halfheartedly promising to keep her hands off of me. I am not sanguine that we will be asleep before midnight. We have literally made love every day for the last two weeks; usually in the evenings and the mornings, and sometimes during the day.
The reason all this is important is not just because it is incredible, and massively emotionally fulfilling. No, the reason it is important is that two weeks is about all I could concentrate on keeping her happy in the past; and usually much shorter. The constant distraction of my life before would jerk me away, and I would be off down a rabbit hole, ignoring her needs, even if the rabbit hole was ostensibly a 'good thing'. Now, I don't see an end in sight.
I look forward to getting up tomorrow and following our routine. I look forward to consulting my notes and getting the things we need at the store, and coming home and attacking yet another room, cleaning out the detritus of decades of accumulation of junk, and organizing the space to better serve our family. I had periods of my life when I was able to focus on my writing long enough to be productive, and that is probably as close to this as I can think of, but it pales in comparison by orders of magnitude.
I think after two weeks it is starting to sink in that this is permanent. A lot of web references indicate that this kind of relationship can "rewire" your brain, making you think of her first, but this doesn't feel like that. It feels more like this is the wiring I was born with, the outlook that comes naturally to me, and what we did is just remove all the resistance that I have put in place over the years. I'm really here to stay. I know there are challenges coming (her three day business trip!!!) but I feel confident in my new found discipline, almost to the point where it's not really persevering, or denying myself something, but rather that those old things no longer hold any sway, so saying I can resist them is the understatement of the year. What a wonderful place to be.
