Pros and Cons of Husbandlessness

Since June 23, Ben has been in San Francisco doing an internship auditing for Deloitte.  It has been an awesome opportunity for him and he has fallen in love with the city.  Unfortunately, I had to stay in Hawaii to take some classes in order to graduate within the time allotted to me at this university.  So when all is said and done, we will have been apart for about two months, minus one week when my parents, little sister and I visited him over the 4^th of July.  (We couldn’t leave Ben alone on his favorite holiday!)   We are happy to announce that Ben received an offer to work full time at Deloitte in San Francisco beginning Fall 2014 and we are extremely excited to start our new city lives there next year! So all this time apart, as difficult and sad as it has been, was totally worth it.  Ben comes home to me in one week and as you probably suspect, I cannot wait!  Over the past several weeks, I have learned some things about being without a spouse…

The Pros and Cons to being husbandless for two months:

Pros

No one to tell you that your outfit is too crazy (Note this is also in the cons list)

The toilet seat is NEVER left up.

He can’t judge you when you get a speeding ticket ‘cause he wasn’t there.

You can watch the Mindy Project and laugh your head off at stupid girly humor without being judged

You can have girls’ nights without feeling bad about kicking him out of the apartment for the night

You can watch chick flicks at any time

You can sing at the top of your lungs in the car, in the shower, while cleaning the house.  You can belt songs from musicals, you can pretend you are Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, or whoever else you so desire to sing like.  No one will get annoyed with you, laugh at you, or be embarrassed for you….except maybe your neighbors on the other side of the paper thin walls, or the person stopped at the same intersection as you who can see that you are rocking out to the radio…alone…

No one will care if you don’t have meals planned ever, and you make whatever weird concoction you come up with by staring at the fridge for a couple of seconds.  Let’s just say while I think I am coming up genius combinations of foods, Ben says, “Oh that sounds interesting.  I am glad you like it.” Which implies “no I would not like you to recreate that when I am home.”

No boy food (junk food/ice cream/cookies/etc.) in the house.

You can wear your retainer to bed and no one will laugh at your lisp!

I am getting a taste of what life might be like when Ben is working during the busy season at his accounting firm. Hello 80-hour weeks! (yikes, this shouldn’t really be on the pros list…)

I’m being reminded of how much I love and appreciate Ben and how incredibly blessed I am to have him in my life.  It’s not that I don’t already know these things, but being together all the time sometimes makes you forget how special the other person is, because they are part of your everyday life and you sometimes take that for granted.

Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder.

Cons

Can’t open jars with tight lids

No one to squash roaches and chase spiders

No one to cuddle with. (I use a pillow to remedy this.  It’s not as good as a warm human body, but hugging a pillow comes close enough given the circumstances and it helps me sleep.  At least the pillow doesn’t complain about how hot it is and tells you to get off.)

No one to tell you that your outfit is too crazy (Note, this is also in the pros list)

No one to bake for when you are craving sweets, but you don’t want to admit it, so you make it under the pretense that you are being nice and thoughtful for your spouse…yeah. No more of that…

You might make some dents in the car…really, really BAD unfixable dents…sorry Ben!!

No one is there to comfort you when you get a speeding ticket.

You get a speeding ticket, but usually you wouldn’t be driving, ‘cause usually the boy drives and he would have got the ticket, not you! (Or maybe as the more responsible driver, he wouldn’t be speeding in the first place? Maybe?)

Geez, I got into a lot of car trouble without Ben…

No one to adventure with.

No one to fix your bike for you. (Wow, I am really dependent on Ben.  Maybe I should learn how to do these things for myself!)

Going to the beach alone can be pretty boring.

Saturdays actually end up being really boring.

Sundays are even worse.

In-person conversations > phone conversations.  Neither of us have ever been fans of phone talking.  You’d think we would be used to it.  Most of our dating experience occurred over some kind of distance.  He lived in Salt Lake and I lived in Provo for over 9 months of our relationship, I went home for 2 summers and we were an 11 hour drive away from each other, and I lived in London for 2 months, while he was in Denver and Salt Lake.   But after almost 2 years of living under the same roof, I guess we kind of forgot what long distance relationships are like.   And now we are remembering that they suck.

Tips for any wives with husbands who might leave them for more than a week:

Never twist the cap to a jar too tight

Keep one of your spouses larger shoes handy for bug squashing.  I use Ben’s Clark ‘s boot that he left behind...  (Hopefully you aren’t reading this Ben…)

Make sure you have an extra pillow (to snuggle with).

Get your fill of chick flicks while you can! Don’t watch movies he would want to watch.  Use this chance to get in all the movies he is sure to say no to for your movie nights!

Try all those food experiments you’ve been dying to sample. Almond butter on yams for dinner? Yum. (yams are currently my favorite food…I can literally eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner.  This would probably not fly with Ben at home. Or at least he definitely would not jump on the yam bandwagon.)
Have girls' nights! As much as possible!
What an awesome opportunity to get super good grades without the distraction of your good looking significant other!

Talk on the phone everyday.

Look at pictures of you and him often.

Hopefully none of you married people ever have to separate for this long.  I cannot say that I recommend it.  Only one more week!