topic: Home Sweet Home (?)

Michael: When I come home from work, I really, really need a bit of time to decompress. However, this is also the time my wife likes to tell me all about the baby’s day.

"Decompress" means something like relax. It’s more specific, though. I need to clear the sensory input, a few moments, like a beer’s worth, of zero sensory input. In Heaven, when men come home from work, they’ll open the front door to a comfy chair and a cold drink in some sort of very quiet, very comfortable, bug-free oasis. The wife and kids will be near, but un-hearable and out of reach.

I’ve got a friend whose “sahm” (stay-at-home-mom) wife longs for the moment he arrives home. She immediately scoots out the door, leaving their little girl in his hands. This little girl then begs Daddy to play with her. She loves to go outside. He takes her outside. She wanders, and he follows. The next morning, he tells me about it over coffee. He can’t stand this routine.

If my friend refused to accept this “dump off,” his wife would think him an insensitive ogre. Her doing this, though, makes him see her as an insensitive ogre. He accepts this—unwilling to assert his desire, for fear of being an insensitive ogre.

My wife tries hard to give me my after-work space, but sometimes she can’t suppress her feminine urge to divulge. I am a zombie. I listen and try to be nice. It’s not easy for me. I know she feels the push off.

Women seem to have a capacity for constant sensory input. It’s not something that ever overwhelms them. It’s related, I think, to their ability to multi-task with ease. Men struggle.

We both fight these stereotypes, these natural things, and often we fail. But soon enough, on most days, I’m ok, she exhales, and we’re all together over a warm meal, followed, on a good night, by a tv show or a game of Sorry! or two. And I’m glad, at last, to be home.

Anne: Women do seem to have a need to "share," and it has been difficult throughout our marriage for me to give Michael the space he needs when he comes home.

After 16 years, I am doing a little better, after being given "the eye" quite a few times... I now save my "You'll never guess what happened today!!!" for later, after he's had a chance to flip through the mail, say "hey" to the kids, change, sit down with a cold drink, and settle in a bit.

And, to Michael's credit, he realizes it's hard for me to hold all I have to share inside, so if I start peppering him with all of the wonderful news of my day, sometimes he will just smile and nod--which we need sometimes, don't we girls?