The Secret to a Long, Happy Marriage?

My parents just celebrated their 41st anniversary. Think about that for a second: 41 YEARS of being married! To the same person!! (Embarrassing side note: last year on my blog I congratulated them on their 30th anniversary. Soon after my mom asked me, “How old is your brother?” Um, 39? Why is she asking ME? Ohhhh… I get it. Sorry, I inadvertently shaved a decade off their marriage. Math was never my strong suit.)

Anyway, I think we can all agree that being married for several decades is a major feat. There are some days I marvel at staying married to MY husband for 7 years. Like on days he calls me at 4:30pm and the kids are screaming and fighting and starving and I’m counting down the minutes till their dad gets home and then he says, “Oh, by the way…” and mentions a work happy hour he’s supposed to go to that night.

I remember on our honeymoon, there were several other newlywed couples at our resort and we all ended up at the same restaurant with some older married folks one night. Someone asked one of the older couples what their secret was for a long and happy marriage and the wife said it was about letting the little stuff go.

I should have asked her to define “little stuff.” Does that mean not flying into a rage when -– for the millionth time -- he leaves his muddy, sedan-sized sneakers in the entryway for you to trip over? Or does it mean overlooking his ineptitude at dishwasher-loading? (Very funny post on that subject here.)

So obviously, I’m still working on the “letting stuff go” thing. But I will note that the husband of that long-married couple said the secret to a happy marriage was that his wife was always right. I would say MY husband is still working on THAT one.

Just today he coerced our boys into agreeing with him that it was totally my fault we missed the exit for my brother’s house on the way to Easter brunch. It’s not enough that we drove 20 minutes out of our way? He had to get our 4yo to chime in, “Yeah! It’s all Mama’s fault!” Obviously, C. didn’t get the “Yes, dear” memo. Good thing he’s cute and makes cute kids.

I like to imagine that 34 years from now, MY sons will be asking me what the secret is to our long and happy marriage. I’ll tell them, “It’s that I am always right.”

QUESTION O’ THE WEEK: Speaking of marriage, who’s looking forward to the royal wedding this weekend? I don’t think I need to wake up that early to see it live, but I’ll certainly DVR it.

Modern Love Notes by Married People

I was going through the messages on my phone the other day when I noticed that these were the last 3 texts I sent my husband:

- I need u 2 come home. I just threw up. Sorry.

- I’m bleeding. When will u b home?

- Still no power. Supposed 2 b back on by now.

And they say romance is dead! Forget sexting and flirty e-mails when you’re married with kids. It’s all about what’s wrong, what to get at the store, and when will you be home. At least in my world. Aren’t you jealous you’re not married to me? ;)

The first text was sent on a Friday night when, unfortunately for all of us, I got hit suddenly with the stomach bug at the exact same time my husband was at a work happy hour and the boys needed to be bathed and put to bed.

The second text was sent while C. was on his way home from work and Riley had just dive-bombed me on the couch, cracking his rock-hard skull into my face and giving me a bloody nose. That was it for me that day. Done. Your turn, Daddy.

The third text was sent while Miles and I huddled inside the idling car in front of our house and Riley napped inside, so I could charge my cell phone during a freak 6-hour power outage on an 28-degree day.

I’m telling you, people, nobody prepares you for this stuff. When I pictured myself all grown up and married with kids, I certainly didn’t factor in these unsavory scenarios. I thought it was going to be all “Love you, sweetie!” and “Hi, honey, how was your day?” and “Let’s grab sushi on the way to the foreign film fest.” (OK, I just made that up. I don’t think we ever did that even in our single days.)

I certainly didn’t imagine that I would be away from my spouse 10+ hours a day, communicating about bodily fluids and grocery lists via text message. (Pls don’t forget 2 buy COFFEE!!) It would be nice if we could send each other sweet little love notes throughout the day, but come on. Who’s got the time? (I DO frequently send C. cute pics of the boys from my phone, however. I figure it makes him feel like he’s not missing out on everything that goes on while he’s at work. Like the bloody noses.)

And anyway, it’s not just me. Check out the latest text I got from my husband, who took Riley to the doctor the other morning:

- Double ear inf. On our way home.

One day we’ll collect these missives and bind them into a book with flower petals pressed between the pages, titled “Love Notes.” Or not.

LINK O' THE WEEK: If you haven't seen DamnYouAutoCorrect.com, what are you waiting for? Hilarious iPhone fails and auto-correct horror stories.

