If It Was Easy, They'd Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon

by Jenna McCarthy

  But marriage isn’t that easy. You didn’t just sign a month-to-month lease here; now you’ve gone and entered into an inexhaustible, legally binding contract to live with this one person (forsaking all others, for crying out loud! What were you thinking?) for all of eternity or at least until one of you is finally able to rest in peace. (Yes, my husband snores, and yes, there really is always at least a kernel of truth in jest.) When you said “I do,” you weren’t promising to honor and cherish him for the next five minutes or five years, but forever. That’s a hard concept to really grasp when your hormones have taken you hostage and you’re consumed with thoughts of honeymoon souvenirs and the jaw-dropping offspring you could produce together.

  Let me give you an analogy. Imagine that the next time you go shopping for a handbag you discover there is a new law in effect: The very next purse you buy is going to be the last purse you are ever going to be allowed to own. (There could even be a tiny loophole where you might be able to return it, but it will be complicated and expensive and besides, by then you will probably be comfortably used to the stupid purse, even if it has definitely seen better days and no longer goes with anything else you own.) Obviously you are going to put great thought and effort into finding the best bag on the market. You claw your way through dozens of different models until you find the Goldilocks of purses: not too big, not too small, handsome, versatile, and priced just right. As you lift your eyes to heaven celebrating your good fortune in landing this dream bag, ask yourself how you think you might feel about it forty or fifty years from now. Then envision the bald, bitter, broke bastard who—if you’re among the fortunate, slight majority—will still be sharing your bed.

  So basically, you’re stuck. The man you married is yours to have and to hold for the rest of ever, even if he starts chewing tobacco or decides to pierce his hairy nipple and buy a Corvette, because you very plainly said—or at least implied—you were in it for better or for worse. Sure, you could always get a divorce, but that’s generally messy and costly and in many ways, redundant. (How, you ask? Consider that roughly 75 percent of women who divorce will eventually remarry and that, sadly, that second union is even more likely to fail than the first one—at an exponentially increased rate to boot. See? Redundant.)

  I don’t care how handsome or fabulous or funny the groom is, or how sweet and accommodating the bride, or vice versa. Marriage is hard. Mating for life? Totally unnatural. In fact, only about 4 percent of all of the five thousand species of mammals on the planet even attempt it. The rest of them shack up for anywhere from a single sexual encounter up until the kids leave the nest or the den, and then it’s back to the freewheeling polyamorous life. In the very small eternally committed camp you’ve got your beavers, some (but not all) bats, and Kevin Kline. Oh, and geese. Talk about faithful. If half of a goose couple dies, the surviving partner never mates again. That kind of loyalty just isn’t in our genetic makeup.

  And yet, no matter how difficult or deviant it is, we go for it anyway—out of loneliness or fear or sometimes even honest-to-God, soul-stirring love—and then we proceed to spend the rest of our lives driving another human being crazy.

  In my worst marital moments, everything is my husband’s fault. You know, for being a slovenly, sex-obsessed, singletasking, remote-control-monopolizing, wannabe race car driver who half-finishes projects, can’t remember a date, and doesn’t listen to a word I say. He, in turn, accuses me of never shutting up, being impossible to please, focusing on the negative, and insisting on detailing—daily—the many ways in which he makes me miserable, as if a running gripe list were something I swore under oath to maintain when I said “I do.” (I didn’t?) When I manage to acknowledge something considerate or helpful he’s done, he points out that I usually can’t resist employing the ever-popular “Thanks, but” construction. (“Thanks for doing the dishes, but next time could you use Super Sparkle Clean to wipe the table and not Regular Sparkle Clean?”) Fine, he’s right, I’m a total bitch. But—and here’s where the playing field gets leveled—he married me for better or for worse. So there.

