Trust-Building for Marriage

I texted my husband this afternoon to find out when he was coming home from work; a shifting schedule lately has made his arrival home unpredictable, and I've eaten a few dinners by myself because the food is ready before he's here.  The response he sent me made me laugh out loud and took me through a flashback of memories from the past decade of our marriage.

It read "I'm by the airport."

Every couple has inside jokes and words or phrases that have special meaning.  This is an area we excel in, as we have laughed and teased each other almost non-stop for all of our adult lives.  So here's the story...

When we were first married, I worked north of our local airport, and we lived south of the airport.  My daily commute was about 10 miles of highway with no other significant landmarks beyond passing the airport.  My husband, working different hours, texted and called (I might have referred to it as "pestered" at the time) me each day when I was getting off work, always with the same question, "Where are you?"  I would look around in exasperation; it didn't matter if I was almost home or just leaving work, the best answer I could give was, "I'm by the airport."  This gave him no clue about when I'd be getting home, since I might be just five minutes away or thirty, and since I refused to be more precise about my location, it entered our lexicon of shared memory.

That's the surface of the story.

What really blew my mind this afternoon, when I read our old joke (I haven't commuted to work in years), was all that other stuff that was going on underneath.  I struggled as a newlywed.  My life changed overnight, and yet, in so many ways, things also stayed the same.  I was adjusting to being responsible to and for someone else, not sure how to merge our lives beyond the couple we'd been for years as we dated long-distance.  I didn't really appreciate the daily questions of where I was and when I'd be home, questions that likely came from a place of boredom or habit, but sounded to my young, independent ears like an accusation.  Where are you?  What are you doing?  I resented the implication that I needed to be checked on, and tossed out a vague answer to avoid feeling trapped and pinned down.  (Edited to add: My husband read this and said, "You still resent those questions." Some things don't change.)

This only frustrated my husband, probably feeling many of the same confusing things I was, and trying to navigate our new marriage.  I gave him no useful information, as he frequently reminded me that "by the airport" covered the bulk of my drive.  It also bothered him that I didn't answer my phone every time it rang, that I often left it at home or turned it off, making me unreachable.  (Remember, young ones, this was just the start of the cell phone era we live in today.  I checked for my wallet and keys before I went out, and left those on the table regularly, too.)

And so we dug in our heels.  I began to respond "by the airport" when we both knew I was in a completely different part of town.  I let his calls go to voicemail.  He called more, asking for specific answers.  When we both got smart phones not much later, he installed a tracking app on my phone so he could see my location no matter what (without my knowledge).  As it always happens, it blew up in our faces.

I was hanging out at my parents' house while he was at work, and when he finished for the night, he called to ask if I was going to stay at my parents' much longer, or was I heading home soon?  My sense of freedom felt under attack, and I flipped out when he casually mentioned he was tracking me by my phone, and we both got in our cars to go home for the big fight.  We don't argue much, but I'd rank this one in our Top 10 in terms of hurt feelings.  I felt like he didn't trust me, when I'd given him no reason not to.  He said he was sick of hearing I was "by the airport" and relied on the phone to give him an honest answer.

Then came the ultimatum:  either he had to delete the app off my phone or I was going to leave it at home forever.

It was like the whole situation flipped.  He agreed that tracking me had been an overstep, and I agreed that I could be more informative if he wanted to know where I was.  Little by little, he called and checked in less, and I became more transparent.  The hurt and anger dissipated as life moved on.  We added children to our family and became both desperate for the other person to get home and help, and desperate to get out of the house ourselves.

One night, I was driving home from the store (there's another inside joke we have about my trips to the grocery store, but I won't bog things down here by telling it), turning onto our street, when my phone lit up.  "Where are you?"  I recognized not a distrustful husband, but a man feeling overwhelmed by caring for active little kids.  And an impish bubble of laughter erupted from my stomach, as I pulled in our driveway and typed back my response.

"I'm by the airport."

The look of shock and relief on his face when I walked in the door a moment later was priceless.  He traded me a baby for the groceries, and proceeded to exhale.

 Trust and security take time to build, and the steps we take to get there can be hard.  But it feels so good to get to a place of understanding and laugh about our old hangups.