Before I married Poor Kyle, I had a lot of aversions to marriage in general.

Someday I’ll show you my list of them.

But for now, suffice it to say that I really struggled with the decision of whether or not to get married—not because of Poor Kyle, but because of my preconceived notions of the institution as a whole.

When at last I did decide to marry him, it was because the pros of getting married outweighed the pros of staying single—one big reason in particular sealed the deal for me: I wanted to be with him, and only him, all the time, for forever.

Can’t you see the stars in my naive little eyes?

Imagine my surprise, then, when newly-married me realised that Poor Kyle didn’t necessarily feel the same way.

Oh, sure, he loved me. I had no doubt of that.

But occasionally during that first year of our marriage, I got the feeling that he wanted to…shall we say…escape from me.

He made plans to go out with friends. He needed to stay late at work.

In short, he wanted to do things besides being with me! I was devastated.

Me? I had (slash have) no friends. I had no job. I had nothing to preoccupy my time besides my husband…the selfsame husband who had plenty to preoccupy his time besides me.

In all my anxious list-making about why I should stay single forever, it never occurred to me to add the fact that I would be the loser of our relationship. (I didn’t expect Poor Kyle to be the loser, either. I just naively assumed we would both be winners. {Actually, I never thought about it one way or the other—what woman goes into marriage thinking she might be a loser wife? Worry about retirement, about tax forms, about government paperwork and registries and lingerie and joint accounts and which car to sell? Sure. But husband/wife social rankings? Uh, not really.})

In later months, I began to work through the five stages of grief (grief for the dream I lost—the dream of being the only thing my husband would ever need aside from food, water, shelter, and Apple, Inc.).

First, there was denial:

I’m overreacting; no way could this be real. He does want to spend every spare minute with me—it’s just that he has to do other stuff. If he’s staying late at work a couple times a week, it’s because he’s really involved in some project, not because he’s shooting the breeze in the break room with his buddies. He would never waste his time with those guys when he could be with me.

Then, anger:

WTF??? He really doesn’t want to spend every spare minute with me? What a freaking joke—I marry this jerk, move a million miles away from home to be with him in this frozen barren wasteland tundra insane-o place, and then he gets mad at me when I get mad at him for not coming straight home at 5:00? Unbelievable. UNBE-DADGUM-LIEVABLE.

Bargaining was next:

Maybe if I lost five pounds, he would need me as much as I need him. Maybe if I shaved my armpits more regularly? If I could only make him see what a catch I am, I know he would want to spend more time with me.

And then depression:

How did I get so pathetic? There was a time in my life when I could’ve dated any guy I wanted [not really, that was just the depression talking]. And now look at me—I’m washed up. A has-been. My own husband has a closer relationship with his phone than he does with me. He would rather spend his time learning HTML with his friends than drying the dishes next to me in the kitchen or rubbing my shoulders.

But now, at long last, after nearly three years of being married, I’ve finally found acceptance:

He loves me; I know he loves me. Maybe he’s not as clingy as I would prefer or had imagined, but it’s going to be okay. My dreams are lost, never to return, but the reality is not so bad, not really.

And do you want to know the funny thing? Now that I’ve come to terms with my reality, Poor Kyle seems to want to hang out with me more than he ever did before.

Too bad he blew his chance ages ago. I’m self-actualized now. I don’t need him around all the time to make me feel complete. I’ve got school, I’ve got (the prospect of) a job, I’ve got short hair, I’ve become a feminist, and I’m free from old insecurities. That’ll teach him to forget how awesome I am.

WHO’S THE LAME SPOUSE NOW, PK?

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