I see couples everywhere. I see old couples every day at the pool doing laps and water aerobics. I see couples walking on the trails. I see them pushing baby carriages and walking their dogs. I see them running together, biking together and holding hands. I see them working in their yards, going out for dinner and hanging out on their porches.
I used to be one of them. Nearly every day for 29 years, my wife and I spent time together. We walked the dog every evening. We ate dinner together. We went to the movies, the store, and out to eat. I loved just being around her and she loved being around me – even when were doing different things.
Being together was so much a part of our lives, that I thought of myself as “we”, instead of me.
After she died, it took me several years before I stopped thinking of myself as part of “we”. It took several more years before I could see a loving couple together and not feel a pang of wistfulness and sadness.
Lately, when I see couples doing everything together, I think how strange it seems. They seem mismatched – especially when they are doing strenuous physical activity or doing something that I suspect one enjoys and the other does not.
As much as I cherished being with my wife, I realize now that I should have spent some of my time with friends. There were things I liked to do – like workout, geek out on technical stuff and focus on finance/business – that my wife couldn’t have cared less about.
There were things she loved to do that I could barely tolerate. (Shopping, dancing, gossiping).
Instead of doing these activities with friends, we either did them alone or stopped doing them altogether.
Neither was ideal, I suspect.
In the Solo Podcast, a subject that comes up often is relying to much on one person to be your everything – your spouse, your partner, your best friend, etc.
The advice is to build a network of people, whether you are solo or partnered, because different people are good at different things. And relying on one person for everything isn’t fair to them or to you.
Logically, that makes a lot of sense to me.
However, I don’t know if given the choice back then and the knowledge of what I know now, I would do anything differently.
I really loved being part of “we” with my wife.