“So … honey, about that unfortunate incarceration…”

No, too vague.

How about, “So honey, once you make bail you are really going to laugh!”

No. Too flippant.

OK. I’ve got it. “Please don’t kill me and/or divorce me I really, really meant to mail in that speeding ticket payment for you but you know how one thing goes into another and before you know it you find that you’ve tucked the ticket in the visor of your car and completely forgotten to send it until about five days after it was due by mail if you didn’t want to appear before the judge, and oh, by the way, you were supposed to appear before the judge yesterday and of course, you didn’t.”

Whew! It’s a mouthful, but I think it’s believable if I say it fast and, preferably, over the telephone. Long distance seems best.

Mistake. See, I didn’t mean to get my husband in trouble with the law. Not really. I meant to mail his traffic ticket. I really did.

continue reading…

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Tuesday marked the day that my beautiful wife and I got married 13 years ago. It also marked the fourth (fifth?) time we forgot about it and let the day pass without mention or fanfare. Hell, we even wrote it on the calendar and we still forgot about it until yesterday, and even then it was just, “Oops, we missed it again.”

I’m sure some of you are wondering how we could let such an important occasion just slide by. Well, because it’s not an important occasion to us. Sure, there have been years when we have surprised each other with a gift or night out, but just as many that were celebrated with a handmade card, or a note left on the laptop. Here’s the thing — getting married is the easy part. It’s staying married that requires the daily commitment, work, and compromise. Setting aside an extra day to celebrate our marriage just seems superfluous — we celebrate it 24/7. If my wife needs that one day a year set aside where she’s made to feel special and loved, then I’m not doing my job the other 364 days. But as it is, we couldn’t be more devoted to one another, and each envision growing old and frail together. (Jessica, feel free to step in and correct me if I’m wrong.)

So are we just freaks, or does anyone else out there feel the same way about their wedding anniversary (and its little brother Valentine’s Day and inbred cousin Sweetest Day)? Or if you’re the complete opposite, please lend a differing point of view.

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The other day I was talking with a neighbor about her daughter’s upcoming wedding. She seemed a little disinterested in the whole affair, not at all excited or hopeful. I myself love weddings, and had a beautiful one almost two years ago. My mother, aunts, and friends were all giddy about the planning and execution. I offered a few probing questions and learned that her daughter is 20, her fiancé 21, and both are still in college. According to her mother, those factors total up to a big disaster.

When I married at 24 I thought of myself as a young bride. I had finished my undergraduate studies and was about to embark on grad school. I had never lived outside of my parents house, was still working as an intern, and was about to have a husband, new home, and dog. I suddenly felt like an eight year old playing “house.”

Two years later (on July1) and I’m still happily married. Our house is slowly being renovated, grad school is done, my hubby and I still like each other, and I’m totally understanding that whole “money doesn’t grow on trees” phrase. But everyday brings something new — new challenges, worries, plans and surprises.

Then I started thinking about my neighbor’s daughter and fiancé. I do believe in love at first sight (upon meeting my now husband I proclaimed to my best friend that I was going to marry him), but is 20 old enough to enter into marriage? There is a surplus of stories of couples who met and married young, and 20 years later are going strong. But is that a realistic reality today? Are kids being blinded by media images and fairy tales? Are kids growing up too fast? Is divorce as an easy way out common thought before settling down? Is this young couple doomed to fail? I certainly hope not.

I think that a successful marriage is one in which both people grow together. While it might not always be at the same pace or in the same direction, both must be committed to helping each other and making a conscious effort to share the other’s like/dislikes. There is just so much growing, so many experiences to have at the age of 20 and 21. For many people that is the time of late nights, dating, and little responsibility.

My best friend, who is celebrating her first wedding anniversary next month, said something to me the other day that kind of caught me off guard. “Marriage is hard. It’s hard EVERYDAY.” Mind you she had a couple drinks and is just coming off of the first very trying year, but if it’s that difficult for her at 26, how will this 20 year old fair?

