Wow, people do read this.
Well I have had a reoccurring thought this week. It seems like the more you get away from yourself, the more you find yourself. I got to spend a lot of time with my cousin, uncle and brother on our drive to south Florida. They did a lot of joking about how they can not make any decisions about their lives because they have to run everything by their wives. I thought it was amusing, because I’m sure it is at least somewhat true.
On the other hand they were all three hounding me about not settling down. I think its funny when people complain about their situation and then immediately try and sucker others into the same predicament. The funny thing is their actions spoke a lot louder than their words.
I have a pretty negative view of marriage. I think I had to face it head on and for some reason this weekend made me pull out the microscope and examine this aspect of my personality. Maybe it is the result of coming from divorced parts (and by divorced I mean 6 marriages between both of them). Maybe I speak from my own experiences with relationships. Maybe I’m just buying into society’s idea that a woman must “break” a man.
The frightening thing is married men tend to live a lot longer than single men. As I walked through the cemetery yesterday, I noticed in almost every couple the woman outlived the man by at least a decade. Most had 20 years or more. So maybe the women are doing something right and maybe a certain amount of breaking is necessary since men tend to come up with most of the stupid crap in the world (see also school shootings, wars, “Black Tail” magazine).
I watched my cousin, brother and uncle talk about their struggles. They lost battles over which cars to buy or decisions about rather or not to install a pool in the yard. They have to fight to keep their favorite shirt or try a new hairstyle. Their decisions as individuals are done for the most part, because they are married and that means what they do needs committee approval.
On the surface, this looks like an awful deal. Really, who would want to loose so much personal liberty? The truth is they probably win as many battles as they loose. They all have their toys that their wives let them play with like computers, boats and other harmless past times. So in exchange for not being able to drop everything and head off to Vegas for the weekend, they get love and companionship and the opportunity to be a father. I would trade all this freedom I have to be able to tell a story about my son’s baseball league or my daughter’s win at the school science fair. If history has taught us anything, I will likely do just that. The difference is I’m no longer afraid.
Well I have had a reoccurring thought this week. It seems like the more you get away from yourself, the more you find yourself. I got to spend a lot of time with my cousin, uncle and brother on our drive to south Florida. They did a lot of joking about how they can not make any decisions about their lives because they have to run everything by their wives. I thought it was amusing, because I’m sure it is at least somewhat true.
On the other hand they were all three hounding me about not settling down. I think its funny when people complain about their situation and then immediately try and sucker others into the same predicament. The funny thing is their actions spoke a lot louder than their words.
I have a pretty negative view of marriage. I think I had to face it head on and for some reason this weekend made me pull out the microscope and examine this aspect of my personality. Maybe it is the result of coming from divorced parts (and by divorced I mean 6 marriages between both of them). Maybe I speak from my own experiences with relationships. Maybe I’m just buying into society’s idea that a woman must “break” a man.
The frightening thing is married men tend to live a lot longer than single men. As I walked through the cemetery yesterday, I noticed in almost every couple the woman outlived the man by at least a decade. Most had 20 years or more. So maybe the women are doing something right and maybe a certain amount of breaking is necessary since men tend to come up with most of the stupid crap in the world (see also school shootings, wars, “Black Tail” magazine).
I watched my cousin, brother and uncle talk about their struggles. They lost battles over which cars to buy or decisions about rather or not to install a pool in the yard. They have to fight to keep their favorite shirt or try a new hairstyle. Their decisions as individuals are done for the most part, because they are married and that means what they do needs committee approval.
On the surface, this looks like an awful deal. Really, who would want to loose so much personal liberty? The truth is they probably win as many battles as they loose. They all have their toys that their wives let them play with like computers, boats and other harmless past times. So in exchange for not being able to drop everything and head off to Vegas for the weekend, they get love and companionship and the opportunity to be a father. I would trade all this freedom I have to be able to tell a story about my son’s baseball league or my daughter’s win at the school science fair. If history has taught us anything, I will likely do just that. The difference is I’m no longer afraid.
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