I still don't get it ...

The Bloggess' $100 revenge chicken-
Why exactly is this funny?

This story on the Bloggess has been making the rounds of my Facebook friends for the last few days.  Most of the comments were something along the line of "hysterically funny" or "this reminds me of something my husband did last week."  When a friend summed the story up as "I failed to communicate with my husband, and so I decided to plot revenge," one of his friends responded


First of all, they did communicate. She said, "We need new towels," and he said, "No, we don't." What's the solution there? If you've got one, please share, because I don't know a married couple who's found it. Do they need new towels, or not? Who decides? Is there a tie breaker vote someplace? Should we have the vice president or the lieutenant governor come down to provide it? Or maybe you think the "new towels" controversy serious enough for her to spend an hour explaining to him why he can't continue to dry his ass on the giant rag with holes in it the size of his ass that he's been using for that purpose for the last seven years, but trust me, if he don't already get that, an hour ain't gonna change it. Perhaps they should get a divorce, since clearly they have a fractured marriage fraught with dispute. (*tongue clearly in cheek, because look, anyone who HASN'T had an argument over buying new towels or something similar ain't really married, they're probably just living together in the same house and keeping separate checking accounts or something*) Here's the answer -- are you sitting comfortably? -- THERE ISN'T A SOLUTION. Like the other three hundred things most commonly fought about in marriage, there's no tie breaker vote, there's no "logical" answer (because, btw, there's no universal standard that determines the timeline for towel replacement), and both sides are probably pretty convinced of the rightness of their argument. At some time or another, just to break the tension, most couples resort to a giant metal chicken, metaphorically speaking. If you don't move that revenge vibe right to the surface, and quickly, it lies underneath, festers, and eventually throws your husband and his ratty towels (or your wife and her extravagant spending) right out of the house. Here endeth my rant on marital events.  


I agree with the friend who called revenge; I've never had this experience.  My husband and I have, over time, divided our life based on areas of core competency, and we trust each other to be adults and good stewards in those areas.  Towels are firmly in my area of competency, and if I say we need new ones, he agrees.  Likewise, if he says we need new fixtures for the bathroom, I agree.  Depending on the budget, we might not race out and get them this evening, but I would never dream of telling my husband that we don't need a new shower because the slight water leakage doesn't bother me and it works fine besides that.  I trust him to know what we need in that department.  If a new area comes up (and there will be many once the babies come), we discuss it together until it becomes apparent whose area of core competency it fits in to.  And no, they're not all as gender stereotypical as my example above - I do all the retirement savings and investing, for instance, and he does the pet care.

I certainly don't understand why spending $100 on a chicken shows her husband why she's competent to determine other maters of household expenditure.  Sounds to me like she just shot herself in the foot for $100.  Let's be honest - we all enjoy getting even, but it only works if the other person can't retaliate.  In marriage, you've got a lifetime of opportunities for retaliation, so getting even is pretty silly.  But maybe I just don't have a sense of humor - what do you think?

Why the First Year of Marriage is the Hardest

Disclaimer: I've only been married 5 years, so if you think it's really the 10th or the 25th, I can't contradict you:) But it was definitely the hardest year so far for us, in part because of external factors, but in part because of this stuff that I believe is universal to every marriage.

(1) The person you wake up next to every morning is the only person you will be having sex with for the rest of your life.* Intellectually, you are prepared for this. Unless your religious beliefs prohibit it (and sometimes if they do), you have probably already taken this person for a test drive and are pretty sure that you can live with what you got as your only nookie for a lifetime. Emotionally, though, you may not be. Most of us get some emotional validation out of new sexual partners or potential sexual partners, and you have now signed up to forgo this validation forever. Chances are you thought you were past this ... until temptation strikes and you realize you aren't. Or perhaps it happens to your partner. Either way, minefields all over.

*This is not true for open/polyamourous/multiple marriages. But I don't have one of those and the chances that you do are vanishing slim. If you have one, and its lasted past the first year, I'd love to hear your version of this issue.

(2) All your problems are now your spouse's, and vice versa. That cute little habit he has of going out with the boys every Thursday night? It's now coming out of your budget. Same for her need for a new designer purse every month. Bigger problems, like mental disorders or addictions, can no longer be glossed over. Your spouse may have promised you, with the best intentions in the world, that s/he will quit. This year is where you find out if s/he can do it or not, and whether or not you can live with the answer.

(3) Your baggage from your parents' marriage is different from your spouse's baggage from their parents' marriage. And yes, you both have baggage, all of which will be landing on the other at the same time, as you try to understand why they are not behaving like "normal married people" (i.e. your parents). Some people's parents' marriage(s) is/were so dysfunctional that they have baggage about their baggage. But I am not really talking to them - they generally already know there is a problem in this area. I am taking about really little things - like being annoyed that your spouse does not fix the leaking toilet (even though they have previously displayed no aptitude in this area), which you are subconsciously expecting them to fix, because that was the job of your parent of that gender. Sounds silly - but it happens. I thought that it didn't matter to me whether my husband was employed ... until he was suddenly unemployed, and I discovered a whole pile of buried stuff about who was supposed to be the breadwinner in the family, even though I had a well-paying job with excellent benefits at the time.

These are all I can think of for now, but I am sure there are more - What were your big challenges in your first year of marriage?