'Do It Yourself' Can Do In Your Marriage--Or Do It Up

My husband wasn’t thrilled about rebuilding our front porch steps.  He was even less thrilled about having me help him. It was supposed to be a buddy-project, but his buddy had to go out of town. In the end, he didn’t have much choice, if only because someone had to hold things steady once in a while.

I’d been bugging him for two years to either fix the stairs or get a contractor.  “They’re sagging. They’re bouncy. They tilt backward. Someone’s going to lose their balance and end up rolling down the front lawn!”

My husband isn’t Mr. Fix-it, though he does have some skill. I didn’t think I was asking that much. But for some reason the project made him nervous. Every time I mentioned it, he got testy and kept putting it off. Then the economy collapsed. The stairs seemed sure to follow.

“Honey, you can do it yourself. It’s cheaper. And it’s simple!”

Thus started the project that would reinvigorate–or destroy–our marriage.

I’m pretty handy with a hammer, though I haven’t used one in a while. Still, after two decades of marriage and two little kids, my husband and I had butted heads enough to know that it’s a dangerous prospect to work together too closely, especially with a lot of sharp, heavy objects lying around.

He told me in no uncertain terms to keep my suggestions to myself. “I work differently than you. I need to think.”

“OK. OK. I get it.”

On a bright October Monday, all the wood and Trex planking were delivered. Then, on Tuesday, he came into the house. “Do you want to take the first whack?”

I looked at him dubiously, then took his offered hammer. Walking down the squeaky old steps for the very last time, I hauled back and took a swing. The rotten wood railing made a satisfying smack before it crumbled.

“Oooh, that was fun! You want to try?” Demolition is great for releasing pent up marital aggression.

I went back inside and spent the next hour listening to groaning, rusty nails stubbornly releasing 80-year-old wood. Soon the only egress from our porch was a sharp four-foot drop, about equal to jumping off the proscenium of a stage.

As I admired his handiwork, he said, “There’s no turning back now.” I was suddenly struck with absolute terror–It’s the front of our house. What if he messes up? 

After lunchtime he called me. “Can you help me with the concrete?”

Laying concrete was something I’d never done in my life.

I changed into my grubbiest jeans and an old sweatshirt and stepped outside. My husband was covered in dust and wood slivers. There was a ring of sweat around the band of his baseball cap. He wore a well-laden tool belt over his carpenter pants and an old, frayed t-shirt that showed off his muscular arms. Hauling 80 pound bags of concrete mix out of the garage, he looked, honestly, rather handsome. Survival of the fittest has always been a contest of strength and ingenuity. Here it was–the primal attraction in my own backyard.

I helped him with the concrete mostly by running back and forth to the garden hose, filling an empty two liter plastic apple juice bottle left over from the kids. Then I scraped the concrete into the wood frame while he held the heavy bucket. “Kind of like pouring cake batter, except grittier.” We both licked our teeth.  “Eeeww…!”

By Wednesday, we’d both resigned ourselves to my new role. My own work was off limits. Instead I put back on my unwashed jeans and sweatshirt as soon as I got home from dropping off the kids at school. We put up the backing board–a heavy two-by-twelve beam that he anchored to the house’s foundation while I held it in place, scooting under the porch with all the cobwebs and dirt without complaining.  Mostly I held my tongue, doing whatever was needed. I knew I was out of my depth.  Though when I did have a thought, he listened.

By Thursday, we had both found our stride, hanging stringers, securing posts, adding extra two-by-fours for stability.  By Friday, as I hammered the risers into place and he stood cutting the Trex planks to fit over the railings, some of our neighbors came out and hooted. “Looking good!”

“I have some jobs over at my house. How much do you charge?”

“Hmmm. I like a man in a tool belt!”

We smiled at each other, joked a bit with our friends, then got back to work. The wind had picked up and we knew we had to finish before the rain began. We stood working in the chill air, mostly without talking but in sync.  There was a project to be done and a finite time to do it in before we both had to return to our usual responsibilities. We kept our eyes on our tasks, partners in a way we hadn’t been in years.

For almost a decade, our lives had centered on our young children, the time spent in semi-controlled chaos where a concentrated task–even an uninterrupted conversation–had been a near impossibility. But with the kids both at school, we could get down to business. And both of us had learned over the years how to step out of the other’s way and respect what each of us did better. I admired his meticulous effort to measure twice–sometimes three times–to avoid mistakes. I didn’t recall that kind of careful forethought in our younger years. And finally my ego, always fragile when we were young, had grown confident enough not to have to prove anything, but simply to stand back and help anyway I could just as he’d often done with the kids. Perhaps it was the lessons of raising children when every moment is a battle to stay steady, loving and calm, that had translated into a new cooperation, a new appreciation for the partner we’d chosen.

Whatever it was, we both felt it.  Toward the end, with the planks screwed down and the railing the only thing left to add, he turned to me and said–and I knew he really meant it–“I’m glad you were here. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Judith Lindbergh is a writer and instructor living in West Orange with her husband and two sons. Her first novel, The Thrall's Tale, was published by Penguin Group in 2006. She is currently working on her second novel and leading the Writer's Circle at the SOMA Adult School.