Okay - be honest with me. How many guys out there have said that about their wives, girlfriends, significant others? Show of hands: Okay....one...two....20...30...100...1000. Wow! We must have real bitches living with us!
Hang on a minute - before you start sending hate mail and egging my car and house, keep reading. Believe it or not, this blog is STANDING UP for the ladies - yes, I am taking the girls' side on this one.
I have a Russian friend - Ukrainian, actually. I met this young fellow as he had tasked me to do some Java and database work for him. Really nice guy. However, this is not about him.
I have always been fascinated with the Russian language. It looks cool, sounds cool, every Russian person I have ever met, I have found them intriguing. So, I want to learn the language a little better. I went looking for audiobooks - the library in town here allows you to check them out over the web and they have a DRM embedded in them. They 'bomb out' after 14 days. If I looked a little harder, I would like to find away around that, just to say that I can - but that is for another day..
Anyway - I was looking for a book on Russian phrases, and I literally stumbled across a book by a woman named Cathi Hanauer called 'The Bitch In The House - 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage"
I remember hearing about this book on NPR a while back - They interviewed Ms Hanauer and she was quite interesting. She told of the gals that she interviewed for this book, from all walks of life - younger, older, richer, poorer, slender gals, larger plus-size gals - 26 in total. One for every letter of the alphabet perhaps?
Well, I listened to this book over the last few days while I was helping this Russian fellow as well as a fellow from the UK and another in Portugal.
The stories were told by the women themselves and their voices were filled with emotion. Sometimes resentment, sometimes happiness, sometimes sorrow. The main two subjects - relationships and kids. The relationship dialogs were the ones that really got to me. I think that being guys we are programmed to really do two things: procreate and provide. If you strip away all of the higher thinking, the logic, the learned common-sense and the fact that we won't pay attention unless there is a plate of chicken wings or some naked naughty-bits involved, that is really what us guys are. Hunters and collectors.
Now, I would never pretend to be an expert on marriage or relationships. However, I have been married twice - the first one was like a constant monsoon of fighting and bickering. I don't really think we even liked each other. Maybe in the beginning, but it quickly turned very sour. I am not going to point fingers, but the expression "it takes two to Tango" comes to mind.
Girls are brought up believing that there is a Prince Charming out there that will sweep her off of her feet and carry her away into the sunset living happily ever after. Boys grow up having a constant erection from the time they are 12. They watch porno and believe that is what women want. They look at girly-mags and think all women are submissive and just want to get naked with them and moan like an animal.
Both of us are wrong - so, so very wrong.
Although Price Charming is from a fairy-tale and pornography is choreographed and the naked girls in the magazines are air-brushed and spend 3 hours with a beautician before hand, most of us are real people. We have real feelings and do not come out of a magazine or fairy-tale.
I think that women are programmed at a very basic level to be maternal, to be caring, to be nurturing and to give birth to babies. Then they are programmed to take care of those babies, no matter what. They look to us guys for protection and help. That is good, it makes us feel important. It boosts the self-esteem that was destroyed by our Step-Monster when we were kids. So, these are good things. However, when we sit on our asses watching football or hockey when the kids are screaming because they are bored, then Mom gets a little pissed off. When Dad says "..I will be home at usual time..." and he wanders in the house 2 hours late, smelling like cigarettes and beer, of course Mom is going to be pissed off. When the faucet drips or the sprayer hose in the sink doesn't work and Dad says "..yeah, I will get right to it...". Then when the kids are out at a friends' place or Dad is home all day by himself and Mom walks into the house and Dad is either playing Halo 3 or gawking at streaming porn on the web, Mom gets really, REALLY pissed off! When things like this go on for weeks, months even years, the resentment and anger builds and builds and...
You get to keep your '74 Vette and she gets the mini-van. You see the kids every other weekend and celebrations. She stays in the house because she has the kids 75% of the time. You move into a swingin' bachelor pad.
Now here is the really, REALLY funny part. You wake up one morning, all your clothes are dirty, you are going to be late and you say to yourself "...how the hell did I get here?? Where did my marriage go wrong....??"
Wow - us guys are freakin' clueless. I will be honest, at 43 I am just figuring this out. After listening to these stories that these women told, it made some little switch in my head go 'CLICK!' . A loud, almost deafening click. It opened up a little door and inside that door there was a sign. This sign said: "Did you ever stop to think that what YOU are doing is making her angry?" You know what? Yes, I probably do things on a regular basis that get under my wife's skin. One of the women in the book said "I don't WANT to have to take care of another kid, either - I already am busy enough with the two that I have". I know my missus has said that to me. Also, wandering in the door one night, she had this stressed-out anxious look on her face and her hair was all messy - like the tired cartoon duck or cat or hen mom that I used to see in Merrie Melodies as a youngster. I laughed and told her the story and at least got a chuckle out of it.
In closing, I want to quote one of the women in the book. She was of the Judea Faith and she spoke of something that her Rabbi said to her when she approached her Synagogue as she wanted a traditional Jewish wedding. He said to her the following:
"If you want to get married, I can give you two pieces of advice . One: decide BEFORE you get married if you want to have children and how many you want to have. Two: love the other person more than you love yourself and treat them as such. You and your future husband follow those two basic rules about marriage, and you will be fine. You will be happy forever" .
I may have misquoted a little bit but I think I get the basic advice that Rabbi was giving. How many couples are out there where he doesn't want kids but she does and vice-versa. How many couples out there take the other partner for granted? I can think of two or three couples right off the top of my head that I know for a fact did not follow those two basic rules and they are either divorced, getting divorced or separated and cannot stand each other now.
Hey, I am not perfect. I make many, MANY mistakes. My missus and I share each other's lives. I try to tell her what is going on with me and she tries to tell me what is going on with her. Sometimes you 'sit on' things for a while because you know it is going to be painful when it comes out, but after it does, it can make or break your relationship.
I am going to tell my wife that I love her and that I appreciate having her around. She is sticking by me during a very tough time for both of us.
Oh, all of you - read the book - or sign out the audio book. All couples - do this - please.
Peace - Glen
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