the politics of love

I figured it might be a good idea, or at least a little diversion from my pregnancy obsession,to write a little more about my relationship with dh. 

I always say that politics always get complicated as soon as there is more than one person in the room. And this definitely applies to marriage.

Some of the things I have learned about keeping good politics with dh over the years:

1) This man really doesn't intuit the needs of others.  Subtle or even overt clues don't work. I must be very explicit and to the point. And if I bring up a request with a happy tone, he just about always comes through.

2) Angry gets me nowhere, so I have to calmly explain how something makes me feel in order to communicate the message (and I always do this with, "I am sure that you don't mean it this way, but from my perspective, when you do X it makes me feel like Y.")

3) My husband is not socially adept enough to insult me with the back-handed double-meaning comments that my mom does (so, at his request, I stopped attributing this skill set to him)

4) I knew what he was like before I married him. His first and long-term love is his work. I try to remind myself how much he has changed rather than focusing on when he isn't perfect (except for last night, which was particularly annoying).

I'll share a funny little story with you that demonstrates in an amusing way our different personalities.

I am kind of insecure and want him to reiterate why he loves me, and that he still does. Remember, he doesn't intuit that I need this. So I brought it up a long time ago with in the general sense of "could you compliment me more," to which he responded that I know he thinks I am beautiful because he told me so several years ago.... oof. 

Clearly I needed to take a different tactic. So, a year or so ago, when we are laying in bed at night about to go to sleep, I started asking him what he loved most about me that day. I had originally envisioned something like, "When you made that really witty comment in the faculty meeting, you looked so beautiful and sexy that I wanted to take you then and there."

Well, to show you how incredibly different men's brains can work from women's brains, the answers are always more a point of amusement than compliments.

The other day he answered with, "I love how reliable you are."

Reliable. Yep, that's what I got, and that kind of practical stuff is what I get every night.  Cracks me up to no end.

But I guess if that's what he loves about me, then that's what he loves about me.  Which on second thought, is much more reassuring than if it were just my looks, since those won't last...