The Longest Date: Life as a Wife

by Cindy Chupack

  “Exactly,” he agreed. “That’s what I like about it.”

  He reminded me that he didn’t watch sports, which is how most married men escaped. He didn’t go to strip bars. He didn’t drink much. He didn’t play golf. So once in a while, he smoked pot. “What’s the big deal? You do things I don’t like,” he pointed out.

  Wait, what?

  We were now on very thin ice because, once again, I was about to ask a question that I might not want to know the answer to, but I forged ahead. I asked him to name anything he didn’t like about me, because, unlike him, I would be willing to change to make him happy.

  He replied that he would never ask me to give up anything. Especially something I enjoyed.

  Smart answer. This is why you should never marry a lawyer.

  My rebuttal: “You wouldn’t ask, because there’s nothing I do that bothers you in the same way.”

  He considered for a minute and then muttered, no, there was something. I braced myself. Snacking? Snoring?

  “Reality TV,” he said a little triumphantly.

  I felt that was completely different. In fact, it wasn’t until I found myself up late at night a few days later watching Little Chocolatiers (a TLC show about two little people who are married and run a chocolate shop) that I realized Ian might be right—reality TV might be my drug of choice.

  But just as there are various forms of pot, there are various forms of reality TV, I now explained to him, and some shows are good for you. Some inspire you to dream big and master a trade, like Project Runway, Top Chef, and HBO’s Cathouse. Surely Ian didn’t want me to stop watching Cathouse, the show about the gals at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada. That was benefiting both of us.

  And some programs, I went on, make you feel good by showing you the power of transformation, like The Biggest Loser (which, I did not mention, I sometimes watched while eating dinner) and What Not to Wear (the British version, because the British stylists don’t publicly flog you when they find t-shirts and leggings in your wardrobe).

  Some shows, I had to admit, were empty calories, but I still ate them up. These included The Bachelor, America’s Next Top Model, The Real Housewives of Atlanta/DC/Beverly Hills, the reunion specials of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and any season except the first of Jersey Shore. (That first season was not empty calories, it was a cultural crash course on guidos and guidettes, and I remain its staunch defender.)

  And some shows you had to watch because everyone else was watching them, like The Amazing Race, Survivor, The Voice, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars. I didn’t watch all of these shows all of the time, I pointed out, and I certainly didn’t bother watching the results shows.

  Ian was concerned that I even knew the term “results show.”

  I told him I could see how some shows, when combined with other shows, might be too much of a good thing; for example: Hoarders and Intervention, Ultimate Cake Off and Cake Boss, Dance Moms and Toddlers & Tiaras, Wife Swap and Supernanny, Little Chocolatiers and anything. . . .

  In fact, based on this list, it could be argued that I was watching an inordinate amount of reality television. And Ian did argue exactly that. He said I was watching so much Intervention that I might need an intervention. But that show, I insisted, was full of valuable cautionary tales for parents-to-be.

  For example, from Intervention I learned that if you didn’t ever tell your kid you loved him, he would turn to meth. He might not know that’s why he was turning to meth, but if you only had said “I love you” a few times when he was growing up, he might not now be shooting up in your basement. And if he was shooting up in your basement, you had to kick him out. Stop bringing him soup. Stop loaning him money. Stop driving him to his dealer because you’d be less worried that way. You had to help him hit rock bottom, and then when he did, you and the rest of the family (including overweight cousins and the ex-girlfriend who met him when he was homeless and still somehow ended up being disappointed in him) had to read him a letter itemizing how he had hurt you, and why he needed to get help, and then, when he tried to leave the room shouting, “This is bullshit!”—that’s when you told him you loved him! And because he had never heard those words from you, he would crumble into your arms and go to rehab and get his life together.

  “Thus,” I fumphered, “we should say ‘I love you’ often to our child. But if we don’t, we can use it later for leverage.”

