Deflateagate

Deflateagate

I had my own little version of deflateagate over Christmas. My own fault, my expectations rise up only to be deflated like a punctured tire. I had high hopes this Christmas, did most of he ground work myself and felt confident that my husband really couldn’t screw it up that bad. But as the saying goes…men really are from Mars.

I recently lost weight so my wedding ring keeps slipping off. I’ve had it resized twice before and don’t want to go through the hassle of doing that again so I thought that buying a simple diamond band to wear above it would be an easy solution for keeping it safe. My husband has never bought me an anniversary ring and we have almost been married for 18 years, so while Christmas shopping we picked out a simple inexpensive band that does the job, and we were both happy.

I wanted to wear it straight away since my ring was so loose, but he wanted to make it a Christmas gift…okay fine! This is where the problem started. I’m a die hard romantic, think Darcy and Elizabeth, Bathsheba and Gabriel, Romeo and Juliette (you get my drift) and since this ring is about to go on my ring finger and join my wedding ring, I felt that had significant meaning and deserved some sort of acknowledgement other than me just slipping it on. It’s been 18 years of since the last ring went on that ringer, so I guess I expected some sort of expression of his love. Who’s wouldn’t want to hear reaffirmation that they’re still the one, right? Especially with the ups and downs, I thought…well here’s your chance to tell me what I mean. So since he wanted to make it a Christmas gift I suggested he “get creative”. Those were my exact words. He replied, “okay” his exact words.

This problem here is I was implying one thing, and he was interpreting another. Men, or at least my man is  certainly from Mars, and this woman is from Venus, the planet of love! I should have known going into it that I was setting myself up for disaster. A total lack of communication. I was implying that he get “creative” in the way he should give me the ring, expecting him to (at the very least) break out champagne on Christmas eve by the tree after the kids have gone to bed. So needless to say when Christmas Eve came and went with no ring, my expectations slowly began to crumble, and they completely were demolished when I found the ring in my stocking Christmas morning, hidden in an empty bag of ghirardelli chocolates. His idea of creative, and I hate to say he was incredibly proud of. I should have known better, should never have even suggested anything at all or let my romantic thoughts get carried away.

Christmas morning I silently slipped the ring on, packing away yet another disappointment. Will I ever learn?