marriage 101: "let your partner grow"

When my husband asked me if it was okay for him to go to Haiti to volunteer for All Hands, my instant and immediate response without thinking was, "No! Of course not!"

Then I thought about it for a few seconds, and I told him.... the same answer (which in my head was more like, "you must be nuts if you think I would be okay with you going and doing something cool on your own and leaving me here in this shithole Bako-town by myself!")

Now let us examine this response carefully.
First of all, All Hands is a non-profit organization with minimal bureaucracy and politics, it creates projects and sends volunteers in needed areas to do real work in the community, to educate that community and help them rebuild their infrastructure. It is an awesome organization, and you can find a link to their facebook page or website through our facebook page. We both wanted to volunteer with them, so .... obviously, he can't do it alone because I want to do it too! * little voice of reason: sounds like you're being a little selfish, josie!*

Also, if he leaves me for 3 weeks, that means I'll be by myself with two dogs in the house. If I have to leave them 8 hours or more a day to work, that means I have to WAKE UP EARLIER to walk them before work. In the wintertime when it's pretty chilli in the morning?!?!?! I don't see myself doing that...

Then my little voice of reason kicked me in the butt big time. Your husband is about to do something super awesome, and you wouldn't let him go because you didn't want to wake up at 6am to walk the dogs?!?!?! What kind of a selfish human being/wife are you?!?!?!?!

Here's life lesson number one on being married: it's not just about you anymore. The same thing with being a pet owner: you have responsibilities to take care of your pets, including.... waking up early to walk them before you leave them inside the house for 8 long hours.

Another thing I read somewhere about life lessons on being married is that you have to support your partner and let your partner grow. Well, I guess this means if my husband wants to go to Haiti by choice to help the locals there and do something good for the humanity, I should be proud of him and support his decision.

So if you are following our blog or facebook, you would've probably guessed what the conclusion of this story is. If you haven't figured it out yet, he's gone. This is day 2 without the husband and there are 20 more days to go. It's not so bad, we ( me and the dogs, that is) mss him but we are proud of him (okay well, I don't know about Daisy and Gidget, but I am).

As far as the dog walking at 6 am, well..... I'm still working on that one.



~josie