I am happy to say that I am a cool wife. Yep. By this I mean that I am neither a doormat nor an evil shrew. I don't take no abuse and I don't give any. If I ever do by mistake, you had better believe I apologize and I mean it and I make darn sure it doesn't happen again and I expect the exact same from my husband. I try to enjoy life and spread the joy around, and the number one person that I love is my husband, and so, when you love someone, you want them to be happy, and making them happy would feel good and that good vibe would bounce right back at ya and there you'd have it, a happy scene, a happy home. It is totally ok to open yourself up to love giving and love receiving and being COOL to someone! Don't be sucky! Don't allow yourself to be treated wrong! Speak up immediately, immediately, immediately, say HEY! Thats not cool AT ALL! and explain. Be able to hear the same from your partner. BE COOL TO OTHERS!
Allow me to extrapolate: I do not get pleasure by seeing to it that my husband is deprived or beat down or depressed or feeling lower and/or crappier when I am around. I do not degrade him, diss him, hate on him, roll my eyes at his jokes, boss him like an evil substitute teacher, treat him like a servant, rain on his parade, ignore him, berate him, isolate him, control him, embarrass him or do passive aggressive manipulative stuff to him. Sick! Would you like that? YUCK!
Common decency starts from the moment you wake up. Throw everything you ever read in the women's mags and all the demented stuff you learned on MTV and Doctor Drew and Doctor Phil and just start by being a good roommate. Then move up to friend. Then maybe youll get promoted to lover--teehee. Remember who you love and why you love them and above all treat others the way you would like to be (and deserve to be!) treated.
If you do not love them or all you can do is sit there and huff and think "he needs to read this, not me" then you need to go to counseling or consider splitting up. Its 2007, it happens!
I repeat the bit about a decent roommate, because here is what decent roommates do that so many long term couples still cant seem to handle: SHARING and CARING! Yes, people, you are only 50% of the little bubble that is coupledom, and that means 50% of the housework, the back rubbing, the helping, the alone time, the active listening, and the REMOTE!
Work out deals. Constantly. "If you do the dishes Ill do the folding"...negotiate
"If you get that crap put back in the garage I will bring in all that crap from the attic and we can go through it together"...negotiate
"If I do this entire horrible bathroom will you go get us sundaes?"...negotiate
"If I get to sleep in tomorrow, you can on Sunday"...negotiate
"What shows would you want to watch if you had the house all to yourself? This is what I would watch...lets work something out..." negotiate
"I seriously cannot plan one more menu. Please help me think of food to buy and I will help you with your___ that has been driving you nuts"...negotiate
"Can we cut a deal regarding me not doing these dishes tonight?" (sexy wink) LOL
I could go on and on. But seriously! Why and when did being super mean and distant and or/evil and power mongering and controlling and seething become the standard year 2 until death or divorce way of treating each other?
I am a *cool wife* because I see how happy my husband is to be with me, to live with me, to hang out with me--HELLO--what about the fine and simple art of HANGING OUT?
There are no excuses for not trying this. There are no lack of babysitters, because you want to know another secret of me and Steve? We have a special date night almost every night. We celebrate e v e r y t h i n g. We celebrate things such as:
Its the weekend!
I worked late tonight!
Its halfway through the week!
I think my cold is getting better!
We didn't bounce any checks!
I love my new haircut!
I love your new pajamas! Go put them on for me!
We have leftover pizza AND pop AND ice!
I TiVo'ed something ridiculous on VH1 for us!
Lets do a fire in the fireplace!
Survivor is on tonight!
I don't like to reveal quite this much about my private private life. It feels a bit freaky. But what I don't like even more are all these lovebirds who are being so bad to each other. Life's short, folks. Find happiness in yourself, and spread it on. It really is ok to be a cool partner/roommate/spouse. In fact, its totally contagious ;)
Happily married to my little twin starbaby since August 23, 1996
About Me
- Housefairy
- I have been a young Mama and an older Mama. I have been a homebirthing Mama and a 3 time c-sectioned Mama. I am very cutting edge and very old fashioned. I am married to my high school sweetheart and we have five children whom we homeschool with a very eclectic approach. I am a reformed closed-minded/ know-it-all AP/granola snoot who doesn't play those Mommy Wars anymore. I am first and foremost a feminist kindred spirit and friend to mothers, with a penchant for all things colorful and human and real. I am an interesting character and so are you. You will not like everything I have to say but I hope you visit often and can find something useful or good or true out of my writings.
10 comments:
Thanks for this post. It's made me realize that sometimes I am just a bit too "used" to being around my husband and that the ordinariness and the time shouldn't keep us from enjoying each other in fun ways. Wow that was a very convoluted sentence!
