I recently read this great article from the New York Times. It is about a woman who goes to learn about training animals like seals and dolphins and ends up learning how to train a husband:
The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.
What I loved best was her warm-up to the story, when she talked about how she felt about her husband. Marti and I will celebrate our 6th year of marriage in exactly 10 days, and I can’t explain how comforting that is. It is nice to be comfortable together, to know what the other wants and what matters. I am the “husband” in this story; the one who tells the jokes and is always late for dinner. But even I learn; after making a sandwich for myself last night (yes, I did 2 full weeks without a carb and am now on “Phase II”) I walked into the den and gave him a bite. Then I walked out and made him one for his very own. It only took six years. Sutherland writes:
I love my husband. He’s well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.
But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I’m trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. “What did you say?” he’ll shout.
These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn’t keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.
I can certainly understand her sentiment. There are days when I wish Marti loved, say, working on the yard more and computing a bit less. But all in all, it’s been a wonderful 6 years — the best of my life. Thanks babe.
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