‘Don’t Leave Us with the Babies!’

Remember this AirTran commercial? Hilarious! I thought of it when C. and I went away recently to celebrate our 7th anniversary. This is the first time I’ve left my second-born overnight, and the first time we’ve gone away by ourselves since the last time, over 2.5 years ago when we only had one kid. (Can that be right?!)

Let me reiterate what I said then: IT IS SO WORTH IT. Do it! Go! Now!! Beg your friends, family, neighbors, really, anyone who passes a background check to babysit so you can go away with your sweetie for at least 24 consecutive hours.

You will need at least that long to progress through The 7 Stages of an Adults-Only Getaway:

Stage 1: Reluctance. I don’t know... Do you think your parents really want to watch the kids or are they just being polite? Can they really handle it? They haven’t been around a toddler in a while… We probably shouldn’t spend the money. I’m too tired to stay out late, anyway.

Stage 2: Acceptance. So THAT’S the hotel you booked? Wow! It looks amazing. And you got us a reservation at that new restaurant? I’ve been wanting to try that place. I’m sure your parents will be fine. The kids are really excited about them coming.

Stage 3: Preparation. I’ll just throw a couple things in a bag for myself. Now, I need to get out the diapers, the wipes, the diaper cream, the overnight diapers, the other diaper cream, his blanket and teddy bear, 2 sets of pajamas, a couple of outfits, a jacket, a hat, the diaper bag, sippy cups – and, oh, the stuff for bathtime… Then for the OTHER one, there’s his medicine and inhaler, his soccer stuff, his helmet in case he wants to ride his bike… and, oh yeah, what about meals?

Stage 4: Execution. OK, here we go. Bye, kids! Be good! I can’t believe we’re doing this. I’m sure I forgot something crucial. Did I show them where the pacifiers are? What about the toddler toothpaste? The neighbors’ number in case of emergency? I know, I know, I need to relax. They’ll be fine. It’s just for one night.

Stage 5: Adjustment. Oh, wow! Look at this room! Look at that BED! There must be 10 pillows on there. I can’t believe we get to sleep in tomorrow! No kids climbing into bed with us at 5 a.m. whining for breakfast. And did you see the bathroom?! I am SO taking a nice, long, hot shower – with the door closed and no rubber duckies underfoot. You brought wine? Well, OK, sure. I guess I’ll have a glass. Even if it is only 4 p.m.

Stage 6: Enjoyment. Oh, my god. This is SO relaxing. I can’t believe we can just lie here for as long as we want, drinking wine and listening to music. No diapers to change, no laundry to do. Is this what we used to do before we had kids? Man, this is the life. And when we get ready to go out I can take my time for once. No one rummaging through my make-up bag or scorching themselves on the flat-iron. Heaven!

Stage 7: Reacclimation. I don’t know what I liked best – the sleeping in, having someone else make the bed and clean the room, or being able to have a complete conversation without being interrupted to yell at someone or wipe their butt or cut up their food. Can you believe we’re actually sitting here calmly having breakfast and reading the paper?! I KNOW! I guess we should get back, though, huh? OK, after this next cup of coffee. Pass me the Style section, would you?

LINK O’ THE WEEK: We stayed at the Hotel Brexton in Baltimore, which is a newly renovated historic hotel that was once home to Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson. The rooms are really unique and beautifully decorated in hip, modern décor. My one quibble: some robes would have been nice to really amp up the relaxation quotient.

Marriage & Butter

This week my husband and I celebrate 7 years of marriage. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that “for better” is so much better than I could have imagined, and that no one gets a pass on “for worse.” But 7 years is nothing compared to 30 years, which is how long my parents have been married. So I thought I’d share a story my mom shared with me before my wedding.

“A Cautionary Tale”

Family Circle magazine would have newlyweds believe that the first year of marriage is a minefield set to explode with arguments over money, sex, and in-laws. But I’m here to prove them wrong. The bomb that first went off in our marriage was caused by butter.

It was the summer of 1970—no one had even thought to worry about cholesterol and fat in the diet. Your father and I had just arrived in [our new hometown]—new to living together, new to his job at X College and mine at Y High, and new to our borrowed row-house.

This Saturday morning we had just unpacked the large skillet, and your father, in enthusiastic homage to your Grandpa’s family tradition, had made us pancakes. The aroma of Aunt Jemima’s batter wafted pleasantly from the kitchen; we felt finally “settled” as Mr. and Mrs.

