The REAL reasons why marriages just don’t work

I recently read an article about 5 reasons why marriage doesn’t work anymore. I was completely floored. I cannot believe that this kind of argument not only passes as acceptable today but has people sharing and liking as though this were wisdom. I try to keep my rants to a minimum these days but I don’t have any choice this time, I have to say something. If you have not read this article yet you can see it here and I will outline it below as I discuss it. This gist of this article goes like this. “My marriage didn’t work even though I made a number of selfish decisions and resented the person I married for being a part of my life. Therefore the entire institution of marriage must be outdated because it could never possibly be my own personal failing.” I assume the reason that this article has gained so much traction is because we as a society have been teaching our children for years that they are each unique perfect gems and therefore anything that do not excel at cannot possibly be the result of their lack of effort or gasp personal shortcomings but instead must be caused by a skewed system that failed to accommodate their own personal style. The fact is everything about this article is wrong because marriages do not fail because the institution of marriage is outdated, marriages fail because selfish people join into shallow unions expecting to have perfect happiness for the rest of their lives rather than a realistic partnership that will come to enrich every aspect of their lives.

Okay so now that I got the rant off of my chest let’s get to the article. The first reason he states for why marriages just don’t work is because sex becomes non-existent. There are a couple of problems with this argument. First, he doesn’t know anything about any marriages other than his own. The sex in a marriage should be between the participants. If he was unhappy with how much sex he was having in his marriage he could have put on his big boy pants and discussed it with his wife or tried to put more effort into making her want to have sex or God forbid try to help alleviate whatever was making her not want to have sex. Maybe she was tired from raising a boy husband and you could have gotten up and done some dishes so that she could relax and be more in the mood. Whatever the situation, the point is that marriage is not all about sunshine and roses. There are hard days and easy days and there are days when you will want to punch your spouse. You have to be willing to communicate and try to weather the storms, learn about your spouse and try to be what they need when you can. Marriage is not about living happily ever after, marriage is about knowing that beneath everything else you love your spouse and you choose to spend your life with them so part of that decision means that everyday you wake up and you work at it and you love them physically and emotionally and you love them when you yell and when you cry and all of that loving makes your spouse the part of your life that you cannot imagine yourself without.

His second argument is that the finances of marriage cripple us. He says that it is impossible to find a job to pay for student loans, mortgages, utilities, and babies. The obvious problem with this argument is that it has nothing to do with marriage, If you cannot afford $200,000 in student loans then go to a cheaper school, if you can’t afford a mortgage then don’t buy a house and please if you cannot afford a $100,000 wedding then don’t waste your money on the party, save your money for the lifetime. If anything getting married in most cases means that you will add an additional income to your household and therefore the expenses will be easier to handle. In fact every piece of research I have ever found shows that being married makes you less likely to raise children in poverty. This argument is not about why marriage fails. My parent bought a house with things growing in the bathtub and cleaned it up and fixed it themselves to get into their first house. I would bet that most people know at least one person who grew up in a one or two bedroom house with more than 6 people living in it.  Previous generations did not have easier finances in marriages they had less selfish and whiny participants who understood that the sacrifices they made as young adults and new parents are the price of admission for a comfortable life filled with the love and joy that only a family will bring.

The third argument is that we are too disconnected from each other because we are too preoccupied with digital communications and therefore we never really talk to the person we married anymore. I have an easy solution for this problem that doesn’t involve divorce and doesn’t require that we give up on marriage. Here you go, it is a really radical suggestion…… If you want to talk to your spouse, then talk to your spouse. If you feel disconnected then stop trolling Facebook and Pintrest and ask how their day was. If you want to feel connected to your spouse then connect, go away together, talk about your future plans, do whatever you need to do but again this is not a reason why marriage doesn’t work in general this is a reason why marriage doesn’t work for self centered children. TALK TO YOUR SPOUSE!!!! It’s not rocket science. His 4^th argument is my favorite. It is honestly hard for me to even present this argument because it is so ludicrous.

