“Men are dogs,” said my previous ex-husband to me, as we were driving out together to meet my current ex-husband at the bank to close our joint account.

“No, they’re not,” I said.

“Yes they are,” he said, very firmly, staring straight ahead at the road. “You need to stop thinking everyone’s like you, you know. You always do that. You did that with me, too.”

“You wouldn’t have done something like this.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I take marriage very seriously. Clearly he doesn’t.”

Obviously true and inarguable, so I let it go. But I didn’t forget that conversation, nor could I erase something my current ex-husband said to me since our parting of ways:

Him: I think your feminism may have been part of the problem.
Me: How so?
Him: When you said your divorce lawyer told you that you must have a problem with self-respect to have allowed yourself to be treated this way. That really bothered you.
Me: Don’t you want me to have self-respect?
Him: (pause) In some ways. Sometimes.

The above theme had cropped up earlier as well, in the month or two before we separated–of course, I wasn’t aware at the time what was triggering it, that his ex-wife had moved up here and they were conspiring together to get rid of me (maritally, not literally, of course!). In short, he mentioned on several occasions that what he really wanted was someone who would do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted without interference from such concepts as her own self-respect or personal desires–my efforts to please and placate were clearly underwhelming, and he just as clearly believed that such a woman was indeed out there just waiting for him. (Again, since I didn’t know about the eager availability of his ex-wife–who I should probably point out, didn’t actually consistently perform to that standard while they were married, which is why they separated repeatedly and finally divorced–I found his assurance on the subject bewildering. Not anymore, obviously.)

But the thing that troubles me is that both men do think that this sort of behavior is simply something that’s endemic to men, to the gender male of H. sapiens. Now, you’ll never find me arguing that there aren’t a large crop of asshats running around the planet at any given point in time–but I just can’t really bring myself to believe that all or even most men are secretly (or not so secretly) this particular brand of asshat. Some, sure. But so are some women–I’ve met them. And I would definitely agree that society and culture (pretty much all of ‘em, even worse in other cultures than in ours) set men up to be more likely to be this sort of entitled, domineering, sexually uncontrolled brand of asshat.

But I still can’t really believe that menarejustlikethat! I especially reject that they are like that as an inborn trait–I have no patience for that brand of evo-psych. But I also reject that they are all like that as an acquired trait, too. I reject that most of them are like that…men are people, not badly programmed sexbots. (Well, okay, except for Dennis Prager.)

But my first ex-husband and my current ex-husband aren’t the only men who’ve made these statements to me. Over the years, many many other men have made similar statements to me–about the inherent selfishness, sexual obsessiveness, immaturity, etc. that is the essence of malekind. I’ve always rejected them as blanket statements or even as reliable generalities.

So am I being stupid, to assume I know better what men are than all these other men who’ve argued with me about it? Many men have treated me with respect and consideration during the course of my life–am I to believe, as all these other men always insist, that it’s because I’m desirable and it is done solely to enhance the possibility that I might someday accidentally trip and fall on top of their waiting dicks? That it’s all an act to get me where they want me (emotionally and often, legally bound to them) so then they can reveal what they’ve really wanted all this time..? Gad, it’s all such a stereotype–must I buy into it?

Sorry–I still don’t. I still think it’s more likely that I just haven’t been careful…though I’ve gotten more and more careful with each spouse, and put up with the subsequently revealed repellent post-marriage-ceremony bullshit for shorter and shorter durations each time, clearly, I simply haven’t been careful enough in my choices.

On a kind of funny side note, I now have an saved email archive full of ex-husbands declaring (post-divorce!) what a wonderful, special woman I am, and how sweet and kind and beautiful and caring and intelligent and strong and–! I do have a good, positive relationship with the first ex, and I may well have one with this one, too, if he chooses that. It’s very peculiar; I’ve never really witnessed the like. Either I’m really something spectacular, or they want to keep the hope alive that I might put out again someday when they’re desperate and alone–I just can’t decide which.

I bet you can guess what this blog is about…oh no! you may cry. Or you may laugh, given that all my sarcastic predictions of “looking for my next ex-husband” have indeed come to pass–only seven months after our marriage.

I thought about not mentioning it here–I mean, who really wants to read about my personal life, especially when it’s a trainwreck..? But then, I thought, eventually everybody IS going to know and this will totally spare me having to repeat it multiple times to multiple people–whoever doesn’t read this, if in future they ask me Hey, aren’t you married..? I can just hand ‘em the url and move on with my life.

