March 10, 2010
u know the one, dr. everything'll be alright
3/10/10
A few thoughts about the last couple of days' worth of comments... in no particular order, here are some basic phenomena I've noticed from keeping my eyes and ears open around relationships for the last 20 years. These are by no means chiseled in stone, and there are massive exceptions to everything, but I'm amazed how often they keep happening.
1. When women are done, they're done. Most women I know give their mate/boyfriend an inordinate amount of slack, but when they run out of patience, a binary switch is flipped, and the light is snuffed out. By the time the big guns are called out, it's usually too late: she has emotionally moved on, whether or not she's done so physically.
Guys can fall back in love, they can be "scared straight" by a health issue or a brush with their own mortality, and come running home. Men can cross to the other side, scorched-earth territory, then have an epiphany that brings them back. Women, to their credit, may sometimes find they still have a tiny spark left, but usually can muster only pity (and silently, disgust).
This is a cautionary tale for husbands who spend too long depressed without getting help, or allow a festering problem to ferment - anything that places an unequal burden on the spouse. You have time to fix yourself, but just because you can't hear the chimes doesn't mean the clock isn't ticking.
2. A bad deal is bad for everybody. This is a famous quote from our lawyer in New York, a guy who went to high school with Tessa and is kind of a savant. In his experience, a legally-binding deal that screws over one party always - eventually - ends up being bad for the other. This isn't about karma or anything new agey, it's about brass tacks, and he's seen it time and time again.
I find this corollary works in relationships, too - when one person is a problem (or has a problem) and this behavior is being enabled by the good graces of the other partner, both are fucked. The person with the problem never gets help, and the person putting up with it eventually collapses under the weight of their own resentment.
This resentment, by the way, rarely comes on gradually. More often it erupts like Krakatoa, waves and waves of furious lava that the enabler never even knew they had.
3. Changing the oil won't offend the car. I had the same eye-rolling antipathy for couples therapy that many guys have before they go... I mean, isn't that for people that hate each other and want to cut the dog in half? Besides, as a guy, doesn't that just mean "sitting in a stranger's room to be berated by the same person who does it at home?"
Let me tell you: I am the world's biggest defensive wounded-child prick on earth, and it was nothing like that. It may take you a few times to find the right person, and a few sessions to get in the groove, but it's so absolutely worth it. Most therapists know how to gracefully sidestep the "husband thinks they'll be put on trial" problem, and it ceases to be an issue.
And the important thing to remember is this: you are not indicting your marriage by going to couples' counseling. You are simply changing the oil and checking the fluids. Tessa and I have a fantastic relationship, a partnership that amazes me each day, and we still occasionally go.
4. The world's most common fight. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: woman is frustrated because the man doesn't seem to take her seriously, and despite big words about sexual equality, he never really pulls his weight around the house. If they have kids, he occasionally lapses into "Fun Dad" and routinely flouts the structure painstakingly put in place by the Mom.
The man complains she's being a wet blanket, but then he mysteriously disappears when she has to clean up the mess or deal with the kid acting out. When they fight, he easily forgets what they were fighting about, and usually ends up wanting sex, when by that point, the woman is full of resentment and fatigue.
For his part, the man is frustrated because he can seemingly do nothing right. He feels constantly monitored, and perpetually presented with a laundry list of shit he didn't do, didn't do right, or basic flaws in his character. He feels undermined as a parent because the mother seems to have a headlock on Parenting, which forces him to puncture the status quo to have any relationship with the kids.
He wonders what happened to that awesome chick he fell in love with all those years ago, the one who liked having sex, and yes, he occasionally goes for long drives and drinks with friends just so he can have a few moments where it's not so frickin' dire all the time.
I bet if you take away the couples who are in therapy for something specific (an affair, a family trauma, etc.), you are left with 75% of folks dealing with some variation on the theme above. Occasionally you can swap the "husband" and "wife" pronouns and it'll hold true. Either way, it's the same old shit that happens while dating - guy can't/doesn't have to get his act together, girl must force the issue because the stakes are higher - only this time, it's writ large in the landscape of Marriage©.
