My friend, Trisha I’ll call her (because “Trisha” would like to stay married), tells it like this:  “My husband says when I come home early from work, he’s so happy.  I don’t tell him that when I find out he has to work late, I’m so happy.”

Trisha and I puzzle about this.  We both have real princes for husbands, pretty perfect, as men go.  They score high on the Facebook test, “How Awesome is Your Husband?”  They are well-groomed, fiscally responsible, and don’t mention our weight.  They seem quite smitten with us, actually.  And, yet, we like it when they leave.

My husband and I have taken separate vacations for over a decade.  At first it was by necessity because I was still working and Rick was retired. (My retirement came later because I’m much, much younger than he is and because I stayed home and raised his rotten children.)

He traveled the world with Overseas Adventure Travels and Rick Steves while I taught middle schoolers.  Nothing could have delighted me more.  While he was gone, I didn’t have to rein in my workaholism.   And it was temporary, he said.  After I retired, we would “travel all the time.”

After I retired, it soon became obvious that by “travel all the time,” my husband actually meant he wanted to travel all the time.  He had become a photographer and had bought all the lenses and cases and doo dads.  He could spend hours photographing vistas, bumblebees, cactus, craggy locals, and rusty tin cans.  I rode along in the car reading my Kindle while he searched for the perfect sun, the perfect sky, the perfect dune. He’d urge me to shadow him as he took pictures, which always required me to actually move and sweat, two things I am loathe to do.

Click on picture to go to Rick’s photography website

While we were in Arizona earlier this month, he hinted that he wanted to go to Utah to snap pics a couple weeks hence.  The thought of packing a suitcase again in two weeks filled me with dread.  I already started missing my bed, my friends, my classes, my lunches out.  Finally I said, “You can go anywhere you want, however often as you want, but I’m not going.  Please do not have another heart attack while you’re gone.”  I was as excited about the impending nine days alone as he was about all those red rocks.

When I told my girlfriends I was going to be alone for nine days, they envied me.   Why is it that we are so glad when the one we love leaves?

First and foremost, it’s such a relief not having to be considerate all the time.  A happy marriage is based more on good manners than sumptuous meals or bedroom gymnastics.  It’s exhausting, all this solicitousness.  Turning the TV down when he’s sleeping.  Setting the thermostat at a mutually agreed upon temperature.  Seasoning the chili to his liking.  Charging your cell phone so you get his calls.  Combing your hair and brushing your teeth.  There is no way around this.  A good spouse is a thoughtful spouse, and sometimes you just want to be selfish.

Secondly, like many women of “a certain age,” I have never lived alone; I went from a dorm room to the one-bedroom, $155 a month apartment I shared with my husband.  Never been able to stack up dirty dishes in my own sink, never left my own bed unmade, never opened my own windows in the winter.

And no matter how thoughtful our husbands are, they are just annoying. Like if I sleep late, Rick says, “Wow, you had a good night’s sleep.”  What I hear is, “Wow, you are a sloth.”

He says, “How late were you up last night?”  And I hear, “You woke me up when you finally came to bed.”

He says, “Easter dinner sure was hard work.”  To my mind he means, “Why do I have to drag in all those extra tables and chairs for your relatives?”

He says, “You needed gas.”  I hear, “Why is the tank always empty when I use your car?”

I admit that perhaps I have a hearing problem, not a husband problem.  Women my age have distorted perceptions of reality, and I blame it all on Donna Read.  And I Love Lucy.  And our mothers.

Click on picture to play the original opening credits for the show.

In the iconic, insipid ‘50s/60s sitcom starring Donna Reed, you always felt that the family was just waiting for the dad to come home and notice them.  Although the show carried Donna’s name, it was Dr. Alex Stone who had the wisdom to solve the kids’ problems.  (Remember dreamy Paul Peterson and Shelley Fabares of “Johnny Angel” fame?)  “Father knows best,” was a common theme for television shows of the day.   For six seasons, we were indoctrinated with this notion of Dad as the head of the household, and the family preparing all day for his return home.  And the notion of twin beds.

Click on picture to watch the opening credits for the original I Love Lucy show

Lucille Ball was the dizzy redhead, always getting into jams with Ethel.  Then Desi and Fred would come home, shocked at their hairbrained schemes, and would announce that Lucy had “some ‘splainin to do.”  On a good day, Lucy would be wearing one of those fetching dresses with the swingy circle skirts and an apron tied with a jaunty bow, waiting for Desi to arrive home so she could offer him a drink and a cigarette.  And then they’d get into their twin beds.

Our mothers were different on the nights our dads had to work late.  There would be cold cuts laid out on the counter on the white butcher paper instead of our meat/vegetable/starch trio on our Melmac plates.  Maybe we’d stay up late watching This is Tom Jones in the living room.  There was a sense that we could all let our hair down a little and goof off when Dad wasn’t there.  We knew everything was okay, though, because we could see through the crack in their bedroom door that Dad had come home and he was asleep with Mom in their double bed.

For many women my age, we learned at our mother’s knee that we had to prove our worth.  How many of you are secretly happy when your husband comes home when you’ve just scrubbed the floor and it’s still wet?  When there are good smells emanating from the oven?  When you’re doing laundry, not reading a book?  The bed made and you’re not in it?  It is not our husbands’ expectations that we’re satisfying; it’s the way we were hard-wired early on by society to be caregivers.

One of the main reasons I love it when my husband goes away is because after about five days I start missing him.  I’ve lived my wild single life, which amounts to throwing some clothes on the floor and watching Jimmy Fallon in bed, and it’s getting old.   It feels like I’m not living my real life, that I’m lacking ballast.  And after the initial thrill of watching Hoda and Kathy Lee without my husband’s snarky comments, I find that watching TV all by myself is lonely.   Reading the paper without his commentary is disturbingly quiet.  And I find myself restless in the middle of the night when I realize that nobody has stolen the covers.  I become  a bit ashamed of my Cheeto-stained fingers.  And after a while, coming home to an empty house doesn’t feel liberating; it just feels isolating.  And then comes the rush of gratitude you feel for finding a life partner who is missing you, too.

Being alone for a while is a good reminder that we don’t really want to go it alone, but that we can. We hope we never have to.

Readers:  Do you enjoy being home alone? Why or why not?  I’d love to hear from men and women.  I’ll publish all of your comments.

Click on the pictures to watch the original opening credits for these beloved classics.

  Father Knows Best

 Leave it to Beaver

Dick Van Dyke

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