  Now, I’m not saying I think we’re all doomed to coexist in eternal misery because we were never meant to mate in the first place. I’m also not suggesting that women should learn to settle, or work hard to cultivate their inner bitches just to annoy their annoying husbands back, or stop asking their partners for the things that would make them happy. And I wouldn’t dream of telling a friend who’s in a helplessly miserable marriage: “You made your bed, sister.” I’m simply acknowledging that marriage isn’t always easy and advising that we might want to start seeing it for what it really is: a wholly unnatural state that’s difficult at times but frequently has several bright spots and is occasionally better than the alternative.

  I’ve been with my husband for thirteen years, married for ten. Am I happy? Mostly. Back in my optimistic twenties, before I had experienced the joy of nuzzling up to another person’s unbrushed teeth every single morning for fifty-two consecutive seasons, I would have thought that was just about the most depressing thing I’d ever heard, the emotional equivalent of being told your new $200 jeans make your ass look “fine.” (And not the sort of “fine” followed by a long, low whistle and a request to see them in a puddle on the floor; I’m talking about the painfully curt, totally dismissive, goodenough sort of “fine” that leads you to purchase a gently used elliptical machine on eBay.) But after a while, reality sets in and you decide that mostly happy is good. In fact, relatively speaking, it’s great. No, it’s a Blessed-Virgin-in-your-grilledcheese-sandwich sort of miracle.

  Here’s a two-part exercise you can use to confirm your own Mostly Happy Wife (MHW) status: Let’s suppose, just for argument’s sake, that your husband has this super-insane, god-awful-stupid, totally annoying thing that he does. (Okay fine, he’s got eleventy billion. But we’re talking about that one that he does repeatedly, the one that makes you want to chop off his head and stick a rusty dagger down the neck hole.) Mentally write his name and his infuriating habit/quality on a scrap of imaginary paper. In a minute, you are going to toss it into an invisible bowl roughly the size of Texas. But before you toss in your scrap, peer inside the bowl. Here’s a glimpse of what you might see in there:

  “Todd: Picks his nose and wipes it on his jeans.”

  “Carlos: Calls me by my mother’s name when he is pissed off at me.”

  “Ruben: Eats peanut butter from the jar every single day with his finger.”

  “Freddy: Carries toothpicks everywhere and thinks it is acceptable to gnaw on them in public.”

  Now you have two choices: You can throw your scrap of paper in the bowl and pick another one at random, or you can keep your own. (No, you can’t throw your scrap in and bolt for the state line; that’s cheating, not to mention weak.)

  I’m going to guess that you’ve decided—perhaps grudgingly, but still—to keep your own lovable little scrap. Congratulations! You are indeed an MHW! (If you considered, even for a nanosecond, opting for the trade-in, you need counseling or an attorney, pronto.)

  Part II of the Texas Bowl exercise is especially fun because you get to picture your fantasy guy. (Wait! Not yet; we’re still talking about your husband.) Now, despite the flaw(s) you are still fixating on from Part I, chances are the man you chose to marry has some other quality that is lovely and sweet and endearing. Maybe he fixes your coffee exactly the way you like it, even though the entire barista community secretly mocks you and your maddening fourteen-point order. Perhaps he takes out the trash without having to be nagged asked, or makes a mean pot of chili. Maybe he simply doesn’t routinely spray you with spit when he chews. Whatever. Find something. Got it? Good. Now picture your dream mate, the one from your recurring fantasies of domestic bliss and happily-everafter. Could be Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, the dude at the car wash, your sister’s hunky husband, Marilyn-freakshow-Manson if he floats your boat. Who am I to judge? Now, ask yourself: Exactly what do you think are the odds that Bradze
lyn doesn’t do the annoying thing and actually does do the charming thing? My hunch is that they’re slim to none. Remember: No matter how sexy he is or how perfect he seems, there’s at least one gal out there who loathes him deeply and wouldn’t dream of putting up with his shit if you paid her. Your husband is no different (and conversely, there are women out there who will find him relentlessly alluring, as impossible as this may be to fathom at times), and you married him “for better or for worse.” Unless he hurts you, has sex with someone other than you without your blessing, or smells really, really bad, chances are it’s not worth trading him in.

