For couples fresh off the marriage truck, it’s my experience that misunderstandings come with the territory. Heck, with any meaningful relationship, misunderstandings come with the territory.
My husband and I have only been married for nearly three years, so we still have quite a bit to learn about each other. Thus far, I’ve actually enjoyed trying to discern my his moods, habits and communication styles. He may or may not say the same about me and, occasionally, we happen upon a moment where I’m left thinking, “Dude, you got me all wrong.”
Take today, for example. In our every day life, we play host and hostess to two established aquariums (with one more awaiting set-up). My husband is the fish master. I just married into the biz. The tanks are beautiful, but they require work to keep them that way.
Fish care and aquarium maintenance is his baby, but I’ve caught the hint that I need to learn how to clean a tank or two myself. This girl is smart. And I want to learn how, I really do. But I prefer my lesson at a pre-agreed upon day and time when my mind is ready to work. Not when I’m curled up on my king-size with a blanket, my phone, my tablet and my latest copy of Writer’s Digest magazine (just pulled from the mailbox yesterday).
Of course the latter scenario is exactly what I got. This afternoon, after he completed his work on one tank, he burst through the bedroom door, hops on the bed and proceeds to extract me from my coziness to come help clean the next tank. Are you serious? At first I thought my big brown eyes and a few girly giggles would get me out of it, but no such luck. Even with that big beautiful smile on his face, I knew he was serious.
So, I reluctantly got up and marched behind him into the living room (complaining all the way).
After a short while of cleaning, he announced he wouldn’t ask me to clean the tank again. Now you’d think I was overjoyed by the news, but I wasn’t. Not at all.
You see, I knew he misunderstood the heart of my protests (my many, MANY protests) from the bedroom to the tank. But, no worries. I straightened it all out. I explained that it’s not that I don’t ever want to learn how to clean the aquariums. After all, I do get to enjoy the beautiful tanks, too (as he so matter-of-factly stated reminded me). All I wanted was for my tank training to be a previously planned event – you know, so I could get my mind right for the task – not a spontaneous disruption of my coziness.
See. It was all just a simple misunderstanding.
P.S. Isn’t she a beauty? This aquarium is currently home to two gouramis, six tiger barbs, four albino barbs, four bala sharks and two new blue ram african cichlids