Long Relationships

Throughout our relationship, I have always – for a reason I’m not quite yet sure of – worn a sort of invisible badge of pride for every remark made about how I’m not the ‘stereotypical’ wife. Now, I don’t think any woman out there is the stereotypical wife. They are either much nicer or much worse, in my experience. Even so, I was always proud to be on the side of ‘nicer’.

One of the stereotypical wife’s faults is expecting her husband to know what she’s thinking without her telling him. Granted, there should be some things a man can just guess after a given amount of time, but mind reading all the time is too much to ask.

I was always proud that I didn’t expect Mr. JM to read my mind. We talked about things – really talked – and worked them out. I always caught myself when I started getting upset with him for something we hadn’t actually talked about.

Of course, recently life decided to remind me that I’m not the super-wife of pure awesomeness that I thought I was.

Like many things, mind-reading can come in different shapes and forms. This past week, I am terrible when it comes to expecting Mr. JM to do mind-reading of a different sort: reading my moods.

Poor Mr. JM has been batted around like a tennis ball for about a week now as I have been getting increasingly cranky and tired with the pressure of everything I have been trying to get done for work. Admittedly, I have been going over the top and letting every little stress get to me.

And I’ve just been expecting Mr. JM to know.

Ugh. Minus one from my awesome wife points.

Now that I’ve noticed the behavior, I’m trying to fix it. But I hate it when the world knocks me on my behind just when I get to feeling pretty awesome about myself.

A WOMAN’S POEM:

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man who’s not a creep,
One who’s handsome, smart and strong.
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who’ll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he’s rich and self-employed,
And when I spend, won’t be annoyed.
Pull out my chair and hold my hand..
Massage my feet and help me stand.
Oh send a king to make me queen.
A man who loves to cook and clean.
I pray this man will love no other.
And relish visits with my mother..

A MAN’S POEM:

I pray for a deaf-mute gymnast nymphomaniac with
big tits who owns a bar on a golf course,
AND loves to send me fishing and drinking. This
doesn’t rhyme and I don’t give a shit..

***

You can thank Mr. JM for this addition to my small humor section here at Long Relationships. If there is one thing I love about Mr. JM, it’s that he is always seeking to make me happy, make me laugh and so on. Thus, I’m often in on the joke when the usual office joke emails float around.

They do say that laughter is the best medicine and, well, Mr. JM and I have certainly needed a bit of humor lately. Every now and then all the things we want to do runs smack up against the lack of finances and things become a bit strained.

Alas, even in the worst of times, Mr. JM is always able to keep up his sense of humor.

I was responding to comments the other night and came across Little Miss Fatty’s Pants weight loss blog. While she is struggling a little bit with things right now, she has taken that all-important step of deciding to make her life a better, longer, healthier one.

I was looking through her past posts, and there was one that contained a letter to her boyfriend.

While her letter was a short one, it conveyed the love she has for her boyfriend and the appreciation she has for him looking out for her.

Well, that inspired me to write a thank-you to my husband…

Dear Mr. JM,

Me

I really need to learn the value of silence.

I have PCOS – Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome – which means I get a fun assortment of annoying things to deal with when it comes to my body. One of the things I have been so ‘fortunate’ to deal with is wonky hormones.

You can already see where this is going, can’t you?

Because my body cannot yet maintain a particular function with any regularity on its own, I’m on birth control pills. Not that I want to be – I hate birth control. But I do realize the necessity for it for the time being.

A big part of correcting the influence of PCOS is to lose weight, which is easier said than done because PCOS makes losing weight as easy as climbing up a slope with a boulder strapped to your back. You can do it – eventually – but most people quit because they wonder what the point is.

I’ve recently found a diet that has made the weight loss struggle easier. I’ve currently lost five percent of my body weight, which is the amount of weight that usually starts helping the body set things to rights when you have PCOS.

And, well, it would seem that my body doesn’t care that I’m taking birth control pills because it wants to start a TOM NOW.

Ugh. I’m very happy with the weight loss, but I have normal hormones trying to right themselves, introduced hormones (birth control) trying to keep things steady, PMS mood swings that scare even me and a very, very harassed husband who still loves me enough to go buy me an electric blanket because I have a hard time keeping warm.

Can anyone recommend a brand of duct tape that won’t hurt too much when it comes off? Even if I leave it on for the next week?

With most couples, it is fairly easy to be separate in your work lives because you are literally separate – different jobs. However, interesting times do come up when you marry a coworker, your spouse comes to work where you work and/or, like in my case, you volunteer where your spouse works.

