by Ali Adler
I truly didn’t get it. You probably don’t either. “Aren’t I allowed to go out and buy something with my own money that meets my needs without consulting you?” “No.” Which someone else might deliver as “No!” but the absence of her exclamation point still poked me as if she’d used one. She was adamant: “Not if it affects the household aesthetics.” (I so wish this story was juicier, but this is about as exciting as it ever got, God bless.)
So what happened over the next ten years was that I began to defer my design feelings, and subsequently my feeling-feelings, because it always created too much conflict if they didn’t meld perfectly with her many opinions. She, who hated personal conflict more than actual war, most assuredly did the same. Big tips are coming now, the most important ever: When you both stop honestly communicating, your relationship is over. When people stop connecting, allowing for individuality, risking, sharing, trying, opening, being willing to listen, reflect, change, compromise, grow, give the thing it hurts the most to give . . . well, you get it.
The first fight is the microcosm of all future fights. It’s the flavor of what the rest of the fights taste like, no matter what. They can all be boiled down to this nugget; this essence of the first fight. So please pay attention to it. Because whatever that dynamic is, it will be the same fight you fight about year after year, in whatever form, until you either accept this in the DNA of each other, or the relationship dies. That’s a fact. With me and my ex, I guess it was tough to look at a kettle fight and think that was going to be the toxin that would ultimately poison our water. Seemed pretty small at the time. But pay exceptional attention to the small stuff, too, please.
You Can Only Change Yourself
People say that love is blind. (Please don’t confuse blind love with what I talked about earlier, the “Vagina Effect” or “Cock Hypnosis.”) Love’s being blind is a much more advanced form of this disease. It’s after the initial drug of fucking wears off, and you actually love this person, then, the escalation, the progression, is failing to see their flaws. You look through a dirty, distorted lens. You can’t see the truth clearly. How they are and who they are and how they behave in the world is skewed by your love. Your love overrides everything, which is nice, in a myopic sort of way.
But if you think about a relationship as a really, really long, destinationless road trip where stops are made and cheesy crackers are mashed into the cracks of the seats and tiny passengers get on and get off and engines seize and tires blow, what you need throughout the many-mile journey is the purity of sight. Look at the road, listen to each other’s opinions, steer the vehicle, hold hands, use Wet-Naps, get the car washed even though it’ll just get dirty again, give each other breaks distracting the kids, take turns driving and being in charge of the music, give everyone a chance to pick which drive-thru, make sure we stop when someone needs to pee, even if you don’t have to. Respect each other; even if you disagree about the route, you’re still in this car together.
During this long, exhausting, endless road trip, we must see each other and the reality of the road. Because if love is blind, this car will fucking crash. We must look at each other for who we really are, and—here’s the most difficult thing in the whole goddamn world, as well as the biggest reality—accept your partner as they are. Huge true fact: you cannot change anyone. You can only change yourself. (And you can barely change you, and you’re inside yourself!) Isn’t that the worst? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could change our partner to suit our own desires and needs? If this were possible, Sarah might’ve returned my kettle, bought her version (the more costly, aesthetic to her eye pleasing), and then maybe I would’ve been allowed to make oatmeal.
Okay, well, I was just eating because I was hungry. I was so very, very hungry throughout that relationship because of a hundred thousand shades of the kettle fight. I will be very honest now. Time to admit it. Many—maybe even most—of the fights I provoked because I was hungry. I was hungry, and I stopped feeding myself with little things like buying kettles to make oatmeal. I stopped taking care of my own needs because they created too much conflict. I am the one who stopped buying kettles. That’s my fault. See why I don’t use myself as an example? So unglamorous, this kettle fight. But the message is an extremely important one.
A Relationship Primer
To snazz things up after that cautionary oatmeal tale, here are a few quick relationship primer tricks.