  This book was written to remind you of that, over and over, in glorious, honest, sidesplitting detail. I’ve sought input from women around the virtual world to detail the many maddening ways of the men we’d miss terribly should they be abducted by aliens.

  You know how good it feels when you tell your best friend about a ghastly spat with your husband and she not only says just the right soothing, comforting thing but fires back with her own battle tale that’s thirteen times more fabulous than yours in its horror? This book is her—but you can curl up with it night after night and laugh until you cry and your husband won’t give you grief about yet another two-hour phone marathon with your best friend.

  Joe always wonders why I frequently come home from my too-infrequent Girls’ Nights Out feeling particularly frisky. He probably assumes it’s the booze, but here’s the real reason: It takes only a few hours with some married friends, listening to them bitch about their dreadful husbands, to make me realize I dodged some nasty bullets when I landed mine.

  So when my otherwise lovely life partner is relentlessly gnawing on my last frazzled nerve, I am going to conjure the best stories I’ve heard and try to be grateful anyway. To love him even if I’d much rather be folding laundry or enjoying a nice Pap smear. To cherish him like I effing promised I would. And when he leaves the empty lemonade pitcher in the refrigerator after he polishes off the last refreshing drop, or thoughtfully deposits his stinky basketball shorts directly next to the hamper, I am going to beg myself to remember that it could be much, much worse. To wit: Peppered throughout this book—plus in a final glorious roundup chapter at the end—are true tales from the marital trenches, here to remind us all just how good we have it. (Relatively, at least.) Just look for the handy “At Least You’re Not Married to Him” icon. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll count your connubial blessings like you haven’t since your honeymoon. You’ll come to appreciate tiny gestures—your husband’s putting on deodorant or actually replacing the toilet tissue roll after he’s used the last square—that you may never have even noticed before.

  On that note, a little heads-up to the dude who never, ever brushes his teeth and his wife loves him anyway: You might want to step it up in every other marital area possible. That gal’s a keeper.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Can We Talk?

  Obviously Not

  If love means never having to say you’re sorry,

  marriage means always having to say everything twice.

  • ESTELLE GETTY •

  Just last week, a newsletter I read regularly arrived in my inbox with a headline heralding this terrifying bit of news: COMMUNICATION KEY TO GOOD MARRIAGE. Heart racing, I clicked through to the story, vastly relieved to discover that it was referring to a recent study conducted by the National Association of Advertisers looking at the “marriage” between client and agency. I mean, can you imagine if they’d been talking about men and women and the actual holy sacrament of matrimony? (The study also pointed out the benefits of having an objective third party in the room, which would certainly come in handy in the domestic arena. “Why don’t you ask her if that’s what I said, asshole.”)

  Maybe it’s just me. Maybe my relationship is truly unique in its never-ending struggle over the basic exchange of ideas and information. Remember that old Far Side cartoon, the one with the guy talking to his dog? Under the first picture is the caption WHAT YOU SAY TO YOUR DOG, and the speech bubble coming out of the guy’s mouth reads something like this: “Okay, Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage or else!” Under the next picture, which is identical to the first, there’s the caption WHAT YOUR DOG HEARS; that bubble has this inside it: “Blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah . . .”

  Now I’m not calling my husband a dog exactly, but seriously, we do seem to have a hell of a time relaying ideas to one another. For many, many years, I operated on the assumption that Joe simply has a smaller capacity for both using and processing words than I do. If you want indisputable proof that my theory was wrong, ask him for details about the collapse of the S&L industry or the history of the Raiders or the plight of the beautiful but endangered red-shouldered hawk or anything else he’s passionate and knowledgeable about, and he’ll chew your ear until it’s bloody. But if you want to know how he feels when we get denied the bank loan we desperately want, or what sort of legacy he hopes to leave behind when he’s gone, or how he thinks his parents’ divorce ultimately affected his ability to foster and maintain lasting, meaningful relationships, good luck getting a single intelligible nugget out of him. If someone came out with Conversational CliffsNotes for Relationships, I’m sure my husband would happily buy the entire series.