My husband works at the head office of a large company. Pretty much everyone at the head office (and quite a few people in the regional locations) know who I am and have met me personally. And have also eaten something I’ve baked. (I love baking cookies.)

I come in every now and then to help various people with tasks that are within their abilities but not within their budgeted time.

At one point, I did apply for a job there, but I didn’t get it.

If there are any rules I have learned about work etiquette, they are:

1. Keep kisses to a minimum. Even a kiss on the cheek around the wrong person can be the beginning of rumors, complaints or worse.

2. Keep pet names to a minimum. The least that will happen (especially if your SO is a guy) is that your love will be made fun of for many weeks to come.

3. Keep your hands to yourself. A shoulder pat is fine, but if that is going to tempt you to do more, just keep your hands to yourself. Even in an easy going work environment, things can always be taken the wrong way.

4. Give each other space. This is an important feature of any relationship, but it is especially important in a work environment. In the end, you’re both there to work.

Are there any more work relationship etiquette rules you’ve learned?

I believe there are two levels of knowing things.

You can know things on the surface. Someone tells you something that you take for truth, you read certain facts or statistics, etc…

You can also know things, truly know them, and the only way to know things on that level is to experience them for yourself.

So while I am probably going to list some things that I knew already, I now know them on that deeper level having experienced them for myself.

1. Like everything, there is an ebb and flow to happy times in marriage. Fighting or even growling is actually healthy in a marriage. They are reminders of where we stand, what we need to work on and sometimes just reminders that we need a bit of personal space every now and then.

2. Bad times do end. I hate the bad times. I truly, truly do, but I know there is a reason for them. One of the hardest things I have to keep reminding myself is that the bad times do end. Sometimes you bear a scar, sometimes you don’t, but they do come to an end.

3. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. It’s nice to think of you and your spouse as one unit, working together and such, but you have to remember you are two human beings. You will not be alike in every single thing. And sometimes there is nothing you can do – you have to let your spouse work things out.

Short and sweet, bur that’s the way it should be at this point. I am so happy my husband and I are still going strong.

Last week I asked Mr. JM if he would like to write a guest post about taking holidays together. He wrote me five. I decided to put them up this week.

Sometimes we travel not so much to be heading, but more to be leaving, somewhere. It may be our lives have been circumscribed by the humdrum, that our work has throttled our free nature or those around have become just to familiar.

A good way to deal with any of these is being able to get out and about, to jump on a train or get in your car, and head for places unknown. In such times, who needs (or even wants) a specific destination? Part of the adventure is just pointing the nose in a direction and seeing what comes.

Again, such a trip can be much better if it is being shared with someone who feels a similar need to breech the boundaries we find surrounding us in our daily lives. To be able to turn to someone and say ‘look at that’ and have them know just what it is about ‘that’ which caused your exclamation is to bond with that person in a way that can only come from shared experiences.

Going off on such a journey all alone can be a good time, but when one comes home and re-unites with the partner, there is a distance between what was experienced and what can be shared of it. That gap may or may not contribute to a personal distance between partners, but it certainly doesn’t promote closer togetherness.

So Split Enz had a good line, I think, in the ‘If you leave me, can I come too’ thought – they meant it a little differently but I think it is a very appropriate line for the idea of travelling with your partner.

Another gem from Mr. JM

NINE WORDS WOMEN USE:

(1) Fine:
This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

(2) Five Minutes:
If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

(3) Nothing:
This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.

(4) Go Ahead:
This is a dare, not permission. Don’t Do It!

(5) Loud Sigh:
This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about
nothing. (Refer back to # 3 for the meaning of nothing.)

(6) That’s Ok:
This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That’s okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

(7) Thanks:
A woman is thanking you, do not question, or faint. Just say you’re welcome. (I want to add in a clause here - This is true, unless she says ‘Thanks a lot’ - that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say ‘you’re welcome’ - that will bring on a ‘whatever’).

(8) Whatever:
Is a woman’s way of saying f*** YOU!

(9) Don’t worry about it, I got it:
Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking ‘What’s wrong?’ For the woman’s response refer to #3.

*
Send this to the men you know, to warn them about arguments they can avoid if they remember the terminology.

*
Send this to all the women you know to give them a good laugh, cause they know it’s true!

I’ve always been one to stand up and remind women that men show their love in different ways to women. For a lot of guys, providing for the family is the biggest show of love they can make. Men, in general, are usually better with actions than words.