  Ian had by now convinced himself that my habit was in fact more harmful than his. So I brought out the big guns—Extreme Makeover: Home Edition—a guaranteed cry every time they “Move that bus!!!”

  I love Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Especially how the family members cover their eyes and scream when they first see their house, and again when they see the inside, and again in every room. All of the families, regardless of race or circumstance, cover their eyes and sometimes drop to their knees when the house is revealed. I think it’s part amazement, part relief. This worry that they’ve been carrying around—how to provide for their children—has been lifted, and they can finally release all of the emotions they’d been holding back because they were trying to keep their family intact.

  Maybe that’s what I liked about the show, I patiently explained to Ian—the idea that a worry could be lifted. Although I still did worry for the families on the show. I worried what would happen to that youngest boy, the lover of science, when he grew up and brought a girl home to his room. How would he explain the giant microscope he’s been sleeping under for ten years that the Extreme Makeover team custom designed for him? Or the dinosaur bed his teenage foster brother was still sleeping in across the hall? Did Extreme Makeover do Extreme Home Redecorating?

  Ian wasn’t sure what point I was making anymore, and frankly, neither was I, so I punted: “Honey, there are sick children living with mold, a girl who can’t be exposed to sunlight needing special windows so she can move from room to room, children who have only torsos who need an elevator so they don’t have to elbow their way up the stairs. And then there’s you, a perfectly healthy man living in a beautiful home who ‘needs’ a man cave, and to get into that man cave he wants a bookshelf to slide open when you remove a certain book.”

  Ian conceded the bookcase was optional. What wasn’t optional, apparently, was the fact that we both needed an escape from each other from time to time. All married people do. All of America does, measured by the popularity of reality shows. And if I was any indication of the state of the union (marital and national), viewership is up when you’re down.

  Regardless of whose avoidance strategy was healthier (mine), we could see that either, taken to excess, had the potential to hurt us more than heal us. So in the spirit of limiting our avoidance of each other, we both cut back. And Ian agreed to occasionally watch reality shows with me (and not make fun of them) when he was high, and I agreed to occasionally watch action movies with him in the Escape Pod when he wasn’t.

  It’s not a perfect solution. I still wish Ian would give up pot completely, and he still wishes I didn’t wish that, but that’s the reality of marriage.

  And despite these occasional rifts, I know I would not want to be married to anyone else, not even for a week.

  I know this because I watch Wife Swap.

  Our Romance Is Going to the Dogs

  I remember crying in the shower. It was our first real impasse as a married couple, and I could not imagine how it could end without one of us having to move out. I hoped it would be the St. Bernard.

  I will explain in a moment how, in our first year of marriage, Ian talked me into getting not only a dog, but a St. Bernard. As soon as we got home with this panting, slobbering beast, I knew we’d made a terrible mistake. I was hopeful that Ian might come to the same conclusion, but that didn’t seem likely given that he was on the floor rolling around with a giant fur ball that may or may not have contained our dog. (Did I mention the s
hedding? There was a lot of shedding.)

  Despite the dog’s flaws—which were not so much “flaws” as “traits,” Ian explained patiently, which worsened when the dog was nervous, and he told me I was making her nervous (I was making her nervous?)—despite her traits, Ian was already madly in love with Tinkerbell.

  Yes, he liked the idea of naming her Tinkerbell, aka Tink, because she was so tiny. Ha ha ha help.

  I couldn’t say I hadn’t seen this coming. Well, I hadn’t seen a St. Bernard coming, exactly, which is ironic because you can see a St. Bernard coming from quite a distance. It’s not like a Chihuahua, which you might miss and almost step on because it arrived in a purse. I’ll say this for St. Bernards: they never arrive in a purse.

  But I knew some kind of dog was inevitable, because when Ian and I had just started dating in New York, he talked a lot about wanting a dog. And I encouraged him, because I liked the idea of a boyfriend with a dog. It says good things about a guy if he can love and take care of a pet. I imagined Sunday brunches at outdoor cafés, Ian’s scrappy little dog at my feet, having given me the full canine seal of approval, which would make Ian love me even more.