So let the discussion begin — is 20 too young to get married? Is there some minimum age requirement that should be reached before getting hitched? Or are some just destined for happily ever after (with dedication, compromise, and good old fashion love)?

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“Quick! Dad is on the way home,” my siren like voice echoes across the kitchen, until it reaches the little people who are comfortably resting on the couch and taking in all the Sponge Bob that their little minds can handle without spontaneously combusting. This is the cue that all of my children have been trained to recognize as the signal to get off their lazy keysters and help me get the house in order before Dad walks in the front door.

You see, in our humble abode, the kids and I have a little agreement. I allow the cleaning to be carelessly tossed to the wayside while we engage in cooking lessons, educational bridging exercises, kiddie pool wading and various summer fun activities. The way I figure it, trying to keep the house clean while the kids are present and involved in the messy business of being children, is pretty much a losing battle. Choosing to fight such battles just makes for afternoons filled with nothing but bouts of hair pulling frustration and frantic attempts to erase muddy footprints with the mop before the next stampede of puddle jumpers descends upon the family room.

Why bother?

That is where my husband and I disagree. He is the advocate for preventative cleaning measures and holds the same ideals of keeping a perpetually tidy house, as every other clean freak in the nation.  If he only knew how truly disgusting the house becomes every weekday, from the hours of 7:00 am until he returns home, he would probably have a conniption fit. In fact, I have to keep myself from laughing, on the weekends, when I see him anxiously twiddling his thumbs in the corner of the kitchen as he watches us leisurely go from the first meal of the day to the first activity, without so much as a sweep or table scrubbing. He can only go so long, without asking if “I’d like some help tidying up the area before it gets too bad.” Usually I will oblige his need for immediate sanitation satisfaction, but sometimes I will tell him that I’ll get to it in a minute, just for the fun of watching him pick up a towel and peevishly start scrubbing dishes. It is mean, I know. Hey…after ten years of marriage, I have to find some way of paying him back for refusing to use the laundry hamper for the disposal of his soiled garments, over and over again!

Lucky for me, the husband has a knack for finding a bigger, better more efficient way of doing event he tiniest of household chores. Then, when I finally do get around to picking up a mop, there will be a more efficient way of getting the job done, in less time!  Thanks to his freakish enjoyment of inventing these methods, I have my five o’clock cleaning routine whittled down to a silky smooth forty minutes. His method even leaves me with five extra minutes to check my email and start dinner. When the mess-a-phobe…er, husband comes through our front door, he sees a clean house, a sane mother, dinner on the stove and is none the wiser. Bwahahaha! But please, keep this between us. It may ruin my ability to sneak in some occasional day time blogging and then life, as I know it, would be much less enjoyable. Shhh, it will be our little secret!

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I’ve got a confession. I’m getting married on Sunday.

I refer to my domstic partner as my husband because it’s easier than typing “oh my domestic partner was all, yeah let me change that poo diaper and THAN give you a back rub!” It’s easier that explaining what the hell a domestic partner IS. I’m not even sure, but I know it gives us health insurance and is exactly like being married [complete with pointless dramatic fights about who does the dishes] minus the paper. I ENJOY being domestic partners, and if it were up to me I’d float around in my domstic partner shaped bubble oblivious to things like dress fittings where you’re told to “not get any fatter…” and arguing about whether to sit divorced parents near each other.

But everyone wants to see us married, sort of like they want us to baptize our daughter so you know, we don’t end up in Limbo or hell, or wherever we will go.  I agreed to do it, fine, and my father with all his alcoholic guilt is paying for a large wedding, a large wedding we are not prepared for. We have the centerpieces, the flowers, the menu, the seat charts, I even lost 2lbs [actually, I may have gained it back at Mothers Day brunch] but um, we didn’t get our marriage papers yet, and we still have no one to marry us. I’m all for an afternoon in the court house wearing a comfortable sundress, but I’ve been threatened by members of my family that that shit ain’t going to fly. It’s my fault too, for procrastinating but I don’t see what the big deal is?

