So, I Married A Robot!

My father was really unhappy and pretty awful at being a parent. Not always, but for the most important things, he was really bad at it.

As awful a father he was, he was an even worse husband.

I spent a large part of my life afraid I would marry someone exactly like my father. I feared I wouldn't know someone toxic when I met him because, I was raised by a man who was toxic. I worried I would overlook huge character flaws because I was somehow chemically engineered to be in unhealthy relationships.

I worried there was some internal and unconcious need inside of me to marry someone like my father. I thought this because I knew my mother didn't think to herself at 18:

'What a nice man this is. I really love him. I think I'll marry him and watch him slowly kill me with his disease and emotional abuse.'

She didn't entirely know what she was signing up for and it took her many many years to realize this was not working.

I didn't want to live that story, but it seemed inevitable that I would. I knew this type of thing happened in spite of our best intentions.

I was scared as hell of who I would choose to marry. If we marry men who are like our fathers....I was totally fucked.

I met Logan in 1993, while we both worked at Crate and Barrel. It wasn't the first time I met him or the first date we went on that I realized this was someone I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. He didn't kiss me for 5 dates. Finally, on the 6th date, after I told my sister and her friends that: 'This man is officially Gay if he does not kiss me after this date!'

It was after that kiss and the stream of conciousness chatter he did after that kiss.

"This is all so weird. I'm not normally this awkward. I feel like I'm in high school."

And on and on he went and I knew then that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

The thing is, he was lying....he is always that awkward. He's never smooth...he's always real. Like a really bad beer ad.

We dated for 3 years before we decided to get married. I watched for signs of a toxic man all that time, but really, I stopped worrying about marrying someone like my father. I really just loved this man. And he really just loved me.

And I trusted that love. I hoped all the therapy my mother had (thankfully) put me through and all the healthy relationships I had witnessed while growing up made me a decent judge of this man I loved and on July 11, 1997 I took a huge leap of faith and I married him even though my biggest fear in life was recreating my own family history.

Seven years later it is clear I didn't marry my father, I married a robot.

Evidence:

In the 11 years Logan and I have been either dating or married, I have seen him actually sick (including hangovers) 7 times. He has never had the flu, only the Irish Flu. He finds the fact that people actually get colds and the occasional flu intensely agitating. He says things to me, while I'm vomiting into the toilet, like: "Babe, it's mind over matter! If you don't believe you're sick, you're not sick."

Then I vomit on him.

He has this gas, this gas is a weapon of mass destruction and nothing that bad could ever come out of a human being.

His eyelashes are impossibly long and thick, really they could catch flies or a moose in them if he really wanted to. These are not eyelashes found on humans.

My robotic husband does not sleep. He does not require sleep. He can, and often does, go out with friends until 1 or 2 in the morning. Then he comes home, plugs himself into the wall for 4 hours and heads off to the gym at 5 am and after that it's off to work for 10-12 hours. If it's the weekend, he gets up bright and early and makes eggs and pancakes for the children and takes them to the zoo for a few hours. (Which, to me, is similar to a 40 hour work.)

When contrasted with my voracious appetite for sleep, you can see how this causes issues for us. My love of 8 to 10 hours of sleep is a major program failure in the eyes of my robotic spouse.

He is a robot, but my God he's a handsome robot. His lips curl up into a smile all the time and we make each other laugh and he inspires me to be more, because he always believes I can be more. Of course, he also thinks I'm ridiculous to spend 8 hours sleeping....but maybe someday I'll only need 2 hours of sleep to live.

Back in October, we went through some very rough times and quite honestly I didn't think we'd make it to our seventh anniversary. I have to protect his privacy and our privacy, but I can say this: Our marriage holds more value to me now because of the hard work we've put into it.

When we started dating all those years ago I was shy and quiet and I never dated and I talked really fast because I didn't think anyone wanted to hear what I had to say. I never believed Logan would ask me out...but he did. I never believed anyone would be smitten with me, but he was. And as time went on, I felt so lucky to have found this man to love. I felt lucky to have him love me back. I felt lucky to have built a new family with all the things I didn't have growing up that I so desperately wanted. I felt lucky to have given my children a loving, protective, trustworthy, involved and totally robotic father.

After 7 years of marriage, I still feel lucky. When you look at where I came from, things may not have turned out like this. I may have always believed I didn't deserve love and respect. I may have chosen someone who replaced all the negativity my father brought to my childhood. I could have married someone who continued the cycle my mother inadvertently continued when she married my father and had children with him.

But I didn't. I found Logan and that is a blessing I never take for granted.

At the same time, I don't feel just lucky. I don't have this marriage that changes and grows and works very well for us because we're just lucky. In the last year we worked hard and we cried and we were scared and we worried it was over.

But we gritted our teeth and clung to the things we built this marriage on and we found our way through that uncertain part and we learned some things about ourselves and about how we work our relationship.

For example, I learned that sometimes people just want to do things the wrong way and they don't want me to peck them to death with the right way to do it. Who knew? Logan learned that although I am willing to grow and change I am never, ever going to have the robot like precision he has with the laundry and if he wants it done his way, he's going to have to do it himself. Heh!

On my wedding day 7 years ago I didn't really know how much work a marriage could be. I didn't know how incredibly hard it would be to be a parent. I also didn't realize I was marrying a robot. But I can't imagine doing any of this without him.

I'm so glad I get to do this with him.

Comments

[Arwen]

Happy Anniversary! May you be blessed through many more sevens of years together!

[psquared]

Melissa

Remember...when speaking of how long you've been married with Pants within earshot always refer to your 7 years as 7 WONDERFUL years. We've been together for almost 11 and married for 8. It ain't easy and it is work, but boy is it good work.

Congrats to you and Logan.

Psquared

[Karen]

Ahh, that was a beautiful, poignant tribute. I got tears in my eyes....

[AGK]

Happy Anniversary...and many more!!!

[Michelle]

I'm a day late, but Happy Anniversary to you both! Hope you had a nice day!

[AnneOA]

That was a very touching post, Melissa. My 7th anniversary is actually today, and what is interesting is that we've been going through some very "trying" times lately, also. I wonder if there is something about the 7th year that is especially hard? Anyway, happy annivesary!

Lurker de-lurking,
Anne OA

[alissa]

I'm welling.

[Lee]

...all guys aren't like that?

[Julia]

How very very sweet. Happy anniversary, cupcakes.

[Deborah]

That is the sweetest, "I married a robot" letter I have ever read. Congratulations on your seventh anniversary, may you sleep a full hours on the night you celebrate and may Logan wake up with the Irish flu. (Just so he can have 10 sick days in his life.)

[Jennifer]

Congratulations! Anything worth having is worth the hard work and effort. I wish you many, many more of these days to come.

[emily]

As usual Melissa,you know what you want to say...and say it oh so well.
Congrats on 7 years....may you have many more!

[Jennifer]

I read your blog faithfully, but have only now commented for the first time. I wanted to share with you that my anniversary is also on July 11 and we just celebrated our first anniversary. I too had fears of marrying my father, I seemed to have ended up with his complete opposite. Lucky us to have found men that we adore. Happy anniversary, and here's to many more.

[Rubber-Sol]

Happy Anniversary!!!!

You are one lucky woman. And so is Logan. (Er... one lucky dude, I mean).

[jilbur]

Thank you so much for writing that, Melissa--it is really beautiful.