Saturday in the forest. Just the three of us. Aurélie, Cléo, and me.

We hadn't really planned the day. The original plan had changed the night before, and we didn't have a new one, so we just went with what Aurélie was feeling, which was this forest near a little village not far from home.

We brought hammocks. We brought Cléo's bike. We didn't really know what we wanted to do, which meant we got there and had to figure it out once we arrived. The first place we tried didn't work, because it was too steep for Cléo and there was nowhere good to hang the hammocks. After about five minutes, Aurélie said she wanted to move. And I started to get annoyed, because I felt like we hadn't even given it a real chance.

I tried not to make it into something. We moved. The second spot was better. We got the hammocks up, Cléo had a swing nearby, we had lunch together, and for a while everything was good.

Then came the nap. We'd been hoping Cléo would sleep in the hammock so Aurélie and I could read and actually rest. She didn't. So we got back in the car. The idea was to drive to our friends' place for the afternoon. Cléo would nap in the car on the way, and we'd see how we felt when we got there.

A few minutes into the drive, Aurélie started thinking out loud. I'm not sure if I feel like going. I wish I'd stayed in the hammock longer. I don't know if I'll be up for it when we arrive. And I could feel myself starting to get annoyed again, because I wanted her to know. I wanted one answer, and I wanted her to stick to it, so I wouldn't have to keep adjusting and wouldn't have to message our friends and change plans one more time.

It took me a few minutes to see what was actually happening. I wasn't annoyed because Aurélie was being unclear. I was annoyed because I was waiting for her to tell me what to do.

I was waiting for her to know for both of us.

And that's not really her job. Sometimes she knows what she wants and she says it, and sometimes she doesn't know, and she's allowed to not know. What I'd been doing was sitting in the passenger seat of my own family, letting her decide so I wouldn't have to take the responsibility of making a call that might turn out to be wrong.

We got close to our friends' place and there was no parking right away. Cléo was still asleep in the back. Aurélie was tired. And instead of pushing through to get to the door and figure things out once we were there, I found a patch of grass next to where we'd parked, put a blanket down, and told Aurélie to lie there and rest. I messaged our friends to let them know we'd be a bit later. I pulled out my book.

We stayed there for maybe an hour. Aurélie rested, Cléo finished her nap in the car, and I read. By the time we walked over to our friends' place, all three of us had what we needed. The afternoon was actually good. We were there, not dragging ourselves through it.

Being a partner doesn't mean following whatever Aurélie decides while I stay quiet about my own reading of the situation. Sometimes she knows, sometimes she doesn't, and sometimes it has to be me who reads the room, who asks what my family actually needs right now and not what we committed to two hours ago, and who makes the call.

For a while, I thought waiting was respectful. It wasn't. It was just easier.

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