Originally written for Medium.com here.
We were arguing about Jello.
Okay, maybe arguing is too strong a word. Anyway, that’s kind of what it looked like on the outside. I’d called home between some meetings to ask my wife if she could bring something to a social gathering we were planning. Something easy, like maybe a salad or Jello. My wife was already overwhelmed. She started crying on the phone. The conversation ended awkwardly and unresolved, like a door that won’t latch quite right but you have to walk away from anyway.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I laid next to her for hours, not moving, but my mind racing. I got up several times — to read, to think, and to convince myself I wasn’t stewing in frustration. Eventually, I gave up and slept on the floor. I told myself I was giving her space, but really, I just didn’t know what else to do.
The weight I felt that night wasn’t new. It was something I’d picked up long before we even got married. When someone I loved was upset, it must be my fault. When someone cried, it meant I’d failed to protect them from the hard parts of life. And so I’d step in, trying to fix what I didn’t cause, absorb what wasn’t mine, and apologize for what I didn’t understand.
Back in high school, I dated a girl who had endured real trauma at the hands of a “friend.” Depression hung over her like fog most days and I made it my job to clear the sky. We fought. A lot. But I stayed. Not out of obligation exactly, but out of this deeply seated belief that if I could just love her the right way and for long enough, things would get better. That I could fix her.
I don’t carry any hard feelings about that time. I don’t blame her for anything. We were kids, really. She’d been hurt just before I met her, so those patterns were sticky.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, I started to confuse compassion with responsibility. I mistook proximity to her pain as my need to own it. Even worse, if someone near me was in pain, I assumed I’d caused it — or at least, that I should be the one to carry it.
So when my wife cried about Jello (not about Jello), my whole learned system kicked in: panic, guilt, fix-it mode, then withdrawal. It wasn’t a reaction to a moment but to a much older story.
It took me years to see that.
In our early marriage, I was always trying to take the temperature of her emotions, convinced that my role was to keep things sunny. If clouds rolled in, I assumed I’d failed. That mindset sounds noble, even selfless, but it wasn’t. It was exhausting. And it kept me from being present. I wasn’t listening to her, I was listening to the storm sirens in my own head.
My wife and I rarely fight, and our fights are never furious arguments. We don’t say things to each other that we wish we could take back. We’ve been fortunate that way. But, we weren’t good at talking about difficult things for a long time. Eventually, though, we got better at it. It’s maybe not the kind of milestone most people talk about, but it really matters. I stopped trying to prevent every moment of tension. I stopped interpreting her bad days as personal failings. And I started saying things like: “That sounds really hard,” instead of, “What did I do wrong?”
Not perfectly. Not quickly. But gradually.
Even after more than twenty-four years of marriage, there are still infrequent days when her emotions run high and my first instinct is to apologize before I understand what’s going on. To brace for impact, even if nothing’s headed my way. But I’ve learned, over time, that sometimes the weather just changes. It’s not about me. It’s not something I can prevent. And it’s not something I have to fix.
It’s strange how long you can carry a belief without ever really looking at it. Mine sounded like this: If I just try harder, I can make everything okay for everyone I love. I thought that was maturity. I thought that was love.
But love is not control. It’s not responsibility hoarding. Sometimes love is just staying in the room.
Sometimes it’s sleeping on the floor, yes. But more often it’s turning toward each other instead of away. It’s asking better questions. It’s letting someone have a bad day without assuming you’re the villain in it.
I still remember a night, years after the Jello incident, when my wife and I had a small disagreement. She was upset. I wasn’t. And for the first time, I didn’t apologize just to make things quiet. I didn’t go into fix-it mode. I just sat beside her, held her in my arms, and waited.
She cried. I listened. I continued to hold her.
I didn’t fix anything. I didn’t say anything.
I was just there.
I think that’s when I finally understood: I’m not usually the weather. I’m not the sun or the storm. I’m just someone walking through it with her. Sometimes with an umbrella. Sometimes getting soaked. Sometimes doing nothing but showing up.
It’s like that in so many of our relationships, isn’t it? We’re not there to do anything more than just show up.
That’s been the gift of the last several years. After decades of faulty wiring, I’ve learned to let go of the belief that I can still do a good job as a husband, father, and friend without making sure nobody ever has a bad day.
In the metaphorical boat of life, it’s okay not to patch every hole in the boat before anyone notices a leak. It’s not my job to fix them all.
So, what if the weather doesn’t change?
What if it rains for a while?
What if the sun doesn’t come out when you expect it to?
Then you sit with the person you love and you don’t try to explain the clouds away. You just sit. And wait. And walk through it together.
I’m still learning that.
And that is enough.
Thanks for reading, and before you go. . .
I’m Aaron Pace. I write from the middle of things — life, business, fatherhood, faith, and the slow work of becoming someone I can live with. Not as an expert, but as someone trying to pay attention.
If this piece resonated with you, I’d be honored if you followed along here on Medium. I write — not because I’ve arrived, but because I’m finally moving again.
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