Here you go his heading for reason #4 that marriage doesn’t work any longer…..”Our desire for attention outweighs our desire to be loved.” Seriously.. Do I have to say it again? This is not why marriage fails this is why immature selfish people should not get married. Try this. Stand in the bathroom in front of the mirror. Look yourself in the eyes and say I care more about the number of Facebook likes I get than the emotional well-being of the person I chose to spend my life with. If you can honestly complete that sentence with a straight face, no eye roll or laugh, then you are a douche-bag and your marriage will fail. If you are like the rest of us and realize how outrageous that statement is then congratulations you might be a grown up.

Okay the 5^th argument is that social media invites a few thousand people into bed with you. There is no privacy and marriage requires privacy and therefore marriage does not work. I actually think this is key to the real reason that marriages fill. The fact is if you understand that marriage requires intimacy and privacy and you still choose to broadcast your personal life on Facebook then you never wanted to be married in the first place. If you actually care about your marriage then you will use what common sense you have and not broadcast private things online. We act shocked when kids are too stupid not to send digital nude photos but the fact is they learn it from Pseudo adults like this guy who do not know how to respect the themselves or the people in their lives when they get online. Again not the fault of marriage.

In closing I just want to say we have all heard it said that the most important decision you will make in your life is who you marry. This lesson is sinking in because people are getting married later and later in life waiting for the perfect spouse from the romantic comedy. The problem is that the theory is wrong, the most important decision in your life is not who you marry (although this is obviously a very important choice) the most important decision of your life should be who you divorce.  That should be the decision that takes years to make and that you constantly second guess.  Marriage is work. It is the richest most important relationship you will develop in your life and it doesn’t come free. It is called a union for a reason, you have to lose part of yourself to it in order to do it right. You have to choose to grow together and you have to choose to love each other and you have to chose to make your marriage a priority. If you cannot see yourself putting someone else first and making sacrifices to develop the life you want then you are not ready to be married and it wont matter if the person at the end of the aisle is prince charming or the toad you will end up at the same place, signing divorce papers.

5 Years of marriage

So this past weekend was our 5^th wedding anniversary. It was very nice and low key. Just take-out at home with the kids. It did give me time to reflect on our relationship and how I came to be married to this crazy hillbilly.

We met in October of 2007 at a bar called R place. I had left Grad school that summer and took a job as a restaurant manager in Cincinnati Ohio. I was there for a few months and then got transferred to Louisville. I had an aunt and uncle who lived here but other than that I did not know anybody and I was working 50 hours a week minimum. I hated my job and I was generally miserable. The day that I met John I had actually gone and paid to sign up for it’s just lunch dating service because I needed a change. That evening there was a Cleveland Indians game on television so I decided I would go to the bar and watch the game to get out of my apartment even though I could not care less about baseball. Once I got to the bar I set myself up at a table and started pretending to care about the game. Eventually a group of people came and sat at the table next to me. I struck up a conversation with them.

John was also at R place that night. He had rebuilt a 1976 Chevy Pickup truck in High school. By all accounts it was a beast nicknamed the Green Machine. It was very fast and dangerous and loud and basically exactly what you think of when somebody says ‘hillbilly death trap’. That morning he had been driving down the road when somebody came out of a parking lot and cut him off. He drive right into the car and ended up with his tire on the other cars windshield. There were no major injuries but he had been thrown into the steering wheel and was pretty sore. When he got home with the truck he discovered the frame was bent. I wish I could explain to you how he felt but to be honest I will never understand the connection between him and that truck but suffice it to say he was at the bar mourning the loss of his dear friend the Green Machine.

He was not at the table next to me when I started talking to that group. He was actually over playing darts. After I had been sitting there for about 10 minutes he came over and started talking to the people next to me as apparently they were his friends. Now John was sexy. He had that strange chin strap which I usually think looks ridiculous but on him it didn’t. He was very confident even in his mourning and he caught my attention immediately. He finally noticed me sitting there and came up to me and said “hey, I’m Johnny C.” with his deep voice and southern accent then gave me a big smile and walked off to get another drink. I hate to admit that it worked but he had my attention from that moment on. It took about half an hour before he finished his game of darts and came back up to me and asked if I wanted to go smoke a cigarette. I of course agreed and that began one of the more entertaining evenings of my life.

