Seeing as how our last date was awkward, we’re looking forward to this next one being less so. We’ve done a few things to start feeling more comfortable around each other. The past three years have been difficult–not completely, but we’ve bounced back from a lot. Though, up to now, only a few people knew that Shahram and I went through a separation during my pregnancy, we both feel like this was actually a successful one. Most separations, it seems, end in divorce, but ours did not. Shahram returned home after being out of the house for three months and was here for the last 4 months of the pregnancy. We understand the value of what we have gone through. It wasn’t immediately fabulous once we got back together either, but that is an entry for another time.
When you live with someone who you don’t sleep with, which is the case in our family due to sleep problems, and there’s a new baby in the house, a preteen in the house and you home school, well… the marriage suffers, the relationship suffers unless you make it a point to avoid that very thing. I feel the main thing that lead us to the separation was our focus on our child. I think a mother feels obligated, and rightly so, to let the new husband know that the child will always come first. I actually think this is a huge, indeed colossal, mistake.
When I was a child, my Aunt Gail told me that love is a choice, and happy parents make happy children–not the other way around. I didn’t listen. I think, also, that Shahram never felt like he could ask to come first because of holding the bond between my first-born child and me up as sacred. I know that I withheld love from him because I thought there was only a limited supply, but giving more love to him only makes more love for the kids. But where was I going with this? Yes, to feeling like work.
So as our date was awkward, and slightly disappointing, we decided to add kissing into our lives again. We just didn’t make time for it before. We both feel more comfortable around each other now. We both feel more like friends and lovers and not just roommates trying to get our kids through the day. Since our date we’ve also talked at length, and many times, about what we’ll do for our next date. Dinner and a movie isn’t the best thing to do with your free time together, though it can certainly be fun. We’ve come up with a few ideas that we’re excited about and really looking forward to and they are spawning more ideas. We talk about this stuff frequently now and it’s fun.
We’ve talked about renting a hotel room with a DVD player and watching LOST while having room service or a picnic on the bed, and lying together–with an alarm clock, of course so we can get home by 11. Another thing we’re planning is having our arms and hands done in henna, a design that is complete when our hands or arms are touching. We’re also going to learn new things together, maybe take a dance class. We’re becoming the best friends we’ve always wanted to be.
I don’t think awkward is going to play a part in our next date. It’s on Friday, and I can hardly wait.
