So you open the fridge and see your wife has THREE bottles of ketchup in use, all about a third full.
Or you go to trim your toenails but can’t because your wife borrowed your clippers before leaving for the day and left them who knows where.
Or you go to wipe your ass only to realize your wife finished out the toilet paper roll and never replaced it, meaning you have to holler for help, use the kleenex instead, or hobble to the closet with your pants around your ankles to grab another roll yourself, hopefully dropping no goodies onto the floor or your pants along the way.
You know what I’m talking about:
It’s that shit your wife does.
It’s all innocent as hell. But oh so maddening.
Some days, you laugh it off.
Others, the dark thoughts come.
For however banal these moments are, they form the bulk of your lived experience of marriage.
These daily affronts will drain away your love and affection if you do not handle them properly.
How will you respond?
Your options are endless:
You can berate, badger, and criticize her.
You can ask, as sweetly and gently as you can, for her to change.
You can model the “proper” way to do things and hope your good example rubs off on her.
Or, you can make the leap:
You can learn to relish the otherness.
Think of it this way.
If something happened to your wife, the “shit your wife did” would be the stuff you missed the MOST.
Against the backdrop of life and death, your wife’s quirks would remind you how different she was from you… how she took your head out of your ass, caused you to live life outside your own narrow frame.
Consciously or not, you married to experience the OTHER.
You wanted to be taken out of yourself, to experience the world through the mind, body, and soul of another.
You didn’t want to marry a you with breasts, so stop trying to change her into you. Stop trying to reprogram her with your own chip.
Next time you catch yourself cursing your wife under your breath for using the last towel and leaving you naked and dripping in the bathroom, be grateful for the gifts this woman gives you… for the way she plunges you into the adventure of life with another.
(And stash a couple backup towels for next time).
Glad this popped into my newsfeed this morning. Been feeling irritated with my wife the last couple days. My schedule changed and now we’re at home at the same time much more often (which is why I changed my schedule), but I think she misses her alone time. I think I’ll pick up the kiddo today and keep him busy outside the house until dinner. Keep up the good work.
Fucking brilliant.
I have never read such Shit.
… who washes the towels, THE WOMEN ,,,dries them folds the and puts them away, you use once and chuck on the floor.
… who buys the toilet paper THE WOMEN,,,, drives to the shops, using her money which screaming kids in tow.
…. who throws the empty roll on the floor and just leaves it THE MAN.
Who wipes up all the piss around the toilet THE WOMEN.,,,, Cause no man without OCD would even think this is a problem.
WHY do we do theses things, because we don’t want anyone standing in mens filth and walking it round the rest of the house.
You men have your heads so far up your ego. whats up which way is down. you don’t know you need some dickhead to fill your brain full of shit, so you can feel better. MEN GROW UP
If you truly think you are perfect, get off the computer or xbox, do something useful. And keep your dick away for ever. and you shall find happiness.
You clearly did not read the entire post.
wow sounds like my wife
Kate’s a troll, who obviously isn’t patient enough to finish an article before she opens her pie-hole. Neither does she have the patience for the myriad of men she has berated and chased out of her life. Her presumption reveals the source of her milk-toast man’s inner frustration. Suggestion: if you want a maid, get off your ass and go hire one. And while you’re at it, take your guy’s balls out of the jar that you hid under your bed and give them back to him, then maybe you could get what you’re really after. Your feminist rant is the kind of “SHIT” we’d like to get rid of to make way for the true feminine.
This is soooo funny, Kate (excuse my presumptions Kate) sounds to me like a woman sick of the shit her man does. The funny thing is, to me at least, that the article seeks to address this one sided view of the spouse and it seems she has, some how, missed that point or she’s just venting because her response is exactly that one sided negative view of “A” man . Either way, what I think is most significant for her to remember is “Against the backdrop of life and death, your wife’s (MAN’S) quirks would remind you how different she (HE) was from you… how she took your head out of your ass, caused you to live life outside your own narrow frame.”. This quote, I believe, just sums it all up. Lets spare Kate the insults though gentlemen, shes only putting across her point of view and challenging our collective like minded thinking, we should always be open to that as no thought or individual idea should go about unchallenged and/or unaided, as no one man (man in this sense refers to the species) is omniscient.
Thank you Yanela.
Amen
Dude,
I love what you are doing. Keep writing…it’s saving my life. Finally someone with the talent and ballz to express the hidden, aching roar, of a masculine generation in crisis.
Thanks Bryan . . . I struggle in my marriage not due to big things but little stuff like this. Thanks for creating a forum where men can discuss manhood issues and find support
I thought it was a good article. But please don’t shut out Kate. Male entitlement is real. And it is holding us back as citizens in science and math. It is worth coming to grips with. I like you website because just that….men can fix their kind from the inside…the pressure you are getting externally financial and sexual is real…recognize change needs to be made.
Male entitlement, female entitlement, western entitlement, human entitlement is all real.
Although I’d contest the narrative I suspect you received coming from.
That being said responding “reactively” to Kate is less than ideal.
Blocking her could be a valid option for the author, she too deep in her stuff to see what the actual point if the article was. (Which would of course apply vice versa woman->man)