Memoir Monday: Confessions of a Former Control Freak

For this week's edition of Memoir Monday, I am going all the way back to the beginning of my marriage to Darling Husband. When you're done here, be sure to head on over to Travis's place at I Like To Fish to check out his memory and the memories of the other folks who are brave (or crazy) enough to bare it all for your bloggy pleasure ...

Darling Husband and I have been married nearly 15 years now, and sometimes I look back on my newly married self and marvel that DH put up with me. I was a bit of a control freak when we met, and my control freak tendencies intensified during the year we were engaged and planning our wedding. I wasn't a Bridezilla by any means, but suffice it to say, I definitely had the potential. What follows is the story of how DH began to cure me of my control freak ways ...

Instead of going on a honeymoon, we moved lock, stock and two cats to Nashville, TN right after we got married. We loaded up everything DH owned that had survived the Great Purge - you know, the one where most of what a bachelor owns in the way of home decor is usually deemed too fugly for the marriage home and is summarily purged before it has a chance to darken the doorstep of the new abode. DH's stuff was no exception. There's not a woman alive who's willing to live with a Rolling Rock banner, a coffee table made from a Do Not Enter sign, and the fugliest faux Naugahyde recliner ever bought from a flea market auction. Just trust me on this. And since we were moving into a two-bedroom apartment, there was no room for a Man Cave - the second bedroom was already designated as the office where I consequently spent many hours studying and writing research papers because I was a grad student at Vanderbilt.

Not long after we got settled in to the new apartment, DH told me he wanted to get his hair cut. At the time we got married, DH had been rocking a flat top for about two years. The flat top was not a leftover from military service as most people assumed, but rather a matter of convenience and expedience. DH was big into having a no-fuss, no-muss, wash-and-wear 'do, and the flat top was nothing if not that. Being the control freak that I was, I told DH to look in the phone book for a barber shop instead of just getting in the car and driving around. I had already been living in Nashville for a year and didn't recall seeing a single barber shop, only hair salons, and there's not a stylist on the planet who knows how to cut a flat top. You need the crustiest, crankiest ex-Marine-turned-barber for that. I knew there had to be barber shops in Nashville - every city has them, but they were a dying breed back then and not exactly on every street corner. DH looked at me and said, "Okay." Then I told DH to take only $10 out of our account because a flat top wasn't going to cost him more than $10, even in the big city. DH once again said, "Okay," and I left our apartment for the day, cloaked in the warm fuzzy glow of a new wife secure in the knowledge that she and her new Mister were seeing eye-to-eye.

 

Boy, was I wrong.

When I got home that afternoon, DH was not sporting a flat top any longer. Instead, he'd gotten a buzz cut, and it looked like he'd let a Kindergartner do it, to boot. The conversation that followed went like this:

Me: What the hell happened to you?
DH: (matter-of-factly) I got my hair cut.
Me: Well, I can see that, but that's not the haircut you said you were going to get.
DH: (agreeing) Not exactly.
Me: Was it at a barber shop? A barber did that to you?
DH: No.
Me: (exasperated) Where did you get your hair cut then?
DH: (looking a little sheepish) Fantastic Sam's.
Me: What?!? Fantastic Sam's? That's not a barber shop!
DH: I know. I couldn't find a barber shop.
Me: What do you mean you couldn't find a barber shop? You said you were going to look in the phone book for a barber ...
DH: (cutting his exasperated new bride off) No, YOU said I was going to look in the phone book.
Me: (eyes narrowed) But you agreed to it, you said, "Okay."
DH: I said, "Okay," but I wasn't agreeing with you.
Me: (non-plussed) So, what? 'Okay' doesn't mean 'I agree', it just means the sound waves are bouncing off your ear drums?!?
DH: Pretty much.
Me: (changing the subject, but not really) And did you take out only $10?
DH: (again matter-of-factly) No. I took out $20.
Me: What?!? But you said you were only going to take out $10!
DH: No, YOU said I was going to take out $10.
Me: (with teeth gritted) And. You. Agreed. With. Me.
DH: No, I said, "Okay," but I wasn't -
Me: (finishing DH's sentence) Agreeing with me.
DH: (nodding) Right.
Me: (sighing in defeat) And 'okay' just meant 'I hear you', not 'I agree with you'.
DH: (beaming) Exactly.

I eyed his ugly buzz cut, still fuming at how my new husband had pretty much smiled and nodded and did as he damn-well pleased. But then the strangest thing happened: I began to laugh. At myself. At him. At the situation. And most of all, at that ugly ass buzz cut he got. He looked at me with a slightly alarmed expression on his face, and I stopped laughing long enough to say, "I can't stay mad at you considering that haircut is poetic justice."

Cue canned laughter.

That was pretty much the beginning of the end of my control freak days. I have relapses every now and then, but for the most part, I don't have to micromanage every little thing in life, particularly when it comes to Darling Husband. To this day, however, whenever that man says "Okay," I still ask him, "Is that okay-the-sound-waves-are-bouncing-off-my-eardrum or is that okay-I-agree-with-you-and-or-will-do-whatever-it-is-you're-telling-me-to-do?"

Clear communication is definitely key to having a happy, harmonious and bad-haircut-free marriage.