My Husband Never Called Me Because He Said He Was a Busy Man

And then this happened.

My husband never called me during the day. He said he was a busy man. In fact, to illustrate just how infrequent it was, I always said one thing when he did phone me.

“Is everything okay?” I’d say.

I mean, c’mon there is nothing normal about that.

I was far too independent.

And we owned a business I knew the pull of the self-employed it made me rationalize his excuses. But a wife shouldn’t be so startled when her husband calls that she wonders if something is wrong.

Finally, two things got my attention.

A day out with three friends for lunch was the first clue. Each of their husbands called within a ten-minute time span. I watched them with fascination.

“Did each of your guys just call you for no reason?” I say.

“Yes,” they say.

“In the middle of the workday just to check in?” I ask.

“Yes,” they say.

I’m not sure if that was an advertisement for my husband’s selfishness or my lack of need for anything from him. He did his thing and I did mine.

I let it go.

But the second thing that happened made me furious.

During the worst of our problems, our whole family tagged along with my husband for the day. We were on our way to the Jersey Shore. He had to work for the first few hours and stop at a few accounts.

One of his work buddies called him.

If our marriage hadn’t been falling apart I might not have noticed.

This self-sufficient single mother-raised girl might not have given it a thought.

My husband hung up the phone nearly an hour later.

I was shocked and unfortunately not speechless.

“You’re kidding me, right,” I say.

“What?” says my husband.

“The busy man just spent an hour on the phone,” I say.

“It was a work call,” he says.

“For the first 10 minutes, it was a work call,” I say. “After that, it was about anything and everything but work.”

My husband just laughed.

It was his default when he got caught in a lie if he couldn’t worm his way out of it. And clearly, my stupidity was emerging front and center. I built the business with my husband.

Obviously, I knew what his schedule was like.

He was a traveling salesman and continually on the road.

He had plenty of time for calls.

One thing marriage counseling ‘for one’ taught me is what I can and can’t blame on my husband. I chose to remain in counseling after my husband refused to return.

My rationale?

One parent had to try and work on a better environment for our children.

And I wanted to learn about myself.

I did learn something.

There was an absurdity to my personality. Or as our marriage counselor once said, “What were you thinking? You asked nothing of your husband.”

I let a lot of things go.

I can’t blame that on my now ex-husband.

What I can do is learn from my own mistakes.

If you ask your spouse“Is everything okay?” because he calls on an average day.

There’s nothing normal about that.