6. Out of Energy: Lord, Sustain Thee. Please?

Four months into our marriage Rob got mad. Well, madder than his usual mad. We were remodeling the cabin, and I was pitching in fiercely. I learned how to hang drywall, and how to make a mean cornerbead. When I messed something up I tore it down and did it again. I'd work all day long swinging a hammer, mixing mud, demolishing walls, and tearing up carpeting, then clean up and have dinner hot on the table every single night. While I performed to these outstanding standards Rob appeared fairly happy. One day, however, I said or did something wrong--and Rob walked up to me and calmly announced this was just not working out, our marriage was probably a mistake. The cold, stoney look from so many engagement break-offs was back on his face. I was devastated.

Rob's main complaint about me was that I was a nag. I nagged him when I asked him if he really wanted to wear those wrinkled pants to his business meeting, or pointed out he was holding up twenty cars in the passing lane while talking on his cell phone. I nagged him by asking him to repair a leaky faucet or help me carry fifty pounds of dog food up the stairs. To top things off, I had the audacity to crack my knuckles. It's true this is a habit in which I'm eternally entrenched but Rob was well aware of my habit from the first day we met. Now that we were married, however, popping my knuckles was seen by him as an attack, a carefully orchestrated plot to drive him mad... a defiant show of disrespect and insolence.  I was becoming simply intolerable! Between the constant nagging and the knuckle popping... well I was obviously a total failure as a wife. 

Intimacy became obsolete. Rob began to come home from work, eat his hot meal and drop on the sofa in front of the TV, telling me to leave him alone while he unwound. After unwinding time was over it was off to bed for more unwinding with a good book. Absolute quiet was expected of me during this time... no talking, no throat clearing, no laughing, belching, popping, no noise-making of ANY kind; this was ROB's TIME TO RELAX AND DRIFT OFF TO SLEEP. Violation of the quiet rule often resulted in loud verbal reprimands, many times followed by him simply getting up and going to another bedroom.

I Don't Wanna See it. Ever.

I'm an amateur photographer. I take landscape photos and people portraits. Some of them are quite good, and I've gotten tons and tons of compliments on my work. In 2005 Rob bought me a digital SLR camera for Christmas. I bought myself some more lenses and gear and ended up with a pretty impressive collection of picture-takin' stuff. One of my favorite things in the world to do, next to shooting pictures, is retouching pictures. I took a class on Photoshop and excelled at it. With what I learned at school combined with the natural eye for photos that God gave me I've been able to create some beautiful images.

At first, I really wanted to show Rob my work; we were in Utah and I had no friends there, only Rob. I thought he would enjoy looking at my work and offering me critique. Especially images of his kids, his work, his house, his hobbies etc. Rob wasted no time in turfing me off to a friend of his whom was also a photographer, to show my work to and 'talk photography with'. I was a little embarrassed about this but respected Rob's desire to be left alone. In very short time I learned that I could only grab Rob's attention with my photography if the subject were exclusively his kids or his dogs, and then only very limited images.

In 2007 I bought myself a digital video camera. I taught myself how to take movie clips and edit them into stunning music videos. I was really proud of my ability to fit video clips with absolutely perfect music, throw in complex special effects and text and come up with really nice, professional looking music videos. Rob was agitated again: I had finally given up on showing him my photography and now I had this newfangled video stuff with which to bother him completely. I managed to sit him down many times to watch my little videos but it was always obvious that I was absolutely interfering with his winding down time, or his Simpsons time, or his quiet bed-time time.

Sometime in 2007 I discovered Youtube and thought, hey I could share my prince's interests with videos of stuff he loved: vintage dirt bike commercials and old enduro home movies, funny dogs, great bridges across the country he had worked on, music videos of his favorite old rock bands. I set about making my husband love me bunches by finding and showing him all kinds of cool Rob stuff.

My idea did not work out as planned.  One day Rob said he had to have a talk with me. He stood there and simply said Trace there's something I want you to know. If you ever have something to show me on your computer, whether it's samples of your photography, these stupid Youtube videos, even pics of my own kids-- if it's on your computer and you want to show it to me I DO NOT WANT TO SEE IT. EVER. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN IT, I WON'T BE INTERESTED IN IT MKAY?

I was crushed. I called my daughter Courtney later that night and told her what he said and she cried. She told me later she never felt so much anguish over such an inconsiderate remark from a man to his wife, and it broke her heart that her mommy had been cut to the quick by the man who had vowed to cherish her forever.