Show interest in her life, and the stuff she talks about. Ask about her work or annoying events she has planned, dinners out with her friends, her visit to the ophthalmologist, her cousin’s surgery, etc. Write these boring events down when she initially talks about them, and later, remember to ask her about these things. Make her think you give a shit. Be an actor. “Hey, did your aunt ever narrow down what brand of white noise machine to buy?” It will make her feel like she matters. When she feels like she matters, she will trust you. When she trusts you, she will want to fuck you. Think of the opening of her legs as if it were an old-fashioned castle drawbridge: “Lower the bridge!” That heavy rusted gate was only opened for those whom they trusted.
When she looks like she’s in her head about something while she’s unloading the dishwasher, even though you’re sure you’re guilty of absolutely zero, ask her gently, “What are you thinking about, baby?” Whatever the thing she is obsessing about (e.g., that you never ever empty the fucking dishwasher) will disappear because you noticed she was distracted. She will say nothing about it, but she’ll feel lighter because you asked. If you can handle the advanced version of this, just simply take over whatever chore she is doing. Tell her, “Oh, honey, let me do that.” (A healing, helpful action!) “You’re always doing that.” (I see you.) “They’re just as much my dishes.” (I appreciate all you do, thank you!) “Why don’t you just tell me about your day?” “What happened with fill-in-the-blank?” Your (specific you’ve texted yourself, so that you might recall) coworker’s rental car issue?” (You are interested in the details.)
She will fuck you for this. She may even blow you. A hand-job at least. Because she feels seen, heard, and taken care of; even empathized with. You even ostensibly remembered the mind-numbingly dull story about her annoying coworker’s abscessed foot. I know this sounds so dumb, and you’re thinking, “What’s her problem? I’m not a mind reader. Why doesn’t she just ask me to empty the dishwasher?” Here’s why: She doesn’t want to have to ask you. She wants you to think of it yourself, and then do it.
Don’t Make Her Be Your Mommy
Now, that’s doing two things, I know. But if she has to ask, that puts her in the bossy or naggy or mommy position, and all she wants you to do is see it for yourself. See her, know her, intuit her needs. You both need the dishwasher emptied, but she usually does it. Stop patting yourself on the back for semirinsing a plate you used and sticking it in the machine. Do you think the clean dishes leap out of the machine and put themselves back up into the cupboard? No. She does it! It’s her! I know it all sounds simple and/or small, but if you’re more attentive to the tiny things it never dawned on you to consider before, this will add up to way more fucking for you.
Don’t mistake being a good dad with being a good partner; aka, don’t confuse parenting with partnering. It’s great if you’re spending your Sunday at your daughter’s soccer match. Kudos for doing the minimum. Clap yourself on the back if you’re giving your dirty-assed kids a bath or dropping them at the mall, or taking that absent-minded son of yours to cobble together a last-minute frontier costume he needs by tomorrow morning for school. That’s all great and amazing, but listen up—you made these kids, too. It’s not just her job to do all this mind-numbing shit. No one person can do it well, especially if she has a job, too, which almost 70 percent of moms do today. So, as much as she may appreciate your doing your part, please don’t confuse that with giving to her as a partner.
Maybe she doesn’t have the expectation that you will do this stuff. But you should be doing it. You don
’t have to want to do it; she doesn’t want to do it, either. But, somehow, all this child care and home maintenance gets done—who do you imagine is getting the job done? Now, if you don’t do it and she doesn’t seem to expect it or notice or care, then congratulations! You’re currently in possession of an awesome, albeit ignorant woman. So if you’re skating by in life, unnoticed, and she’s running around without resentment, for God’s sake at least be grateful about it.
Scribble her a note of love and appreciation, using your human hand and ink and real paper from trees. Say thank you. Go down on her (see chapter 8). Tickle her back a little at night for all the extra, amazing things you take for granted—so that you can sit on your fat ass feeling resentful that you don’t get to fuck that raspy-voiced new woman at work who would never ever fuck you, even if you weren’t married or had a head of hair or a decent personality.
