Dear Joe,
I'm getting married in two months and I need some advice. All my married (male) friends keep telling me that I don't realize what I'll be missing out on by getting hitched. I've been looking forward to settling down but now they've got me spooked. What exactly is it that I'll be missing out on, anyway?
Dear T.J.,
Let's first consider some of the benefits of being married. Gaining a spouse means having someone who will do the cooking and the cleaning. It means having someone to buy the groceries, provide comfort during illnesses, and pick the dirty socks up off the floor. Getting married is like gaining the benefits of a nurse, a maid, and a cook. That is of course, what the woman gets; I'm still not sure what men get out of the deal.
Having entered my fifth year of marital bliss I can say that there's only one aspect of being married that causes me to feel that I'm missing out. It's not the loss of control over my money or my time. After a few months you adjust to handing over your paycheck and appointment book. And within the first year you'll even be able to overcome your anxiety about losing your manhood, which she'll be storing in her purse for safe-keeping. But there is one aspect that you will find it difficult to adjust to. Once you get married you will never again be allowed to take a nap.
For a woman, catching her husband napping is the second worst thing she can catch her man doing in their bed. (The first, of course, is discovering him drinking grape Snapple on the 300 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. Finding him with another woman, however, runs a close third.) Women believe that the only reason a man would want to take a nap is because he is either trying to ignore her or is avoiding spending time with her. The truth is that men take naps because we are tired. Too tired, in fact, to think of more creative ways to ignore our wives and avoid spending time with them.
Unfortunately for us, there's nothing that upsets a woman more than not having her husband's undivided attention. Women crave our attention not because of anything that they are lacking within themselves, but because it is necessary to fulfill their Master Plan of Marriage -- recreating us into the men they want us to become.
What women fail to mention before the wedding is that they would never agree to marry us if they thought we'd remain the same pathetic losers that they first met. Every wife has an ideal of what her husband can be, and given enough time and the proper guidance, knows that he can become. Every minute that he spends being inattentive is, therefore, time wasted.
That is why napping is a husband's natural defense mechanism. We men realize that we are completely screwed up, yet, for some inexplicable reason, we don't feel the need to change. Since we can rarely muster the audacity to openly show disdain for the Master Plan, we have to take a more passive-aggressive approach. By napping we can enter an unconscious state where we don't have to think about our feelings, ponder where this relationship is going, or answer questions about why the floor around the toilet is always sticky.
Of course, napping isn't necessarily our only option. But it's less painful than having our friends put us in a sleeper hold until we black out.
::: yawn ::: I am so staying single.
WAAAAAAYYYY too funny.
There was one exception in our marriage - when we had newborns. My wife was napping too so I could (until our second was born 17 months after our first and the had opposite napping schedules!)
Joe, this is very funny ("Too tired, in fact, to think of more creative ways to ignore our wives and avoid spending time with them"; "After a few months you adjust to handing over your paycheck and appointment book"; etc. etc.).
You are not only a great blogmeister, you have developed into one d--n good comic writer.
Thanks for the free ice cream, sir, it tastes wonderful!
Lol...thanks for the warning!
LOL
My wife lets me nap, but only on two conditions. Either she's also napping, or it's the floor while the kids are crawling over me after supper.
Funny post...Tell TJ that marriage is the best commitment that one can ever make (but then I'm a woman. *wink*)
I tried the "I'm going to change my man to my liking" during the first couple years of marriage (which are always the most difficult to adjust to). But then I realized that I loved him for who he is, not who I thought I wanted him to be.
We've been married for fourteen years now, and every year is better than the last.
Now that I'm going into the 5th year of every night being like a sleepover with my best friend, two things have become apparent to me about men and marriage.
(1) Men tend to project their own marital issues and wife's hangups with "all women" and "all marriages", and in the process using humor to defect some very painful, or at least very annoying, personal domestic and relationship issues; or
(2) I have the greatest wife in the world, who doesn't have the usual bad character traits of other women.
I think its (2).