  But Ian didn’t feel it was fair to keep a dog in his tiny East Village apartment when he was working such long hours. Yes, the same apartment where I lived with him for two months was deemed unfit for a dog.

  When we finally started looking for a larger New York apartment to rent together, I was so giddy that we were officially a “we” I didn’t balk when Ian told our real estate agent that we needed a building that allowed pets. She felt that would limit our choices considerably and asked what kind of pet we had. That’s when “we” went back to being “him” and “me,” because I wanted to see as many apartments as possible. We were starting a life together; we might want a doorman, a view of the river, a loft. . . .

  I was distracted visualizing the SoHo Us versus the West Village Us when I realized Ian was telling our real estate agent which breeds he liked, and how much our imaginary dog might weigh, because some buildings have weight limits. She smiled, which was not easy for a woman who had undergone so much plastic surgery, and asked if “pet-friendly” was a deal breaker. I said, “Not really,” and Ian said, “Yes.” That’s when I realized this dog issue might come back to bite me in the ass.

  I can feel the dog lovers among you starting to hate me, but I am not the villain in this story. I grew up with dogs. It just didn’t seem like the time to get a dog when we were officially moving in together for the first time and had plans to travel. And then we got married and moved to my place in Los Angeles, and Ian wanted to have a baby right away, so again, it seemed the responsible thing to do was to have the baby, then get the dog.

  Ian was frustrated by the dog delays, but he agreed to wait six more months and see how things looked on the baby front.

  At six months exactly (Ian must have marked his calendar), we didn’t appear to be getting a baby anytime soon, but apparently we were now scheduled to be getting a dog within the next few days. Ian would wake me every morning with candidates from dog rescue Web sites. When I suggested we talk about it more, he suggested we take it up in therapy.

  This was especially annoying because couples therapy had been my idea. I thought it would help us iron out a few differences before we got married, like our feeling about houseguests. Ian wanted the same open-door policy he’d always had with friends and family, and I wanted the privacy and boundaries I’d established as someone who worked mostly from home.

  The truth is I still thought of Ian as a houseguest. I was still surprised to see him every night and, even more so, every morning. It was a nice surprise, but it took some getting used to. So I felt that, under the circumstances, I was being extremely open to having guests in my home.

  Of course, I felt lucky to be with a guy who was willing to go to therapy and confident enough to use my own therapist, since most men think your therapist will automatically take your side. I knew my therapist was a very wise, very fair person who probably would take my side in this case, because she knew how challenging it was for me to look out for my own interests. If I was this concerned about a dog, surely she would agree that Ian should defer to my wishes.

  But the bitch agreed with Ian.

  She agreed with him after all the years I’d spent in her office, all of the boyfriends who had been on her couch. (Seriously, almost everyone I ever dated had been to therapy with me, usually right around the time that I knew we should break up. Ian was the only man in my life with whom therapy had led to a stronger beginning rather than a quicker ending.)

  My therapist reminded me that I had promised Ian six months, and those six months were now up. She asked what I was worried about.

  I admitted that I didn’t like the idea of having to walk and feed the dog just because I was the one working at home. Ian said he would do all of that or get a dog walker to help. For how long? Forever. It would be his dog, and I could just enjoy it without any responsibility whatsoever.

  I told her I was afraid it would be the end of romance. Ian said the dog would never be on the bed, and it would not mean less love for me; it would mean more love for all of us.

  I said I worried the dog would be needy. Ian said that’s why he wanted to get a big dog, because big dogs are less needy.

  I was out of objections, and we were out of time. It had been fifty minutes and three years.

  We were getting a dog. A big dog.

