Pseudo marriage science

It’s Friday!!   Welcome to ‘The Chronicles of a Reluctant Housewife’ where I document my love/hate relationship with my current occupation.

I don’t really have much to say about house-wifing today.  I have been going about my routine (although it may not look like it around here, like I said, I’m not great at the housekeeping) with no great shakes or mishaps.  Although I did accidently create chorizo croutons the other night, which was a bummer since the chorizo was the starring feature in the meal, but there it is.  Feel free to steal that one for your next salad, just give credit where credit is due. 

I have been trying to finish this book for a wedding/marriage centric book club.  I’m not going to give you the title because the book is pissing me off, but it’s about the ‘science’ of a good marriage.  It is basically a collection of dubiously analysed (by the author) scientific studies about love and marriage and how to spot if your marriage is doomed.  So far it hasn’t given any advice if, after doing the numerous Cosmo-type quizzes, you find that your marriage is doomed.  I’m currently on the chapter that tells you to expect your marriage to be unsatisfying when you decide to have children.  Don’t fight it, just go with it and know that it will get better when they go off to college at 18.  That’s assuming, of course, that they will go to college and/or move out at 18.  In fact that is a big issue with the book.  It is very American, middle-class , college-educated–centric.  It assumes everyone reading it is of the same background (which actually might be an accurate assumption when thinking about who is more likely to have the time and interest to read a book about marriage).  I haven’t yet read anything about marriage that I hadn’t already learned through a year’s experience (and four years living together prior to the wedding) or our pre-cana exercises.  I wasn’t expecting any brilliant insights, but I also wasn’t expecting statements like; “Wives don’t like sex, husbands don’t like housework, therefore if husbands helped out with housework they would get more sex.” Or “If you want to find your ideal mate, go off birth control pills because they interfere with your ability to sniff out the correct pheromones and you may end up with someone less than ideal (in evolutionary terms). 

????????????

I don’t know if I can continue on.  Although I was interested to see if it gets any better.  It hasn’t yet.  But, on a more positive note, it has made me think about our little marriage (almost a year old now) and I think we are doing fine and will be fine into the future, although according to the book we may have a shaky road for the following reasons; a) we didn’t ‘date’ b) I was on birth control the whole time c) we moved in together following a very long distance relationship d) we are of differing educational levels e) we are of different cultural backgrounds and f) we expect affection and some level of equality (which will inevitably lead to disappointment). 

I call bullsh*t.

I also think I am going to stop reading these books and analysing our baby marriage.  I mean it hasn’t even been a year yet.  We are best friends, we are very aware of the hurdles ahead, we are different in a way that it awesome (like peanut butter and chocolate) and more importantly, we took vows that we take very seriously.  This may be a wildly-optimistic statement, but if we can weather international moves, advanced degrees, unemployment, visa applications, (not to mention that crazy four week international wedding whirlwind) etc. basically without a support system other than ourselves (OK parents, calm yourselves, we know you support us from afar), I think we can handle quite a lot. 

That being said, I’m still heading to the book club meeting tomorrow.  We’re wearing fascinators!!!  I will do almost anything to wear a fascinator.  Plus there will be wine and cakes.  Need I say more?