Because if you have little kids, I’m going to tell you something about your wife that you do not want to know: she hasn’t had a bowel movement with the bathroom door closed since your children were born. “Mommy’s in the potty, honey! Here! In here! Having privacy! Privacy! Oh, no, it’s okay. You can be in here, too. Yes, Mommy has to wipe her own bottom, just like she wipes yours. Yes. Oh. Right. That’s true. That is Mommy’s poo-poo.”
Don’t even start about tampons. You try explaining what the hell one of those things is and does to a neck-craning curious three-year-old. All this is to say that if you’re debating whether or not to offer to pick up dinner on the way home or fix the gate or make the bed or tell her that she looks pretty, even if it’s a total fucking lie, just do it all. For God sakes, maybe even just look her in the eye a moment too long and when she accuses you of acting weird, tell her you’re grateful for all the shit she does.
That the little stuff adds up to big stuff. Tell her that you notice, that you appreciate, that your life couldn’t feel the beautiful way it does without her, and all the things she’s sure you don’t notice. Say you’re blown away by all she does. Again, aside from all this being true, you will get sex. Oh. If she is a lazy, depressed, pill-popping, binge eater who yells about everything and always appears to have what looks like potato chip grease on her forehead and can’t be bothered with you or your kids, say none of this.
Maybe you do a lot with your kids, for her, and even around the house. Maybe you’re amazing and acknowledge everything she does that’s amazing, too. Great job! Okay, but still. Just because you’re sanding a door or changing a lightbulb doesn’t mean you are intimately connecting with her. Even though you perceive doing these things for her, don’t mistake the time you take painting the bathroom doorjamb or cleaning the gutters for connecting with her. Taking out the trash doesn’t equal saying “I love you.”
I know, I know, it totally seems like it should. Why else would you be doing that stuff? The list to keep a relationship afloat appears to be endless and time consuming and taxing. You may ask, “How am I supposed to remember all this stuff?” Well, know this: if you don’t, she will. It will accrue in the form of resentment. It’s not her job to desire to spend time with you alone and to get a babysitter and to make a goddamned restaurant reservation or purchase movie tickets in advance. You can do all these things, too. And if you do, the resentment accrual will be slightly washed away. And you will get sex.
Be on Her Team
Oh, here’s a very quick and easy one. Be on her team. When listening to her nightly stories of how she was sidestepped for whatever promotion, or when she’s nattering shit about the other parents at your daughter’s school, or about buying homeopathic flea medicine for the cat you despise, just be on her side. Agree with her. It is not your responsibility to represent her perceived opponents’ viewpoint. Don’t “see it from the other side, another perspective.” She won’t care. She will resent you. You have just become another adversary in her life. Keep your real reaction to yourself. Bite the tongue of your nature to lecture and edify. The key to making all this talk go away is a simple three-part procedure:
1.Just listen, don’t advise. “If I were you . . .” (you’re not her).
2.With matters that concern only her, no matter how you feel, just agree with her position. It’s not your problem; it’s hers, and so her feelings are the only ones that really matter.
3.Empathize with her. Use key interactive/empathetic phrases such as “Oh God, what did you say to that?” “I can’t believe she/he did/said that.” “I’m so sorry, honey.” “How do you feel?” “I get why you feel that way.” “That’s a really hard position to be in.”
One. Two. Three. Now, you get hard and get in position.
There Are No Trophies for Being Right
Let go of needing to be right. This is maybe the hardest thing of all for men to learn. It does not matter if you’re right. I will say it again, because it is a very advanced concept to wrap your head around: Who cares if you’re right? No one is keeping an imaginary ledger of your sliverlike wins over the course of a lifetime. There are no trophies in marriage for who wins more fights. Because here is the truth: you will never win, even if she seemingly capitulates to your point. The argument will bleed energy, emotional and otherwise, from your life when you are in pursuit of comfort and sleep and food and quiet and cheese and TV and fucking and the glorious, ephemeral feeling right after fucking: having fucked.
If these are your basic goals, why do you need to be right? Be right at work or with your friends—who neither feed your kids, nor suck your dick. No one is keeping score of your rightness. You don’t get a Kobe-like three-pointer at the buzzer and a cheering crowd ovation for your wife acknowledging your irrelevant argument wins.
