My soon-to-be-husband is a writer. A published novelist, actually. I'm a writer too, but my works haven't gone anywhere (yet). Him being a writer and me being one too scares me. A lot. But it also gives me confidence, and it is one of the things I love best about him. We click on so many levels because he understands "the process" of writing, the highs and lows of it, and we have a firm agreement not to bother each other when we are writing. That is a gift I really cherish, having a partner that understands my passion AND my job.
But when you marry anyone, you marry their profession as well. There are times that we will be sitting together and I will turn to talk to him, and he will be writing. Or vice versa. And I will turn back to my own work, or him to his, as neither of us are eager to disturb the other's writing. That means that, yes, sometimes we will spend hours in silence and other activities must be put on hold so that the writing process may continue unhindered. Even now he sits at the table with headphones in and I am on the couch watching a movie, trying to be quiet and unobtrusive.
Along with these bouts of intense work and concentration, we are also muddling through what to do about such things as book tours and promotions. My fiancé's newest novel will be coming out in May and we have just found out that he will be participating in a 40-city book tour, all through the months of May and June. And he will be returning, and subsequently cutting the tour short, five days before our wedding. Which means that the entire month before our reception, I will be alone, packing up our apartment, snuggling the cat, and preparing not only for our wedding day, but for our honeymoon and the move back to Missoula.
I was not pleased to hear this news. In fact, it was the root of our biggest fight to date. One of such magnitude as I hope we will never have to repeat. I felt betrayed; I didn't know this would be happening when we set our date, and while he has no control over it either, I blamed my fiancé and hated myself for that.
I felt left behind. I didn't want him to get caught up in the excitement and work of the tour and forget all about our own exciting news and events. The writer in me got jealous of his success, and the soon-to-be-wife got jealous of the time he would be spending with other people in other places while I was stuck at home.
But when you marry anyone, you marry their profession as well. And I understood how hard it was for him, too, to leave. No one said it would be easy to be a writer, or to be two married writers, and this was just a taste of hardships to come. No one said it would be easy, but as any writer out there can sympathize, no one picks this profession for its easiness. Luckily, writers are some of the more resilient of those out there, my fiancé and I in particular.