The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

You don't look different, but you have changed

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My friend C. called me tonight, a few hours after I'd left a very detailed message on her phone telling her not to call me tonight as I would be busy. This would be how she rolls, and always has done. I tried to hide the exasperation at hearing her voice as I slid a sheet of chocolate chip and skor bit cookies into the oven while simulatneously helping the wee one with her homework and making dinner. It's not often I wear so many hats but tonight I was completely covered in them, stretching the phone cord around the kitchen, tiptoeing over the vacuum cleaner hose which I wasn't yet finished with, and trying to hear what C. was saying despite my annoyance that she decided to go ahead and call after being asked not to. I have no idea why I answered the phone, in case you were wondering. Sometimes I don't understand why I do the things I do at all.

One bit of the conversation was interesting, though. Somehow we wound up discussing marriage and how different it is today in contrast to yesterday.

'People obviously divorce a lot more than they used to,' C. said, sifting for differences.

'Well, yes,' I agreed, mouthing words to my wee one who was showing off her homework.

'I guess it's mostly because of financial stress and infidelity,' she said in a faraway voice, as though she were daydreaming.

'You know, I have a different theory, but it's a bit muddled,' I said, checking the progress of the cookies through the oven door.

'Oh?' she asked, mildly intrigued.

'I think we need to look at things from everyone's perspective.'

I went on to explain myself the best I could while being regularly distracted by the life around me.

First off, women work now more than they used to, and it's not just because we have the right to, it's mostly because we have no other option. Most homes require two incomes at best to function properly, and this means that both parents must focus on something other than their family for eighty plus hours per week. Now, I know that I personally would resent coming home from work and being expected to do all the cooking and cleaning on top of the responsibilities I would already have professionally, and I'm assuming that most women would feel the same way. If this is true then this means a balance needs to be maintained regarding who completes which chores and who assumes caregiving responsibilities for the child(ren) at any specific time. Of course, there are also the personal needs of each parent/partner to consider if there is an opportunity available, such as hair appointments, girl talk, guy talk, working out, shopping, reading, watching the game, etc. The end result of this, in most houses across our nation, is that there is very little time spent alone together as a couple either physically or emotionally, and the resentment slowly builds, the couple slowly drifting away from one another, barely able to remember what they looked like when they met. The kisses are perfunctory, the hugs are quick and cold, the conversation tends to be about things that neither one is hearing. Eventually, a tiny prick hole of opportunity for trouble opens, waiting for the fingers of the interlopers to push their way in and rip.

I am speaking about the other woman, or, in just as many cases, the other man. C. and I talked about the infidelity of husbands, though. We've known about the cheaters in our small group, the men who think we don't know when we actually do, but as the women involved weren't that close to either of us, we said nothing and did our best to look casual. Of course, this did not stop us from privately bashing the men in question, wishing disease on them, praying that the wives would find out and take them for every cent they had. A malicious kind of mentality, I suppose, but not foreign to any female who may be reading this. Tonight, though, I took the other side on this.

'Look, the thing is, as married people, or even just as a committed couple, you have a responsibility to one another to hold up your end of the bargain. You can't shut one another out and expect that they'll be content with a half-hearted backrub on the occasional Saturday. Factor in the motherlode of household responsibilities and the full-time job of child-rearing and you will be hard pressed to find a perfectly content family out there. You're tired, you work all week, your wife or husband barely acknowledges you as a sexual being and only expresses lukewarm interest in you when all the planets are aligned properly and then suddenly, a fresh face comes your way and makes you feel alive again. You're telling me you wouldn't understand someone cheating in that situation?'

'You're justifying cheating?', she laughed.

'I'm saying that marriage has changed, and not for the better. Things are completely out of balance now, everyone is trying to do too much and they're forgetting why they wanted to be together in the first place. The vows are the same, the intention is the same, but the family unit is cracking under the pressure we put on it.'

'So, you're saying that women should stay home and take care of their men?'

'I'm saying that one of them should maybe work less and focus on the home and family, just to give it all some balance. It doesn't have to be the wife. I used to be the one in my house who went off to work forty plus hours a week, but he understood that that meant he would have to assume more of the responsibilities in the home. Not all, but more. It worked fine. Now that I'm the one at home, I do most of it while he works, but that's where the balance comes in.'

