Not Your Mother’s Playground

Wait, isn’t that backwards? Sometimes though it seems perfectly normal in my household. Allow me to explain.

This past Monday Steph had a first night with a gal he met on okCupid. He hadn’t been on a first date in, hmm … a really long time; not since he met Betty I think. Anyway, we had kind of forgotten how the whole thing went, so we chatted briefly on the days leading up to him going out. He said that he wouldn’t be out late; as it was a first date, and left me with the impression that we’d play some new Wii Fit Plus together that evening.

Our experience tells us that a successful meet and greet first date, is about 3 – 4 hours. This is pretty standard for us and perhaps many people? However if Steph’s date was to go later I wouldn’t have a problem with it if I was given a heads up. Basically the way we work – and I’m not saying at ALL that this is how I think anyone else should operate – is that we keep each other in the loop when we’re out separately.

If I think that a date might go longer, I check with him first.

“Is it ok if I’m out past such and such a time?”

99% of the time – because he’s the most laid back, easy-going guy ever, Steph is super cool with me leaving my return times open-ended. There have been a few times when I’ve said I would be home at a certain time and I haven’t made it back, and he’s had every reason to be cranky with me. If we say we’re going to do something we really should do it, or at least check in and make sure it’s ok to change plans. It’s common courtesy that your partner deserves.

Look, if she can use the phone with a swim cap on ...

I was perfectly happy knowing that he was out enjoying a first date. I came home a bit late from work and after some shopping settled down to play some video games alone, which is a rare treat. Everything was fine, I was even looking forward to hearing about his date until I turned to the kitchen and saw the clock. It was 10 pm, he’d been out since 6 pm and I hadn’t heard anything. So I sent a text.

I heard nothing back.

I sent another text, and then another. Suddenly the compersion that I was feeling turned to crankiness. I couldn’t care less about how his date was going, all I cared about was that I was out of the loop. I texted Don to calm me down and vent to a boy and while it was a good distraction I was still getting crankier by the minute. When I called Steph and he didn’t answer his phone, I just got extra full of cranky. He knows that his phone sucks and that he should always have it charged when at work, and instead he let it die.

Now let me interrupt myself for a second to point out that I realize I might sound like I’m overreacting. I know I am PMSing so things are a little more annoying right now than they should be on a non PMS day. I also know that it sounds like I’m freaking out over the tiniest of details and don’t let Steph have any fun, but I hope you’ll keep reading to the end to get a better understanding of all of this.

Finally the phone rings and he’s almost home, at the bus station. When he walked in the door I was so seething with rage that I could barely talk to him. After a minute or two of awkward silence I did, and then shit went crazy. I was f’ing and blinding left and right (completely unproductive I might add), and he said some mean things that I daren’t repeat because I know how sorry he is now to have said them.

It was a terrible fight, and an even worse awkward silence after the fact. He wanted me to calm down after he’d apologized but I had to explain to him that just because he’d said he was sorry didn’t mean that everything was hunky dory for me. My heart needed time to heal so there was a bit more awkward silence.

Eventually we started to talk, and the voices weren’t so raised. Steph admitted that often times he’s so worried about doing the right thing that he sets himself up for failure. He’ll over promise that he’ll be home nice and early when he thinks I want him to be, and then his phone will die and he’ll come home late. He won’t excuse himself to find a pay phone and instead will leave me in the dark when he knows that a quick “Hey” would make me feel great and that I’d be excited for him that his date was going well. But he won’t do that, and I’ll be upset, because I take people at their word, and then we’ll fight. He admitted that he worries about making his date feel uncomfortable by getting in touch and will often worry more about them than he will me, and that’s usually where my problems lie. It will seem like I have a problem with him dating, but trust me, that is never the problem. What ends up happening however, is that I associate the dates, and unfairly the people he’s dating, with the bad behaviour on his end. This is something that I need to work on as it’s affected my views on his relationships with other people a lot in the past.

It’s very important to me – and admittedly to him as well – that the people we date understand and respect our relationship. That the things that Steph and I do while out on dates, for each other is not a problem with them. I don’t need to worry about single women that don’t like their date calling his wife to check in. This isn’t a normal dating situation where it’s rude to keep your phone on you. This is part of the package of dating us, in an open marriage. If you don’t like, move on honey! Or brother!

What Steph seems to be starting to understand is that it’s ok to leave things a bit more open ended with me as long as he checks in. He asked me last night if I would be ok with him staying out later, providing he’d let me know, as I would do for him. I said “Well how can we ever know if I’m ok with it if you don’t give me the chance to be? If you’re constantly worried about doing the wrong thing with me, you end up doing the worst things. Go out, have fun and if we haven’t made any other plans and you’ve checked in that all is copacetic? Enjoy yourself as long as you like. “

And it’s true. I want him to have fun and enjoy himself. I really enjoy feeling compersion and also having time to do my own thing, but I also trust him so much that if he says he’s going to do something or be somewhere I believe him. When that trust is broken all I’m left with is hurt feelings and annoyance and we’ve both agreed to work harder – to address the factors we both contribute – to make other first dates in the future less painful and more about the awesome.

So it may have been slightly PMS fueled on my end, and it may have been “D’oh” male on his, but what makes me happy at the end of it is that we hit rock bottom but then dug our way out so quickly, realized what was the matter, talked it through and ending up having a great rest of the night together.

Sometimes going apeshit pays off! Well, that’s what my PMS affected self is sticking with!