My Marriage's Torrid Little Ritual
It’s not a sex thing. Sex things were last week.
“I’m going to try to talk about work less when I get back from San Francisco,” R. said two weeks ago.
He was headed to the Sunshine State for an all-hands corporate extravaganza, and when he returned, I’d already be in Los Angeles for my own conference trip. We’d be a couple of ships passing in the night, which would have been more humorous had we not been like two dinghies at opposite ends of the same dock for at least a month at that point.
With R. working 60-hour weeks since late February, mostly from the office, we see each other for approximately two hours for dinner and TV watching. Then, I’ll go to bed early enough to wake up bushy tailed for my mornings with the Bean, and he’ll stay up past midnight to engage in the riveting undertaking that is legal document review. Whenever we have the chance to chat, usually while one or both of us is cooking, R. talks about the chaos of his day job. It is, after all, the only real thing he did since we last spoke.
“It’s OK,” I told him in response to his pledge to say less on this topic. “I know you need to get this stuff off your chest. Besides, I’m not really listening.”
“Yeah, I know. I just have to say it.”
This is the torrid little ritual of our marriage: R. talks about something that’s bothering him at work. It generally involves people failing at their jobs or trying to cheat the system to get accommodations or paid leave time that they don’t need (while others who actually need these things get denied instead). It’s HR nonsense, which means every explanation includes acronyms and jargons and policy intricacies and legal ramifications. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that this is not my area of expertise. I’m not a gigantic document nerd like R. is. But hey, I love that gigantic nerd, and I’m more than happy to let him talk at me about something that’s consuming most of his waking hours.
So, R. tells me all about it, sparing no detail in his diatribe about why this particular thing is so maddening, and I nod along, eyes glazed, occasionally throwing in a “that’s so frustrating” or “what an asshat” or “God, corporate America is such a joke” at the appropriate intervals. He walks away feeling better for having dropped some of the weight of his annoyance. I end the conversation unscathed because I didn’t waste brain space remembering something so astonishingly boring. We both know our roles. Until recently, we were both kind enough not to note the obvious: my unwillingness to actively participate and his becoming a bore.
R.’s declaration to talk less about work prompted us to put our cards on the table. He still hasn’t (spoiler alert) stopped talking about work or even started talking about it less, but that’s OK. More than I need him to change anything about how he’s showing up in the conversational aspect of our marriage, I needed permission that the way we were engaging on this topic was fine for both of us.
Contrary to rom-com logic, you don’t have to find your partner engaging or interesting at every moment. It’s fine not to be “present” for every little chat. In my view, it’s far better to be honest about what’s really going on. The most essential piece, then, is to ensure that the way each person is showing up is meeting their partner’s actual needs. For us, it is. Randy needs a semi-engaged body to lob his verbal frustrations at. I need to connect with him and hear about his day without getting dragged into the fiery depths of his day-job drama. We both win.
And don’t think this doesn’t go both ways. My husband very often is only half listening to what I’m telling him. Sometimes, I’ll have talked an entire paragraph before I realize that a podcast has been blasting through his ear pods at the same time, and if he picked up even a sentence of what I’ve shared, that would be a generous assessment. Because I am also a gigantic nerd about things, and I am also (as the title of this newsletter might suggest) sometimes a little boring, R. gets a dose of his own medicine from time to time. He once made the mistake of asking an innocent question about why an article might include brackets within a quote, and I’m sure he wasn’t prepared for the introductory journalism course I delivered on the topic. But he was kind enough to appear interested, which was all I needed at the time.
So, that’s that. Our torrid little ritual is out in the open now, and I think we’re better for it. I also know we’re not alone. Just as every relationship has a shorthand, every relationship has an unspoken compromise about the ways we give our partners enough of what they need…without losing our hard-earned peace in the process.
Now, I want to hear from you. What’s the torrid little ritual in your marriage or partnership? What do you phone in a bit but in a way that works for both of you? Tell me in the comments below. But be warned: If your ritual includes anything about leave-of-absence policies, I’m probably going to skim. Canned responses are good enough for my husband on this subject. Maybe they’re good enough for you, too.
With pleasure,
Bored Aquarian
P.S. I’m just kidding about the skimming. I will always read your responses, and I will always respond. I appreciate you taking the time to read and reply!
P.P.S. I was supposed to share a Tarot + Titles video with you last week, but things went a little sideways. It’s coming in the next few days. Pinky swear!
P.P.P.S. Last one, promise: If you missed the “sex things” from last week, you’ll definitely want to go back and listen to this lovely interview I did with
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