We went outside and sat at a table to smoke and started talking. All of his friends from inside followed a few minutes later and realized that he liked me because they immediately started trying to warn me about how much trouble Johnny really was. I heard A LOT of outrageous stories that night. Tales of Johnny driving the wrong way down major roads and driving through bushes to escape the police. Pretty much every imaginable stupid thing that you can think of for a teenage hillbilly with a big truck to do Johnny had done and I heard about that night. I can never say that I was not warned about him. Throughout all of these stories Johnny kept telling me that those stories were about evil Johnny and he had beaten that guy a long time ago. There was something so cute about it.

Now throughout all of this there was a part of me that figured all of these stories were lies and exaggerations. How could one person who had just turned 23 have done all of the outrageous things these people were saying? I mean who sets fire to state parks, or sets off firecrackers in the back seat of cars, or drives through the bush line in front of his high school every afternoon, or tries to attack someone with a butter knife at a steak and shake? Apparently Johnny did, he was a troubled youth. After the stories the conversation shifted and everyone started telling jokes. Now I can hang when it comes to joke telling, I can be pretty funny. John CANNOT tell a joke. He is that guy who says the punchline first and then realizes his mistake and tries to backtrack and just butchers the whole thing and then starts laughing way too hard because he remembers the joke as funny even though he destroyed it. That was how I knew that all of the stories were true. He had told them in the correct order.

Fortunately by the time I realized that all of the stories were true I was already hooked. He was too cute. We have hung out together pretty much every day since that night with very few exceptions. I basically lost my job because I stayed out too often but it worth every hangover. The fact is that he was more important than that job. I already knew that I didn’t want to meet anybody else.

John and I make sense in the strangest way. I don’t think any of my friends from college would have guessed that I would marry a hillbilly like John but I’m so glad that I did. I over think everything and I worry about all of the things that are out of my control. I have always been so serious, I pay all my bills on time, I keep my music low, and I only dance in appropriate venues. John once made me dance in the aisle of an Applebee’s, he enjoys playing outside more than just about anything, and he is able to relax and just let go. I keep Johns credit score up and I think he keeps my blood pressure down.

I look back on the last 5 years and I can’t believe that much time has passed.   We have both changed so much. We are raising 2 beautiful children.  Johnny C has become John and he has largely forsaken his whiskey for cookies and milk.  I can handle all the changes as long as I have my hillbilly around.   I can’t wait to see what this new chapter of our lives will bring. It seems hard to believe but I believe that the next 5 years will be even better than the first 5 years.

Walking the Dog Hillbilly Style

This is how we walk the dog on weeknights.  It wears out the dog and the kids!!!!

Red Star Log

John is a lot more familiar with the farm so he is not surprised by some of the things he finds but I am constantly surprised with things he brings home.  This most recent find is just a very unique log.  John says it is Red Cedar but I cannot find anything like it online.  It has a red star shaped pattern in the wood.  I can only imagine the possibilities for crafters.  John says he has a bunch of this wood so I guess it is not that uncommon but it certainly looked cool to me.

John vs Snow

Some people see 17 inches of snow in their front yard and decide to stay inside.  Not John he sees something to be conquered.

hillbillly BBQsicle

Here is the latest update on the World of John.  Today we got about 12 hours of  rain followed by 2 hours of ice and a bunch of snow all evening long.  Me and John were both home because I did not want to risk the drive to the office.  So you can imagine my surprise when John came back from his run to the grocery store before the weather hit with a bag of charcoal.  He had decided that he wanted BBQ and in true hillbilly fashion he had no intention of letting anything like sleet keep him from smoking his BBQ over a bed of hickory chips in his huge grill.  So this is the chronicle of John vs Winter.

This is John in his coveralls and no shirt getting ready to go out in the freezing cold to light the grill.  I politely mentioned that he looked like a terrorist in this picture which led to a bonus for the day John got in the shower after this and cut his hair and trimmed his beard!!!!

Once he got out of the shower he decided the rest of the cooking could be done in pajamas and a coat.

After I took this picture I realized that you can’t see the sleet and ice in this picture.  Ice does not photograph well.  So I took a short video.

Yes that is my food that is being tenderized by ice pellets.

I have to admit though that the BBQ was pretty good.  He is exceptional at smoking meat.  I guess icy day smoked BBQ is a benefit of the hillbilly lifestyle.