I’ve always found writing to be therapeutic–I am trying to start up a journal in the hopes that it would help me work my way back towards what’s good in life, but it wasn’t really helping like I’d hoped it would. What I needed, as it turned out, was somebody real to care. But before I get to that, here’s the synopsis of what occurred, so nobody ever has to ask me and make me feel obligated to choke it out ever again–try not to sneer at me TOO much! I swear to God I’m doing enough of that my ownself, I got it covered. In short: he decided that he’d rather be with his ex-wife after she showed up on our doorstep and subsequently made that offer–loves her more than me, sadly for me–and also decided that the person he had been being for me wasn’t who he really was. Given that the person he had been being for me was the one I loved, the fact that we are getting divorced isn’t what’s sad for me–it’s actually a pretty big relief. What’s sad for me is that even if the person he was being for me wasn’t real, my love and commitment to that person was. People’s feelings change–what was it that Woody Allen said? “The heart wants what it wants.” I don’t hate him for deciding he wanted somebody else more than he wanted me. And if he keeps his promises of remaining friendly, accessible and accommodating during the divorce proceedings and afterwards and keeps contributing to the mortgage payments for the specified time frame in our separation agreement, then I don’t think I’ll really have severe and permanent problems with him.

I just gotta get past this hollow feeling in my tummy that crops up every twenty minutes or so. And of course feeling like the World’s Biggest Marital Loser Idiot Dumbass.

I do promise and swear to keep this personal posting to a minimum! This blog is not going to turn into PunkAssTinyLittleDivorceViolinBlog. (I bet all my fellow PunkAssBloggers are extremely relieved to hear that.)*

But back to what I needed was somebody to really care about me…I let myself get completely isolated in my marriage, to the point where I really have lost all of my local friendships! All I’ve really got now are the few I maintain through email correspondence with friends who have moved to other states (a shout-out to Lisa and Karen–you are wonderful women and I miss ever getting to see you in person!) As I may have mentioned in the past, I haven’t had any real family relations in years. So I found myself, when my divorce lawyer reminded me that I would need a witness, totally alone.

It was shocking. I’ve never been totally alone, without friends or family. But I could think of absolutely nobody I could call upon in my time of need…not one single, solitary person (other than Lisa and Karen, who live hundreds of miles away and therefore can’t come hang with me tomorrow into the foreseeable future–jobs, their own families and friends, you know..?). All I had left was my kids…and I had let this happen to myself. I was mighty, mighty low.

Then my divorce lawyer suggested my ex-husband–my first ex-husband, my kids’ dad. Well, I thought cautiously, we do have a good relationship now and have for quite a while…maybe he’d be willing..? I was of course hideously ashamed to ask, for multiple reasons. But I lacked choices. I picked up the phone, and I called him.

And was completely blown away. He was incredibly kind, caring and supportive. He and his current wife (who is also a wonderful person, btw) agreed to let J (that’s my first ex-spouse) be my witness, but it’s a lot more than that–he didn’t get rid of me as soon as he’d agreed. He actually stayed on the line a bit to talk to me–and talk to me in a way that showed that he didn’t think I was a stupid, worthless, p-l-a-y-e-d individual that had deserved everything that had happened to her. I mean, he could have been a complete ass, or he could have just been tolerant–he wasn’t. He took the time to show me that I’m not completely alone after all–that somebody does still care about me (not to give anybody the wrong impression–he’s totally into his current wife and new daughter, absolutely no question about that!! but he doesn’t want me to hurt, thinks I deserve better and is willing to go out of his way to give me a helping hand). Hey, that last part–isn’t that what the definition of a friend is? Apparently I do still have one left that lives close by me.

When I blogged about getting married back in November, I talked a lot about the reasons my marriages prior to this one had failed. (This one failed for a whole set of entirely different reasons I had never encountered before–never let anyone say I make the exact same mistake twice.) I didn’t say anything about the good things in our marriage, my marriage to my first husband (other than I’ve said more than once what a great father he is, which is still and always true). I will say now that he is a genuinely good person–he’s made mistakes, unpretty ones, in the past of course, but God knows I’m not gonna start throwing stones at making mistakes now, even if some of those mistakes were with me. But talk about coming through for a person you really don’t owe anything to at this point in your lives–just, wow.

Talking to J really helped, and that’s probably one of the two biggest reasons I’m writing this blog post–to thank him as loudly and as publicly as possible for being so good to me when he really didn’t have to be. The other reason is because, well, this is what has happened to me being married, and me dancing around it trying to avoid talking about it is going to result in the whole thing coming out over time in bits and dribbles that will end up being a lot more painful AND embarrassing than if I just tell you all now, in its entirety.

And yes, I am done joking about future ex-husbands. It turned out to not be very funny after all, and when a joke’s not funny at all? It should be dropped. So I am.

Chat with yalls later.

*But there will probably be periodic updates, as I do find writing therapeutic as I said.

It’s also quite the mystery why [Bristol Palin] hasn’t married good old Levi yet. Her lack of enthusiasm for that eventuality pretty much oozes out of the screen, and the only time she ever brings him up is when the interviewer directly asks her about him.

And hot off the People magazine presses today:

Bristol Palin and her fiancé Levi Johnston have broken up, two sources tell PEOPLE.

The split happened “a few weeks ago,” according to a source close to the couple, but it’s unclear what precipitated it. “It was a mutual thing,” adds the source.

Bristol, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, spoke with FOX News in February and told Greta Van Susteren that she and Levi – who are parents to 2-month-old son, Tripp – expected to get married after they completed high school.

“It kind of just happened,” says the source, referring to the split. “I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp.”

“I’m not sure what caused [them to break up] – it’s common knowledge,” says another source who knows the family.

So let me get this entirely straight…Bristol Palin is choosing to be an unwed teen mother when she could have been a wed teen mother instead.

This does remind me of that small news item from last year:

Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms

ST. PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”

I mean, why reward those little sluts for their out-of-wedlock shenanigans with da gubment cheeze? If they’d just marry the father, then they’d already have a place to live! …er, right, Bristol..? and Sarah..?

Of course, Bristol Palin doesn’t need the services of Passage House. She’s being supported by the woman who did her best to gut their funding–wonder how well that sits with her..? Then again, I didn’t get the impression from Bristol’s Faux News interview that she’s in possession of a stellar or incisive intellect, so perhaps such thoughts have not troubled her brain. Or perhaps she’s just keeping as silent as possible on the subject to stretch out her parents’ support of her unwed teen motherhood as long as humanly possible–God knows I would, in her position.

It is called “When a Woman Isn’t in the Mood: Part I” and it was written by some douchebag named Prager, who clearly had decades of trouble getting to stuff his treats in his wife’s Christmas stocking, if you know what I mean. He also must have had trouble figuring out how to start off his sustained whine about the lack of marital nookie because he attempts to tie it in somehow to the economy and the recent election in the opening paragraph. Let me help you out, brother–my tenth-grade English teacher would definitely have failed that as an introductory sentence for your expository writing sample–if you’re interested, I can probably find her contact info and hook you two up for some tutoring. But, moving on!

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband.

Actually, I think the word you’re groping for here is law. Try again..?

Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

Well, I think we already know what your argumenT (singular, not plural!) is here. What you’re trying to say is that you think you can make up some bullshit that might sound remotely legitimate to disguise your actual argumenT, which would be I-wanna-teh-pussy-whenever-I-wanna-it-MY-pussy-mine-mine-mine-I-BOUGHT-it-when-I-married-you-you-can’t-withhold-it-from-me-NOW-like-you-got-away-with-when-we-were-dating-you-bitch!

First, women need to recognize how a man understands a wife’s refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him.

The vast majority of us gave up the pussy to our men long before we actually married them, which makes his argument a rather neat ass-backwards statement of cause and effect. As a matter of fact, it seems safe to say that sometimes, men would find it scary and unsettling if some random woman who is, erm, giving her body to him was doing so because she loves him as a wife loves her husband–a lil’ early in the game for that, sometimes, isn’t it..? The stupid, it burns!

When first told this about men, women generally react in one or more of five ways:

1. You have to be kidding. That certainly isn’t my way of knowing if he loves me. There have to be deeper ways than sex for me to show my husband that I love him.

2. If this is true, men really are animals.

3. Not my man. He knows I love him by the kind and loving way I treat him.

4. You have it backwards. If he truly loved me, he wouldn’t expect sex when I’m not in the mood.

5. I know this and that’s why I rarely say no to sex

The only thing that scares me about this is that he has clearly gone around attempting to instruct any number of women in their marital duties. I can’t even begin to imagine the scenarios. At the office party? During church services? Random phone polling?

Let’s deal with each of these responses.

Yes, let’s!

1. You have to be kidding. …

The most common female reaction to hearing about men’s sexual nature is incredulity, often followed by denial.

2. If this is true, men really are animals.

Correct. Compared to most women’s sexual nature, men’s sexual nature is far closer to that of animals.

Not really. Being unable to interpret love from one person to another in any form other than sexual is not really a sexual matter–it’s an emotional and/or mental one, and most women don’t think that men are that childish and/or stupid. Good God, who could ever think otherwise than that anti-feminist men despise their fellow man far more than any feminist ever could..?

3. Not my man.

Many women will argue, understandably, “My husband knows I love him. He doesn’t need me to have sex with him to know that. And this is especially so when I’m too tired or just don’t want sex. Anyway, my man only enjoys sex with me when I’m into it, too.”

But no! Douchebag knows your husband way, way better than you know him, even if he doesn’t even know the guy’s name. Read on!

The importance of mutual kindness to a marriage is impossible to overstate. But while necessary, it is not sufficient. Women can understand this by applying the same rule to men. Most women will readily acknowledge that it is certainly not enough for a man to be kind to her. If it were, women would rarely reject kind men as husband material. But as much as a woman wants a kind man, she wants more than that. If a man is, let us say, lacking in ambition or just doesn’t want to work hard, few women will love him no matter how kind he is. In fact, most women would happily give up some kindness for hard work and ambition. A kind man with little ambition is not masculine, therefore not desirable to most women.

Likewise, a kind woman who is not sexual with her husband is not feminine. She is a kind roommate.

Furthermore, a woman who denies the man she loves sex is not kind.

Translated: Emotional fulfillment isn’t why women and men get married. Women get married for a paycheck and men get married for pussy. Period. And if that isn’t why either of you got married, you’re a dyke and he’s a faggot.

4. You have it backward.

Every rational and decent man knows there are times when he should not initiate sex.

You know, if she’s bleeding profusely from the vagina from recent childbirth or both her legs are broken to the point where you can’t spread her casts far enough apart to get it in.

In a marriage of good communication, a man would either know when those times are or his wife would tell him (and she needs to — women should not expect men to read their minds. He is her man, not her mother.)

But you’ve been saying all along that telling him that he should not initiate sex means that you don’t love him.

But, to repeat the key point, rejection of sex should happen infrequently. And it should almost never be dependent on mood.

Because sex shouldn’t be something you want to do that feels good to you the vast majority of the time. It should be a lot more like taking a dump–! Of course, this rule only applies to the ladies. Men are perpetually in the mood, even while taking a dump!

5. I know this and that’s why I rarely say no to my husband.

This is a wise woman.

Success! Brainwashed! WOOT! She doesn’t even know she has a clitoris!

There are two kinds of sex (okay, there are a lot more kinds than “two,” but just for the sake of this argument): there is sex that you are having with yourself and sex that you are sharing with someone else. The most obvious kind that falls into the first category is “masturbation,” but it is quite possible to achieve it with one or more persons contributing the use of their body parts to aid you. This is what prostitutes do; they rent out their organs and orifices for somebody else to use to masturbate into, plus they may also provide sexually stimulating visuals, audios and sensories to aid the climax (bouncing tits, loud moans, faked orgasms, etc). Merry Christmas, ladies! The best holiday cheer you can give your man is to pretend you’re his whore. Hey, you are getting his paycheck out of it, right..?

.

By this time tomorrow, I will be a married woman. This is not a new state for me. I spent ages 19-27 and ages 31-33 married, and a little arithmetic wizardry yields the unpalatable realization that I have spent only six years out of the entire seventeen of my adult life as a single woman, and they weren’t even consecutive years. (It occurs to me also that I spent only one year of those seventeen not being a mother, as well–essentially, I’ve never been an adult who was not also a mother, not since I was eighteen years old. It must be interesting, to be an adult with no children. Since I’ve been relatively happy in the parental state, though, I have no real angst to work through on the subject.)

But I hated being married. Ever since the last marriage ended, I have entertained my friends with any number of reasonably funny jokes on the subject of marriage, both the possibility of me entering into another one in particular and the joys of the marital state in general. I did so with a fair amount of confidence that I was never, ever going to marry again. This was not based upon a hopelessly broken heart and a dramatic declaration to the world that I would nevah love again! nevah! I had no idea if I would love again or not; I was both amenable to the idea of doing so and also amenable to the idea that I might never do so–it was all the same to me. I admit to some stress about my future sex life, but that’s really about it.

So why the h-e-l-l am I getting married? Again?

It is probably fairly obvious by now that the impetus for getting married does not reside with me, but rather with the other interested party. (This is one reason that I find the male “marriage strike” contingent hard to take seriously. Fellas, I don’t want to marry you. Do me a favor and don’t want to marry me!) I won’t go into the specific details of the inter-relationship negotiations that will result in me planting my semi-unwilling feet in front of a justice of the peace tomorrow afternoon promptly at 3 pm, as they are quite intimate and even more significantly, not just my intimate details but somebody else’s. However, I do want to talk about why I was willing to agree–beyond the fact that I am deeply and romantically in love with him, of course. I felt that way about the previous two husbands at the time I married them as well; I am clearly well aware that those feelings do not guarantee betting odds on the resultant marriage surviving unto eternity. I do feel that way about the upcoming husband, but that is not the reason I have agreed to attempt, for the third time, to live within the bounds of unholy matrimony. So what are the differences between the relationship I have with this guy and the relationships I had with the previous spouses that makes me think both he and I aren’t going to really regret this move someday, more likely sooner than later..?

1. We have similar backgrounds. I used to think this wasn’t important, and I still have no fixed opinion about whether or not it is important for everyone. However, I have learned that, while it is not important to me (which is why I used to think it wasn’t important at all) and while it probably isn’t important to many other people, it is very, very important to some people. Namely, it was important to the last two guys I married. It was not as important to the first guy, but it was VERY important to the second guy. The second guy found that he could only accept being with a woman who met one of two preconditions: either she came from the same wealthy conservative family-values background as himself, or she desperately hated the fact that she did not and was willing to dedicate the rest of her life to making herself over to emulate that golden standard. I failed at both. The first husband felt much the same, but it was a milder situation–it was not really a cause of the failure of our marriage, just a cause of friction during. With the second guy, it actually was one cause of our marital demise.

2. We have similar moral and societal values. This is actually similar to and related to the first point, though not identical. The religious aspect was distressing to the first husband, as he considered himself Christian, although not a fan of organized Christianity, and at the time we were married, I was comfortably agnostic. (He actually once told me that it saddened him to know that I was going to hell.) My second husband was agnostic as well, so that was not a source of friction between us. However, my complete indifference to tradition and automatic questioning of authority were a sore trial to them both. None of the previous examples resulted in irreversible marital breakdown; just, again, marital friction. What did was my avoidance of and lack of interest in conspicuous displays of consumption and artificially installed markers of wealth and social prestige; it did not really trouble the first husband, but with the second husband, it was another cause of our marital demise.

3. We enjoy the most of the same activities– This was not a problem with the second husband at all; we had many interests in common. Those particular interests were ones that required a great deal of money to realize, but we had that, so in that area, there was harmony. This was much more of a problem with the first husband. There were only two things we both liked to do, and those were (a) reading and (b) playing computer games. Reading is a solo activity, and since we were too poor to ever own more than one computer at a time, that shared fondness actually became a source of friction (“It’s my turn! You’ve had it for hours!” “So? You had it for hours yesterday!”) This was not a marriage-ender, but it was yet another blow to an already shaky structure.

4. –and we have no problem either with the other person not wanting to participate in activities we like but the other does not, nor a problem with the other person then doing those things without us. Again, not a problem with the second husband, but a whomper of a problem with the first, and actually did contribute to the breakdown of that marriage. Specifically, he didn’t want a nightlife, nor could he tolerate me having one without him, even the infrequent one that was all I had the time for.

5. We both consider the other person to be contributing equal financial and labor value to the marriage. This was one of the destroyers of both my previous marriages. I worked part-time for most of my first marriage, as I was a full-time engineering student and mother of young children for most of it. My first husband stated that therefore I was not working as hard as him nor bringing in anywhere near the money and therefore had to shoulder all the household burdens plus give him the final say over everything in our day-to-day lives. I further discovered that even after I graduated and got a job working as many hours as he did with nearly as good a pay, that because he was a police officer and I was not, since his job was always going to be harder no matter how many hours or how much money I made, then I would always be relegated to those roles. Since becoming a police officer myself would have been the only way he would have allowed me equality in the marriage, and I had no vocation for that, it was a no-win situation for me. The second husband stated that, since I made only one-half his income, and between my children and myself was responsible for three-quarters of the household mess and drain on resources, then I needed to shoulder at least three-quarters of the household burdens plus give him the final say over everything in our day-to-day lives. I pointed out that he had known about the children prior to the marriage and had not stated that condition at that time, and also that he was eight years older than me and had his parents pay his way through college with the end result that he was twelve years ahead of me in his career; I was indeed making more that he had made at my same career point. He was indifferent to these arguments, and once more, since I was always going to have the children and the closure of our twelve-year career gap might never come to pass, I was in a no-win marital equity situation.

D and I have almost identical incomes, and I own the house we both live in. It’s very freeing.

6. Back to the children…He has no interest in either raising my children or how I am raising them, and feels no resentment of their existence. The first husband and I didn’t agree all the time on childrearing, but it wasn’t a major source of friction, and clearly he has no resentment of their existence since they’re his children; far from being a marriage killer, they actually kept it going years longer than it otherwise would have. However, my children were probably the marriage-killer in my second marriage. The second husband and I spoke a few times after our divorce was finalized; he apologized several times for the way he treated me about my children. He said, and I’m sure he was being honest, that he hadn’t understood how differently he’d feel about them when they were actually living in his house than when we were just dating. Don’t get me wrong; they were good kids, and he never said or as far as I know felt otherwise either during or after our marriage. However, he couldn’t bear that I spent any money on them at all, even though I often went without to ensure that he felt like it was “my” money I was spending, not “his.” (Didn’t matter.) He hated the noise they made, even though it wasn’t really that excessive. As the final straw, he stated that he was thinking of looking for a job in another state and he fully expected me to leave them with their father and travel blithely away and maybe we could sue for full custody after we moved (therefore snatching them completely away from their father instead).

Not only have I already lived with D for a year, so I know how he really feels about them, he was also previously married, with two stepsons and a stepdaughter not that different in age from my sons, and he had a good and comfortable relationship with them.

7. Back further to the housework…He does not expect me to keep the house cleaned and ordered to his standards as opposed to my own, nor does he expect me to do most or all of the household chores. This was a killer for both my marriages. Both previous husbands had stay-at-home mothers who apparently channeled June Cleaver. I was far from a stay-at-home mother who was, while not dirty about my home, quite cluttered about it. I attempted a compromise with both; I would do the majority of the housework, and I would do it more often than was my wont, but I wanted to do it to my standards. That compromise was refused; I was going to keep their homes in the same state that Mother used to, by God! I didn’t, and it did not go over well, ever. Memorable episodes from each marriage include, in the first, being screamed at and having a dirty frying pan waved in my face at 3 am while I was trying to nurse a baby with one arm while typing a term paper with the other; and in the second, being dragged all over the house at 1 am after the second husband came home drunk from a “boys’ night out” being shown every single spot in the carpet that probably YOUR KIDS tracked in, carelessly! and I want them cleaned RIGHT NOW!

Yeah.

D does whatever I ask him around the house the instant I ask him to do it and could care less what state I keep the house in. I do a lot more housework, because his standards are even lower than mine, but it is absolutely resentment free because I get to do as much of it and to the quality that I want.

8. He never calls me names. Another marriage-killer in both marriages. The winners from both marriages were “bitch” from husband no. 1 and “white trash” from husband no. 2. Never again.

9. He never hits me, nor threatens to. Not a problem in the second marriage, but the marriage killer in the first one. Never again.

…and, finally–

10. He has no substance abuse problems.Not an issue in the first marriage, but one of the death knells of the second; he was, depending on the specific time frame, borderline to full-fledged alcoholic. He rarely went an evening without at least one drink, and it did not enhance his personality, to put it mildly.

D does not drink and never has; he has also never tried any illegal recreational drugs and clearly has no desire to do so. An unusual individual; I’ve never met anyone else that meets that criteria. It isn’t criteria that I demand–I have a few glasses of wine once or twice a week myself–but it does go a long way towards giving me confidence that I won’t find myself married to someone with a substance abuse problem.

Well, wish me luck. Hopefully I won’t need it.

So, what the heck are Marriage Strikers(tm)! exactly?

When in doubt, go to the expert, I always say! So I nipped over to Mr. Sacks’ original article, which opens with the following statement: “In my co-authored column Have Anti-Father Family Court Policies Led to a Men’s Marriage Strike? (Philadelphia Inquirer, (7/5/02) six years ago I postulated that men were on a “Marriage Strike” because of the way they get manhandled in divorce.” Hey, you can’t beat that for a resume of expertise on the topic. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really define what a Marriage Striker(tm)! actually is in that article. Happily, I found the Search Blog function only a few clicks away. I typed in “Marriage Strike,” slapped the enter key, and eagerly awaited…all of three results, none of which had very relevant-looking titles.

I hate giving up, so I went further down the page and saw that he has conveniently sorted his articles by category. There is no Marriage Strike category, but there is a Marriage category! So into that I go…oh, wow. Lots of articles, but again none of the titles look super-relevant other than the one he mentions having written in 2002 and that one still doesn’t really define the term…and nowhere does it say how many articles came back on search, just that there is more than just this one page of ‘em. Hmm.

I hate giving up. So I am going to turn to my old friend Google and try “marriage strike definition glenn sacks.” Go!

Bingo!

I love Wikipedia. (Note: this particular Wiki article has been tagged for issues like “factuality” and “neutrality” since 2006. Cut me some slack, though, it’s all I have to work with right now.)

Here we go: “A ‘marriage strike’ is the social phenomenon of men seeking to avoid marriage. The ‘marriage strike’ specifically refers to the action of men living within the Western world. Advocates of the marriage strike believe that after a considered cost-benefit analysis, the legal contract that is modern marriage no longer represents an attractive option for men living in the West’s changed legal, economic, sociological, cultural and demographic environment.”

Well, hell. A marriage strike absolutely is not what it sounded like to me. See, I was thinking a “strike” like a JOB strike, where you actually (a) have a specific job already that (b) your employers would like you to keep doing so you (c) refuse to come into work til they fix what’s upsetting you about said job.

Apparently, Marriage Strikers(tm)! don’t actually HAVE a specific job woman who has expressed a desire to marry a specific individual Striker(tm)! So basically what this situation is, isn’t standing outside your job with a big picket sign with your demands on it. It’s being unemployed and standing outside someplace that has jobs, period, none of which are yours, with a big picket sign with your demands on it.

One reason this may lack effectiveness as a way to get what you want immediately rears its ugly head, huh? As in, you’re picketing people that don’t give a crap about you for whom you do nothing and have nothing to offer…wait! Let’s modify the comparison: you are a highly qualified person for a job entry you know is vacant, standing outside the place that has that job, with your big picket sign with your demands on it. I think that’s probably more what the Marriage Strikers(tm)! have in mind…

…still doesn’t really work, though, does it? Since the job probably has a structured application process that includes job ads, resume reviews and invitations to interviews and probably never includes any interest whatsoever in the crazy dude standing out on the sidewalk with his sign reading “WILL ONLY WORK FOR YOUR COMPANY IF YOU PROMISE TO NEVER FIRE ME WITHOUT MY CONSENT, OFFER ME A FULL BENEFITS PACKAGE FREE OF CHARGE AND GIVE ME EQUAL LEGAL RIGHTS OVER ALL PROJECTS I AM INVOLVED IN REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH OR LITTLE WORK I DID ON THEM!” Frankly, even if he was the only applicant for the job, I suspect it’d continue on empty…and very, very few jobs have only one applicant.

The biggest mystery about all this is how the Marriage Strikers(tm)! appear to think this is going to impact feminists specifically. Going this route with feminists is exactly like doing all the above, except you’ve added the phrase “ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ART TEACHER” to your picket sign and the building you’re standing outside houses an auto mechanics shop. I’m sure you can imagine the uncontrollable laughter that would ensue behind the walls at this scenario.

I really think that if anybody is REALLY a Marriage Striker(tm)! it’s probably more me. Since the age of sixteen, every romantic relationship I have been in that has lasted at least six months has ended in a marriage proposal being fired off squarely at my noggin. It’s amazing I haven’t been married even more times. I could get married again next WEEK if I wanted to! Admire the fortitude it has taken to fend off at least MOST of these determined suitors. Seriously, where have these Marriage Strikers(tm)! been all MY life?

This is because weddings are all about the guests. Specifically the crazy ones.

As awkward as it is to attend a wedding with someone you’ve only just started seeing — there’s nothing like accidentally catching a bouquet to accelerate the normal relationship timetable by, say, two or three years — going to a reception all by your lonesome self is even worse.

That is not a reasonable statement in any language or situation. What the hell is wrong with MSN lifestyle contributors?

This prospect is so daunting, in fact, that most singles fall back on one of three strategies: a) taking along a brother or sister (or a platonic friend of the opposite sex) and hoping no one asks any questions; b) sadly nursing a triple scotch in the lounge while all the happy couples are out on the floor slow-dancing; or c) invoking the “family emergency” rule and not showing up at all.

or d) take along a foreign friend who wants to see what American weddings are like. Continue with original plan of hanging out with cousins and friends you haven’t seen in forever, you know, like a sane person.

So how does a single person get through a wedding reception solo without invoking pity or amusement from guests fortunate enough to belong to Club Wed? By beginning the creepy weeks in advance, that’s how.

Perhaps because the occasion evokes so much dread, most single wedding-goers show up at the reception without doing any homework. That’s a mistake, says Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone: “You don’t have to wait for the wedding day to make contact with the other guests. In fact, it might lessen your nerves if you reach out a couple weeks in advance.

And once you get there, introduce yourself to all your new friends and remind them that you’re desperate and they’re only good to you if they know lots of eligible guys:

“A wedding provides a smorgasbord of people to meet. Even if The One isn’t there, every new person you meet has a network of 200 other people they know. Say hello to everyone, and subtly let them know you’re available.”

You could do some retail therapy, guys and girls alike. Nothing, apparently, lifts a guy out of the woe-is-single-me doldrums like a snappy new cummerbund.

Splurge a little and pamper yourself with a few spa treatments, or buy a new dress and a new pair of shoes. Guys can get new cummerbunds. The result will be an instant mood lift.

That’s right, they regendered the shopping therapy line. And it’s ridiculous, which means that retail therapy advice aimed at women is also ridiculous. I do in fact have a new dress and shoes for this event, and there is exactly 0.0% chance that it will end up on the floor of the guy I want to fuck-he won’t even be there, plus so far my crush in unrequited – and my frippery is wasted on the eyes of a bunch of married guys and my sister’s friends. This to me is more depressing than wearing an outfit I already know and love.

“I only go to weddings alone if I know there will be lots of kids there,” says Carol from New York. “Then I have my playmates, and the other adults appreciate the attention their children are getting.”

Um, Ok. Ever try talking to adults? Some of them have jobs and travel, just like you and me. They won’t all want to spend the whole reception berating you for being unlovable. Only your inner monologue cares about you that much.
And if all else fails, remember, those bastards only want you to find love so that you can end up fat, disillusioned, and unhappy, just like them.

Take it from me: When you’re absorbed in a single, dismal, self-pitying frame of mind, it’s easy to lose sight of the icy stares, forced laughter, and under-the-breath bickering that transpire for many ostensibly “happy” couples during a deluxe evening. My own dateless wedding strategy is to pal it up as much as I can with the folks at my table. Then, when I’m in danger of feeling blue, I replay all those overheard insidious comments as I lean back in my chair, nurse my triple scotch and watch the slow dance. It may not be very nice, but it sure does work!

When you think of it like that, who wouldn’t envy the happy couple? Oh, god, why won’t one of these selfish bastards introduce me to someone so I can join the fun?

Aight, I got to go put this satin dress in a bag and make sure all of my formal underwear is ready to go. Later, all.

Don’t call it a final sale if it’s just going to be on more sale-er next week, OK, just don’t. Also, your high heeled shoes are a)too high and b) far too expensive.

I don’t buy it that these folks who are dying their hair blue or buying fancy appliances are all that happy about their situation. I’m not saying single people are miserable, I was able to entertain myself quite well in my singleton years. But it’s malarkey to say they’re happier. A society with more and more single people living alone in their individual houses doesn’t sound like it’s going in the right direction. Not much of a future there. Who will take care of them in their old age? What will they pass on and to whom?

Advice: Singles should stop pretending they’re happy and OK with being single, admit that your life would be richer with a mate. Tell yourself that you want a wife or husband, and make that a priority.

First off, I like having my hair blue and if I still like it in two years, then my marriage will not persuade me to stop dying it. And while a good blender, or god willing, a real double boiler will not bring me eternal happiness, I do routinely derive satisfaction from using them. So fuck off.

Secondly, like Oh, mygod! I just finished a book dealing with just this topic! Susan Maushart, a twice-divorced social scientist, wrote a book in 2001 called Wifework: What Marriage Really Means to Women. And while she says a few things that Miss Modesty here would quote with glee, the major thrust of the book is that marriage is generally a raw deal for women, who are wise to be picky about who they marry and why, if they marry at all.

The first thing she did in the book was treat every marriage as three separate marriages: His Marriage, Her Marriage, and the Kid’s Marriage. Then she divided the tasks that women are expected to do, into housework, childcare and what she called “wifework.” Wifework was defined as the emotional work a woman does to maintain relationships. Work like stroking her husband’s ego, remembering birthdays of his relatives so he doesn’t have to, having sex when he wants to, serving the food he wants to, etc. She concludes that even men who think they agree to equality in their marriage feel entitled to a high level of emotional maitenence from their wives. The result is that marriage is good for kids (stability and all) and great for men, but awful for most women. Maushart feels that because marriage is generally better for kids the institution is worth saving, but it will not survive unless men examine this sense of entitlement and work to make marriage more equitable for women. It is, as Amanda would say, a harsh cost-benefit analysis of marriage.

(She doesn’t really touch the topic of homosexuality at all in this book. So when she says that being married is superior for kids than merely cohabitating in a committed relationship, I can only assume that she is talking only about couples who have the option of getting married. This book is hyper-focused on the straight nuclear family. She’s also not concerned with the health of childless marriages, seeing them as a private contract between two adults, the success or failure of which has less effect on society than a marriage in which children are being raised. Questionable? You decide.)

In the past, when gender roles were clear and women had few options outside of marriage, this sense of entitlement could go unexamined. Women needed men to provide for their children, hence the wifework was worth the effort.

But now, when most women have options other than marriage, the entitlement of their husbands – which the husbands don’t even acknowledge – is becoming an issue. Women who work outside the home and come home for a second shift of housework often begin to resent men who act like an extra child. She points to the fact that the vast majority of divorces are initiated by women, and that the men they leave are generally shocked-they weren’t even aware there was a problem because up until the point where the woman stopped making the relationship work, everything seemed fine.

The thing that struck me about this book is how perfectly it described my last relationship:

-Eating the food he liked, when he liked to eat it, check.
-Having the sex he liked, as often as he (not I) chose, check.
-Having to constantly self-censor to avoid hurting his feelings, check
-Being expected to be amazed and excited about every idea he ever shared with me, check
-Giving him the final say in most decisions because he made more/paid for/said so, check
-Watching what he wanted to watch even when it sucked, check.
-Not ever making him watch what I wanted to watch, especially when it sucked, check.
-Pretending it didn’t hurt when he made fun of my extra pounds, check
-Making excuses to myself when he didn’t have time/money to come to the gym with me like he promised but could make time for expensive weekend conventions with his friends, check.
-Pretending it didn’t bother me when he’d stick his feet in my lap and go “rub my feeeet!” even when he did it in front of other people or if I had a plate of food in my lap, check

Was he entirely a bad guy? Of course not. He was very nice (a perfect Nice Guy, if you will), creative, sympathetic, courteous, successful. He was perfectly unaware these things bothered me because I never mentioned it. And the reason I never mentioned it is because whenever I timidly tried to assert my desires, there was pouting or resentment and guilt. But stifiling these misgivings was alot of work. Unpaid, unappreciated work far more tiring than cleaning the bathroom or washing the dishes after work. And my resentment of him simmered, and then boiled, and then finally reached a flashpoint. The fact that he was unaware of the demands he was placing on me made them that much more infuriating. Eventually, the dread I began to feel when it came time to entertain and serve him for another weekend outwieghed the happiness I felt when things were going well between us. And when I broke up with him, he was shocked. He thought everything was perfect-and for him, it was. He said it was my fault things got so bad because I didn’t communicate, but was it my fault that he only heard what he wanted to hear?

If I had stayed with him long enough for him to propose (which he claimed he had been planning to do) would I have married him despite these misgivings? Probably. Hey, engagment rings are supposed to do that to a girl. And would it have ended in divorce? You betcha!

So I got another guy who was less work. One who, in the absolute worst case scenario, will at least wait until after the wedding to start treating me like a majordomo.

I guess I wasn’t alone, judging from the book, plenty of women married men who turned out to be not worth the effort. Putting it bluntly, marriage offered the men more than it did to women, and at the first opportunity, women started leaving in droves. Maushart argues that if men can’t think of a way to make marriage a better deal for women (and this will probably involve *gasp* giving up the entitlements, but they’ll also probably be happier in the end if they do so) then women with children will find another method to find support for raising them, and men will be left out in the cold with no one folding their underwear or fixing their beef stroganoff just the way they like it. Maushart would also prefer we all get on this stat, since she believes that marriage as workable institution can be saved and that doing so would be worthwhile for children.

Anyway, the main draw of this site is the Bridal Audit, which features the disclaimer that makes up the title of this post. It asks a few questions about yourself and your guests to determine what they owe you in gifts. With minor tweaking, this test could have almost limitless applications. I haven’t seen a test I liked so much since I found the Cost of Sex calculator.