See, my families lovely. Whether we are domestic partners, or husband and wife. To me, my partner IS my husband. He’s my love, and my best friend. We are more happy than people I know who are getting married, or already have done so! I want to keep my last name anyway, I want to have a party with endless Shirley temples and pink rose petals as partners, and the creators of the most beautiful little cherub in the world. I don’t want to scream at husbandpartnerdude because we BOTH are procrastinators and waited to long to do this, I don’t WANT to think about our parents [both sets] who have chosen to either hit the road, or get re-married sitting next to each other, and feeling awkward the entire time. I just want to be happy.

They are bursting my little bliss bubble. This is the imperfect wedding.

Are you married?

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Have you ever seen that AT&T wireless commercial — the one where the dad is always traveling and he takes along his daughter’s stuffed monkey.  You know, the one where he takes pictures of the monkey while traveling and sends them to his wife and daughter?

As my husband and I get closer to procreating, I’ve realized that the cute AT&T commercial will be very close to my reality.

Working in the field of environmental engineering, my husband has to travel A LOT!  We’re talking 40 weeks a year, give or take.  He is mainly in the US, but travels to Canada and Bermuda on a regular basis.  While I know that our situation is not uncommon on the whole, it is among our circle of friends and family.

I typically get one of two reactions to our situation –

I don’t know how you do it. That would make me crazy! or

You’re so lucky! I wish my spouse traveled! Are there any openings at his firm?

For the most part, our situation works for us (or we made it work??).  Our time apart makes our time together even more precious and exciting.  I like having alone time.  I like doing things my own way.  I have always been a very independent person, and I fancy myself a type of Wonder Woman.  I can fix minor electrical problems.  If there is a plumbing leak I can usually find the source and remedy it.  I’ll haul and move heavy objects — and don’t you dare tell me I can’t.  I’ll mow the lawn and shovel the snow.  I’ve even learned how to landscape with those big ol’ machines.  I can operate his big manly truck with ease while hauling the four-wheeler, and slip on a dress with heels for a business meeting two hours later.  I can multi-task and take care of myself, my husband, my career, our dog and home.  I take care of the logistics of our life.  And while I can get overwhelmed at times, I think I really thrive on it.

But as we get ready for the next phase in our life, the “it won’t be just the three (dog included) us of” phase, I’m starting to get a little uneasy.  How will my husband’s hectic traveling schedule fit into family life?  How will I manage doing all of the above when there is a little one attached to my hip?  And more importantly, how will I stop myself from resenting him?  He’ll get to leave town, sleep in a quiet hotel, dine on the company’s dollar, and worry about taking care of no one but himself.

The only other couple that I personally know with a situation similar to ours has not faired well.  There has been infidelity, a complete breakdown of communication, and the traveling spouse has a less-than envious relationship with their children.  I know I have an amazing husband — kind, sensitive, supportive, and hard-working.  He loves children and has a wonderful relationship with his parents.  There are HUGE differences between us and this other couple, but it has to make you wonder how much affect a traveling spouse has on a marriage and family.

So my question to all of you out their with a traveling man (or woman) — how do you make it work?  Am I overreacting, or being proactive?

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So, I’m checking my mail and a little headline on Yahoo News catches my attention. Your Man’s Infidelity Triggers. Knowing very well that this article is going to do nothing but piss me off, I click on it.

You really need to read it for yourself before I continue. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

All done? OK, now let me tell you the REAL 5 reasons why men cheat. It’s hardly as nuanced as Dave Zinczenko suggests it needs to be, and it’s from a real bona fide mental health professional, too.

