I have been living with a man and three boys for nine years now and I clearly have been in denial. It is not that I don’t love them completely but I sometimes feel as though I am living in prehistoric tim
es.
Waking up to a honking, tooting, furry beast makes marriage feel a bit archaic at times. Were we really designed to live with men day in, day out or was the initial intention for men and women to take care of each other on more of a sporadic schedule that would fit in somewhere between hunting and gathering.
The other morning I walked in to the kitchen to find Wade looking slightly distraught and disheveled. When I asked him what was the matter, he sadly begged once again for me to buy him the imitation spreadable butter. I inquired as to why he didn’t like the spreadable real butter that I kept for him in the French Butter Keeper. He looked at me with his puppy dog beautiful eyes and said that it just didn’t taste like the fake butter.
I have tried to bring more natural and organic food into our home but the family always fights me on it. When I was buying raw milk from Maisy the cow, who lived at the ranch behind our house, they would scour at me as they drank it saying that it tasted too much like a fat cow. I was fighting a losing battle.
I decided that Wade and I needed to break out of our perfunctory routine and go out on a date. We love watching silly, funny movies together, like Old School and we were excited to see The Hangover. I think that Wade likes these movies because he relates to the characters and he lives vicariously through them. The plan was to go out for appetizers and on to the movie. After the movie, we would indulge on more food and drinks. Ok, that was my plan, Wade had more lustful ambitions for the evening.
As soon as I finished getting dressed, he started to give me his look. I acknowledged the look and gave him my look back that said, “you’ll get yours when I’m good and ready and not before”. I had just gotten dressed and I was not about to take it all off again. It felt good to dress nicely for once and of course, I was enjoying the flirtation and was going to prolong the inevitable for as long as possible.
We went to a local Mexican restaurant and turned up the mood for the movie. When Wade went to tip the waitress he grabbed my wallet and observed that I had lots of one dollar bills. He asked me if I had secretly been dancing late night, after he fell asleep. I reassured him that I owed the kids money from their chores and had the bank break a ten dollar bill for me.
It felt good to laugh at the movie and we emerged ready to continue the evening. Wade patiently filled my need for intimate conversation and I ignored his need for intimate fornication.
Finally, there was a pause in our conversation and Wade quickly motioned for the check. When I woke up the next morning I expected to see my furry beast snoring away but what I found was a peacefully sleeping beautiful man and I felt lucky that I was married to him. All it took was one evening alone with him to erase the cave man persona. I’m thankful to have friends that will take all three of our boys and look forward to our next opportunity to have another Wade and Jillian getaway.
Ah, date night. Does wonders for the furry beast, doesn’t it? haha! Back in the day of hunters/gatherers the men lived together, the women lived together – getting together for “dates” as needed. Somebody somewhere got this whole idea of living together in one home, with kids, by yourselves as a family and we’ve been trying to figure it all out ever since! Whoever coined “master bedroom” should be shot! Don’t get me started……:)
I am a huuuuuge fan of date night. Fortunately, my husband’s family is more than willing to take the kids so we are often spoiled with overnighters as well.
Hey Jillian,
Thanks, that is terrific, keep up the hysterical commentaries that we can
all relate to – our cow was named Daisy and the kids held their nose to
drink it every day!!
I forwarded this link to Paula. Did you reach her, I keep forgetting to
ask her….
Also, had funny memory come up in conversation with my kids the other day
about getting a driver’s license. Do you recall that we both flunked our
driver’s tests on the same day because neither of us could parallel park?
I think it was you….
ciao.Nadine
Jill…
I LOVE IT!! My ex-husband is the same way! Has been that way for the 15 years I’ve known him! He will always be like that. Yes, I said ex, but we are still GREAT friends and hang out all the time.