Different

My husband is fantastic. I love him like crazy and I wouldn't trade him for the world. In so many ways, I believe that we were a match made in heaven. That being said, he and I are so bloomin' different!!! We both have this bend to our personalities that is just fundamentally different from one another. I crave simplicity and permanence. Deeply. Like...I lose sleep and break out in a cold sweat if I can't achieve them. To the same intense degree, my husband craves excitement and change. He gets what I like to call "itchy." About every two years he gets the overwhelming and unsuppressable urge to change some major part of his life. And if, for some reason, he can't change anything, he starts pacing like a caged wild animal! I spend much of my time thinking of relatively benign means of change, and pitching them up in front of him in an attempt to tame the beast before he can break out of his cage and do something truly crazy: "Here honey, paint this room! Plant this bush! Buy some new shoes! Wanna build a deck?" Somehow, he never likes my ideas as well.

Because of this fundamental difference, we frequently have the following conversation (it happens on a variety of subjects)...

Me: "Now just hang on. Let's think this through and make sure we've planned for every possible contingency that may or may not happen in the next 100 years before we make the decision."

Him: "Plan-schman! It's all good, let's go for it!"

Me: "But I'm not sure I'll like that choice 47 years from now."

Him: "Honey, we can always change it again later. Change is good."

Me: *Choke* "Excuse me, what did you say?!?"

Him: "I said, change is good. It makes life interesting. I like interesting. After all, life is an adventure."

Me: "No, change is not good. Boring is good. Change is evil, painful, terrifying, and, frankly, I don't like it at all. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I want to change anything right now. I just want to sit back and enjoy what we have for awhile...like maybe for the next 100 years or so."

Him: *Blank look* "Where's the fun and adventure in that?"

Me: *Whining* "Honey, don't you like what we have now?"

Him: "Well, yes...but what's around the next corner might be even better! Aren't you just dying to go see?"

Me: "What's around the next corner will more likely be much, much worse. And no, I don't wanna go see." *Pout*

Him: "Hm."

Me: "Hm."

I think we live in this perpetual condition that involves me being terrified of when his next "itchy" spell might strike, and him stifling a yawn! Somehow, the path down the middle that we've managed to walk is a rather pleasant one. Of course...that could have something to do with the fact that I'm temporarily getting my way! :-)

I suppose, if I have to admit it, we're good for each other even in this. If I didn't have him, I would likely bury myself in the dirt like a turnip, miss out on all sorts of new things that turn out to be more fun than terrifying, and never grow outside my comfort zone. And if he didn't have me, he'd run himself ragged, probably die an early death from doing something insanely crazy that sounded fun at the time, and miss out on all the beauties of stopping to smell the roses (for a long, long, long time).

I guess opposites really do attract! So...how about you? In what way are you and your spouse completely different?