Four hot pancakes sat invitingly on my plate. First, I sliced three pats of butter and inserted them neatly between the layers. Then I put a fourth pat on the side of the plate—so I wouldn’t have to chirp “pass the butter, please” later in the meal.

Just as I lifted the first bite to my mouth, your father looked up and gasped, “You’re going to eat all that butter? How disgusting!”

I was stunned. I loved butter. My mother loved butter (it was she who had taught me to freeze it by the pound). My whole family loved butter. And here was my new husband—attacking me for a lifetime habit, this deep link with my past!

I leapt up angrily and ran out of the house. How dare he pass judgment! What business of his was it what I ate? Who did he think he was! By the time I hit the end of the street and started down the hill to walk by the river, I’d decided I’d made a terrible mistake: I should never have gotten married at all.

An hour later I returned to the house. By that time I was worn out and sad. Mostly I just felt deeply alone. When I entered, there stood your father—cold pancakes and syrup dried to both plates beside him.

“I’m sorry!” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. If you want to eat butter, go right ahead. You can eat all you want to!”

The incident didn’t blow over quite so easily, for I was skittish about eating butter around your father for years. But we both learned a lesson about marriage that day. Even a trifle like butter can have deep feelings attached to it. So partners must learn to judge each other with care.

-- By Grandma2Miles (& Riley)

Authors Agree: Marriage Is Hard

At various times, certain themes crop up in my life, when it seems like everything I read, hear, or see converges on a particular subject. The current theme is: marriage is hard.

Now, everyone calm down. I’m coming up on my 7th wedding anniversary and I have no plans to pull an “Eat Pray Love” maneuver and ditch my husband to flit around the world for a year. (Though I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind a time or 20.)

I mean, really, is it a newsflash to ANYONE that “happily ever after” is harder than it’s made out to be? Especially when you add 2 kids to the mix? Personally, I find it refreshing when people admit that. Which is probably why I enjoyed the following 2 books so much.

The novel Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center follows a young mother of 3, Lanie, who reluctantly uproots her family and moves cross-country for her husband’s job. The descriptions of the pure chaos involved in raising small kids, the dicey playground politics, the challenges of being friends with other moms whose circumstances are vastly different from your own, and the constant grappling between spouses for free time rang SO true to life.

I can’t tell you how many times my husband and I have debated whether work happy hours “count” as leisure time. Just like I can’t tell you how many times people who say parenting may be challenging but not physically grueling change their tune after a couple hours with my kids. Anyway, you should read the book. And also, fellow blogger/writer Angie Mizzell's interview with the author.

On a very different but related note is Laura Munson’s memoir, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness. Before I read the book, I read about this author’s long road to publication and found it hugely inspiring. Then I sought out her NYT “Modern Love” essay that the book is based on. (Especially interesting to me, since one of my students recently had an essay she developed in my online writing class published in Modern Love.) Then I bought the book.

Here’s the gist: what happens when your beloved husband of 15 years comes home one day and says, “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did”? I’m willing to bet 99% of us wouldn’t respond the way Munson did: “I don’t buy it.”

Even while reeling from shock and pain, she was able to recognize that this was more about him having a job-related midlife crisis than it was about her. The book covers the following year of Munson’s life as she turns to therapy, writing, mothering, cooking, friends, and nature to help her through this difficult time.

Like Center’s novel, it shows that even “good” marriages don’t guarantee happiness and personal fulfillment. Both books also explore what happens when women pursue their own passions. Honest, eye-opening, gut-wrenching, and yet also beautiful and even funny at times, Munson’s book was hard to put down.

Yep, marriage is hard, all right. Good thing there are writers out there willing to address the subject in such honest and uplifting stories.

LAUGH O’ THE WEEK: Two things you don’t want to hear on a long family roadtrip: 1) "Do you smell throw-up?" 2) "Or is that poop?" Answer: Both.

I tackled one kid while my husband handled the other. If that’s not true love, I don’t know what is.

Deadbeat Dads?

Lately I feel like I’m a hotline for overworked, underappreciated moms. Friend after friend has vented to me with some variation of the following: “I do practically EVERYTHING around here, taking care of the kids, the meals, the laundry, the bills, the shopping, etc., etc. while my husband surfs the web/ watches TV/ sits on his ass/ or just doesn't notice. What is his problem? How can I get him to pitch in more? And when do *I* get some friggin’ time off?!”

