Choosing to let it go

I had an interesting experience recently. My husband was working around the house, being productive but looking like a caged tiger. After almost 18 years of marriage I've learned to recognize this restlessness as meaning he needs to get out of the house and either get outdoors or just go someplace with a little less estrogen (he's cooped up here a lot with a wife and 2 daughters - sometimes a guy just needs to be around guys).

Being the omniscient wife and knowing what he needs I ask him what he feels like doing and it turns out that he wants to go to the beer garden. So I drop him off with the very loose plan that he'll probably walk home but he'll call if he gets tired of walking and wants a ride.

I took the girls up to the pool to swim and tried calling him on our way home to see if he wants a ride. He doesn't answer the cell phone so I try again. I'm 0 for 2 on getting an answer so I just let it go.

The girls and I go home and I realize there isn't any dinner cuz my cook is at out with the guys. Hmmm... Okay, girls aren't hungry but I am so I make something and start eating. After getting a bite to eat we wanted to go for a bike ride, but what if hubby needs a ride? Well, 3/4 of the way through my meal he calls for a ride...and I'm annoyed. The embarassing truth is that in the past I would probably have let myself stew in the annoyance, even dredged out everything he's ever done that bothered me and chewed it over. By the end of the evening I would have just been plain old angry. Now, in my enlightened state:) I realize I have a choice. Choice #1 is to figure out why I'm really upset. I ask myself what could be bothering me and then run through each possibility. For each statement I just plain ask myself if he really did anything wrong and does that really bother me.

It turns out that the reason I was annoyed is that I was trapping myself in the house. Since we didn't have a firm plan I didn't want to go bike riding in case he decided to call for a ride. Hmmm... He didn't ask me to wait. He didn't answer his phone when I called. Maybe I can give myself permission to do something I want to do. And maybe I can choose to let go of the irritation.