I Thought You Meant Now

Tonight was a classic case.

We had a dinner reservation. I got a text from my wife:

“Just finishing up.”

Now, when I say just finishing up, I mean: final sentence of the last email, laptop closing, keys in hand. I figured she’d be in an Uber in five minutes, ten tops. So I grabbed my stuff and started walking to the restaurant.

Ten minutes pass. Then fifteen. Still no sign of her. I text again:

“Should I grab the table?”

Another five minutes go by. Finally:

“Leaving now.”

I can feel the temperature rising inside me. Not anger exactly—more that specific flavor of internal agitation that comes when I feel like I’m being played, even though I’m not.

Why can’t she just say when she’s actually leaving?

Why does “finishing up” mean “still in the middle of something” and not “on my way” like it would if I said it?

But here’s the thing: she’s not wrong. She’s not being deceptive.

We just use the same words to mean very different things.

This happens all the time in our marriage. Tiny mismatches in definitions, expectations, timing. I say “let’s go in five,” and I mean five real minutes. She hears that as begin wrapping up mode. I interpret her text through my lens, then feel misled when she doesn’t conform to it.

It’s not malicious. It’s not even dysfunctional. It’s just… unsynchronized.

And yet, I keep setting the trap for myself. I receive the message, interpret it through my language model, and proceed like it’s a fixed contract. When reality diverges from my internal script, I get irritated—because in my head, someone’s broken the agreement.

Except there was no agreement. Just a story I told myself.

This is the kind of small moment that doesn’t matter—and also completely does. Because it reveals something bigger:

I still expect the people closest to me to read my mind.

I get upset when they don’t follow the rules I never told them.

So what do I do with that?

Maybe I ask more clarifying questions.

Maybe I remind myself that a marriage is not a logistics company.

Or maybe the real work is what I had to do tonight, standing outside the restaurant, checking my phone like a nervous teenager.

I took a breath. Smiled. Reminded myself: this is a good person. My person. Someone I love—not a misbehaving app.

She showed up ten minutes later, smiling and apologetic. I wasn’t annoyed anymore. Not because the wait didn’t bother me—but because I let it be just that: a wait. Not a narrative. Not a fight.

Sometimes the long, hard way is just shutting up about the little thing, smiling when they arrive, and remembering they’re not trying to hurt you. They’re just being themselves.

And loving someone, really loving them, means choosing to let that be enough—even when it doesn’t align with your definition of “on time.”