If we never take the time to get out of our bubble and interact with people outside our normal sphere, we risk becoming hypochondriacs of our own lives. We fall into overexamining every glance our husband throws us, the mild rash on the inside of our kid’s elbow, the new wrinkle beside our eye—wait, that is a wrinkle, isn’t it? Or do I need glasses, oh shit, I need glasses! It can be endless if you let it be endless.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. And I’ve found that you can reconnect with what’s really crucial versus what’s noise-in garbage by going outside your bubble and helping others. No one said it better than Gandhi: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
9
KEEPING THE HAPPILY IN THE EVER AFTER
Last year there was a poll asking women what they’d give up in order to have a beach-perfect body. The consensus was 67 percent would give up sex for six months. Or maybe it was 78 percent would give up sex for four months. And 83 percent said they would give up sex for two months? Really, the thing was so stupid I didn’t even finish reading the article. The takeaway is that we chicks value being admired and envied over intimacy.
Heads up, modern women: men don’t care if you have a half-inch of muffin top perched on the waistband of your jeans, or a smidge of cellulite beneath your left butt cheek. They don’t care if, when you twist around, there’s a little wedge of fat in the lower midriff region. They don’t care if, when you raise your arm, there’s a teeny wobble beneath your triceps. Do not care.
All they want is for you, their chick, to be naked and smiling.
And if you want your partnership to last, you better plan on being naked and smiling. A lot.
Most days, the sporting event my marriage most resembles is the four-hundred-meter relay, where the only time you have any contact with your teammate is when he passes off the baton, and for about thirty feet you’re running side by side before he falls away and you zoom off.
All last week Laird was shooting something for French TV. The French are mesmerized by Laird and the way he lives and they were shooting something lifestyle-y, but I wasn’t sure what, exactly. He was gone before the sun rose and home long after the girls were put to bed. I was teaching all week and also participated in a volleyball tournament, and the girls each had their full complement of ballet, gymnastic, jujitsu, and horseback riding lessons. Someone may have had an ear infection in there, too.
We were both exhausted, and you know what happens when you’re exhausted? What is the very first thing women take a pass on?
Exactly.
Why it’s more important to make sure the four-year-old’s tiny T-shirts are folded into tiny squares and tucked into her drawer in a tidy stack than to be intimate with Mr. Charming is an excellent question. I’m sure it has to do with the feeling of satisfaction we gain—all right, I gain—from checking something off my to-do list.
Laird and I can go on like this for, oh, about forty-eight hours, after which Mr. Charming’s behavior toward me starts to change. My girlfriends are convinced that, after a few days, if the guys don’t receive the right kind of attention, they start treating us like they treat everyone else in the household.
And you know who that is in my household? A teenager who’s never there, two little kids, and Mr. Speedy, the dog. And Mr. Charming, who, once he’s gone without for three days, starts getting grumpy. The word “withdrawal” comes to mind.
I might be traveling, might be doing the taxes, or the kids might be sick. It doesn’t really matter. Forty-eight hours passes and I better start thinking about some naked and smiling time. So doing Laird is on my to-do list.
We’re interluders, grabbing time when the kids are off somewhere in the middle of the day. We’re big on nap dates. Even if he’s cruised through the kitchen and I say, “Hey, what are you doing in half an hour,” and he’s busy, it’s good for him to know I’m thinking about him. And it.
And yes, even though he’s the one who’s got the forty-eight-hour withdrawal problem, I’m the one chasing him around the sofa. We women complain about this perceived unfairness. Why do we have to do everything (and pretty much every woman I know does everything, defined, for our purposes, as more than one person can possibly handle in a day, week, month, lifetime), and then, at the end of the day, find a way to channel our inner pole dancer?