It's a shitty dynamic and relatively easy to fix, but again, you have to actually fix it. Otherwise your relationship starts resembling a fucking beer commercial, and then you should really just hit each other over the head with a shovel.
5. Nobody is who they were in 1989. I don't know about you, but I'm getting to the age where some things in my life happened a LONG TIME AGO. Don't worry, twentysomething lurkers, it's mostly a good thing. But if you're in a long-term relationship, and you're looking for the person you knew fifteen or ten or even five years ago, that's your issue, not theirs. You have changed too, and they've had to deal with it. Maybe you aren't as attractive, maybe you've gotten slightly racist, maybe you repeat stories without knowing it. Typically, they're doing the best they can with who you've become as well.
That said, you do get extra credit for trying harder. When we presented our case to our future mate, we sold them a bill of goods both present and future - and that "future" promised at least a modicum of fun. You are both owed that dividend. You are both owed some fun, and there are no takebacks, no erasies, and if you grow complacent and melt into inertia, you're not allowed to be surprised by the outcome.
This is not the dress rehearsal, this is the performance, and we're well into Act II. To me, the scariest part of Dante's Inferno was the initial Gate of Hell, populated with those who "lived without infamy or praise" - the neutrals and waverers who lived in constant anguish because they had chosen lives of total inconsequence.
That always seemed unfair, so I had another explanation. To me, they were in Hell because they broke one of nature's basic rules: they had not asked for what they wanted.
I would add another great saying that rings true..
"If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."We had a wonderful woman marry us who required several meetings of premarital counseling before the big day and I think often of what she told us to always remember.... you should consider your marriage your first child and nurture it well. It deserves just as much attention and concern as your other children and perhaps more.
Just my two cents..
Great entry.
You should write a book about this (as if you hadn't thought of that...)
Well, the "World's Most Common Fight" never happens in my house. We have a veritable assortment of OTHER themes for argument. . . .not sure what that means . . . . We are unique in our marital strife?
I like what Neva said. I may stitch it into a sample and hang it on my wall!
hmmm.. i guess we have a variation of most common fight even with no husband.
i know that I am like you say in that a switch goes off in my head and i'm done. i've always been like that. but most of my friends (gals) have always said that they're not like that.
for me when that happens, there's no going back, for sure, but i do take forever to get there.
how about yall?
@LFMD -- Neither do my husband and I have the "World's Most Common Fight" as Ian described it. Most of our fights center around 1) financial issues, and 2) sometimes oppositional views on aspects of child-rearing.
Ian, I agree that couples counseling can be an excellent tonic, if not a life-saver. For many women I've known, the major problem is simply getting their guy to agree to it. Some never do. It's a shame.
So what's the relatively easy fix for #4 Ian?
LFMD and Anne, if you two don't have the World's Most Common Fight, what's the secret your husband is doing that he's still getting sex and BJ's. I don't want to sound like the "shark boys" from yesterday but it seems they struck a cord that Ian acknowledges. Neva, how does a guy go about making MAMA happy when she's not making DADDY happy?
Boy. . . .I never said that my husband was getting any. Just that we don't argue about parenting and household work.
I think you've summed it all up nicely. Now what do we do?
We don't fight - we just get annoyed with each other. My husband feels the need to be neater than I do, but he's unwilling to constantly straighten up after me. I feel the need to be cleaner than he does, and therefore I spend a lot of time spraying Lysol on the countertops. (And the never-ending laundry that comes with 3 kids. That's actually what I'm doing now.) Does that make sense? He's an organizer but not a cleaner and I'm a cleaner but not an organizer. It works for us.
LFMD, you are funny.
Rebecca - if all you can come up with is getting annoyed over cleaning, I'd say your situation is damn near perfect!
I should clarify: Occasionally there is some romantic action in the LFMD house. Usually it occurs when there have not been arguments/slights/stresses/irritations throughout the day, and each of us is well-rested. In other words, the planets have to align perfectly.
You know who is really funny? That Eric Massa. I have been laughing about him all week.
