thin ice

"What I am hearing you say is that you want me to trust you to make adult decisions."

"Yeah," my husband says.

I stare at him, knowing this is not what he wants to hear, but it is what I need to say.

"I don't," I say, thinking of the credit card he impulsively applied for and forgot to tell me about, "I don't trust you to make adult decisions. If that's a problem, then it is a problem in our marriage."

"Well," he says, getting off the couch and walking into the other room, "then I guess it is."

I find it humorous that he is protesting my distrust by walking away from the discussion, but when I call him back, he tells me he is angry and doesn't want to fight. So, maybe, walking away was the mature decision.

The problem is I do not know when he is going to make a mature decision and when he is going to impulsively react. Sometimes he defends his behavior by telling me that our four year old did it first. Then I remind him that he is an adult. I wonder though if he thinks I should honestly expect more rational behavior from him than a four year old. Maybe he expects the four year old to be more rational.

My husband shape shifts. Being around him is like skating on a frozen lake. I cannot tell how deep the ice is at any given point and skating along the surface is okay until it isn't and I am drowning in a freezing lake. If I assume all the ice is safe, I will surely break through when I am not paying attention. If I assume all the ice is too fragile to hold, I will live, no matter what joy I miss out on by not ice-skating. So, I seldom ice skate. I seldom trust my husband to hold the weight of adult decisions. It may not be as much fun, but we will all live.