Wives tend to want to talk out every problem, but men can just turn stuff off, and it drives me crazy— me and every other woman I know. Eddie is a lot more willing to talk now, but even that takes negotiation. My name is Lori, and I’m always ready to chat in the evening over dinner, after my day at the bridal shop. Before, not so much. I’m just not a morning person. It’s my only opportunity to think, drink coffee, and drag myself to exercise, but Eddie’s an early bird. His favorite time for communicating is before breakfast, and sometimes when he wants to discuss a big idea, he hunts me down while I’m on the treadmill.
Lori Allen, Bridal Expert, Shares Advice on Every Stage of Life
I really hate when he does that. He’s barging in on my personal time. If you’ve ever tried starting a conversation with your husband during the fourth quarter of a football game or, worse yet, in overtime, it’s like that in reverse. It can take a lot of willpower for me to get past being mad about the interruption, but I’ll often take off the headphones and cut my workout short, even if I’m thinking, Seriously, Eddie, you know I don’t like talking at 7:00 a.m.!
He almost always has something interesting to say, and that helps me remember why we got together so long ago. We’re different people now, but after all the rough patches we survived along the way, we’re closer than ever.
For us, the key was reconnecting with having fun in our marriage. I’m not talking about going out and riding Ferris wheels. I’m talking about the joy of everyday shared experiences, such as going to the beach or playing with our grandchildren.
In short, we rediscovered our laughter. You probably can tell that I love to laugh, and nobody can make me laugh like Eddie Allen. We laughed a lot before we got married, and then life intervened. There wasn’t much to laugh about as we struggled to parent our kids through their turbulent teenage years. And then 9/11 happened. For weeks and months thereafter, you could have rolled a bowling ball through every retail store in the country— not just mine, all of them— and not hit a soul. The timing couldn’t have been worse for us. We had just moved into our new building and had a child in college, and our finances were stretched to the breaking point. There wasn’t any laughing then— we were scared to death of losing it all. It took everything we had to get through the day, but we stuck it out, worked it out, and talked it out.
