Divorced Before 30

After Josh dodged my efforts to talk about getting married, I let a week go by before not-so-subtly asking him what I really wanted to know: What the hell was he thinking? Rather than talk about marriage, we got into a discussion about our communication styles, and I learned that springing things on Josh and expecting an immediate response was a fool’s errand. He needed time to process. A few days later, he finally got back to me about the commitment issues, and frankly, he hit this one out of the park. He composed a letter called “State of Love and Trust” and posted it on his blog. I was floored. He wrote:

Dear Primary Love Interest,

I know I don’t express myself emotionally very well. I am a man, after all. Granted that some men are better than others (screw you, Hugh Grant—you f’ed it up for all of us), and I may be skewing towards one end of the continuum, but most men seem to be somewhat poor performers in this category. Probably because we talk about football and donuts when we get together with each other, and with the exception of Homer Simpson, there is not a great deal of emotion tied to donuts. I realize it’s not the most ideal trait in a life partner. Rest assured, though…I’m working on it.

As you queried the other night, yes, this has indeed been a common motif in relationships in my past. And yes, I am fully aware that a good relationship requires care and some degree of “work” (trust me, I’m FULLY aware). But that is a tricky thing, you know? How much is work, and how much is “work” and how much is Work, and what is the significance of each? And when it is incredibly easy to be with someone, as I feel about me and you, it also becomes easy to get complacent and take certain things for granted….like saying you look hot in that tube top, or no those jeans fit you perfectly and don’t at all make your butt look big. Unless that’s the look you’re going for—I don’t know what’s “in” these days because my Cosmo subscription lapsed. Regardless, I know that the way I feel about you means that I would do any amount of work/”work”/Work to make things…er…work. Clarification: I KNOW things will always work between us…I have Trust in that…but I would do these things to make us both as happy as we deserve since we so directly and dynamically influence each other’s happiness now. P.S. I don’t use caps lock and capital letters frivolously.

I’m not a good enough amateur psychologist to really hash out what from my childhood made me this way (I have a few hunches, at best), but I think it’s what made me a good athlete—that never too high and never too low temperament. And having male roommates for my entire life didn’t help but hammer home these habits. Especially the silent ones. It might seem odd, but it’s always been a positive attribute in my life, an easy way to be, until now, and so the habit is hard to break given the decades of positive reinforcement it has received. Just remember that this is the first time I’ve spent more than several nights a week and the weekends with someone with pleasantly different anatomy consecutively, and it takes a little getting used to. I am, however, REALLY enjoying the constantly clean house and that there is ACTUALLY food in the fridge all the time. But please know that it is a process and that change is sometimes slow and don’t be afraid to help shove it along whenever you feel you need too. My easy-going temperament also means that I readily absorb helpful criticism, as well. Lucky you!

It’s odd, because women get painted with the “moody” label, but I am too, though it’s often really hard to detect on the surface. With me, it particularly applies to being in the mood to talk about serious things like new pets or kids or marriage or State of the Relationship type stuff. Most of the time when you bring them up, I might make a joke or two, and not really engage in the conversation in any great depth. I seem to put it off ’til later, but later doesn’t always come soon enough. Part of it is that I’m not aware ’til later (when you make me aware) that you are really serious about talking about these things in depth. Part is that when I’m home I’m trying to mentally decompress from work and life and these topics seem very Serious and are daunting and require many arbitrary mental energy units to address. Make no mistake, I’m not trying to avoid these conversations. In my head, I have a vague notion of “crossing those bridges when we come to them” and that the whole buying a house together situation should answer some of them for you already. I’m sorry for not communicating those assumptions of mine frequently enough, but I know we’ll get to all those questions and their answers eventually, and I’m still learning what you need and how to provide you with it.

Like I said…I’m working on it.