My Husband Kept Scheduling Over My Night Classes—Then I Learned Why My Degree Made Him So Uncomfortable
PART 5
The next morning I met with my academic adviser during my lunch break.
Her name was Dr. Fowler, and she had the efficient kindness of a woman who had watched hundreds of adults arrive carrying ten-year-old transcripts like apology letters.
“You’re doing well,” she said, turning her screen toward me. “If you keep two courses most terms and take one summer course, you could finish in about two years. Maybe a little less depending on what transfers after the final review.”
Two years.
Until then I had treated the degree like a hallway I was trying not to look too far down.
One semester. Two classes. See how it goes.
Mark’s language, I realized, had not come from nowhere.
I had enrolled in a degree-completion program while speaking about it at home as though I had bought a six-week pottery package.
“What happens if I take three courses in spring?” I asked.
Dr. Fowler gave me a long look.
“What happens to your sleep?”
“Excellent advising.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Two.”
“Good.”
She showed me a sequence that included a writing-intensive seminar the next term and a capstone the following year. We talked about which courses could be taken online and which were better in person. Nothing in the conversation was dramatic.
That was what made it powerful.
A degree was not a fantasy. It was a sequence of ordinary Tuesdays and Wednesdays with registration numbers attached.
I went back to Greenstone and spent the afternoon fixing a vendor-order problem involving one hundred and eighty shrubs that existed on a truck but not in our purchase system.
At four, my manager, Luis, stopped at my door.
“You still thinking of applying for the client-services coordinator opening next year?”
I looked up.
“I wasn’t.”
“You should.”
“That job wants a bachelor’s degree.”
“It says preferred.”
“Which means preferred until someone with one applies.”
Luis shrugged. “You’ll have one eventually.”
The sentence landed so casually I almost missed it.
Eventually.
Not maybe.
At home I found Mark making spaghetti.
He was using the enormous stockpot we usually reserved for chili, and there was enough pasta in it for a church fundraiser.
“How many people are coming?” I asked.
“I panicked.”
“About noodles?”
“Your mother called.”
“That explains nothing.”
He laughed.
I put my backpack on the chair and stood at the stove beside him.
“I met with my adviser.”
He stirred the sauce.
“How’d it go?”
“I’m going to finish.”
He glanced at me. “I know.”
“No. I mean I decided.”
“You already enrolled.”
“I enrolled for fall. Today I looked at the whole thing.”
Mark’s stirring slowed.
“How long?”
“About two years if I stay at two courses most terms and take one in summer.”
“Two years.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot of nights.”
“It’s some nights.”
He put the spoon down.
“What about travel?”
“What travel?”
“We talked about doing Arizona in the spring.”
“We said maybe April.”
“You can’t just keep stacking semesters.”
The happiness I had carried home thinned.
“Why not?”
“Because we have a life.”
“This is in it.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I leaned against the counter.
“Then explain what you mean.”
He looked genuinely tired.
“I thought you wanted to try classes. I didn’t know you were building the next two years around them.”
“I didn’t know either. Now I do.”
He turned the burner down.
“Can we just finish this semester before making every decision?”
“I’m not asking you to make every decision.”
“You’re talking about summers and next year.”
“That is how degrees work.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
I wanted to soften it for him.
I could feel the old response arrive with impressive efficiency: tell him nothing is final, remind him registration is months away, say we can revisit it after Thanksgiving.
Instead I opened a cabinet and took out two bowls.
“I’m happy about this,” I said.
He looked at me.
It might have been the first time I had said it without adding a qualification.
“I’m happy that I want to finish.”
His face softened, but not enough to become agreement.
“I’m glad you’re happy.”
“Thank you.”
“I just don’t want everything else to become second.”
“Everything else has categories. Your mother’s birthday is not the dentist is not laundry is not a vacation we haven’t booked.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “And I think you need to start saying it.”
We ate too much spaghetti at the table.
The next Wednesday, Mark had dinner ready before I got home from work.
Not reheated. Ready.
Chicken, rice, broccoli. He had even used the steamer basket correctly after twenty-eight years of insisting it looked unsafe.
“I watched a video,” he said.
“I’m proud of your academic journey.”
He gave me a dish towel to throw at him.
I went to class with leftovers in a container and no apology in my mouth.
Over the next three weeks, I made several small changes that nobody would have called brave.
I stopped grocery shopping after Monday class just because the store was on the way home.
I stopped volunteering to reschedule dental appointments around Mark’s meetings when my own calendar was tighter.
When Hannah asked if we could all have dinner on a Wednesday, I said Thursday.
When Mark’s cousin announced a last-minute cookout the weekend before my midterm, Mark went alone and brought me a hamburger.
Nobody suffered.
The house became slightly less efficient.
Laundry sat in the dryer overnight twice.
We ate eggs for dinner one Tuesday.
Mark wore a shirt that had not been ironed since the Obama administration.
It was all extremely survivable.
The stranger development was that Mark began asking about school.
Not “How late?”
Not “How much work?”
Actual questions.
“What did Kent say about your presentation?”
“What’s Nina studying?”
“Why does communication theory have so many words for people misunderstanding each other?”
“Job security,” I said.
One Wednesday he put a thermos of coffee by my keys before I left.
The gesture was so ordinary that I had to go sit in the car for a minute before driving.
I had spent a month preparing myself to defend the degree.
I had not prepared for him to make room.
