My husband didn’t talk to me. It made me love him more

I used to judge couples at restaurants who sat in silence, writes Frances Whiting. I was young and naive. Now, when my husband doesn’t speak, it’s bliss.

Look at that smug couple, laughing and chatting, thinking they have something over the silent couple. Just you wait. (Pic: iStock)

Years ago, when my then boyfriend-now husband, John, and I were in the first, rosy flushes of love, we would go out to dinner regularly.

We would — when we were not staring deeply into each others eyes and thinking “I am the luckiest person alive to be here with you”... well, that’s what he was thinking, I was thinking “I wonder if I moved my hand very, very slowly away, I could steal one of his chips” — occasionally pause from our eye-gazing marathon to take stock of the other diners.

And the people we would mostly take stock of were the silent diners. You know the silent diners? Those people who sit in restaurants across the table from one another and do not say a word, except to make their order, or ask the waiter for another drink.

John and I would look at those people and shake our heads knowingly at each other, at those poor, wretched souls who obviously were so bored with one another, so tired of their relationship, that they literally had nothing left to say.

We would smile at each other from across the table, a sad, yet mostly smug smile that said we would never, ever be like them.

“Darling,” I would say, “let’s never, ever be like them.’’ And he would curl his fingers around mine with a look that said “Never my angel!” and “I wonder where all my chips went,” and then we would retreat back to our private world of smug dining a deux.

Fast forward twenty years or so, a marriage, a mortgage, two kids, a dog, and dual demanding jobs later, and we don’t go out to dinner anymore. Well we do, but it’s usually to our local family restaurant on “All You Can Eat” rib nights.

Like most married couples, Claire and Phil Dunphy rely on alter egos to spice up conversation on a night out. (Pic: Modern Family)

But the other night, my husband and I did go out, just the two of us, to a romantic, Italian restaurant and it was there I had an epiphany. It had been a particularly busy week with work and school activities, house guest, and all our kitchen appliances breaking down simultaneously, and as we sat down at our table, I realised something.

Those couples I had so long ago pitied were not saying anything because they had nothing left to say, no, those couples were not saying anything because they were exhausted. I realised this because, for the first 20 or so minutes that we sat down, my husband and I did not say one word to each other. Not one.

Instead, after ordering our drinks we sat staring numbly at each other as only two people who just survived work deadlines, home renovations, basketball matches, guitar ensembles, gymnastics, house guests, and some sort of strange, white goods rebellion, can.

And it was as I sat there, not talking to my husband, that I had my epiphany.

You say it best when you say nothing at all. (Pic: Lady and the Tramp)

Because while I was not saying anything to him, I was, however having quite a long internal dialogue with myself that went something like this... “Oh God, it’s so nice to sit down. I love sitting down like this... I love this chair, I really do. It’s so lovely here, no-one is talking to me, no-one is asking for anything, no-one is jumping out of a cupboard at me... and look, here comes the waiter, and he’s bringing me a wine, and I didn’t have to get it myself, and now I’m just sitting here, drinking it, isn’t that wonderful? I’m just sitting here, drinking a wine, and no-one is stopping me... oh and here comes the dinner, which I didn’t make, and then someone is going to come and take my plate, just take it away, whoosh, like that and then they’ll wash it, and which I don’t have to wash, and now look, here comes that waiter again with more wine for me, and look at John, he’s just sitting there, not talking to me at all... I don’t think I’ve ever loved him more.”