My wife left me.

We are still married, for now. I'm adult enough to know that As her husband, I believe that her happiness is as important as my own. And yet she isn't happy, and I want to address it.

I'm having trouble understanding why she left. There is a communication issue, to be sure. Here is a story about why I love her.

She bought tickets online for a movie with her money. We got to the theater, and the doors were locked. There must have been a staffing issue with the pandemic. Mistakes happen. We go back the next day, and I insisted on getting a refund for the tickets. She didn't want me to bother the theater employees, even though we were clearly in the right. She would have preferred to eat the cost of $30 in wasted tickets rather than cause a moment's inconvenience to a service worker. Regina is the anti-Karen. and that is what I love about her. I still got her money back. I just showed them that we bought tickets for a day that they were closed, and they didn't fight us about it. They gave us movie passes, and we used them to watch the movie.

I like to think that she is learning to stand up for herself.

How to react when they want to do something dumb?

Sometimes a loved one wants to make a life altering decision, like taking up an expensive hobby, moving to a different state, or making a career change. And then I'm presented with three options.

1. Try to talk them out of it. (Their response is that I am trying to kill their dreams. Never mind that this is one of multiple conflicting dreams and goals that they presented to me within a short time frame. I am the Dreamkiller.)

2. Encourage them in their passion. (Tomorrow, they're going to say that I'm pressuring them into doing something that could ruin their life. As if I have something to gain by them failing.)

3. Leave it completely up to them. (Obviously it's clear to them that I don't care about anything they have to say.)

It's even more fun when they bring up, say, becoming an astronaut even though they have never been on a plane because they are afraid to fly. And now it sounds like I'm mocking them, but they never had any serious plans towards becoming an astronaut so why did they bring it up, so yeah, I guess I am mocking them.

And now they are going "I NEVER SAID I WANTED TO BE AN ASTRONAUT" and of course you didn't, because this story isn't about you in particular. It's about a lot of people I know who dream way, way too big. Like maybe the schools should stop with "anybody can grow up to be President" nonsense and just go with "anybody can grow up to be stable adults who pay their bills and don't have some kind of crisis every month".

Gosh, I probably should update this blog more.

 All these hopes and dreams that I have, all that require daily maintenance, and being a semi-pro blogger is one of them. There are challenging things going on in my personal life, but I shouldn't share too many details. It would be my luck if people chose this moment in time to take an interest in this blog at a time when I decided to share too much.