Things Married People Stop Pretending to Care About

My husband has a terrible sense of direction.

Not regular bad. Not occasionally takes the wrong exit bad. We can go somewhere 15 times, and he will still pull up Waze like we’re setting off across the country with nothing but a paper map and a dream.

This is one of the reasons I usually drive. I’m a better driver, I know where I’m going, and it saves us both from the inevitable conversation about why the GPS is currently directing us to a restaurant we’ve been to approximately 900 times.

The other night, though, we’d planned a date night, and I’d already had a long day. He was paying, he was driving, and I was perfectly happy to sit in the passenger seat and be chauffeured around for once.

We were going to one of our favorite restaurants. We’ve probably been there 15 times in the last year.

He pulled up Waze.

Of course he did.

He claims he doesn’t need it to know where he’s going. He uses it “for the police.”

Mm-hmm. Sure.

I used to pick on him about it. Now I don’t even bother. If this man needs turn-by-turn directions to get to a restaurant where I’m pretty sure the staff recognizes us, who am I to stand in the way?

At least we’ll know where the police are.

Movie night isn’t really about the movie anymore

We do something equally stupid with movies.

We’ll decide we’re going to watch one and then spend 15 minutes trying to choose it. One of us suggests something. The other one doesn’t want to watch that. We scroll. We watch previews. We keep scrolling. Eventually we find something we both agree on, which feels like a minor accomplishment.

Five minutes later, one of us is on our phone.

Then somebody starts talking.

Our son walks in and needs to tell us something. We pause the movie. He leaves. We start it again. Somebody remembers something else they wanted to say. Pause it again.

Eventually Netflix asks if we’re still watching.

Technically, yes.

We’re just doing a really shitty job of it.

We’ve occasionally talked about whether both of us might have some undiagnosed ADHD going on, and movie night isn’t exactly helping our case. Somehow we can spend more time choosing the movie than we spend actually paying attention to it.

We keep doing it anyway.

I guess this is what happens

There are plenty of things about my husband that used to get a bigger reaction out of me. The Waze thing would’ve earned him way more shit years ago. Now I see him reach for his phone before we leave the driveway and already know exactly what’s about to happen.

He has his things. I have mine. I’m sure there are things I do that he stopped bothering to point out years ago because he’s accepted that this is apparently who he married.

That’s probably one of my favorite parts of being married this long. Not because we’ve figured everything out or reached some magical level of marital enlightenment. We just don’t have the energy to give a shit about every little thing anymore.

So he can use Waze.

I’ll sit in the passenger seat and let the nice GPS lady tell him how to get to the restaurant we’ve been to 15 times.

Then we’ll come home, spend 15 minutes choosing a movie, watch about six minutes of it, and get distracted.

Netflix will eventually ask if we’re still watching.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.