By the time we started eating this was what the porch looked like.  There is a not very thin layer of ice under the snow and we are supposed to get around a foot of snow tonight.  BAH HUMBUG

The battle of the birds

Snix, my cat is not ready to move to the country.  He is an indoor kitty. The best way to explain to you how indoors my cat truly is is to tell you about the birds.  I should mention here that I am just a little bit afraid of birds.  At the time of this story I lived in a top floor apartment and as soon as it got cold outside I discovered that there was a hole in the eaves outside of my bedroom.  This meant that birds would constantly get into the attic above my apartment and fall into the walls and get stuck.  This was miserable for everyone who ever heard the bird try to fight its way out of the wall but Snix was never curious about what was in the wall.  He wanted no part of it.  He didn’t sniff or hiss or do anything that you would expect a cat to do.

One day when this happened I finally fell asleep after listening for a few hours and I woke up the next morning to find Snix nuzzling me and crying while I slept. I thought he was being soo sweet  Little did I know that he was a coward abandoning me in my moment of need! I got up and noticed the first sign of trouble when I went into the bathroom and realized the plumbing access panel was broken loose and sitting open.  Just as my still groggy mind started to chew on the problem of the open access panel I heard something shuffle in the hallway.  I was terrified but I went slowly into the hallway to see what was happening.  I looked out just in time to see a huge black bird fly down my hallway.  I threw myself to the ground and army crawled to my bedroom in a panic.

Once I got safely to my room and closed all the doors I did the only thing I could think to do, I called my mom in hysterics to tell her there was a bird in my apartment.  I noticed while the phone was ringing that Snix had actually curled up into my pillows and was hiding, NO HELP AT ALL!!! My mom answered and told me I was being ridiculous.  I was a grown woman now and I needed to suck it up and get a towel and chase the birds out of my house.  I was temporarily encouraged.  I was a grown woman, I was in grad school, I could conquer a stupid bird. So I grabbed an over sized towel and with tears in my eyes and my heart racing I crept down the hallway towards my den.  I held the towel in front of me and I spotted the bird perched on the bookshelf in my den right off of the living room.  I went and opened the balcony door as the most obvious exit and started to move slowly towards the bird.  I took the first two steps into the den towards the bird and lifted the towel….

Suddenly ANOTHER BIG BLACK BIRD BEAST flew in from behind me.  He had been hiding on the other bookshelf where I could not see him.  I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY DRAGONS!!  I ran out of my apartment in my pajamas crying and hysterical.  I ran through the parking lot to my friends apartment.  She had two things I desperately needed at that moment 1) A large dog that would not hide in my pillows and 2) a husband that she could force to fix things like this.  We walked down and stood behind the building and watched man dog and bird fight an epic battle for ownership of my apartment.  Everything I owned was tossed and beaten and covered in paw prints but in 15 minutes both birds had been vacated.  I thanked my friend and slowly reentered the war zone that had been my apartment.

Still in tears I called my mom to tell her that she was WRONG and I would never be old enough to handle a bird in my house by myself.  Once I got off the phone I started putting furniture away.  After I had everything in the right spot and I had about 10 percent of the bird poop cleaned up from all over my house I finally saw Snix again.  He came out and wanted to sit on my lap.  Unfortunately Snix is never going to be a useful cat, he is a traitor who abandoned me to my fate against the birds.  Luckily he is also very sweet and he has been with me through thick and thin so if he is afraid of birds and mice I will just have to make John fight those battles for him.

Dreaming of brighter days

I refuse to write a blog about my slow march towards insanity that has been brought on by this stupid winter storm and a week straight in the house all day every day.  I am also going to wait and let John tell you all about the pipes bursting at midnight and the exciting adventure that was.  Instead I am choosing to focus on good things to come so I am going to use this blog to ask for suggestions from everyone about how we should best celebrate our upcoming events.  With preparations for the house and all of our daily stuff the stress level has been pretty high around here so I want to try to make the best of these upcoming opportunities to relax and celebrate.

1) In March comes our wedding anniversary.  I am pretty sure it will involve Butterscotch moonshine ( as all good celebrations should) but does anyone have any great ideas for a nice outing for us and the kids in the Louisville area?  Please do not suggest insane things Chucky Cheese.  I want to spend the day with my kids but I would also like to enjoy myself.

2) In April JR is turning 5.  Seriously 5!!  He will be in school next year.  This make me feel super old but I also want to make sure he has an awesome birthday party without my going broke.  Any ideas?

