It's so cliche I hesitate even to bring it up, but Terry and I almost never experience feeling hot or cold at the same time.
We'll be crawling into bed at night, and I'll be thinking to myself, "I don't even want to get under the covers, it's so hot." Then I look over and she is buried beneath a pile of blankets with only the top of her head sticking out.
She will ask how I'm not freezing to death. I will ask how she's not soaking the sheets in sweat.
And on and on.
I don't travel for business nearly as much as I used to, but when I do, the first order of business upon entering my hotel room is turning down the thermostat.
I mean really turning it down. Usually as low as it will go. Mid-60-degree territory.
Then I enjoy a blissful, uninterrupted 7 to 8 hours of sleep. I do this knowing the fun will end the second I return home.
Not that Terry likes it boiling hot or anything, but she definitely prefers the house to be a few degrees warmer than I. And I'm fine with that. You get used to it, and there are plenty of things over which she compromises her own likes and dislikes in deference to me.
Which is what you do in a marriage. You give and take. You cede a little ground here in the hopes your partner will do likewise over there. You put their needs above your own.
In the end, it all evens out.
Not that it doesn't carry some degree of risk. I, for instance, will inevitably suffer heat stroke one of these days in my own sweltering bedroom.
But at least, as I lose consciousness, I'll be able to look to my right and see the pile of comforters that stole my heart nearly 40 years ago, sleeping peacefully.
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