1) He’s an Asshole (or a Shithead).
If he thinks his big job and big salary are impressive enough to give him some sort of right to cheat, because he’s Mr. Big Bucks or something, and can he won’t get caught because of his invincibility cloak, then he’s got a genuine delusion going on, or he’s an asshole.

2) He’s An Asshole.
Oh, poor baby can’t handle a promotion, it’s too much stress to be successful! Whaa! Whaa! He needs to spend his money on a hooker to fuck and then unload his problems to? He’s an asshole.

3) He’s an Asshole.
His wife doesn’t give him the attention he wants? She’s too tired from caring for his offspring all day to take care of her biggest baby? The kids are noisy, the house is hectic? Does he think SHE likes it there, if those are the living conditions? If he’s not man enough to deal with a little bit of family chaos, give his wife a break and instead cheats on her, then he’s an asshole.

4) He’s an Asshole.
Yeah, we all like being flirted with. It’s fun, it does make us feel sexy, but the fear of it leading to cheating only happens if he’s an asshole.

5) He’s an Asshole.
Has he been hanging out with Spongebob’s Patrick under that rock? Does he have a legitimate mental delay? Because that would be the only other explanation for really believing that cyber-sex isn’t cheating or that he can’t be caught. If he’s not really lacking in the IQ points, then he’s just an asshole.

There will always be challenges in a marriage. There are lumps and bumps to work through. But, any man worth keeping will address problems he’s having with his partner and work through them, not be distracted by the first shiny thing that comes along. Same holds true for women. But, this article was written FOR women to explain why men cheat. And didn’t give “asshole” as even one reason. Articles like these are just scare tactics. People read them and see some of their relationship in at least one of the characteristics and get scared. Most men do not cheat. Most women do not cheat. And pretty much everyone will come across at least one of those obstacles and will not cheat.

So, you see, we really don’t need Dave What’s-his-name to give us any sort of insight into the mind of a man who cheats. It’s pretty plain and simple. Dave What’s-his-name just lost a ton of credibility points with me for that article. There is no need to explain off unacceptable behavior, and lists like this, trying to explain it off, well, it’s just insulting. Cheating is wrong. It’s bad. It’s immoral and grounds for divorce. What’s next, a list explaining why some men beat their wives? Or why some men molest children? There is only one explanation—they’re horrible people. I was actually being kind by calling them assholes.

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Gestalt is a learning theory. It says that we learn things in wholes, not parts and pieces. That we experience the “aha” moment when the entirety of a concept is absorbed and understood by the brain all at once. I had one of those Gestalt “aha” moments very recently and it erupted into another and another, like pop rocks in my head, leaving me in the end with the certainty that my future son-in-law will be a bald man with a bright blue arrow tattooed on his head and a pet bison.

There are things about our present selves that we can trace back to our childhoods. I’m not fond of spiders because of a traumatic encounter with one when I was little. The smell of root beer makes me gag ever since my older sister smashed a tube of Bonnie Bell root beer scented lip gloss into my mouth and I swallowed and was sick for three days. Obvious situations where cause and effect are easy to see. But, there are other things that we believe are just pieces of ourselves that we were either born with or that we formed consciously through our lives out of intelligent choices we’ve made along the way. The mate we selected to spend our lives with might be an example of that second option. Or our career path might be another.

I’ve been married for 16 years to a man who looks a lot like every man I’ve ever had a crush on. I am a woman with a particular type. Examples of that type would be: Matt Dillon, Robert Downey Jr., Ben Affleck, Tom Cruise, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and the list goes on and on—basically baby-faced, dark haired, dark eyed guys with crooked smiles. The one man I’ve had a crush on who didn’t fit that mold is blond, Scottish Ewan McGregor. I’ve always been rather proud of that because it shows I’m not completely predictable. Then I started watching interviews with Ewan McGregor and realized that while he looks nothing like my husband, they share the same soul. Particularly along the lines of the motorcycle racing, car enthusiast, and of course Star Wars stuff. When I heard Mr. McGregor state that his favorite sports movie was that horrible Le Mans monstrosity with Steve bore-me-to-death McQueen, I knew that I was truly hopeless. If the man doesn’t LOOK like my husband, then he just is my husband on the inside. My crushes all lead back to the man I spend my life with, day in, day out. I guess it’s kind of comforting, it means I really did marry the right person.

