Marriage: A New Set of Rules

maritalmigraine2712 years ago

By guest columnist Maritalmigraine27 of wedache.com

Memo to all fraternity guys considering marriage: The rules for living change dramatically upon return-arrival from your honeymoon.

It’s a harrowing phenomenon, the kind that strangles you the very nanosecond you de-board the plane and head for baggage claim.

What rules, you naively ask?

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Eating

Say goodbye to Budweiser and bratwurst. Say hello to Crystal Light and Special K, the fundamental staples of a miserable eating lifestyle. It’s nice when the wife sticks to a healthy diet, but this comes with an ominous caveat: said diet often gets pushed into your palate as well.
It only gets worse. As we age, the Crystal Light and Special K becomes Chocolate Ensure and Grape Nuts, and Your Nuts become Her Nuts.

Sleeping

Say goodbye to peaceful nights of uninterrupted slumber. Say hello to Arctic-tundra toes on your thighs and a pair of boney knees that continually gravitate to the small of your back. Even as you slip away into slumber, your wife will be there to make sure you don’t experience comfort in your semi-conscious state.

Sports

Say goodbye to enjoying uninterrupted games with your pals from the SAE House. Unless you’re fortunate enough to lock down a sports-savvy gal (I hear a few of those exist), say hello to an avalanche of ridiculous questions, which becomes the auditory surround-sound of every football-watching experience. Joe Buck and Chris Collinsworth and now joined by (INSERT ANNOYING WIFE’S NAME HERE). Your couch’s newest color commentator will add intuitive insight about why “a team should just try to score more touchdowns,” because that way, “they can win more easily.”

Shopping

Say goodbye to quick trips to grocery and clothing stores. Say hello to your new life as a shopping-bag donkey and assume your place amongst the benches along the mall corridors with the other husbands … you know, the ones resembling cadaverous CPR dummies with dull, lifeless eyes. Still not getting the visual? Rent George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” and look closely. The supposed shopping mall zombies are actually husbands waiting for their wives to ring up at The Gap.

Clothing

Say goodbye to choice. Say hello to whatever the wife thinks looks “adorable.” This often means being forced into stores with throbbing techno rhythms, gigantic murals of muscular, disinterested-looking male teens in homo-erotic poses and overzealous employees donning headsets. As time moves forward, the wife will come to the realization that thinning hair lines and beer guts don’t compliment jerseys emblazoned with “Varsity 77,” and you’ll eventually be pushed out to pasture, a.k.a. the Sears men’s department. Until then, set your sights on a few years of utter shame and embarrassment.

Haircuts

Say goodbye to your dad’s barber shop and those 10-minute jaunts at Fantastic Sam’s. Say hello to salons, where your wife won’t have any qualms about dropping an extra $50 of your hard-earned money to get the exact same haircut from a Clay Aiken facsimile named Sebastian.

Yard work

Say goodbye to Saturday mornings on the couch. Say hello to “projects” that entail the installation of flower beds and herb gardens, as well as frequent trips to Home Depot. Sadly, this might become your only chance at “Me” time (see Sports). It also might be the only time your significant other allows you to sport any clothing related to your fraternity.

Sex

Say buh-fucking-bye to, well, fucking. She already won the prize, so why would she need to impress you anymore? Say hello to the missionary position, a few times a month at a nice mechanical, medium pace. Say hello to the kind of foreplay that entails peeling away tattered layers of sweat clothes while muscling through the visual of her Ben Franklin-esque reading glasses, (that she now refuses to remove because “you shouldn’t care about the beauty of my looks – you should only care about the beauty of my soul). Yes, folks. Direct quote.

Now, please excuse me as I return to the fetal position in the shower and resume my routine morning cry.

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