Paul and I had a bit of a tiff last night. It was Friday night, the end of a long work week, all the kids were back from their other parents and they were happily and noisily in the kitchen making homemade pizzas. Paul got home around 6:30 and was hungry and a little impatient that there weren’t any pizzas ready for him to eat. He needed to go out and run an errand and said he would pick up something to eat while he was out. This really bothered me and I said so. “Why go out? There is plenty of food to eat here. Can’t you wait a few minutes?” He refused and left and I felt personally rejected. When he returned, sated and happy from grabbing a burrito from his favorite Mexican restaurant, I was still annoyed and reiterated my disappointment about his leaving. “You are making a big deal over nothing.” he told me.

Being the introspective sort that I am, I wondered why I overreacted the way I did. I knew he was right, but why did it bother me so much? And then I realized, I was playing back all those previous Friday nights from my first marriage when Jared, my ex, never came home and when he did, he never wanted to eat what I prepared for him. I was reliving those same feelings of rejection. Funny how old hurts you think you have long since buried keep coming back to haunt you.

This morning Paul got up at 5 am to go into the office to do some  paper work. He kissed me goodbye and said he would be home around 11am. I went back to sleep and woke around 8 am and was lying in bed, contemplating getting up, when the bedroom door opened and there was Paul. “You’re back!” He crawled into bed next to me and told me, ” I was hungry and I couldn’t concentrate. I just want to snuggle with you.”

“You need your wife to make you breakfast and take care of you don’t you? ”

“Yes, I do.”

That simple reassurance made all those past bad feelings drift away. I made him bacon and French toast.