Friday, May 20, 2011

On uncomfortable conversations

So I just initiated an awkward and uncomfortable conversation with my husband. Let me tell the internet about it!

About a week and a half ago, my phone was dead so Andy handed me his so I could text his sister. While I was searching in his inbox for her name, I found some texts from a girl I didn't know. This in and of itself is not a problem: Andy has friends I don't know, I haven't met most of his colleagues, and so on. The problem was the text from the girl that said something like, "Keep me in mind if you ever get divorced!" and some small part of my brain went OH WHAT THE FUCK I WILL CUT A BITCH WHO IS SHE. Out loud, I said to my husband, "Who is [whatever her name is]?" in an incredibly calm manner. Totally reasonable answer: she's a coworker of his from a different branch, who had interrogated him about his weekend plans and then responded with much cooing to Andy's answers about our little getaway trip. She did that horrible thing where she asked if he has a brother, he doesn't, she giggled. She asked him about wine, and asked Andy to text her if he found any wines that were (in essence) the equivalent of drinking Kool-Aid in terms of sweetness.

So all of this makes sense, and my husband's response was a polite brush-off, I guess, but ever since then, that teeny little part of my brain has essentially become one of those women on Maury yelling, "AND WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU WERE THREE MINUTES LATE THE OTHER NIGHT? HMMMMMMM? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT FOUR DOLLARS YOU HAD IN YOUR WALLET ON THURSDAY? WHY YOU GOTTA DO ME LIKE THIS?" It's embarrassing and horrible and I honestly feel guilty about it, because Andy and I don't have secrets, really, and are really and truly happily married. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he isn't cheating on me, and wouldn't cheat on me, and that he would be horrified to know I was even thinking these things.

But he has a much busier weekend than I do: Tonight we're going out for dinner with a friend, then they're dropping me off at home and going together to play in a euchre tournament. Andy's working tomorrow morning, then going to the gym. Sunday morning he's golfing with his boss (tee time is at 7 a.m.! How is that fun??), then Sunday night he has his once-a-month poker game.

And I don't know if it's the fact that it has rained for all of the last eight days, or if it's allergies, or whatever, but I have been a little down this week and every time I think about Andy being out and about without me that same part of my brain goes OH REALLY NOW. And that isn't okay.

So I told him about it. I knew it might hurt his feelings but it seemed better to be honest, even about a bizarre and unfounded and stupid thing, than to keep it inside and just tell myself firmly to shut the fuck up whenever my brain brings it up. Andy, of course, was understanding and sweet and incredibly reassuring, and asked what he could do to help and stuff. I think that telling him about it was a huge step in not being so fucking paranoid about it, even though all the while I know that it absolutely isn't happening, and that now that he knows he will be extra sure about letting me know where he is and stuff.

So that is the probably-boring story about how I confided in my husband about my bizarre paranoia and got some mid-afternoon snuggles out of it. I guess.

I will try to post something that isn't bizarre introspection tomorrow! Really!

Any of you ever get bizarre unfounded suspicions that you know aren't true? Reassure me I'm not going to end up monitoring his emails or anything.

2 comments:

  1. I have been known to make reasonable speculations based on sketchy evidence. I'd be a fool not to, right? I'd have reacted precisely the same in that situation. Bringing it up for discussion is way tricky though, but it's necessary. I think unless further provoked you should not need to murderer her face off or hire a detective or anything (since Maury will probably pay for it - the detective, not the face murdering). Also, I apologize for my probable misuse of punctuation.

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  2. This was an awesome response. I feel like I handled it pretty well, and Andy agrees that it was important to talk about it, so hopefully now we can move forward without any murders or Maury. Except when he is doing a baby-daddy show, because I seriously love that shit.

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