LFMD, thanks for the clarification. Ian, it seems you just HAVE to do a poll tomorrow (anonymously, of course) to gauge the frequency with which people are "getting it on". Ask folks to be honest, but to give up some relevant details like approximate age (late 20's, mid-40's), whether they have kids, whether a spouse stays home and frequency of the deed on a weekly, monthly or annual basis. Should be interesting. Although I suspect LFMD will answer as herself!
Ian, did you read in my Tar Heel emails my reference to the song in the title of today's blog? I used the same preamble as the "prayer" for my son's 4-year-old basketball game. I thought it was funny. Got some blank stares, though.
As for today's topic, I always get to ask the question posed by "Just a Boy" during depositions where there is a loss of consortium claim and I always have to choke back my desire to scream "bullshit" when I hear a deponent talk about how he was having sex 5 times a week before the car accident. I'm looking forward to the suggested topic tomorrow. I reserve the right to call bullshit, though, if any of you are getting laid five times a week!
And "Just a Boy", you're too late--LFMD already did answer you . . . sort of. Smile.
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/03/10/couples_therapy_laurie_abraham/index.html
Just a boy - I suspect if Mama is happy she's more likely to feel like making Daddy happy, but just a guess.
I don't mean to make it sound easy. It certainly is not, but I suspect that in the old days of going out dates and talking and laughing and spending time together may have more likely led to Daddy being made happy Now that may have given way to tiring work and thankless tasks of menial crap that you both have to do which just doesn't lend itself to romance very well but to exhaustion.
That still doesn't really justify makoshark's wife's unreasonable response to his asking to go to counseling, by the way. That's pretty sad.
I would wonder though when he first met her if there wasn't some warning that this person may be a little bit in it for the "stuff" aspect and somehow that was overlooked or even okay when he was getting whah he wanted out of it but now it's not so great?
Love doing some back seat analysis on people I don't even know. Feel free to ignore me.
GFWD, your email inspired me to listen to that song, which led to today's title!
Makoshark, I hope you don't think today's entry was aimed squarely at you. I've been slightly haunted by your predicament for a couple of days now, and want you to be happy.
Just a boy, I think many factors play into frequency. In my experience, men are pretty much always ready to go. The planets aligning is more a female requirement, no? As for planetary alignment at my house. . . a)interaction earlier in the day has been positive or issues have been resolved, b)his interest isn't expressed as purely physical need. It's got to be that he's in lust with me 'cause I'm so darn hot, c) should be some quality guarantee. I wouldn't be up for it as much as I am if I didn't know I always get to go first, d) oh, and I'm not completely exhausted by caring for kids.
Came in late to the discussion on Gottlieb's book.
Only thing I have to add to all that is, odds are everyone who wrote those glowing and negative reviews Ian quoted were all in Gottlieb's literary women's support circle, and their intent was to make the book controversial so people would buy it. All the rest is details.
I know in my house, I'd be a lot more willing to get "romantical" if my hubby did a few of the things he knows I hate to do. For example, please put your own dishes in the dishwasher. If you can manage to rinse them off, why can't you lean over and put them in the washer. And when the washer is full of clean dishes, put them away without my having to ask. Throw your recycle cans, bottles, etc. in the bin instead of stacking them by the sink. Give me a foot rub without any other intention than giving me a foot rub. Offer to put the kid to bed without my having to ask as the times you are home to actually participate are few and far between. That's it really. I don't think I'm asking too much. I like to feel like more than the maid and nanny.
It's a good thing my husband does not read this blog.
I too would be very interested in a frequency poll! I know what my planetary alignment equates to . . . Very curious what it is for others.
An interesting sub poll would be frequency while dating vs. Now.
"Give me a foot rub without any other intention than giving me a foot rub."
AMEN, Sista!
An addition to the poll: How long you've been married or in the relationship.
Ian I certainly did not think that today's post was all about me, I'm not nearly that narcissistic. I do appreciate your thoughts and the advice of you and others.
I really really appreciate the last few days of the blog and the posts, you may not realize it but it has been extremely helpful to me, seeing my thoughts written out and having others input.
Even though, as you said, today's post was not aimed at me, it was very helpful and had some things I needed to hear. thank you