Can What Attracts You to a Guy be a Turnoff in the Long Run?

It was thrilling in the beginning … what happened?

-Emily Southwood, BettyConfidential.com

When I met my guy over seven years ago, our relationship blossomed on the ruddy seats of a 92 Dodge Shadow. Yes, to those of you already going there—we had our fair share of Titanic-esk make outs. But more importantly, it was the place where we really divulged ourselves to each other. We talked for hours on end, idling on the curb outside my apartment in the dead of Montreal winter (sorry, environment). And sometimes, didn’t talk—just drove in the comfortable silence that has always existed between us.

One of the things that attracted me immediately to my now-husband, is the way he drove. He was, and is, a confident driver—alert, agile, and fast. As someone who drives the opposite way—with zero-to-no spatial awareness, tentatively as a ninety-five-year-old Asian woman, and always the speed limit—this was impressive to me.

I was completely taken with the way he would whisk me away from everything in my life. My chatty brain seemed to shut off when he was behind the wheel. We spent weekends driving to the country, gliding effortlessly over black ice in winter and parting sheets of spring rain. By summer, we were in it for the long haul. The Dodge Shadow, sadly, didn’t make it. It was stolen. I know—who steals a 1992 Shadow? One with a trunk full of rank hockey equipment, to boot. As for us, three years later we said, “I do.”

Flash forward to our present, LA existence, and I’ve become what I swore never to be—the woman on the 101 Freeway slamming an imaginary break pedal in the passenger seat. It’s hard to say exactly when I turned from the gal gazing out the window and taking in the breeze, to this. But the transformation is complete.

So what’s the deal? Do I take our lives more seriously now that we’re married? Or as I like to remind my man—careful, babe, my babies are in your balls. Am I turning into an old fuddy duddy in my thirties? Or worse: a nag? My husband’s speed and agility used to make me feel both thrilled and safe. Now I’m mostly the former, and not in the Michael Jackson, dance-your-ass-off way. What gives?

The logical answer seems to be that I’m dangerously close to full-fledged, controlling, A-type, wife behavior. The kind of conduct, which when witnessed in other marriages, once made me want to don a habbit and run for a nunnery. I sure wouldn’t like hubby commenting on the way I do things. So that part of me says: chill, woman. He’s behind the wheel, not you. The end.

But the other part of me, the paranoid freak clutching the armrest while he pulls u-turns and crosses five lanes of traffic in 2.5 second, is also considering her safety. My condition is somewhat exacerbated by my mild fear of cars. Let’s just say I’ve always found the fact that we zoom at high speeds, in metal tins, mere feet from each other, a bit insane. I should probably consider dosing up on Xanex before road trips. Hubby would likely second that motion.

Unfortunately for my man, the two rather sizable citations he’s received on our travels this summer have sorely influenced my back seat driving. To be fair to him, on the second occasion we were speeding to a wedding ceremony in the countryside because I’d forgotten how inept I am with a curling iron. I was trying to achieve beachy, Kate Hudson waves. Oopsie, my bad.

And so it is, that here we are, stuck in this clichéd husband and wife routine. Odd, when hubby’s oh-so brisk driving helped deliver us here in the first place. I wonder what it says about me? I’m sure there’s a whole analysis somewhere, which explains how I have a complex for a bad boy-meets-protector type. I’ll have to schedule a meeting with my psychoanalyst.

In the meantime, I’ll be trying to argue my husband out of his new, genius idea for a second vehicle— a motorcycle.

Original Story