Because once women get all snuggled down into a relationship, sex just isn’t the priority it once was. I wish I could report otherwise. But the sun rises and sets; it’s the end of the day and we’re dead tired. We’re not withholding, we’re not bored with our partners (unless we are, but that’s another issue), we really are simply exhausted. And the more exhausted we are, the more days pass without sex—for some couples there’s more sexiness at a sixth grader’s slumber party, where at least the boys next door might get in on some spin the bottle action, than there is five, six, seven years into a marriage.
It’s important for Mr. Charming to know that we still think of him that way. Also, unless he has a wasting disease, Mr. Charming will pretty much drop everything and have sex whenever you let it be known that you’re up for it (down with it?), and there are few things less erotic, not to mention humiliating, than for your guy to sidle up to you and nibble on your earlobe only to have you bat him away and say, “Sorry, babe, the PTA cupcake committee is meeting in fifteen minutes, then I have to stop by and pick up some new fly strips for the garage.”
I had a boyfriend in my twenties, a sincere and generous guy whom I knew from the modeling world. He was very understanding about my time, my work schedule, my training schedule, my moods. Too understanding, as it turns out. One day we just stopped having sex altogether, and once we stopped, I lost all interest. He was a great guy—and by the way, this was a beautiful man—but I didn’t want to sleep with him. Once it got to the point where he had to ask “Are you not attracted to me?” the relationship was over.
With Laird, it’s different. He has expectations that if he’s committed to the relationship, I’m committed to an active sex life. He lets me know on a regular basis that he’s here, and because he has high expectations on the sex front, I rise to meet those expectations. It’s not as if it’s difficult. It isn’t as if he’s off scratching himself and honking at me, “Okay, woman, come over here and boff my brains out.” Laird is a loving guy who pays attention to me.
So yeah, bottom line: if you want everything to run smoothly in the castle, get busy. Sex takes, what, twenty minutes? You should never have to fake it, but you know what? You’re not going to go to intimacy hell if once in a while you fake it. And if you have to indulge in a fantasy, do it. Sometimes I imagine Laird with another woman. I look at it from the outside, as is my habit, and I think, “Whoa! That guy’s attractive. He’s hot!” Do whatever it takes to remind you of what you have. And, presumably, what you want to keep.
And while we’re on the subject of what you might need to tell yourself from time to time to get into the spirit of the occasion, how about checking in with your guy to see if he’s still digging the way you’re stroking, sucking, or tugging? If you ask him how he likes his lamb chop, there’s no reason you shouldn’t ask him about his more intimate preferences. Time changes things for them, too. Ten years ago a little tug of the balls might have been just the surprise that ramped up the intensity; now, it’s merely annoying. We talk a lot about being productive in the gym, why not in the bedroom as well? Also, nothing says “I care” like letting Mr. Charming know you’re thinking about sex with him.
• • •
If you do take the time—let’s go crazy and say forty-five minutes from kicking off your shoes to zipping up your jeans—to nourish that part of your marriage, it’s also one less thing to feel bad about.
Once, a friend pointed out that sometimes we take a pass on sex not because we’re exhausted or not interested in our partners, but because we’re not feeling sexy ourselves. We’ve had a crap day and we’re bloated and broken out; whatever our pr
ivate version of hot is, we’re the opposite.
But guess what? Men see only what we project.
In the same way the basket of unfolded laundry in the middle of the living room is completely invisible to them when they’re watching the play-offs, so, too, do they fail to see any of your flaws when you’re giving them the hungry-for-love look. At that moment, they are completely oblivious to your need to exfoliate, trust me.
But if you beg off sex saying that it’s because you feel fat or your knees are too scaly or your forearm skin is too crepey or you have a zit on your chin, you’ve basically created a big red neon arrow that points to something he would have never even noticed.
Here’s an experiment: the next time you’re feeling too bad about your body to initiate sex, do it anyway. Grab your guy and be like, “Hey, I’m so hot right now and you’re going to get lucky.” If he says, “Um, no, sorry, your thighs look a little big today, not interested,” it will be such as astonishing example of human male behavior, you should write your own book. More likely, you’re going to make his week. He’s thinking, “Wow, my chick’s in a great mood. She’s happy and she wants me.”