Joe, this is gold. Great wisdom and insight. Your post was truly enlightening
I've resorted to getting an old lazy-boy in the shed where I can slip away to catch a few zzz's while giving her the illusion I'm being productive working with some tools. I doubt she's fooled, but it's working for now...
Joe, you've finally written something that makes sense! Congratulations.
You haven't mentioned the most dasdardly way that wives conduct husband re-education: the shopping trip. I am convinced that shopping trips to the mall are somehow responsible for the fact that men die earlier than women. There is some kind of quantum time-dilatiobn field in effect there which slows time down for women. So when the wife says she'll just be in the dress shop for 10 minutes but she stays there for an hour, for her the time passage really is just 10 minutes.
Those three or four years of lost male life expectancy are bled away in our nations malls. Years of excruciating agony spent staring at floral dress patterns or being quizzed for advice on which of seven shades of red go better with the wife's purse, advice that is never heeded.
But I am confused. How does this sad reality square with the whole evangelical male primacy in marriage policy? Are you saying that the policy is just a sham, figurehead title that is granted to the male just to provide the appearance that the marriage will provide at least a minimum level of personal dignity for the man? But isn't it then just a cruel hoax?
Background on David Rockefeller's private thinktank, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/cfr_stacks_deck_with_dem_gop_presidential_candidates.htm
and
Dick Cheney (ex-director of CFR) talks to David Rockefeller (short video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnpN07J_zg
Democrat CFR member Candidates:
Barack Obama (also, Michelle Obama is on the Board of Directors in the Chicago branch of the CFR)
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards
Chris Dodd
Bill Richardson
Republican CFR member Candidates:
Mitt Romney
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Fred Thompson
Newt Gingrich
Mike Huckabee (not a CFR member, though he named Richard Haas, president of the CFR, as his adviser on foreign policy)
Joe;
Let me give you something to look forward to. When you get older, naps will become acceptable.
I must be especially lucky, then, to have a wife who enjoys naps thoroughly. Unfortunately, I don't often take them because it feels like wasted productivity, but I'm young yet - I'm sure I'll learn.
Robert,
"But I am confused. How does this sad reality square with the whole evangelical male primacy in marriage policy? Are you saying that the policy is just a sham, figurehead title that is granted to the male just to provide the appearance that the marriage will provide at least a minimum level of personal dignity for the man? But isn't it then just a cruel hoax?"
The answer is found in Genesis, we see the that when God curses Adam and Eve, he tells Eve "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." In other words, part of the curse, part of the punishment for sin, is that there will be a struggle for power between husband and wife.
You call that a struggle? Marriage is as as much of a struggle as George Foreman vs Scott LeDoux was(look it up, you x-ers). When man's best 1-2 punch is taking a nap followed by leaving the toilet seat up, my money's on the woman!
Just to get off topic and write a serious answer, don't get married unless you are Christian and your wife is. I assume you are since you are here and asking for advice, but just posting the general warning.
Maybe I'm just naive due to my continuing singleness, but I refuse to believe that all marriages are like the description above. Actually, I know they aren't, because my parents had a old-fashioned "I am the Man of the House, and my word is Law," type marriage (I say "had" because they're getting all old now, and things are changing somewhat).
I'm just hoping I can work out some kind of middle ground where I'm respected enough that I don't have to ask my wife to pretty please let me have a nap, but where there's also a peer-to-peer relationship rather than just me being overlord.
"...don't get married unless you are Christian and your wife is."
Strange advice. Maybe you are trying to get rid of the competition. Do you seriously believe Muslims and Jews should abandon the institution? I am an atheist; so is my wife. We moved in together long before either of us knew the other was an atheist. That is how unimportant religion is in our personal lives. We have been married over 16 years now. So far, so good.
Very funny! The reality of course (24 years and counting) is that marriage is awesome! My wife is my best friend. The key to being the leader in marriage is to lead. For me this would mean: trips to the mall to shop are for our daughter and any other woman she can recruit. I'm not going there (unless there's a Starbucks and/or a bookstore). Not that there isn't reciprocity on her part. Not once in 24 years has she changed the oil in the car - although she does an admirable job of mowing the lawn.