Tauns’ Blog

My husband has been yearning to fly with his dad lately.  His dad built an airplane (RV-7) and recently completed it with the final paint job.  The plane does look good.  The plane is certified for aerobatic use, something most planes are not.  I think every pilot has the desire to do aerobatics at some point, some find the desire to be stronger than others.  The sad fact is most of those pilots do barrel rolls and loops illegally in Cessna’s, Diamond’s and other non-aerobatic certified planes.  My husband has never attempted such acts due to the fact that he has never flown an aerobatic rated plane.  He has one experience in his dad’s airplane in which he was able to experience rolls and such, but he was not allowed to control the airplane.  Knowing the desire of my husband, I arranged for his dad and him to have a day flying.

Prior to my husband’s flight, Papa took up each girl individually (the plane only seats 2).  My girls thoroughly enjoyed their ride in the plane, although I did hear a little complaint from the oldest regarding how short the length was.  As my husband and his dad started the plane and headed off towards the world in the sky, I said a little prayer and loaded up my girls to go and do errands.

I had reached the main road when suddenly I was furious at my husband.  Why you ask?  This is something that is quite hard to explain.  Each time my husband has been airborne without me, I feel extremely betrayed.  Betrayal is such an odd feeling, the irrational feeling is jealousy.  Jealousy would also fit except my desire is not to be in the plane and him on the ground.  I am jealous of his passionate love for the sky.  It is the only thing that rivals his heart from me.

My husband has come to realize that if he is going to be flying without me in the plane, he will receive a missed phone call about 30 minutes into the lesson, session or joy ride, another 10 minutes later and another 10 minutes later.  That pattern will continually repeat itself until he answers the phone to an erratically pissed off wife on the other end.  Even with this, his passion for the sky has never faltered.

Today as the feeling of betrayal rushed over my body I stopped my emotions to think.  Today was not a day that my husband had planned to fly.  It was not something he had arranged.  Today was something I made happen to see my husband’s face become elated, yet I was dampening that spirit with an ugly beast.  Why was I so mad?

I started to look at my feelings.  I knew that I had been irrational in the past.  It was something I had tried to curb but never managed too.  I love that he flies; I love his passion for the plane and sky.  Why I am trying to squelch this love with irrational feelings?  In order to answer that, I had to first realize what feelings I was actually feeling.

I first recognized anger but as I dug deeper I sensed it was more.  I didn’t just feel angry, I felt betrayed.  Why?  I honestly don’t know.  I don’t think it is possible to always attach a reason to a feeling that is felt.  I think there are some people that can and will always be able to do that, but I think the masses (especially among women) will have some point in which they are feeling sad, happy, quiet or angry and not be able to attach a specific reason to that emotion.  As I contemplated the reason for feeling betrayed it occurred to me that part of it could be that there was also jealousy.

Jealousy is one of those emotions that we all have at times.  We have the choice to follow the urges we feel in jealousy and look like a monster or conquer the feeling and move on.  I think some are more apt to feel jealousy than others.  I am not a jealous person by nature, unless it involves my husband.  I will fully admit, I have become jealous of people my husband has worked with, especially women.  There are 3 women specifically that I can recall that have caused me great jealousy.  The first was before we were even engaged and she wanted to date my husband when I was dating him.  She would always find ways to arrive at places he was going to be.  As time went by and she saw I was always there too, I received the evil eye and other things.  I would always be jealous when I saw them talking cause I knew what she wanted and well Ben wasn’t as keyed in on it all.  In all the cases, it wasn’t the actions of my husband that caused the jealousy rather the actions of the women. 

The other jealousy ladies were both after we were married.  One was in a bad marriage and would “counsel” with my husband often about it…didn’t like that at all.  The other was single and was overly friendly with me when I was around.  My husband would tell me things she did and said when I wasn’t present and I could tell that she wasn’t just being “friendly”.  She viewed me as competition.  My husband and I one night were talking and I voiced my concern for the latter lady.  As we discussed it, he also told me that he had some concerns about her and her actions and was watching the situation very closely.  Although she often offered to go to lunch with him or other things, he would always be busy or be going to lunch with me.  Other than those women, I can’t think of many other times in my life that I have felt honest to goodness jealousy. 

Today I realized that I felt jealousy and betrayal.  The jealousy and betrayal weren’t in regards to who my husband was with (his dad) yet rather where my husband was.  I didn’t desire to be soaring while he was grounded, so why would I feel jealousy or betrayal.  This caused for digging even deeper into my psyche.

Loyalty.  I am fiercely loyal, almost to a fault.  Due to my strong loyalty, I expect the same from others.  When I don’t see or feel that loyalty, I feel great disappointment and sadness, sometimes even anger or betrayal.

I could now see that loyalty played a role into my feelings.  As I tied loyalty, betrayal and jealousy together, I had an epiphany.  I was afraid that my husband’s loyalty to me feigned with his passion for the sky.  I felt betrayed and jealousy of his passion.  When he takes flight without me, I am left out of that passion.  I never feel any of these feelings when I am in the plane beside him.

Now that I understand my insanity, I hope that I can cure it.  My husband can’t make love to the sky nor can he share his innermost feelings with it.  However, these feelings arise when I am not with him in-flight because he was born with an innate amour and ability for flying.   Fighting against something he was born to do and love is something that I cannot compete with.  Thus, my conclusion is that those feelings occur because the only thing that rivals with my love for his heart is the heavens above.