I've been stewing this over in my mind all night (except, of course, when I fell comatose into my bed). I even told my husband last night, "I feel like I am not a very interesting or fun person right now." All I want is to be left alone, to be able to sleep without interruptions, to have no one touch me or bother me. Just for a little while. The hardest thing for me is the unyielding-ness of my mothering. I really truly love Zari and love taking care of her. I don't resent it at all. But...sometimes it is hard that I am the only one that can comfort her at night, the only one that can nurse her. I can't roll over and put a pillow over my head when she fusses at 1 am (which is what dh does) and let someone else take care of it. And that makes me tired sometimes. Which makes me crave sleep. Which makes me less of a fun person because I don't care about fun! play! or anything like that. I just want to hole up in a little sleeping cave for a while.
Sorry for the morose post...just thinking out loud here.
I love how you describe the cool wife that you are.
I'd been feeling very unappreciated for a long time. When I finally pointed out how wrong I felt this was I found out that dear hubby was feeling the same way. So we've been trying to appreciate each other more.
Right at this very moment he is with Julia at a dance class. This is one of the jobs that I used to do that he's now taken on. He also picks her up on Sunday from a class and picks her up on Thursday from choir practice. In return I wake up early to take Julia to her Sunday class -- it's Sheldon's only day to sleep in (and he used to drive her to this one)!
Anyway, my point is that we've split up some of the kid related "chores" and we feel better about it. We went on a date to see a movie the other night - that was very cool.
It's easy to forget to "hang out" with your mate after 12 years together!
Trish--thats so awesome! So many people can't even talk about this kind of stuff with ther mate, I think they are so afraid of unleashing all sorts of dissapointments or fears or resentments and so they just let stuff fester and then whoopsie its ten years later :(
I am super happy for you and Sheldon, you are both hilarious and vibrant people and it is really easy to picture you two having a super *cool* marriage.
Rixa, oh Rixa
I worried that I didnt put enough cluses in there for the very real and very life consuming baby-fatigue, and that I was lacking a bit of "full disclosure" when I wrote this.
So let me say this: Each baby knocked me on my ass and out of comission for ---can I be honest--including pregnancy? 2 years. I was a puke dog for the first half or more of pregnancy, then huge and beastly, then bloody and hurting, then no sleep ever ever ever, then feeling flabby and bitter and over-touched, then slowly, a little bit cooler, a little bit funner, baby sleeps longer, Mom gets to do a few things here and there, feeling like my brain is being used through my blogging, having people over and staying up late again, caring about stuff like tock n roll again, doing fun hairdos, TAKING SHOWERS!...
It takes time. It really, really does. Charlie is 23 months old now and I could never have written this post last year. I was a considerate wife, a friendly wife, but still 100% a nursing mom and baby duo in pajama bottoms, trying to find my car keys amongst the dirty dishes.
Im still tired, but not that bone tired thing where you want to as you put it, hole up in a little sleeping cave. I think you are doing terrific.
Thanks Joy.
It's not so much the fatigue, but the grinding escapeless-ness that makes me wish for solitude. It's hard to express this because it might sound like I want out, which is TOTALLY not the case. Just sometimes at night I wish I could pass the job on to my husband! That's really what I want. But the reality is: I am an incredibly light sleeper. He is a very deep sleeper. Zari usually needs to nurse to go back to sleep.
So basically, even if I wanted him to help, I'd have to shake him a few times until he woke up, then I'd have to explain v e r y slowly what I need him to do (rock the baby, etc), and then I'd be so wide awake that it would not be worth it. So much easier just to roll over and nurse her back to sleep.
Oh dear. This is starting to sound like a complain-fest. I honestly don't resent mothering my daughter.
And Trish--so true that it's easy for both spouses to feel unappreciated! It's really no fun being all pouty, like: "I work so hard and you never notice that I do X or Y." It just makes you both miserable. So why do we do it? LOL I totally agree with Joy that being nice and fun and appreciative just makes the other person, and the relationship, so much better.
Oh...I'm such a bad not cool wife...tell me how to not be so crappy, LOL. Well, last night I was actually an awesome goddess of good wife sexy goodness, and since it's been like 3 months I am suddenly like scary nice wife...but yeah...usually I am mean cranky, "Why are you so LAME?!" wife...I am disturbed by how much I've fantastized about Seth Green lately...GROSS> this post makes no sense. You are an awesome wife...me, not so much.
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Bull...
Unoriginal advice....Sounds just LIKE what Dr.Phil would say AND the girly magazines. It's great to be optimistic at most times, but it is VERY normal to annoy eachother just a little bit and just have that unspoken understanding that if I just called You a Butthead and you called me a Fartknocker in the heat of an argument, it's okay.We don't have to dote,apologize,or feel like we're SOOOOO UNCOOL
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