3) In late April my kids are going to visit the grandparents which means me and John will have 5 days to go somewhere together!!!!  Now the questions is where to go?  John loves the beach.  I don’t dislike the beach but I prefer quiet and relaxation.  An important note here is that I hate drunk college kids in April.  Any ideas?

Those are all of the big events for the next few months that will involve sunshine and places that are not my living room.  Sooooo if you have any ideas on how to make them awesome please share so that I can stop thinking about how bad the weather is in Kentucky.

Working Mommy Fail

For those of you who do not live in Kentucky our fine state is currently closed. We got a bunch of snow this week and now everything has been closed for the last two days. This includes my daycare. Lucky for me I have a job where in a pinch I can watch my kids while I work from home. I had a conference call at 3 PM but I figured I could handle a 1 hr. conference call with 2 kids younger than 5 and a 16 wk. old puppy, that’s what nap time is for.

I was so naive

I started early and made a good lunch then settled them in with a movie and chocolate milk so they would fall asleep. They did not fall asleep and at 2:45 I started to panic. I called a co-worker to ask them to be on the call in case I had to hang up in a hurry and then I put my youngest in a diaper and I restarted the movie for my oldest.I left them with the threat they would never get candy again if they came out for a non emergency.

I started the conference.I put my cell phone on speaker and plugged in my headphones. Just in case I warned the people on the call that there were a few kids running around my house and introduced my co-worker early on. The total meeting only ran about 40 minutes.

3:00-3:05 – Hellos, introductions, and politeness

3:05-3:20 – typical meeting content

3:20-3:22 the far off screams of my youngest child

3:22 my youngest childs enter the room in hysterics screaming

“I went pee pee in my diaper, Diaper is wet, Fix it”

3:22 ½ I quickly pass control to my colleague and put my phone on mute. I set the phone on the couch and go assist my daughter

3:22 1/2 -3:25 – I take off my daughters diaper and put her in panties to calm her down and take her to the bathroom. Then I put her back to bed in her room.

3:25- 3:28 – I run into the other room and grab the phone which is now somehow lying unmuted underneath my dog’s foot. I am not sure what contribution my puppy scout’s belly made to the conversation but as I pick up the phone I hear my colleague mentioning that there is a lot of static so I quickly hit mute and wait for a few minutes silently.

3:28 – 3:30 I listen to the meeting on mute until I think enough time has passed that I will not be blamed for the mysterious static

3:30-3:33 I rejoin the meeting and again begin to lead the discussion.

3:33-3:35 – my son runs into the living room in his underwear making ‘pew pew pew’ sounds while he pretends to fly a spaceship.

I continue my discussion while eyeballing my son and silently signaling for him to go back to his room with my scariest mommy eyes

3:35 – 3:37 Victory my son ran out of the room and goes towards his bedroom. I am nearly to the end of my meeting and I think I may have pulled this off

3:37 My son screams through the house ‘I WENT POOP AND I NEED YOU TO WIPE ME WIPE ME’

3:37 ½ I take my phone off speaker and remove the headset while I ask if there are any questions

3:38 – MOMMY I SAID I WENT POOP AND I NEED YOU TO WIPE ME

3:38 ½ – Everyone on the call says there are no questions and thanks me for the information

3:39 – ‘MOMMY I SAAAAIIIIIIDDD THAT I WENT POOP AND I NEED YOU TO WIIIIIIPE MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!’

3:39 ½ – I quickly explain that I can be reached with the information on my email and hang up the phone

3:40 – I am wiping my son wondering to myself just how much they heard and if they really had no questions

I know that some women work from home while watching their kids every single day. I think that may be a practice that is best works best with teenagers.

Take A Closer Look

John is able to see the beauty in just about everything at the farm.  He got some great pics this week that I want to share.

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A little bit closer……

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And even closer still

This was a bottle he found lying in the woods but when you look closer you can see why it caught Johns attention.

Most people would have walked right by this or threw it away as a piece of trash.  The fact that he stopped and took these pictures is one of the reasons that I love him.

The next time you are walking outside and see something that looks like trash.  Take a closer look, sometimes nature has a way of taking our trash and making it something worth seeing.

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This is a picture he took a few years ago.  It is beautiful and worth sharing

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