I’m not even going to TRY to be politically correct or diplomatic in this post because, well, it’s my damn blog and I don’t have to. Besides, I’ve heard it from so many women at this point I’m going to go out on a limb and say guys like this are the norm. Parenting magazine wouldn’t have devoted a 2-part series to this issue if it weren’t a problem for lots of us.

This is inevitably going to piss off my husband and all those other dads out there who think they’re doing their fair share. And to them I say, “Really?” Do you REALLY, HONESTLY feel that your contributions are equal to those of your wife?

Do you really, truly believe in your heart of hearts that mowing the lawn every couple of weeks and changing the oil and taking the kids to Chick-fil-A on Saturdays offsets your wife’s duties? Do you even KNOW the extent of her duties? Hint: they probably include large amounts of time spent on stain removal, making things for preschool bake sales, and commemorating every event for family and friends with the proper card and/or gift – which includes KNOWING WHERE THE STAMPS ARE and addressing and mailing said cards on time.

I’m going to stop there because a complete list could fill several hundred pages and I’d like to finish this post before I turn 40. And also, because it’s making me mad.

Mad is the feeling I get when I encounter these real-life scenarios (some of which were NOT taken from my own life):

-- The husband of a busy SAHM of 3 children involved in countless sports and activities says to his wife, “I’ve noticed most of the other moms in the neighborhood mow their lawns. Why can’t you do that?” I literally had to bite back the obscenities when I heard this. Did I mention this guy travels for work at least half of each week, so the mom essentially works 72-hr shifts with no relief?

-- A husband volunteers to cook dinner one night. At 6 p.m., he begins surfing around on Foodnetwork.com and rummaging through the pantry. I guess hoping the exact ingredients will magically materialize? When the kids begin to have hunger-induced meltdowns and the wife loses her cool, the husband accuses her of being a control freak and calls out for pizza.

-- A husband volunteers to do the grocery shopping but can’t be bothered to make a list, asking his wife to text it to his phone instead. He still forgets the top 2 most essential items -- milk and toilet paper -- neglects to use the $5 coupon for formula, and comes home with regular baking potatoes instead of sweet potatoes.

-- A husband tells his wife she should stop breastfeeding because it’s making her bitchy. However, he refuses to do any middle of the night feedings because he has to be alert for work the next day. And he doesn’t even know what a bottle sterilizer IS, let alone how to use one.

I’m sorry, but this is just not right. The question is, what can we do about it? You can’t MAKE someone care that the clothes will get wrinkled if they’re not folded straight out of the dryer. You can’t FORCE someone to notice the collection of curdled milk-filled sippy cups under the couch. And you don’t WANT to set up a dynamic with your husband in which you treat him like a spoiled child and he treats you like an unreasonable shrew.

So how do you turn the tables? How do you even out the workload? How do you get to a point where you don’t feel like spitting nails whenever your husband shoves aside a pile of unfolded laundry to put his feet up and watch the game? Good questions.

The Parenting articles I mentioned contain loads of good info. (Such as: 46% of moms get irate with their husbands once a week or more. Those with kids younger than 1 are even more likely to be mad that often.) This web site, which I’ve mentioned several times, has this to say about “How to Stop Fighting Over Housework." I found the book "The Lazy Husband" to be validating, if not life-changing. And I’ve heard the authors of "Getting to 50-50" on several talk shows. I’m not yet convinced such a balance exists in any marriage.

In fact, I don’t know that there really is a solution. Maybe time and gradual (begrudging?) acceptance is the only way. That seems to be what worked for my mom, who considers herself a feminist, worked AND raised kids most of her life, and has been happily married to my dad for 35 years. She said to me once she doesn’t know where we women today got the idea that parenting and household duties should be shared equally. After all, it’s never been 50/50 for any generation.

She may be right, but at this point I’d settle for 70/30.

READ O’ THE WEEK: In Home Game, author Michael Lewis’ hilariously honest memoir of fatherhood, he freely admits that his m.o. is to do as little as possible when it comes to parenting. He estimates his domestic contributions at about 31.5%. He gets points for honesty, but I still feel sorry for his wife (ex-MTV news reporter Tabitha Soren, BTW).

FACT O’ THE WEEK: A survey of 360 married men found that the more satisfied a wife is with the division of household duties, the more satisfied a man is with his sex life. WAKE UP, GUYS!!