How A Door Almost Ended My Marriage

Or, "The Difficulty with Design"

Big news, everyone: Jeff and I just bought our first house!  We close escrow this week, and we're going to spend the rest of the month fixing it up before we move in.  The past few weeks have been a blur of signing disclosures, going over contracts, and daydreaming about paint chips and carpet samples.

Well, that's been MY past few weeks, anyway.  Jeff's have been spent signing where I tell him to, blindly trusting my decisions regarding contingencies and home warranties and...picking out our flooring, counters, and appliances.  On his own.  No, worse than on his own: he did it all with his contractor friend/best man Matt.

Now, I should mention that I actually don't mind doing all the paperwork for the move.  Yes, it gets stressful, but in all reality I'd be scrutinizing it just as much as I am now whether Jeff looked it over first or not.  I'm the paper-pusher in our relationship, and I (sometimes begrudgingly) accept that fact.  However...when Jeff came home one night last week and happily announced that he had decided on our carpet, our paint, the texture we'd do the walls, and the design of the interior doors I flipped the hell out.  It was not pretty.  The conversation went roughly like this:

Me:  "I was thinking we could do a dark taupe in the living room, with flecked brown carpet, and we'll remodel the kitchen in a year or so with dark hardwood floors and ecru-buttercup paint".  (Please note that this is the first time in my life I've ever used the phrase "ecru-buttercup paint".)  "What do you think?"
Jeff:  "Oh, about that, Matt and I decided we're going to do white in the kitchen and a really light tan in the living room.
Me:  "Okay, well we'll go to Home Depot this weekend and look."
Jeff:  "We already picked it all out.  We just have to order it."
Steam billowed forth from my ears.  I tried to remain calm.
Me:  "Jeff, I would really like to help decide how we redo the house."
Jeff:  "Well, you didn't care when we picked out the design for the doors."
Record scratch.  My eyes began to glow red.
Me:  "I'm sorry, who did what now?"
Jeff (all innocence and eagerness):  "Yeah, Matt picked out the doors for the interior, they have this cool arched design on them, and they go really great with the carpet we decided to get."
Me:  "WhyDon'tYouJustBuyAHouseWithMattAndYouTwoCanMakeAllYourDecisionsTogetherAndLiveHappilyEverAfter!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggghh!!!!!"

Really, really not pretty.  From there it dissolved into fits of "This is MY house, NOT Matt's!" and "You're ruining the whole experience for me!"

I know I over-reacted.  I am acutely aware of the fact that I have a tendency to overreact when things don't go the way I expect them to.  But seriously, even in hindsight, I think I had a right to be irked.  While I accept the paperwork and the decisions that come with purchasing a home, the light at the end of the tunnel was being able to decorate it, to make it mine--ok, ours--and finally have a place that's just right for us.  And I felt like Matt's tastes were being forced on me.  I do understand that, as a contractor, he knows what does and does not work in houses.  When he told me hardwood doesn't hold up well in kitchens and that the joist in the ceiling needs to be repaired (huh?) I listened.  But when Jeff starts turning over to him all decisions regarding paint color and linoleum-versus-tile, I think that's overstepping the boundaries.  At a certain point, the decisions are about preference and not functionality.  Right?

That night I made Jeff sleep on the far, far side of the bed.  We each faced separate walls and I may have pushed him once or twice when his snoring got loud--how dare he sleep so soundly when I was awake and fuming!  But in the light of day, we agreed to stop acting like five-year-olds arguing over a new toy, and make a trip to Home Depot together to check things out.

It started off rocky.  He wanted stone tile, I would vinyl wood-look.  He wanted beige carpet, I wouldn't budge from tan.  There was a moment where I stormed away from the paint chips wall in utter disgust that he couldn't agree to gray paint for the guest room.  Every decision seemed like an absolute deal-breaker, and I saw a fissure start to form in our otherwise sound relationship.

Eventually, though, we both began to take little steps.  If we couldn't meet in the middle, we would at least take turns winning.  He got his beige carpet (with flecks of brown--ha!).  I got my vinyl wood-look flooring, about six shades lighter than I preferred.  He still nixed the gray, but came to begrudgingly accept cafe latte.  Bit by bit, things began to get better.  The shining moment that sealed the deal was when he found the perfect shade of muted key lime green for the kitchen, and I miraculously agreed with him.  By the time we got home, we had (mostly) agreed on a color palette and flooring design.  We drank a glass of wine and tried to avoid pushing for more.

And it kind of hit me: that's what marriage is all about, isn't it?  It's not really about drinking coffee on the balcony or cooking dinner together.  It's about bringing together two totally separate points of view, two sides that seem impossible to merge and somehow, through compromise and open conversation, actually merging them.  I'm certain this is the first of many, many times we will look at each other and think "I don't know who you ARE right now and I can't believe you don't agree with me," and come away with a new understanding of what the other wants and needs, and some sort of mishmash compromise.  Come hell or high water, we are going to forge ahead and make a new identity that is not mine or his, but ours.

But we still can't agree on the doors.