I will never leave Mr T for another man

But I might leave him for an empty house

A co-worker with a toddler was upset. “Some friends asked if I wanted to go out on Saturday and I realized I would rather sleep than go out!” she said. “When did I get so old and boring?”

Another co-worker, who has two children, laughed. “Just wait until you’d rather sleep than have sex!”

Co-worker #1 was shocked. “That will never happen!”

Co-worker #2 smiled. “Oh just wait.”

She turned to me. “Amateur,” she whispered. “She’ll learn.”

Who among us has not dreamed of a night alone? In a bed alone? In a room alone? Doing nothing but sleeping?

I adore Mr T.

But.

You knew a “but” was coming.

I didn’t get married until I was 43. Or something like that.

Older.

I lived by myself for most of my adult life before I got married. And when I didn’t live alone, I still had my own room.

That is, I had my own space.

Whoa was getting married a shock.

Let me amend that.

Whoa was getting married to an extrovert a shock.

An extrovert who is also a night owl to my not exactly early bird but yeah, when we had our pre-marital counseling, Fr Tim asked if our religious and political differences were going to be a problem.

“Not as much as our differences in bedtimes,” I answered.

And I was right.

Who knew the hardest part of being married was not the disagreeing on politics or on how often the bathroom should be cleaned (more than you think, Mr T – it should never look dirty) or on how long it should be before clean clothes make their way from the drying racks in the basement to the dresser and the closet (“five to seven business days,” according to Mr T, which actually is OK I guess because I just make sure I always have clean inventory of whatever and besides Mr T is the one doing all the work so I am not complaining at all) or where we should set the inventory replenishment level for potato chips (if there is a famine, if you can’t be at my mom’s house, you want to be at ours), but was the GETTING OF SOME ALONE TIME ANY TIME?

I? I did not know this when I married.

I had been living alone for many years when I met Mr T.

I had been doing things my own way.

That is, I had been doing things The Right Way.

When Mr T visited me, he tricked me by sort of more or less doing things My Way in My House.

When I visited him, I did things His Way, even though His Way was Wrong. I knew that once we were married and sharing a house, he would See The Light and Do Things My Way and We Would Be Happy.

And during our visits, we wanted to Be Together All The Time.

Then we got married and started living together and I started working again and work got all – well, you know – things happen and there are corporate takeovers and you are on your third CEO in five years and your fourth boss in nine months, etc, etc.

And when you come home from work where you are suddenly having to deal with people who don’t seem to be very smart AND WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?

For the past five years, you have been working with R&D engineers. And now you are working with people new to the company. They’re not engineers. They’re not – well, blesstheirhearts they just don’t seem to be that bright and they don’t even seem to know that they’re not that bright.

And there is drama.

And all you want when you come home is a room of your own.

All you want to do is sleep. By yourself. In a room by yourself.

Even though you adore your husband, who is wonderful.

Even though when you were 16, you thought marriage was all about all sex all the time but man were you wrong about that.

All you want to do is sleep. For eigh nin ten hours. Every. Single. Night.

That’s all.

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