Marriage Dynamics

So, last weekend I got a minute to myself to go run errands. I had gone to my favorite kids consignment store looking for summer clothes, and actually walked away with clothes and not more toys like i normally do. But that's not what's surprising. I'm walking back to my car, and see another car pull up and park next to mine, on the driver's side.

I'm walking towards my door from the front side of the car. I see a woman in the passenger seat wave me on, to motion that I should get in my car first, instead of me waiting for her to get out of her car. No biggie. I walk past her and prepare to open my door. The parking spots are slanted, so now that I've walked past her, she has plenty of room to get out, even if I open my driver's side door. You follow, right? I'm fumbling for my keys when I see the husband walk around from the back of the car. He smiles and waits for me. Now I understand that a baby is in the back seat. It's taking me a while to actually get my keys, get settled in the car and close the door. I was trying to hurry, but it took so long I made a jokingly self-deprecating comment about how slow I was being. Anyway, so now I'm finally in the car with the door closed, and I look up to see the husband was opening the door for the wife, and then they walked off together. There was no baby in the car. He waited that whole time, and so did she (in a hot car I might add) so he could open her door...

My world was just rocked by this. I'm just really struggling to put myself in that frame of mind. It's so interesting. I brought up the incident to Gerard, who said that actually a couple we knew from Nashville did that also (I don't know them well enough to confirm or deny this). You agree with me that this is a little bit crazy right? I can't decide if I think it's sweet or really odd. It racks my brain with so many questions: What if she's driving? What if he's dropping her off somewhere but he will continue driving? If/when they have a baby, who will get the baby out? Will the dad get the wife or baby out first? You see where I'm going with this.

The incident happened to have coincided with some recent discussions on a parenting forum I'm on, discussing decision making power and financial set-ups between married couples. I think Gerard and I did a good job of discussing these things before getting married to make sure we were on the same page. And the fact that we had lived together also helped us get real-life experience. It was simultaneously fascinating and scary to see how different the dynamics are in some relationships. Scary because, although these moms seemed happy in their relationships, they described dynamics that I would never ever be okay with. They described setups where they seemed to discuss every single decision and purchase together, setups where if there was a conflict the husband had final say as the "leader," or lopsided finances where one spouse had to get an allowance from the husband, or even ask permission to buy a shirt or get a haircut. Some were SAHMs who dismissed their role with ignorance 'I have no idea how much money is in the bank account- so I'm not asking permission, I'm asking if we have enough money to cover it.' It just seems to odd. I sometimes envy SAHMs for how much time they get to spend with their child(ren), but I could never do it full time, if alone for freedom I have with my own separate spending account I can do with what I please. Not that I'm doing anything crazy, or that Gerard would withhold money from me if we had a different setup (I tend to be more stingy with money than him anyway). It'[s just the principle, to me.

Anyway, there's no real point or conclusion to this post, just some interesting philosophies that have been on my mind recently.