Warming Up - Exercise 17

It’s Not Easy Being Married to Alex

            It’s not easy being married to Alex. At the same time, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone. He’s mine.  I won’t let him go, and I won’t let anyone try to take him away. And I hope by the time I end this piece, you’ll all understand how I can say all those things and mean them.

            First, Alex is a Brit. More precisely, he is a Geordie, from the extreme north-east of England, near Newcastle, 60 miles south of Scottland. And that means he speaks with a funny accent. It’s not a posh Oxbridge upper class accent – he speaks Geordie.  It goes something like this, “Eeeh, it was narf pissin down last night.” And if I have to ask him more than once to repeat what he said, he says, “Aw, forgerrit.”

            He uses expressions that don’t mean what I think they mean. "Wa George" means his uncle George.  And "our kid" means his younger brother Wayne, not our son Simon. I nearly fell out of my chair the day he started telling me about when he “served his time.”  He meant when he served his engineering apprenticeship, not a jail or prison sentence. When I ask him a question, like, “Do you think I should call my Dad?” He’ll respond, “I think you should do.” “Do what?” says I.

            He uses strange weights and measures. It’s difficult enough to keep track of my progress maintaining (ha, ha) my weight, but for him to understand me, I have to track my numbers in both pounds and something called stones. 140 pounds – my target weight – is 10 stone. That number is so small I can’t figure out how anyone can weigh so little.

            Second, Alex is an extreme extrovert.

      He’ll talk to anyone. If there is someone in the elevator when we get in, Alex will strike up a conversation. He’ll talk to anyone about anything. The weather, religion, politics. I mean it – about anything. And he’ll talk to anyone about anyone else he knows. When he travels to England I cringe when I think of the number of people he has had access to there – people who then know my deepest darkest secrets.

            I had to learn to behave like an extrovert in order not to be invisible next to him.  I discovered this when a friend of a friend called to invite Alex and me to a party. Alex was working in Abu Dhabi at the time, so I told her I would be happy to come, but Alex was out of the country. She could barely disguise her disappointment.

            A few years back, one of my Toastmasters clubs held a holiday party at the Fort Meyer Officers’ Club. I had weeks to prepare a toast for the event. But on the night, once Alex had introduced himself to everyone, one of the club officers invited Alex to give a toast, too. He did. His was better than mine.

            Third, Alex is, well, Alex.

            He doesn’t have even a nodding acquaintance with antecedents. While we are driving down the road, Alex will turn to me and tell me something out of the blue like, “That was pretty stupid of him.” I don’t know what “that” or who “him” refers to. I’m just supposed to know. He expects me to be able to read his mind.

            He loves an argument. His favorite topic is the American Revolution which he always claims was really just a tax write-off to get rid of the colonials.

            He constantly asks me if I have my keys, my badge, my green bag, my lunch, you name it before we leave the house – as though I were his child, not his wife. But when he is in England I often discover I have run out of clean underwear – because he wasn't around to pay attention and remind me.

            The bottom line – it is not easy being married to Alex. I don’t always understand him, even when I understand his words. But if I don’t pay attention to what he says, I may learn from strangers that they know what I didn’t understand. Then, because he loves an argument, I can’t even let him know when I’m upset because that just gives him another opportunity for his favorite activity.