But, then we saw the trailer for the new Speed Racer Movie, and my husband brought home a DVD of the old cartoon that he and I used to watch as kids, in our separate houses, cities … states apart from each other. Never knowing of the other’s existence while we sat on our own seventies-décor couches, warbling along with the jaunty theme song, separated from each other by space and time. I was excited for the opportunity to share this cult gem with our own kids, but as I watched that first episode unfold, my body tremored with the shock of the gestalt moment hitting it full force. I married Speed Racer. I wed this man at the ripe age of twenty-two not because of any divine intervention causing our paths to cross at that particular time in our lives. Not because we were meant for each other in some deep bio-metaphysical way. But, because that’s just how long it took me to sort through all the other men in my path and come across a real life Speed to take home and call my own. The similar physical features, the exaggerated expressions of surprise, the penchant for hurried over-explanation, and the way he seems to stand perfectly still for just a little too long. Finally, there’s that common passion for racing, but for my husband, it’s on the Xbox in our livingroom with that Forza game, not for real. I’m not Trixie, I don’t have my own helicopter to fly around and save his ass if he crashes. It was all too eerie. This also explains my chimp aversion, but that’s a whole other issue. Speed was my first crush and apparently my last as well. My destiny was set, in my own house around 3:30 some random weekday afternoon, likely with a glass of milk in my hand, when everything in my body decided that I would settle for nothing less than the cartoon man I saw on the screen. Isn’t that romantic?

Well, it could be but, does this happen to everyone? What about my kids? I let my mind wander briefly, wondering how their television viewing patters might influence their future preferences in a mate, since as far as I know, this has never been studied. BAM That damn gestalt again. My 9 year-old has a crush on the kid from Avatar for as long as I can remember. My 13 year-old’s first love was Velma from Scooby Doo. My toddler’s current love IS Scooby Doo, but, if that’s too disturbing then we can go back a year to when she was all about the Teletubbies. Oh, my God! The airbender, I suppose I could tolerate. The Avatar guy is kind of cute with that new-age Asian thing going. He’d be fine to have around. The prissy know-it-all redhead would be a pain in the ass for a daughter-in law, but I guess if she gets too uppity I can always hide her glasses and laugh while she crawls around on the floor looking for them. Truth be told, a boy could do worse for himself. But, I absolutely need to start choosing cartoons for the little one more carefully or we could have a Thanksgiving dinner twenty years down the road with an obese gay blue man wearing a tutu carving our turkey for us. That would on the whole, most gestalty suck.

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Like a lot of kids, my youngest son is prone to blurting out riveting observations at any given time. Fascinating things like, “You’ve got a blue shirt on!” and, “Mom’s at work!” Thanks, Commandant of Perspicuousness! While hanging out in our basement playroom this morning, he pointed at the laundry room and said, “Penny [the cat] just went in there!”

I asked, “Went in where?”

“Into Mom’s Laundry!”

I like that. I like that very much.

This is common knowledge for us old timers, but here’s a tip to you newlywed men out there: if you want to someday be able to retire from doing laundry, simply feign incompetence. But this is not as easy as it sounds. If you are of reasonable intelligence you can’t go the bumbling idiot route or she’ll never buy it — for instance, a red sock in the load of whites is way too obvious. No, you have to be more subtle. Use a bit too much or too little laundry soap, use the wrong water level or temperature, forget the dryer sheets, and my absolute favorite, consistently fold items in a neat but completely wrong way. It will be a needling irritation that builds and builds until your wife banishes you from laundry duty forever.

You’re welcome.

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