The person in your head analyzing every inch of your physical being is not a man, but a woman. She’s evaluating how you walk, what your backside looks like, how smooth your skin is, and whether anyone can tell how cheap your handbag is. And if the woman in your head is keeping you from the happily in the ever after, you’ve got to shut her up.
• • •
I’ve spent most of my life around male athletes. Regardless of their sport, they all have this in common: they’re all walking, talking testosterone factories traveling the world, where women offer themselves up any time they stop for more than ninety seconds. And it’s not just the jocks; corporate guys are often on the road two hundred fifty days a year, meeting a variety of interesting, dynamic women. Available women. Even the guy who lives a relatively quiet life nevertheless comes into contact with hot baristas every day, or the new intern at the office.
I’m not trying to make you paranoid; I just want to point out that there’s opportunity for men pretty much everywhere, and if they’re not committed to their partners or their relationships, which is more liable to happen if they’re being neglected, the more likely they are to succumb to their hardwiring, which is to cast the net wide.
So often a guy meets someone else and the woman sings this sad song: “I was left for a younger woman, woe is me.” But that’s not why she was left. In a lot of instances, she was left because she stopped paying attention.
If we’re only mothers, if we’re only dutiful wives, if the man to whom we were once head-over-heels attracted gets sidelined, then ignored, that’s a problem.
PRAISE THE LORD
People need praise. Just think how good it makes you feel when your guy compliments you on, oh, pick anything: your new dress, jambalaya recipe, masterful downward-facing dog, ability to solve for x. However good that makes you feel, multiply that by ten and you have the degree to how happy your guy feels when you compliment him.
Men need praise, and they need it from women. From the time they’re learning to ride their first bike and saying “Look, Ma, no hands!” (notice: the old saying isn’t “Look, Dad, no hands), for men, the world is a better place when they are getting their egos stroked a little by the women in their lives. They’re fragile beings, men. Fragile, but also powerful. Sometimes I think of them as racehorses, huge and majestic, but also capable of breaking down in an instant. Even the most successful man, surrounded by people in his professional life telling him he’s so smart or so talented, still needs his partner to tell him I love you, I appreciate you, I desire you—and he needs to hear it on a regular basis.
I wonder if, reading this, you’re rolling your eyes, thinking, “Wait, I work fifty hours a week, do the laundry, shopping, cooking, and pick his dirty boxers up off the bathroom floor every morning, and I’m supposed to praise him for the masterful way in which he changed the oil in the car, or made pancakes last Sunday morning, or can pick out ‘Hotel California’ on the guitar?”
Yep.
It helps to have some basic human empathy. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle” was the advice Plato gave to his buddies, and it’s just as true today. For example, do we women know what it’s like for a guy to feel as if he’s not a young buck anymore? We’re so quick to say, “Oh, he’s having a midlife crisis” when he goes out and buys that little red sports car, but what does that really mean? How is it that we women are allowed to talk (read: obsess) about our fears of aging and yet we assume for them it’s a big joke?
Even the most gentle, mild-mannered men thrive when they get a little appreciation. When I was a kid and living with my aunt and uncle, my uncle Joe never said much. He was a soft-spoken guy, tired from his long days at work. He and Aunt Norette scrimped and saved, and after many years of sticking to their budget, he was able to purchase a twenty-four-foot sailboat. He loved that boat like a family member. And every once in a while Norette would get him talking about sailing, and even though I was a tiny child, I could see new shades of his personality I’d never seen before. Whatever the man version of blossoming is, that’s what my uncle Joe was doing beneath the glow of Aunt Norette’s interest and empathy.
There’s that famous, droll Virginia Woolf quote about how women were trained to act as mirrors, reflecting men back at twice their normal size. It would be easy to smirk if they didn’t benefit from it so much.
