Viewing Habits
When we first got married, I noticed that JG was used to watching television in the background of whatever he’s doing, whether it was tooling around on the computer, cooking, or reading. I, on the other hand, only turn on the TV when I’m going to watch something, and trust me, I have something to watch almost every day. Since television has both audio and visual components, I don’t understand how it’s a background activity, unlike listening to music, which only uses your ears. When I realized that JG would automatically switch on the set the second he got home, I was annoyed. Did he really want to watch TV at every spare minute? Didn’t he have better, less mind-rotting things to do? Did I marry a slave to the set? Couldn’t he see that using the television and the computer would waste energy?
I tried to reason with him. “How can you focus on what you’re reading online if you’re watching SportsCenter?”
“Oh, I’m not really watching it.”
“Then why do you have the TV on?”
“I’m listening. Then I pay attention when something I’m interested in comes on.”
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
I wanted JG to get to a point where he understood that doing two things halfway was irritating to me, but after several more similar conversations, I realized that I was misinterpreting this TV-watching method. JG’s habit of turning on the TV wasn’t a symbol of deep-seated laziness, a tendency to waste energy, or an expectation for his spare time. It was just a habit. He didn’t assume that my bitten nails were a sign of self-destruction and it wasn’t productive for me to read more into this behavior than what it was.
In the bigger picture, when I said, “I take you to be my husband,” there wasn’t a parenthetical insertion of “that is, what I know about you so far” at the end. Being with JG means being with him as he was and as he’ll turn out to be. Even if that includes everlasting television with obnoxious sportscasters.
Still, the automatic TV-watching grates on me. It’s the principle of the thing! I cry in my head. But I try not to bring it up as much as I did before. I try to remember how annoying it would be if JG asked me every time, “Do you really need to pick at that fingernail? Do you?”
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couples, habits, compromise, communication, commitment
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