The Marital Compliment

"Where the hell is my sock? She always puts them in the same place and there is not sock here. Hey! Oh. There she is. Wow. Her ass looks great like that...."

There it is! Grab it! Not the ass. The compliment. Grab it in your head and let it fall out of your mouth before it sinks into the abyss of your head, covered with bitching about your socks. It will do you far more good being verbalized than flitting away with the thousands of other positive things that could have made your life better. And hers.

My husband and I were discussing why I was being so cold last night. Our communication skills have taken a turn for the better in the last couple of months but there is a strangeness in our relationship too. We don't know where it is safe to tread. At one point I said that I didn't feel like I heard good things about myself. He said he said plenty of nice things. Like "thank you." He always says "thank you." Which is true and I appreciate it. But it ain't the same as "I like the way you smell."

I think I am not alone when I say that I probably created a safety issue. I am sure there have plenty of times that he has tried to say something nice or grab at something and I either asked what the ulterior motive was or brushed it off. There seems to be a rash of long marrieds around me with anger issues and mistrust. Its taken me a good scare in the relationship to admit that I don't care what the motive is. I want that pleasant thought that flows from his brain to exit safely from his mouth and, frankly, I don't give a shit what the motive is. I'm really sorry that I made you feel bad for thinking something nice, even if perhaps it was a little raunchy. Raunchy is okay if you have been together for 13 years and way better than silence.

Life in a domestic situation can be so complicated, especially with kids. There are layers of needs in a partnership. We need to figure out expenses. We need to get groceries and figure out what would be good for dinner that will satisfy everyone. We need to cover childcare for work conflicts. We need time alone. We are in this life together and it can be draining. It is easy to resent each other and shut down. The compliments get buried under the five hundred other things in our head and we don't always feel safe to express ourselves.

I get plenty of compliments about my physicality in the outside world. A lot of times they are a little creepy or, at their best, they don't mean nearly as much as a good thought from the person that I spend so much time surviving in this life next to. The person who has seen me sick, pregnant, full of self loathing, bent up in unseemly positions, in a bikini with an extra twenty pounds on me and vomiting. There is not another human being on earth that "Your eyes are pretty" means more from because he knows the truth of what I can be on a very bad day when they are red and swollen.

A good thought towards another person is a gift that is wasted locked away. I think it is always worth the risk to put it forth and it is a shame that so many of us take it for granted until it becomes something that causes resentment. On the other hand, chances are that at times there was a motive attached to the compliment otherwise we may not feel that way. But so what. Take those kind words. Say them anyway.  You know that they are coming from a genuine place in the thought process and if you do it often enough without a reason, maybe your partner will learn to just appreciate the gift. It's always so easy to do in the beginning without the history of life to complicate it but I think I value the kind thought from my partner even more that I know that. It is so easy to do in a new relationship but it means so much more when a person knows you so well that they could easily forget to tell you the good things.

And P.S. Yeah. It works both ways.  Don't I know it!