  In addition to his aversion to verbalizing matters of the heart, Joe tends to be extremely stingy (he’d probably say “economical,” but the divide over semantics is another episode of Dr. Phil) with his syllables when it comes to basic, everyday chitchat. Whereas I am not merely fond of but one might say driven to lengthy discourse, my husband holds on to his words as if they were hundred-dollar bills and he’s hovering on the brink of bankruptcy. This verbal imbalance frequently results in exchanges in our home that sound a lot like this:

  JOE: “Did you order the Office Max stuff?”

  ME: “Well, I looked around and found the printer cartridge cheaper at Staples, but you had to spend fifty bucks to get the free shipping, so I did the math and realized if I bought some more stuff it would actually be cheap—”

  JOE: “Yes or no?”

  ME: “I have all of the stuff in my cart—”

  JOE: “So, yes?”

  ME: “Well, I still need to find the model number for the fax mach—”

  JOE: “So, no?”

  ME: “Oh my God, you are impossible to—”

  JOE: “So, no.”

  In my multitasking mind, this is not a yes/no question. Sure, maybe the bottom line is that I haven’t ordered the goddamned supplies as of this particular moment in time, but there are mitigating circumstances! Explanatory details! Titillating shades of expository gray! The shortest answer I could possibly give is that I haven’t (and I’d be happy to explain why) but I will (and allow me to tell you when). Alas, my listening-impaired husband doesn’t want a story; he wants an answer. A simple, clear-cut, one-word, yes-or-no answer. And while I understand this on a fundamental level, that tiny detail kicks my ass every single time.

  “At Least You’re Not Married to Him”

  My husband starts all of his sentences with the word no. Even when he is agreeing with me, he will say “No . . .” It’s like a transition word for him between thoughts or sentences. It’s totally annoying.

  CATHY

  It’s taken me many frustrating years to accept the fact that my husband believes “Yes” is an acceptable answer to questions such as “Should we stay at your dad’s or in a hotel next month?” or “Do you want pork loin or chicken cacciatore tonight?” For the longest time I accused him of being passive-aggressive, but the reality is there’s nothing aggressive about his typical sort of reply at all. It’s 100 percent passive—and for the most part absent of malice—because he truly doesn’t give a shit where we stay or what we eat. And the thing is, for reasons unknown to me and probably most women who aren’t scientists studying the social-anthro
pological motivations behind universal female drives, I want him to give a shit. If he loved me, he’ d understand I’m tired of making every mundane domestic decision and at least pretend to care, I silently seethe. The thought bubble over his head, of course, would probably read, What’s love got to do with it?

  If he didn’t love me, would he have built me that kick-ass walk-in closet without even demanding a single square foot of real estate inside it where he might stash a handful of socks? Would he patrol our darkened street every other night making enthusiastic kissing noises in an effort to lure home the cat he doesn’t really care for because he knows I can’t sleep if she’s not in the house? Would he agree to spend Christmas Eve sleeping on scratchy, ill-fitting sheets draped over a saggy air mattress just so that I can spend the holiday with one or another of my wacky relatives? Of course not. He loves me, but the truth is he couldn’t care less where we stay or what we eat. C’est la vie. Or at least, c’est ma vie.

  “At Least You’re Not Married to Him”

  My husband is a major pessimist! No matter how positive things are going, he can find the negative in it. Instead of saying that something is going to go well, he talks about everything that could possibly go wrong.

  DEB

  Sadly, the mere fact of Joe’s devotion does not make conversations like this any less maddening: