Love + Sex

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

User post: The New Wife Diaries: Day 13--What Confuses Me About Living With A Man


Recap

Yesterday I posted, starting my diaries, letting you in the blogoscope of my newly-married life.  As I make this huge transition in my life and adjust accordingly, you have been helpful, sweet, ans some of those responses almost made me fall out of my chair laughing.  I have located a bottle of Goo Gone and am ready to scrub the Stick-E-Tack off the walls (thanks for the tip, iblb42!)

Today I'm going to talk about the things I have noticed about living with a man--some of these just may be MY man, but I suspect a lot of things will relate to men you know in your life.  This is really out of love, and as I'm writing them, I will not be fuming at the ears but chuckling and going, "Oh, that's so Hubby."

Why do men not locate the laundry hamper, but simply put their clothes were the laundry hamper is supposed to go?

For this one, I must warn you that I had a rule that I would never do a man's laundry until I married him.  Never fold, wash, or dry any piece of his clothing.  I tend to mother my boyfriends, so this was my one rule, my one limit that I set on myself that stopped me.  Now that I'm actually doing and paying attention to laundry, I realize that when I take the laundry hamper into the office/game room to do laundry, he'll not walk across the apartment to put his clothes in the proper place, but simply toss the clothes where the proper place is supposed to be.  I really don't get this.


Why do men and women have such different definitions of "clean"?

We host a guy's bible study at 7pm on Thursdays.  I'm not allowed to be there (which is okay because I have ladies' small group at the same time)  and since I have work/ class right up until 7, he has to clean the apartment and make it look presentable to have guests there.  He vacuums, which he likes to do.  He picks up the jackets/ purses/ books that have collected themselves over the week and clears them.  But he forgets to do things like wipe the inch of dust off the television, or throw out the wilting flowers he bought me last week.
When I 'clean', the house may still look a little messy to the naked eye, but any surface in the kitchen and bathroom is clean enough to eat dinner off of.  I might not always vacuum, but my books are correctly placed in their order, my jackets picked up, every surface is dusted and/or polished.  Together, we're a cleaning machine, but seperately, we've got a completely different definition of clean.

Why does "Put your dishes in the dishwasher" translate to men as "Put your dishes in the sink with water floating in it"?

Not only ew, but ewwwwwwwwwww.  This invites all kinds of nasty things, from bugs to an unsightly full sink.  When Hubby puts his cereal bowls in the sink, he fills it with water, leaving a  weird milky, unclear water/milk solution that grosses me out every time I come later to put the sink in the dishwasher.  I told him the day we got married that any dish he finished with must be immediately rinsed off and placed in the dishwasher.  How many dishes have made it in the dishwasher by his hand?  Zero.  How many in the sink, filled with water?  All of them.

Why do men eat their entire dinner before you can even sit down?

My Hubby has a brother, so I have theorized it's because eating was some kind of contest or a strategy to get the best seconds.  But he hasn't lived with his brother in almost ten years, and he still can finish stuffed shells faster than it takes me to sit down.  I keep telling him to slow down, but he refuses, and asks for seconds with a smile on his face.

Why are men so attached to those lumpy beanbags?!

Do you have a man who refuses to get rid of a beanbag?  Welcome to Support.  My name is Alicia and the lumpy, mostly flat, bright yellow beanbag is
something my husband is fighting me over.  It's not comfortable, or useful, it's almost uselessly flat, and we have plenty of chairs to go around, so why are men so attached to the BeanBag?  What decorating goodness can come from this?  Nothing.  It looks to me like a big, lumpy sun. 

You'll see his Rockband guitars back behind the beanbag.  Why do men buy things like Rockband without thinking of where they are going to store it, instead leaving the equipment out for everyone to see and trip over?  (The drums are sitting on the other side of the TV...)




Why are men so disgusted by Girl Things... like my beautiful Twilight collection on the bookshelf in the picture?

M'kay, I admit it, I'm a Twilighter.  The Hubby loves me in spite of this.  The other day, my new Twilight DVD was left in the DVD player (I spent the morning drooling over Rob Pattinson) and he was going to watch one of the Netflix movies.  He made a huge deal of even touching the Twilight DVD, so far as to washing his hands afterwards.  The same goes for anything of extreme girl-dom, like my hair dryer or my purse...which he still will not hold in public, even for a second.  He requested that we keep our Netflix accounts seperate because he didn't want any of "those girl movies" on his Queue.  This didn't bother me a whole lot, since I like my chick flicks too much to mix them with action movies.  But I still don't understand how he can cringe at Twilight and I have no problem touching his ridiculous sci-fi movies or LEGO figures.  He can't even touch Tampon boxes or my Birth Control boxes.  Really, dear, it's just a box.

Why do men keep everything that has ever broken in the hopes of 'someday' fixing it?

My hubby has a lot of broken stuff, including every electronic item he has ever owned that has stopped working, and things like broken furniture, broken plates, and broken lamps.  He says one day, he's going to fix this or that.  Is it some form of manly rush if one can fix things that are broken?  Is it somehow rescuing the item from the clutches of a fire-burned death, like a knight in shining armor?  Well, if it is, I don't get it!
Syndication:

From the Community…

Comments 1-10 of 46
  • Brian's Avatar
    Posted by Brian Fri Apr 3, 2009 2:50pm PDT

    1) Because that is where the dirty clothes go. The hamper can also be used to carry clean clothes back from the washer. This distinguishes them.

    2) Men look at the big picture, women at the details. Apparently that is also how we clean...

    3) So that you can see how many dirty dishes you have and know when you need to do the dishes. Remember, out of sight, out of mind.

    4) Because YOU won't let me wait for you because "It will get cold."

    5) They are more comfortable than you give them credit for. And they are useful for gaming when none of the other furniture in front of the TV is remotely close (especially playing Wii which requires you to be in a certain spot).

    6) Not because it is girly. It's Twilight... Ew.

    7) Because we will fix it...eventually. It will save us money. But first, we need you to let us have the free time, buy us the tools, and set up a work space.

    Report Abuse
  • Jeffrey D's Avatar
    Posted by Jeffrey D Fri Apr 3, 2009 3:04pm PDT

    Ah yes wedded Bliss.Men are very different from women.But isn't that what makes us loveable.We are all human dogs sometimes with the slobber too. Just wait til you have a little one...

    Report Abuse
  • Commanderhairdo's Avatar
    Posted by Commanderhairdo Fri Apr 3, 2009 3:35pm PDT

    This sounds as if you didn't cohabitate prior to marriage. If you did, that was the opportunity to man train. If not, get to it. I guess as a neat freak male who does 90+% of the cleaning, I'm not the norm. My advice - don't try tactics, reverse psychology, anything like that. Use concrete examples - show the inch of dust, etc. Make it clear that this is important to you. It's easy enough to habituate to the "right" way, and if there's respect there, your wishes will be honored.

    Give him his man space - a room for action figures and crap, and he'll be fine.

    The rest will work out over time.

    Report Abuse
  • Erika's Avatar
    Posted by Erika Fri Apr 3, 2009 3:50pm PDT

    Interesting...i'm newly married, but don't have any of these problems. He wasn't really a typical guy I guess, because he definitely didn't have bean bags, and he is more clean than I am sometimes. I am assuming you two never lived with each other before...to me, that's not good, because you don't know how to live with him then. You already are confused by some of his habits. But to tell you the truth...you should have figured this out BEFORE you two got married. And he is married, a big boy, he shouldn't get freaked out by girl things. That's just immaturity. I'm not sure if you two are young, or he is just really immature.

    Report Abuse
  • Alicia's Avatar
    Posted by Alicia Fri Apr 3, 2009 4:37pm PDT

    LOL he's 25 and I'm 22. Erika, I agree he shouldn't get freaked out over the girl things! But you're right, we never lived together before we got married, because we don't believe in living together before you get married. It does put us at a disadvantage, tho.

    Commander, thanks for the advice. He does get the whole gameroom for himself, but the trick will be keeping it clean... :)

    Jeffery, Men are loveable because of their wacky habits... I sure love my hubby!

    Report Abuse
  • lissa's Avatar
    Posted by lissa Fri Apr 3, 2009 5:46pm PDT

    The whole hamper thing defies all logic but I have a simple answer... men are seriously creatures of habit. They are like cats in a sense. If you change something in their habitat it confuses them and can be intimidating. Kinda like if you move the liter box a cat might wee in the floor where the box used to because that is where in his head it still is. He probably doesn't even notice that the hamper has moved and the laundry fairy that cleans and folds and hangs all his clothes is some magical being he never sees or thinks about.

    Report Abuse
  • marwa's Avatar
    Posted by marwa Fri Apr 3, 2009 6:39pm PDT

    My husband is an ANGEL :) he helping me in every thing when he is free actually he is doin the laundry and folding the cloth alot better than me .., he is a good cleaner too .

    i can tell that most of the men when they getting married they assume that this kind of small stuff is for women to do . and they stop worry about it any more .

    Report Abuse
  • Dan's Avatar
    Posted by Dan Fri Apr 3, 2009 7:09pm PDT

    Love this article, I'm guilty of most of these traits. I'm a slow eater and don't own a bean bag chair but the rest describes me to a T. Lol.

    The laundry basket: I have it sitting in my room but my clothes land everywhere but the hamper, until laundry time. Don't know why I do this, I've tried to change, but I still don't like to use the hamper.

    Cleaning: I love a clean house but hate the work it takes to detail a house to full cleanliness when you know in 10 minutes it'll revert back. 15 minutes of cleaning is good, a half-hour is rough, anything more than that is over-kill.

    Meals: I eat right away, but I'm so slow that I'm usually the last to finish anyhow.

    Beanbag chair: I don't own one, but I know what it's like to have a favorite piece of furniture (recliner, couch, etc) that is broken in. I just hate to toss it because even though it's not perfect, it fits me just right and is also sometimes a memory reminder. It's a comfort thing.

    Girly things: All I have to say is this: They have their property, I have mine. Some things are just better off to be off-limits to touch.

    Broken Stuff: Being able to take a broken item and restor it to useable or somewhat useable condition feels fantastic, can be fun, but the process can also be frustrating. It's mostly about the power of taking control of your habitat but you have to feel up to dealing with it. You only get the feeling to deal with it, only once in a rare while, so everything goes into the junk drawer, or the garage, or wherever, until that feeling rears its ugly head again forcing you to try it again. The start feels great, the middle is maddening, the end (depending on the result) is either feeling like master of your universe, or feeling like a total failure. We all love to try but normally fail.

    Report Abuse
  • fools_and_sages's Avatar
    Posted by fools_and_sages Fri Apr 3, 2009 7:16pm PDT

    um. . .I must be man-like. I do most of those things.

    Report Abuse
  • ellebee's Avatar
    Posted by ellebee Fri Apr 3, 2009 7:24pm PDT

    LOL I never post comments but just felt like you were missing out on the invention of duct tape or velcro......I feel special being thanked though and emailed this to my boyfriend who basically reacted like he was waiting for the punch-line or "point" -- I'd bet whatever is in my wallet (don't get excited, but nonetheless...) that he was spacing out and not listening the second I said "article...blog comment post...<and fade out>.... Hope it works and good luck on the "domestication initiation" process ;)

    LB

    Report Abuse
Comments 1-10 of 46

leave your comment

You must sign in to post a comment

Sign In for personalized information

New User? Sign Up

Love Byte

Help! My close friend keeps flirting with my spouse!