FocusOnTheFamily

Where's the man I married?

Written by Jamie Driggers

An intruder has taken over my boyfriend’s body, parked on my couch – and called himself my husband. He looks like the boyfriend I married, but I know it can’t be him because he watches football on TV as if nothing else were going on in the room.

Our son has been asking him to play baseball for 30 minutes. Our daughter is twirling, unacknowledged, before him in her new dress. When he does glance away from the game, it is to shoot looks at me that I can only interpret to mean, Will you make the baby stop crying?

If this man were like the boyfriend I married, I’m sure we wouldn’t have this dilemma. There wasn’t a game my boyfriend wasn’t willing to miss to be with me. I didn’t even know what professional team he liked until we got married. Not once did he suggest we go to a game for a date.

Or did he?

You see, I think that maybe an intruder has taken over his girlfriend’s body. If a game is on and her daughter asks for milk, she says things such as, “I’m busy. Ask Dad.” And I’m pretty sure she keeps shooting him looks that can only be interpreted to mean, Hey, Bub, I’m busy, and the baby is screaming. Go to it!

If this stranger were like the girlfriend he married, she’d be sitting on the couch next to him, trying to figure out how the game is played. She’d fix his favourite snacks and bask in his presence while he enjoyed his favourite pastime.

“All I ask is for one game a week,” he told me rather emphatically one exasperating Sunday. Even in my snit, I realized he was right. Was I so selfish that I didn’t have three hours a week I could give this responsible man to zone out and just be a guy?

Although I miss our days of doting, I do treasure my husband even more these days. After all he pours into this family six days a week, surely I could give him Sunday afternoon.

Maybe I’ll even put on my girlfriend suit and join him.

Jamie Driggers tries to remember to dote on her husband in Shawnee, Kansas.

© 2007 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

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