  Just as there are Big and Tall shops for men, there’s a place to get big and tall dogs. It’s called Gentle Giants Rescue and Adoption, and I think I was in denial when Ian drove me there because I couldn’t tell you where it was, only that it took us about two hours to find it. It is run by Burt Ward (the Burt Ward who was Robin on the TV series Batman, Ian enthused), and when we arrived we were “greeted by the herd.” This is a tradition at Gentle Giants, because Burt wants you to get comfortable with the idea of large dogs, so he seats you on a bench and releases a herd of dogs that bound toward you as if you are dinner, and then, if you haven’t blacked out, you notice tails wagging and heads lowering so you can pet them, and eventually the herd wins you over, although I think it’s part charm, part intimidation.

  Then the interminable audition process begins, and we were not the only people adopting a gentle giant that day. We agreed to let the folks with kids and dogs go first (your old dog is required to meet your new dog) before we realized that the canine candidates had to be brought out one at a time for health reasons. I’m not sure if it was for their health or ours, but Burt Ward’s wife even changed her t-shirt every time she brought out a new puppy.

  The puppies were deceiving, because all puppies are small. Buying a puppy at Gentle Giants seemed to me like buying a dinosaur egg, so I was relieved when Ian explained, when it was finally our turn, that we wanted a dog who was one or two years old so that we could bypass the puppy stage. He thought a puppy might be too much work, since we were trying to have a baby.

  I began to think Ian might actually be capable of making this decision for us in a loving and logical way, and I’m embarrassed to admit that possibility hadn’t occurred to me before. It also hadn’t occurred to me that I might be the villain in this story. That’s the problem with getting married: it’s like looking into a mirror twenty-four hours a day. Your spouse reveals all of your flaws—not by pointing them out explicitly; just by being there. I have never enjoyed looking in a mirror. I always focus on what I don’t like more than what I do. And now I was living with a mirror. And in that mirror I saw a control freak who didn’t want to let her husband get a dog.

  To be fair, Gentle Giants had great dogs—Great Danes, Great Pyrenees—and in that company a malnourished eighteen-month-old St. Bernard can look downright petite. And she was a “small” St. Bernard. I saw this as one of her most redeeming qualities, but I gather if you’re in the market for a St. Bernard, she looks like t
he runt of the litter. It wasn’t until we got her home that I realized we had the biggest dog in the neighborhood. And by neighborhood I mean the 467 square miles that comprise Los Angeles.

  When she put her paws up on our outdoor balcony (as she loyally would when Ian would leave each morning), she looked like a person in a dog suit. And judging by the amount of hair I would vacuum up each day, it’s amazing she still had the dog suit. Maybe the drool kept everything in place.

  There was one not-so-terrible side effect of having a dog in the house. It now seemed, to me, that Ian and I belonged in the space and Tink did not. This was our space, our sanctuary. The dog had become the houseguest I hadn’t been prepared for, which meant Ian had moved up in rank to permanent resident. It was me and Ian against the world.

  But Ian didn’t see it that way. He saw it as him and Tink against the world. Tink, being a rescue, had been in several homes already. Not everyone was game for taking care of a St. Bernard, especially a St. Bernard who was going to rack up some large veterinary bills before she was completely healthy.

  In any case, Ian refused to give her up. He refused to be another human who disappointed her. It was an admirable quality in Ian, and it was also why I took to crying in the shower, where Ian couldn’t see me. Except it’s a glass shower, so he did see me (the mirror sees all!) and he joined me, and held me, and looked at me with equally sad eyes. He knew what I knew—there was no good solution to this problem. Then Tink padded in, and she didn’t join us in the shower, but she had the same sad, swollen-eyed look.

  It was not until later that I realized that it was not a look; it was a trait.

  But at that moment, in the bathroom, I knew I had to make it work. And once I made peace with the fact that Tink was not just a houseguest, she stopped drooling and shedding and panting. I guess I was making her nervous. She sensed she was on the bubble.

  I hesitate to admit that it was me who finally invited her up on the bed.