IT’S A DISAGREEMENT, NOT A DUEL TO THE DEATH
One of the basic agreements a couple makes is who’s the male and who’s the female. It usually breaks down along obvious gender lines, but not always. And the point isn’t who’s the one who strides out of the house at seven a.m. with a briefcase and who takes the babies to play group, it’s the agreement you make when you commit.
I wish this was my own clever idea, but it’s part of the wisdom according to Dr. Patricia Allen, an L.A.-based cognitive behavioral therapist and expert on communication in relationships. She’s got a big cult following, and several bestselling books, including Getting to “I Do”: The Secret to Doing Relationships Right and her most recent, written with Don Schmincke, The Truth About Men Will Set You Free . . . but First It’ll P*** You Off.
Dr. Pat Allen (like a superhero, she’s known to one and all as Dr. Pat Allen; her children probably call her Dr. Pat Allen) says that when you get married, its key that both parties understand that one of two things is happening: either you’re providing the female energy and Mr. Charming is providing the male, or you’re assuming the male role and he, the female. In a long-term relationship the roles may switch. Men, as they get older and their testosterone levels drop, tend to get all nesty and interested in snuggling and watching a movie; women, on the other hand, once the nest is empty and their estrogen is in retreat, are like, “I’m off to raft the Grand Canyon. See ya.”
This role reversal often happens gradually over time. That’s natural. But one important thing to remember is that you should never flip the switch on your understanding with your partner, especially not during the middle of an all-out fight. The people responsible for wedding vows in the Book of Common Prayer should tuck that in somewhere: that we vow not to pull the rug out from under the other guy by switching gender roles in the middle of a spat. If you’ve agreed in calmer moments that you’re going to provide the male energy, you can’t suddenly flip out and say, “I can’t take supporting your ass anymore! Get a job or I’m outta here.” Or, if you’re rocking the female energy, you can’t throw a plate of spaghetti at Mr. Charming’s head and scream, “I’m tired of cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids! I’m going back to get my MBA!”
The masculine-feminine dynamic is more complicated than it might seem on the face of it. To be truly feminine means being soft, receptive, and—look out, here it comes—submissive. My own level of submission and commitment to Laird became greater when I had my kids. I�
�ve bowed down to this family on every level I can. That said, to run a household you’ve got to be a badass. I keep myself from going insane by this paradox by pretending I’m in a nature documentary about, say, wild mustangs, where you’ve got the lead mare who brooks no shit and keeps everyone in line, including the stallions, and the lower subset females, who are sweet and cooperative and go along to get along. I’m one or the other, moment to moment.
Laird and I argue. The disagreements are genuine, but they’re on a sliding scale of importance.
One of our ongoing arguments is whether to get Mr. Speedy neutered. Every time I take Mr. Speedy to the vet, I get a lecture. Laird adores Mr. Speedy, and worries that if he gets his balls lopped off Mr. Speedy will become Mr. Slow Poke. It’s become a huge nuisance; everyone in the neighborhood takes a dim view of Mr. Speedy wandering the streets humping everything in sight. But Laird stands firm. Once, when he was away, I thought about just getting the dog fixed, but now Reece and Brody have taken up the cause. “No!” they cry. “That’s Dad’s dog. You can’t get rid of his balls!” (And now, balls have become a huge topic in our house. Once, someone told four-year-old Brody that the softest part of a horse was his nose, and she retorted, “No, it’s his balls.”)
The more serious arguments revolve about his (infrequent) criticism of the way I organize his business matters. Recently, in putting together our new website, we shot three thousand (yes, thousand) pictures of Laird and I doing individual workouts for men and women. The photographer was disorganized and the whole thing wound up being a lot more effort than we’d anticipated. When I groused about it he said, “Well, you know, the decision to hire him started at the top.”
My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper: A Guide to the Less Than Perfect Life Page 12