Sleeping Arrangements
My husband and I rarely share a bed. We sleep in the same bed, just mostly not at the same time. He’s had the same third-shift job since before we were married, and since our engagement, I had made my mind up that he would have to quit once we got married because I couldn’t foresee us spending much time together—what with us working opposite shifts. However, I found that after we exchanged vows and moved into our house, we were together all the time.
Mark’s is a salaried position, meaning he gets paid the same if the job takes two hours or nine, and rarely is he gone more than six or seven hours a night. That means he tucks me into bed with a goodnight kiss and he sends me off to work with a good morning kiss nearly every day. It’s really nice.
He’s almost always awake by the time I get home, and we spend the rest of the day hanging out together, until I go to bed and he heads off to work. Too much together time? Maybe, if we didn’t like each other, but we do like each other.
Mark’s work has its seasonal ups and downs and things have been slow lately, yet he sleeps on the couch rather than share the bed with me. We’ve gotten used to having the bed to ourselves so rather than disrupt my slumber whenever he might decide to come to bed, he finds comfort on our couch. He does it as much for himself as for me as he claims sleeping with me gives him a backache because he gets squinched up on the edge while I hog the middle of the mattress. Whatever, you big baby, is what I tell him. And then I smile.
The night before last he was gone before I got home and he didn’t return until I’d already retired for the night. He and his brothers helped his parents move furniture out of their house to get new carpet.
Yesterday morning I quietly got up so as not to wake him as he slept on the couch, and I went upstairs to workout. At 6:10 a.m., workout over, I started down the stairs and heard him brushing his teeth. I asked him, “Why are you up so early?”
“To spend time with you,” he said through a mouth full of toothpaste.
Now, how sweet is that? See, that afternoon he’d be gone again, at his parents’ house moving furniture back in on top of the new carpet so he got up early, something he never does unless we have a plane to catch, simply to talk with me while I got ready for work.
What a guy. I love Mark—even better than I-love-goats.
Mark’s is a salaried position, meaning he gets paid the same if the job takes two hours or nine, and rarely is he gone more than six or seven hours a night. That means he tucks me into bed with a goodnight kiss and he sends me off to work with a good morning kiss nearly every day. It’s really nice.
He’s almost always awake by the time I get home, and we spend the rest of the day hanging out together, until I go to bed and he heads off to work. Too much together time? Maybe, if we didn’t like each other, but we do like each other.
Mark’s work has its seasonal ups and downs and things have been slow lately, yet he sleeps on the couch rather than share the bed with me. We’ve gotten used to having the bed to ourselves so rather than disrupt my slumber whenever he might decide to come to bed, he finds comfort on our couch. He does it as much for himself as for me as he claims sleeping with me gives him a backache because he gets squinched up on the edge while I hog the middle of the mattress. Whatever, you big baby, is what I tell him. And then I smile.
The night before last he was gone before I got home and he didn’t return until I’d already retired for the night. He and his brothers helped his parents move furniture out of their house to get new carpet.
Yesterday morning I quietly got up so as not to wake him as he slept on the couch, and I went upstairs to workout. At 6:10 a.m., workout over, I started down the stairs and heard him brushing his teeth. I asked him, “Why are you up so early?”
“To spend time with you,” he said through a mouth full of toothpaste.
Now, how sweet is that? See, that afternoon he’d be gone again, at his parents’ house moving furniture back in on top of the new carpet so he got up early, something he never does unless we have a plane to catch, simply to talk with me while I got ready for work.
What a guy. I love Mark—even better than I-love-goats.
posted by Elizabeth Evans Fryer at 8:29 AM
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