*This is a rant.  Please read it as such....a rant.  I'm just venting and getting stuff off my chest...so take some of it with a grain of salt, please*

I messed up my back last Friday.  I twisted to get out of the truck, and my lower back spasmed up on me.  I had to go to the ER, was in a TON of pain and was pretty disheartened.

My friend K called on Friday evening to make sure I was okay, and also to ask if Dave and I wanted to go to another neighbors house on Saturday evening to havea few beers and eat some cook-out.  She said that if I wasn't feeling up to it that we shouldn't worry, they'd understand.

Saturday rolls around, and I spend all day on the couch.  Dave has to go to the commissary by himself and do the grocery shopping; the most I can do is get up and go to the bathroom every couple of hours.  We talk about the invitation, and decide that neither of us want to go.  I'm hurting, and he doesn't feel like socializing.

That evening, K's husband comes and knocks on the kitchen door.  Dave answers it, and K's husband asks if we're going to the cook-out.  Dave says no, that I'm still not feeling good and he doesn't feel like hanging out....K's husband was a little upset and said "we're only drinking beer and eating meat" and Dave says "yeah, but I don't feel like doing that...sorry, man", and comes inside.

Neither of us thought anything else of it until Monday evening.  I had managed to get myself up and walking again with the aid of my cane (hadn't used that cane for almost a month prior to this), so we wandered down to the end of the block for an after-supper walk. 

We pass by K's house, and her husband looks at me and says "so how come you wouldn't let him come and drink at my welcome-home get together?"

Hmm.  Hmm.  How come I wouldn't LET him? Well, let's see....

First of all, it wasn't even at their house, it was at someone elses house, and neither Dave or I were comfortable just showing up at someone's house uninvited by them.  Call us old-fashioned, but that's just how we are.  Second, Dave didn't feel like going.  He's not the most social person on the face of the planet.  Third, he doesn't drink right now.  Sitting around and watching other people get drunk isn't his idea of a 'good time'. Fourth, he was in the middle of watching a movie.  Lastly....I was hurt and incapacitated, and he felt like he needed to be home with me. 

It kind of rubbed me the wrong way.  K and I are good friends, she helped me out a lot when our guys were deployed together....so I guess that comment is bothering me more than if it had come from some nobody that we don't know that well. I resent the implication that I control what my husand does, because I don't.  Dave doesn't do a DAMN thing just because I tell him to, he does things because HE wants to.......and he DIDN'T want to go hang out and watch people drink.   I'm going to be honest: if he had said "Hey, d'you care if I go" I'd probably have said "yeah, I do sort of care" - but I wouldn't have stopped him or pitched a fit over it.  If he had really wanted to go, he could have, and he would have...regardless of what I had said.

But whatever.  It's easier to blame me, I guess.  That's okay.  I know what's really up; I know how things are in my relationship.  I know that both Dave and I can do pretty much as we please.....but what other people ought to realise is that our doing as we 'please' usually always involves doing things WITH each other.  We don't spend much time socializing apart because we simply don't have much fun without each other.  We've spent waaaaay too much time separated by huge distances recently and we're about to spend even MORE time apart - so we CHOOSE to spend time together.

I guess that's really hard for some folks to get their heads around.  That we CHOOSE to not do things solo, and that he's NOT under my thumb.  Oh well. 

*Rant over.  Thanks for listening*