You can be boring without being bored.

Let's say you're a guy who spends most of your time working at a job that brings you financial and personal rewards -- or not -- and comes home tired and ready for a drink and not much conversation. Maybe a little TV, and then lights out at ten. Kiss the wife goodnight and wait for the challenges of tomorrow. Do you have kids? Did you say hi or goodnight to them?

Now let's suppose you're married to that guy and spend your days maybe working at a job yourself that you either like or not. Or maybe you don't work, having agreed to be the one who sees to the kids and the house, etc. Either way, it's likely that at the end of the day you're ready for some fun, or at least conversation/companionship when he comes home.

But he's pretty much on auto-pilot until he goes to sleep.

Boring? Yes. You. Bored? No. Him. He likes what he's doing and likes coming home to find dinner on the table and something good -- or not -- on TV. He's thinking about tomorrow and work. He's not bored.

But you are. You may go power-walking with women friends and you may shop with a vengeance, but all the time you're trying to remember why you married him in the first place. You love the things he gives you but can't help remembering when you were young and in love with him and with life. Life with him. What happened? And when?

Or let's suppose you're a young woman just starting a career -- in business or academia or the arts or wherever -- and you're totally absorbed in the new environment: all the new people and new duties and responsibilities, etc. You come home and tell your mate all about it, but he's still either trying to find a job after having been laid off or is dreading another day at a job he hates. After a little while of filling him in about your new world, he's getting bored. (Maybe threatened, too, but for sure bored.) Without knowing it -- because you were so involved in telling about the wonderful things that were happening to you -- you got to be boring.

But you're far from bored.

And that, to reiterate, is the point. We can be boring without being bored. It's just a fact of life. What we ourselves find intriguing can be, if we talk about it too much, boring to someone else. We've taken all the spotlight to ourselves. And unless we're as fascinating as we think we are -- not usually the case -- we've shut out the person we're with and, if we're married, that we swore we'd listen to and consider an equal so long as the both of us should live.

Imagine that you're retired and reading books you've always wanted to read, for hours at a time, or you're playing golf or fishing, just enjoying that well-deserved time away from a life-long job you didn't much like. You're ready to spend endless hours doing almost nothing.

Imagine you're married to that guy. You've waited all these years for the two of you to be retired -- free of work and kids -- so that you could travel the world together. And here he is, plopped down in his recliner, reading yet another book, or out on his boat, catching nothing! He's already said that he doesn't want to go anywhere, at least not right now. And here you are with your tourbooks in hand!

He's boring but not bored. You're bored to tears!

One more scenario: You married him because he kept himself in shape and because he was kind of daring. He was a skateboarder or a free-flying hang glider or a tennis pro or a hiker of big mountains. He appealed to the jock side of yourself. Or, if you're a guy, you married her because she challenged you and didn't give in, because she was her own person. And the prettiest girl who had ever shown any interest in you.

Now let's suppose that, as time goes on, those first attractions fade away and you're left with each other, the one spending way too much time hang-gliding and the other frustrated because he won't talk about anything important. Or she shops while he reads, or he hikes while she does yoga, or one likes dinner parties and the other doesn't. On and on.


I think many marriages dissolve because one or the other partner forgets about the other's needs. After a while together, once the fires of passion have inevitably cooled, it's only human nature to take for granted that other person and to get more and more involved in whatever it is we like to do. But in the end, if we're to stay together, we have to come up with some kind of truce, a mutual understanding of how to avoid being boring to each other while still not being bored ourselves.

It's a delicate balance. Lots of give-and-take. Not all couples are up to the challenge.

Are you? And you?