Dear Husband, I Need a Girlfriend

We moved a few months ago, and like any relocation it’s hard: new house, new school, new grocery store, and the glaring absence of any social life. However, what I miss more than anything are my girlfriends. So, when my girlfriend Danielle promised to come down for a couple weeks, I nearly stumbled into my monitor at her Skype’d head. Hanging out with someone other than my husband or kids is a rarity since our move, like checking my email without the usual cover of: “Mommy has to use the bathroom, I’ll be right back."  

This exclusive one-on-one time with my husband and kids had finally reached fever pitch the other morning while in the kitchen I looked up over my coffee and watched as my husband, my soul mate, closed the bread bag with the twisty tie thing in the MOST STUPID way possible, that I had to fight the urge to Google “divorce attorney” immediately thereafter. Gasp! Could we have exceeded the “normal” amount of time any marriage license allows for a couple to spend together before life and limb stand in harm’s way? 

Could my urge to runaway and drink chilled wine with other grown-ups be traced back to our nightly discussions of Things on Ben’s Mind; those “things” usually having something to do with programming software, Fark.com and my personal favorite "where this cigar was made, and what type of wrapper it is?" Our recent move to Mexico, where we know absolutely no one, can’t speak the language, and work from home, undoubtedly has its draw-backs. Our current life-style shouts, like the shouting through a megaphone kind of shout: Ben plus Meredith equals EVERY LIVING, BREATHING MOMENT TOGETHER. We’re doing everything together and occasionally, when the mood strikes, we even do some mattress calisthenics together. So much together time, I can’t even do THAT alone.

It’s never one-sided though. I know it hasn’t been all giggles and balloons for him either. Like when he picks me up after my haircuts (yes, I just wrote that my husband drives me to and from my haircuts) and spends the drive home hearing all about ‘the advantages and disadvantageous of my new hair cut, and why the front was intentionally left longer, or how the back will now require less maintenance’. Then there was the time I told him to ‘man-up’ and help me pick-out nail polish at the mall – ‘a low moment for all male kind’ I think is how he referred to it. 

Hold onto your gag reflexes now, I’m about to get all mushy and syrupy. But jeez, it’s taken a move to a foreign nation to realize how much I miss going out with my girlfriends for lunch or a glass of wine. And when I say I’d grab lunch or a glass of wine, I mean like I’d do this with as much frequency as cleaning the trunk of my car. Totally pitiful. So, I pledge from here forward to prioritize my friendships more, no matter the number of flight connections separating us. I will email, Skype, Tweet, and post away on Facebook until we’re back together in the same zip code, because my friendships make me a better wife and mom. And by God, when I live near them again, I’m going to be such an involved nuisance of a friend it’s going to bug the bleepity-bleep out of them!

There, you can unclench your stomach. I’m done with the corny, mushy stuff.

Meredith Groenevelt writes buenobaby.com.