Men — especially military men — just function differently than women. It’s possible that’s the most obvious conclusion I’ve ever made, but I recently found myself needing the reminder.
I’m really starting to feel those pregnancy hormones, it seems. A few days ago, while I was getting sick in the master bathroom — an unfortunately frequent side effect of this pregnancy — my husband was outside spray painting the outlet covers for our newly painted home. Even though what he was doing was useful and even something I wanted him to do, because he wasn’t outside the bathroom door inquiring about my well being every minute or two, I fell apart.
When I say fell apart, I’m not exaggerating. We’re talking about the “crying for hours, planning how to live life without him when he finally decides the candy wrappers I leave on the night stand are too annoying to deal with any more” kind of falling apart.
Needless to say, when I told him that I could probably make it back to my parents’ house after I got my next paycheck since he didn’t love me anymore, he looked at me like I was crazy. I think that’s probably fair, because I was a little crazy.
After my husband spent an embarrassingly long amount of time consoling and reassuring me that he does still love me, I finally spilled my guts to my mom. She said one sentence that just seemed to set my world right again.
“I think it’s just a guy thing.”
As a woman who is nearly seven months pregnant — as a woman in general, really — I often expect my husband to read my mind. It seems like over the years his ability to do so has only worsened. Then I think about how easy I was to please back then and wonder if it’s me who’s changed.
Either way, it’s clear the differences between our genders sometimes can leave us feeling worlds apart. It helps to remember that those times aren’t necessarily the end of our world, just a bump in the road that maybe need to be shrugged off and forgotten.
Of course, we all know I say that now, but two weeks down the road, I’ll be bawling in his arms over nothing again because, well, that’s just a girl thing.