But, given I’m still young enough to be quite silly, I forgot to apply this ‘sage’ advice to my own life…

The other night, my husband presented me with a movie I had eagerly been waiting to see.

As I smiled and did my little happy dance, I turned to him and said, “You see, it’s when you do stuff like this that I know you love me!”

I don’t doubt that my husband loves me, but it is always nice to have reminders of that love.

Last night, we got to talking about our past and the subject of actions versus words came up. I was under the impression that there was something I did a long time ago that he hadn’t fully forgiven me for yet.

“But we got married,” he said, looking confused when I mentioned it.

I said, “Yes, but you can love someone and yet not trust them completely.”

He looked at me as if I had marbles coming out of my ears. “Yes, that’s true, but we got married. If I was still hung up over that, I wouldn’t have married you. It would have been like…” In a very rare occurrence, words failed him so he mimed a gun to his head and pulling the ‘trigger’.

I must have looked embarrassed at that point because he smiled sympathetically and said, “It’s like you said when I got you the movie – you know I love you when I do things that make you happy. You’ve been waiting for the words [of forgiveness] all this time, but I’ve been showing you.”

Duh. Silly me.

I am probably opening a can of worms that I really shouldn’t be opening with this one, but I found this video and I think it’s quite fascinating.

This show is in India and features talk of proposed amendments to laws in India. However, it is no secret that societies not only in today’s world but also previous times have often struggled with what should be done with the sex industry.

The sex industry includes everything from sex toys to videos to actual prostitution, so for clarification sake, I’m talking only about the prostitution side of things. Also for clarification, I don’t want to get into a religious debate or anything. I’m not here to get into the religious aspects.

Should prostitution be legalized? Well… Maybe it should.

While I was listening to this video, I couldn’t help but agree with the first speaker – the teacher. We ‘sell’ our minds, our time, even our body parts (organ donation) and our blood. Sex is pretty much the only thing left for people to turn up their nose about selling.

Imagine if there could be a system to it all that wouldn’t trap women forever in a cycle of abuse. Imagine if it was legalized and health standards imposed on each and every brothel – and all the women (and men) within. It could make things a lot different for a lot of people.

Honestly, I think criminalizing the sex industry is just another way for humanity to try to control humanity. Take away religious and politically correct aspects and what you have left is a matter of who can tell you what to do with your body. If you think your body is a temple, then you don’t have to become a prostitute. If you think of sex as a fun way to pay the electricity bill, then you can have a casual or get full-time employment.

I don’t want this post to be seen as me being gung ho for legal prostitution. I haven’t dedicated the time or the research on all the involved issues to put my final opinion out there. These are just my initial impressions.

It is an interesting subject, though, and one that has come up even more recently for the United States as a proposed help for the national deficit. (Imagine legalizing but also taxing such things. That’s certainly one way to get out of debt…)

What do you think?

I’m not really a girly-girl in a lot of ways, but I have to admit, this is such a sweet song. I wish I knew how to play the guitar so I could sing it to my husband.

But, my ‘sooky’ mood aside, this song really touches on something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

According to some women, my husband isn’t that romantic. According to others, he deserves a picture on the cover of a romance novel for even just once running me a warm bath and lighting candles.

I think a lot of problems stem in relationships because men and women don’t understand how each other operate. The same act can mean two different things between a man and a woman.

Take, for example, opening a jar. It’s a simple action, but have a woman give a man a jar to open and it reaffirms the gender roles. The man can take care of and provide, the woman can depend on her husband and ‘take care of it from here’.

I know – simple, caveman-ish and maybe even sexist, but those are exactly the sorts of things I’m talking about. Bringing home a paycheck. Fixing the car/washer/dryer/clog in the sink. Doing the laundry. Changing nappies. Cooking dinner. The other things mentioned in the song in the video. They’re all ways of saying “I care and I take care of us”.

Again, changing nappies might not be romantic to you, but I can guarantee you that at least one hundred new mums out there would jump their husbands if he changed a nappy without being asked.

In the end, what constitutes a romantic act is entirely in the eyes of the beholder. I think it’s incredibly romantic that my husband always makes sure I have a chair when we go out and will go and get his jacket if I’m feeling a bit chilly. Whereas some women would simply expect that from their partners.

In the end, try to give your guy some slack in the romance department. Maybe his way of being romantic is something you hadn’t viewed in that way before.

*Thank you to This Full House for the intro to Tim Hawkins.