'So, you think it's the woman's fault if a man cheats?', she asked, confused.

I sighed, shaking my head, pulling the tray of cookies from the oven.

'No,' I said. 'It's just that I think we don't look at it for what it is, which is that it's symptomatic of a bigger problem in the relationship than someone's rampant libido. Sure, people cheat, always have and always will. The thing is that I think that when either partner fully immerses them self in their career or their children or anything other than the marriage, then the marriage is going to lose some of its strength, it just makes sense. Also, if you're the kind of person who marries for the romance and the sex, then that unrealistic expectation is going to really bring you down later on when the imbalance starts, as it inevitably does.'

'I don't know...' she said, hesitantly.

'Okay,' I said quickly, 'let's think of it a different way. Let's say that your husband stops touching you, that he stops looking at you and only makes the odd affectionate gesture toward you. Imagine he only talks to the kids, that he goes to bed exhausted every night and is totally unapproachable the next morning. He complains about how little you're doing around the house, he complains about the meals you cook, and he complains that he doesn't get enough time to himself. He works all the time, and when he isn't he's doing the things he wants to do which does not include spending time with you. Then, you're at work and a very attractive man comes up and tells you how pretty you are and makes it clear he's interested in you. Do you think you'd say no?'

Silence on the other end.

'All I'm saying is that if we want marriages to succeed, the partner has to have equal time with work and kids. There needs to be balance in all areas.'

'So, if only one person worked full-time this would happen?'

'I don't know, it's just a theory, but it makes sense to me. A partnership in which the home is maintained by one, where the immediate needs of the family are taken care of and where the other partner takes care of providing for the family, as well as one in which the partners work at maintaining a friendship as well as a sexual relationship would probably stand a good chance of making it, don't you think?'

The thing is, I don't really know if this is the answer, but I do think things would move along more smoothly in such a world. I'm well aware of the way things used to work, how the women were usually subjugated and confined to the home because of the patriarchal society in which they lived. I'm not putting this on the women, though. Men could work at home just as easily as a woman could, and I totally expect that I, as a woman, would have the choice to work or not work and that no one could try to tell me otherwise. I know that in my particular case, when I worked, I was glad to come home to a semi-organized house, with a happy baby and meat thawing on the counter. I didn't have to do much, wasn't expected to really, and I always felt grateful for my man when I entered the front door. Conversely, he looked forward to seeing me, and when I'd rested a little from my day, he'd go to his work in his office while I played with the wee one. We always ate dinner together, always found time to watch a film together or have long talks, but we made the decision to live our lives this way. I'm still excited when he touches me, and he still makes me laugh at least three times a day. It's not perfect, but it's closer than I've ever been before.

I believe in marriage, despite all the break-ups and philanderings I have personally witnessed. I think it symbolizes something beautiful and poetic, just as much as it stands for something practical. I think that marriages fail for many of the same reasons that they have through time: improper fits, lack of love, disloyalty, financial stress and outright immaturity. However, I also feel as though the gradual disintegration of the nuclear family structure is adding to the failure, with people believing they can do it all, only to be genuinely surprised when it doesn't work which forces them to blame the person closest to them.

We need to consider it from every angle and should stop being so quick to blame. There are always two sides to it, always two hands throwing wood on the fire. Sometimes, you stand back to look at your partner and even though they look like the person you fell in love with, and despite sharing a home and children with them, you have to acknowledge that you are oblivious to what is going on inside them, that you've lost the connection somewhere along the way. I think this is where the problem lies, and that this disconnection is the result of domestic chaos, the kind that happens when we try to win at everything but the relationship we once said we loved more than anything in this world. The concept of marriage is the same as it always was. We're the ones responsible for losing sight of it's relevance.

I suppose I could have just said it this way: two people, one special relationship, sharing, loving, kissing, talking, fairness and understanding = potential for success. I could have, but as we well know, brevity is not my style.

C. had a lot more to say, things that made me sad, but I'll leave that for another day.