This past year my kids have seen a few surprising divorces happen within their friend circles.
While kids rarely notice, I don’t know, anything? that doesn’t directly affect them, I can tell the unpleasant new normal of these lovely families – families they’ve been close with for years – has left them a bit shaken.
Perhaps I’m overthinking their pensive stares when I shake my head (All. The. Time.) at their father’s TV volume. Maybe I’m imagining their arched eyebrows every time I grunt with frustration when their same father arrives home having forgotten (shakes fist) the one thing I’d asked him to pick up at the store. And okay, it may be possible I sometimes scream-talk too much in front of them when showing their dad a better way of doing, you know, everything.
In the event any of my aforementioned actions are making them nervous about the state of their parents’ union, I feel I need to tell them to relax and ignore the eyerolls.
Calm down kids, I want to tell them, we be good. Yeah, we good.
I’ve been sharing a bathroom with the same man for more than three decades so I know a few things about disinfectants and commitment. When we hit our 30th anniversary a few years back my better half endured some slings and arrows after I spilled some tea on him (collateral damage being married to a blogger) so I thought as we celebrate again this year, I’d take a minute to look under the hood of what makes us run so smoothly most of the time.
Kids, put down your phones for six minutes and pull up a chair.
Finding a mate is an ordeal. Finding a really great mate is a coup because, honestly, romance is ironic: you need a partner to keep things adventurous (!) and exciting (!) but you also need someone to waft contently with through boredom because (plot twist, newlyweds) there is a lot of boredom in a happy marriage (zzzz). Like, nobody ever tells you one day you’ll reach the level of matrimony where you’re super excited to have a toilet light. See?
Like many, many others I keep my better half around for balance – to do all the things I don’t ever want to do. I need him to run a generator, do the airport runs, work the lawn mower and fix the things (I am a grownup who knows very little about living in a grownup house). The tradeoff: I have to feed him, provide clean sheets and overlook a whole lot of annoying stuff, like the TV volume. Finding a soulmate who will ignore your unreasonable (um, fear of home invasions is hardly absurd IMO) quirks while keeping up with oil changes is clutch. So he gets to stay.
We’ve ironed out a kilo of kinks throughout the years and in addition to the obvious factors (yawn: compatibility, respect, agreed division of chicken wing sections, blah blah blah), I’ve come up with my top three (perhaps slightly unorthodox) tips for a happy marriage:
Tip 1: Spend as Much Time Together as Humanly Possible
*For bonus points, throw in a pandemic and add in work-from-home conditions for (deep breath) both of you.
I know this sitch isn’t for everyone but hear me out. If you follow this rec, there are huge benefits. Not only does every separation become euphoric (Golf with the guys again? Super! Have fun, honey!) but you can now say NO to pretty much everything your spouse asks of you at any given time. I’ve clocked in so much alone time with my husband I don’t ever have to do another damn thing with him ever again if I don’t want to, especially (kill me) errands. Example:
Me: I’m running out to the store.
Him: Oh, you want company?
Me: For groceries? No, not now, not ever. See you in six hours. Byeeeeeeeeee.
This is power. Trust me.
Sadly, we don’t have the means to go all-in like the celebrities who are consciously uncoupling into separate bedrooms. This is a great flex and definitely a fun something to bring up at parties but for those of us who logistically just can’t swing that, separating as much as possible (whenever possible) is a very satisfying anecdote for soothing the rage of too-much-togetherness.
Tip 2: Feign Interest. That’s right: Pretend. A LOT.
Sharing interests is (obvs) paramount but there’s a special spark with a partner who can drag you out of your comfort zone. My man is a sports addict. I pretend to like football and I attend one game once a year. He is also a ski fanatic. I pretend to enjoy skiing and I go multiple times a season. I love neither of these silly pastimes.
Now I know my cos-playing the Perfect Wife puts a smile on his face but the down and dirty is that honestly, without his prodding, I would barely leave this house. I’d stay happily home most weekends doing crossword puzzles, organizing closets and scrolling and saving cooking videos I’ll never try.
Without me, he would never attempt questionable karaoke, he’d fail at trivia and he wouldn’t be able to stick to Whole 30. So there.
Throwing each other an occasional bone (fine therapy, call it compromising, whatever) is a mutual win. We make each other’s worlds a little larger when we put on our half-assed happy faces and we never have to admit that sometimes doing their stuff is pretty fun sometimes (shhhhhh).
Tip 3: Pair with a Partner Who’ll Say You Ain’t All That
Listen, I love lounging and living atop the pedestal my fella places me on (have I mentioned he’s super intelligent?). I, in turn, am his biggest fan and most devoted supporter (but never for his impulse buying – legit, that infuriates me). Anyway. We are A-plus when we’re in sync but we have tsunami-level differences all the time. Who better then to tell the other when they’re being less than er, pedestal worthy? If you’re fortunate enough to find a partner whose words you value and trust when you’re both on the same page, it’s probably smart to pay attention to them when they’re (gently, patiently, privately) calling you out for conduct unbecoming.
So kids, rest assured, your folks are good. Plus, we’re a pretty formidable parenting duo (look at all you contributing members of society!) even when we come up short (how did we successfully raise boys who don’t wear baseball hats all the time yet fail miserably at the ‘Cool it with the tattoos’ warning? Ah well, 10 points for Slytherin). Clearly we’ve got continued work to do so we’ll keep stoking the fires.
Will my guy lose his credit card three times a year? You betcha. But is he going to single handedly save Mother’s Day every single year when four three kids blow it? Every time.
Am I going to insist on bingeing Gilmore Girls instead of watching the nailbiter AFC Championship game with him? Most definitely. But will I sit at the Moose Lodge with him drinking two-dollar drafts and playing Keno because he loves it? Sure (I might bring hand sanitizer but sure).
So long as our laughs keep outweighing our laundry piles, we be good.
34 years and counting — onto next year, lovah!
*****
Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Boston Globe & Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook, Instagram & Threads. Her fave collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)
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