By MomGAL Expert Dina Ferrante
It’s not like I was cheating.
Yet I was accused of paying more attention to “him,” taking “him” to bed with me, always (c’mon, always?) with “him.” “It” was consuming me. I was more interested in “it” than I was in our family. I’d rather be frolicking with “it” than with our friends.
The “him” was my new Mac. And the “it” was my budding business. And by golly, “he” (my partner) was right.
Domestic life is typically predictable. I know exactly what time we’ll go to bed, how much cholesterol is too much based on the current numbers, which nights are movie nights and which nights are meatloaf nights. I know that each time we get ready for a hike, he’ll deliberate for a good 6 minutes about what combination of clothes to wear for optimal comfort. He knows that I grapple with some of the responsibilities that are associated with motherhood and how I get grumpy if I drink less than 8 glasses of water on any given day or don’t have my prescribed amount of flax seeds. He knows that I’m usually too hot or too cold and when I’m “just right” we all must embrace the moment.
It works, this dance we do, and I feel happy.
Looking back I suppose it makes perfect sense that he freaked out a little when I seemed more interested in my new endeavor of building my Life Coaching biz than I did in my flax seeds. When I could sit for hours on the computer researching, reading, writing, communicating, and apparently ignoring the family and not especially interested in cooking dinner. This behavior just wasn’t like me and if I’m anything, I’m predictable.
This new passion had seemed to overtake me and admittedly it did sometimes feel like I was having an affair. I would get out of bed earlier than usual in the morning so that I could be alone with “Mac” without any guilt. I’d schedule business phone calls during times when I knew the house would be empty so I could talk freely. I’d bought a subscription to Entrepreneur Magazine and sneakily read it in the bathroom. I giggled when I talked to my new fellow Life Coachers. I had discovered utopia in this world of self help and helping others help themselves and there was no stopping me.
When a good friend recommended the book “Mating in Captivity” claiming it would help me understand what was happening in my relationship, I enthusiastically downloaded it onto my kindle. I didn’t even care about the $9.99 (I’m a library girl, through and through).
I was comforted by the words of this book, which explained that we never really know our partners as well as we think, and that’s a good thing. It’s the mystery or even the uncertainty that helps to keep the spark alive and when one partner breaks the rules of established routine both partners are free to bring more authentic parts of him/herself to the relationship.
So, we talked and we talked and we talked I agreed to not take Mac to bed anymore and he agreed that it was kind of sexy to see me more interested in my new career than in my daily flax seed consumption.
And although we haven’t completely figured out how dinner will get made, we’ve agreed to let each other soar.
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