One of the joys of being an empty nester is that I get to spend a lot of one on one time with my wonderful husband of nearly 37 years.  Well, maybe not a LOT of time because he’s a college band director, but that’s a story for another day.  And because it’s just the two of us, we can tend to get pretty lazy in terms of cooking, so we frequent restaurants.  Ah yes, those are great times, sitting in total silence, eating our food, not looking at each other.  When I was younger, I always marveled at those “older” couples who did that.  Doug and I always seemed to find something to talk about – or was it just because the kids kept us busy?  Anyway, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered it’s not that these couples are not communicating, because now that I’m one of them, I have obtained the secret language as well.

This came to mind the other evening when again, Doug and I were chowing down on some barbecue, occasionally looking at the buzzing on our phones, but not speaking to each other. Until I looked up at him and made eye contact.  And while he was looking deep into my eyes, he started rubbing at his cheek, which immediately made me rub mine because I was just sure he was telling me I had something on my face.  Until he asked me what I was doing, to which I replied, I don’t know – what are YOU doing?  We laughed a while after that and it made me look around the room to see what others were doing.  You see, the other thing we’ve discovered is that older people eat earlier, not necessarily because they go to bed earlier, but because you can actually get into a restaurant without having to wait! So we were surrounded with people our age.  I watched as a lady stood up from her table, loudly slurp up the last of her drink while her husband said nothing verbally, but his eye roll spoke volumes.  I’ve watched a couple say absolutely nothing to each other for an entire meal, look at their phones while they finished their drinks and somehow know exactly when to stand up together to leave.

While this can be very entertaining, the truth is that we develop that language because we have paid close attention to this one person for a long time.  I have lived with my husband for close to two thirds of my life.  Together we have survived three children, numerous job changes, moves, deaths in the family and disagreements.  I can tell by the sound of his breathing while we lay in the dark if he’s having trouble sleeping because he can’t stop thinking about something.  He can tell if something’s bothering me before I can even verbalize it.  It’s hard for us to surprise each other because we can both tell when something’s up because there are tiny changes in the others behavior.  Sometimes I can answer his question before he finishes asking. So sometimes there’s no need for conversation because we just KNOW.  Sadly, not all couples have this gift, but I think we started as best friends and that has never changed.  It has taken a long time to develop this secret language and it took effort.  And because we continue to encourage each other to grow as individuals, there’s always more to learn and discover about each other to add to that language.

Sometimes I’m concerned about younger couples who seem to be so busy with their careers, social lives, and children that they never take the time to develop their friendship with the person they’ll be spending those later years with.  Once their schedules slow down and the kids are off on their own, will they really know the person they’re living with?  Will they have developed their own form of secret communication?

When we were younger, and so infatuated with each other, saying “I love you” was a wonderful thing.  It was so new and it was just fun to hear and say.  But we figured out that there were times when it may not be the best time to shout it to each other (and I think we were starting to annoy people ; ), so we started signing it to each other, which eventually just evolved to the sign for the letter “I”.  Now I can sit at that dinner table with him, raise my pinkie and tell him in our secret language how important he still is to me without saying a word.  And just to let you know, Doug and I still have some very deep, meaningful VERBAL conversations as well and I think those continue to contribute to the secret language. Here’s wishing all of you a wonderful relationship where you can develop a secret language all your own.