Oh, brother. Well, at least I know Mr. JM’s mother cooked like crap so at least he can’t pull that line on me…

It took me a while to find a video with the full song, but I thought this song would be a great way to start the week. There is nothing like some marriage (though it applies to non-married relationships) humour to get you feeling good. (Or annoyed, take your pick.)

Plus, this video reminds me of my husband. Not because he’s that suicidal… I mean, um, not someone to say those kind of things to me… Mr. JM is honest with me and never lets me feel sorry for myself.

For example, if I ask something like, “Do I look big in this?” you can bet that Mr. JM will tell the truth. He won’t tread around the truth - he’ll out and out tell me, “It doesn’t look good on you.” He’s not mean, but he is honest.

As for the not letting me feel sorry for myself? Well, he would actually say some of the things in the song just to give me a stir. He likes to mess with me when he thinks I’m taking life too seriously. It may piss me off at the time, but overall, it’s one of the things I love about him.

Now if I could figure out how to get him when he’s feeling pouty…

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Here’s a question to start out the week/month:

Is there anything your significant other does that annoys you at the time but you know is ultimately good for you? Is you SO playful or serious?

There are times in our marriage when I can’t help but feel very, very bad for my husband.

If you read at Finally Getting Fit, you’ll know that I have some health issues. Because of one of those issues, I have to go back on The Pill until we start making babies. But, as you likely know, they don’t like you to hop back on The Pill whenever you feel like it. It should line up with a woman’s cycle.

My problem? No cycle since August. Until today, that is, when my progesterone finally woke my reproductive system out of a coma and got it working again.

Bottom line? Looks like I’m feeling about half a year’s PMS in this one week.

Yes, you can all wince now.

I have been doing very well with controlling my moods (my husband would beg to differ, but he doesn’t live in my head), but there are times when the ‘Pissy’ of PMS shows through like a lighthouse light in an apartment bedroom. There are times when I can barely keep myself from throwing dishes (I thought for about five minutes straight about how much I wanted to throw a glass across the room) or other rotten things.

Poor Mr. JM is suffering the consequences.

Thankfully, it’ll be over soon. And, at least when I’m on The Pill, my murderous urges tame down. But I still feel so bad for Mr. JM. I’m wondering if I should book him a hotel room for a while or something…

Click on the image to find where to buy the perfume bottle pictured.

Who needs things like courting and seduction when you could just spray your dame or bloke and bring ‘em home for the night?

Okay, so it’s not quite that extreme, but I couldn’t help but be amused when I read this article.

“An international team is studying the brain chemistry responsible for the complex feelings that actually draw people to a particular member of the opposite sex as well as help in keeping humans monogamous.”

Does anyone else think this is a little…weird? Shouldn’t we be putting all our efforts to curing cancer or something?

It’s interesting, yes, but a ‘love spray’?

“”For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away,” team leader Prof Larry Young of Emory University in Georgia wrote in the ‘Nature’ journal.”

If someone tried to use some ‘love spray’ on me, I don’t think I could help but feel that things weren’t genuine. If I couldn’t fall in love with Mr. X naturally, then why would I want to artificially? As for the ‘keeping humans monogamous’ thing, well, if a man can’t handle being monogamous without the use of drugs then I’m certainly not going to be with him!

I’m not panning it completely. I can see it possibly being of assistance to couple who want to stay together (and have for many years) but they’re just not ‘feeling the flames of desire’ like they used to. Possible use there. But even so, there are other solutions for that as well.

BUT, I do know I’ve posted things while holding a certain opinion and had my opinions tweaked and changed by other’s viewpoints. What do you think? Would you use love spray?

“At that moment, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.” Hahaha. I love that quote. You should really know your melons before going into a relationship.

And you have to love how ‘enthused’ the wife in the third couple looks. I couldn’t help cracking up with that clip.

I found this video randomly surfing the internet the other day and I thought it would be a good addition to this site. I like watching true life videos with couples who have made it to such significant anniversaries. When you think about not only the significant relationship milestones but also the milestones in world history, it’s quite impressive all around.

I like that they included all kinds of couples – high school sweethearts, those who lost each other and found each other later, arranged marriages and even ‘second chance’ marriages. It’s great to see things working out for couples in a variety of circumstances.

Having just passed my first wedding anniversary, I can’t help but wonder what my twentieth, fortieth and even fiftieth anniversaries will hold. I can’t imagine anything but my husband and I still being well and truly in love, but I wonder how we’ll look and sound. I wonder what we’ll say when we talk about these times.

I hope I’m not the only one who thinks about those things!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I’m a bit reluctant to get back into the usual workweek swing of things, but we do what we must, right?