“When will it end? When will the fight/argument/disagreement/processing around it be over? When can I get back to myself and my underpants and my iPad and my own personal thoughts? When will she shut the fuck up? She’s made her point, like, twenty-seven times! When is enough, enough?”
This is a hard one to answer; not because the answer is so difficult, but because it’s so easy that it will haunt your entire history of time-wasting fights. After you hear my solution, you’re going to feel completely dumb because the answer was there all along. In The Wizard of Oz, it’s Dorothy looking down at her magical ruby red slippers after Glinda the Good Witch says, “You had the power all along.” For you, the clicking of the ruby slippers will get you out of your fight and back home to Kansas, post-tornado. You will now get to eat Auntie Em’s homemade fried chicken; yum.
Here’s all you have to do—and it sounds way harder than it actually is. Let go of the feelings around it, and simply say the words out loud. Say them fully formed and generously: “I’m sorry.” See, the thing is, in order for her to move past this fight, you need to acknowledge her point. For her to know that you’ve actually heard her, and marked her rightness in your brain, you need to say this aloud as if it’s a verbal stamp. You need to make an auditory notation of her victory. Just say it if you want the nonsense to stop. Especially say it because she’s probably right in some way.
But who cares if she’s wrong? So what if you believe you’re totally right? I’m telling you, if you crave your post-fight underpants moment, if you want this verbal sparring to stop, what the hell does it cost you, really? Don’t you gain more than you lose? Just say it with conviction: “You’re right. I see your point, (use name here). I’m sorry.” If you want extra credit, toss in something like “I’m going to try and be more aware of that.” Or “I’m going to try to work on that.” Whatever this word combo, it will act like a vaccine for all temporary annoyances. It will debrittle her. It will catch her off-guard. And then you’ll be a little surprised when the fight is over and she says aloud some version of “Thank you. I appreciate you saying so.” And then she will either leave you to your underpants moment or, even better, because she has just been validated for her emotions, she will fuck you—which is much better than an unresolved smoldering argument.
Don’t Give Your Opinion Unless Yo
u’re Asked
Another scoop of advice is self-censor any negative comments about our looks. I know you think you’re helping by giving your opinion—the one we never asked for. But big or small, thin or thick, we women have obsessed about our bodies for our whole lives, so that when you say something even vaguely negative, we retain it. We carry it with us forever, like being burned with acid. We retain anything that criticizes us; anything that calls us out.
An example: when I was in fifth grade, I briefly danced in a class. Not the required do-si-do of the mandatory square dance, but a real shimmy-shimmy-shake. I let go amongst my eleven-year-old peers, felt the heart of the music, and cut loose with a brimming smile. Some girl, Carrie Shaughnessy, who got her period way before everyone else and thus had the tits to prove it, said aloud to a small group of impressionable girls that I “couldn’t dance.” I had “no rhythm.” She laughed and pointed. I saw them gang-laughing in hilarious agreement, a villainous slo-mo.
The truth: I have literally never danced again. Anywhere. For any reason. Preferring instead to make fun of others as they show the most vulnerable sides of themselves. I’m sorry if I’ve ever hurt anyone’s feelings with these word-bullets. I’m jealous of your freedom, your lack of self-possession, your willingness to look like an asshole and be open to the Carrie Shaughnessys of the world.
Girls invariably become the women who retain all negative remarks, while anything positive flies up and out the window. Women’s fragile psyches are like naked sticks of butter, revealing every CSI-like fingerprint of everyone who ever brushed up against them too hard. So no matter how tiny the compliment, focus on the positive side of things because she will retain any negative morsel forever. And she does have total recall of all of it. She is the Dewey Decimal System of the cataloguing of emotional slights. She can conjure up the most obscure, innocuous remark you made six years ago to prove her point today. How does she retain that, you wonder? Because it hurt her feelings. Avoid hurting these if you’d prefer more fucking.