He Said
While having a conversation with a group of people last month, one of the gentleman was scheduled to be in an upcoming wedding….his own. One of the guys in our mixed crowd of men and women went on to describe how much your life changes after you get married. Now I know that marriage means different things to different people. Men see life and marriage one way and women see life and marriage another way. We could debate this till the world ends. But I don’t have time allocated in this space to do that, so I will just share with you how life, the way you knew it, ends on the day you get married.
This will not be directed at everyone, because everyone is not the same. But generally this is how it goes.
One day you are a free spirit. You get up, you do your thing, you eat when you want, you change clothes, you don’t change clothes, you go to bed whatever time you wish, you sit on the porch, you lay on the couch, you eat what you want, and so on and so on. The day you get married you lose all of your freedom of choice. You now have a partner in your decision making and you have two choices. One is you continue to do what you want as you always have and just suffer the consequences or you open your life to someone else who now makes all your decisions for you. Your spouse decides what you wear, what you eat, where you go, when you go, how long you stay, and the list goes on.
Now let me just say this about my wife: none of this happens in our marriage. This is just what I hear happens in other marriages, not ours. Our marriage is totally independent, always even keeled and always in agreement with one another as long as the moon and the stars are in alignment. So far they have been in alignment for two years. For other people though who are not as gentle, loving and caring as my bride, I just wanted to let them know what to expect when THEY get married. I need to go now, since I know she wants me to drive her to the mall, Lowe’s, and Wal-Mart today.
She Said
You are so full of yourself. Reading what you have written reminds me that marriage is a two- way street and what I as your wife has had to give up.
No, wait a minute. Let me describe for you as you like to say, what SOME women lose or gain when they get married. Not me of course. What was a carefree life of shopping, wearing what looked good, not what someone else insisted that I wear, watching what TV shows I wanted to watch, going to see the kind of movie that I wanted to see, buying the kinds of food that I want to eat are just some of the things that women give up when they marry.
Women do gain things in a marriage though. They get to iron more clothes, wash more dishes, cook more often, share their paychecks, listen to boring stories, over and over again, and hear complaints about everyone they know from their husband. They get to hear about how bad everyone drives, how the country is being run so poorly, how life has treated them compared to their friends, and the list just goes on and on. Women are expected to clean the house, take out the garbage, mow the grass, wash both cars, and look pretty as a picture when their husband arrives home from work. They are expected to want to sit on the porch and drink tea even though the bathrooms need cleaning and the laundry needs to be done.
This is just what I have heard of course, I would never suggest that this is the way our marriage is or has been. No, I think in your mind all of the stars and moon are aligned in order and our life is going pretty much like you expected it to go. More than likely if you took a survey, 90 percent of the men would say life is good with their wives. Why do they think that? Because we let you drive us to the mall, Lowe’s, and Wal-Mart and to you that is your good deed for the month and you feel you have satisfied us completely.
What else could a woman want out of life?
Right?