Husband Clothes

As I’ve mentioned, the top reason I wanted to marry my husband was because he was kind and steadfast through and through. And those qualities have gotten us through near-divorces caused by OTHER qualities he has (and that I have, of course).

In our first three or four years of marriage, I kept learning about “life strategies” my husband used, and uses, to deal with a variety of situations. Some of these strategies HORRIFIED me. The really odd thing is that the more time that went by, the more I learned from the way my husband does things–even though I don’t always agree with his approach.

I thought I’d share one of these strategies with you. It may ring a bell for some of you. I’m going to write this from my husband’s perspective. Pretend he’s reading or speaking the next paragraph. Then I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from this highly annoying strategy and why I now use it regularly.

#1 Husband Strategy of All Time: Say, “I will do it later” to avoid anything for any reason. Even when you have said this 100 times (when, for example, your wife has asked you to mow for the past 100 days), feel free to say it again when asked to do “the task.” Sure, it will infuriate the person asking you to do the task at hand. But pleasing people isn’t the objective. And thank heaven for that. Also, remember that the word “later” isn’t specific–so don’t go making it something it’s not by tacking a day or time to the end of your statement. Keep it straight and to the point: “I’ll do it later.”

What I have learned: I used to be Miss Do EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW and Miss Do EVERY FAVOR ANYONE ASKS me for. By observing my husband, I learned that this is much too stressful. Now my motto is pretty much “I’ll do it later.” Oh don’t get me wrong–I help people who need help. But not when I can’t. Also, not for moocher types, and not for people who are mean or unappreciative, no matter how close a “friend” or relative.  Oh, I don’t have a problem just saying “no” either, but in some cases, “I’ll do it later” is preferable. (Prime example: When my mother-in-law says, “Come visit me,” it’s really better to say “I’ll do it later” than “No, we’re not going to visit you because when we do, you ruin my life.”) The person asking the favor ALWAYS stops asking at some point–so it’s definitely a win/win situation.

Oh, and you know who gets this response from me more than anyone else in the world–my husband! Pretty much all we ever say now is “Can you help me?” or “I’ll do it later.” But somehow it works out–probably because we  both strongly stand by this strategy. We’re united in not doing things right now.

Ha ha! The title of this post is actually understating it. It should be called the ENDLESS NUMBER OF TIMES my husband failed his driving test.

He and I got our driver’s licenses and our first car ever together shortly after getting married. Looking back, I can’t believe our relationship lasted beyond the driver’s license ordeal. It cost us something like $200 in cab rides to DMV. I honestly am ashamed to tell you the number of trips we had to make for all of my husband’s failed trips, but I am going to estimate 5. Let’s do the math on that one–it means he failed the test about 4 times and finally passed it the last time.

The reason is that he INSISTED that he didn’t need to study for the test. After all, he was given driving lessons by CARLOS. May I mention that Carlos, while kind and a good driver, didn’t have the strongest English language skills–nor did my husband. Worry not–they followed the driving laws. But clearly Carlos wasn’t able to impart all of the information my husband needed to pass the test.

But, you might wonder, after Holly’s husband failed the test the first time, THEN didn’t he feel he needed to study? The answer is no. He felt the test was “wierd” and that questions were worded “in a confusing way.” How about the third time? Wouldn’t have have realized after failing the driving test twice that he should now study? NOPE. After the third test, he kept repeating something like: “I’ve now answered questions incorrectly so many times that I’ll definitely know the right answer when I see it this time.”

We kept going to the DMV over and over and over. And since we didn’t have a car (because no licenses), we had to take taxis. It got very annoying–and expensive. Finally, after he failed like the 4th time, I think I was ready to leave him. Sorry, but I simply could not be married to a man who can’t pass a driving test after seemingly endless attempts, PLUS somehow neglects to STUDY for the test despite undeniable proof that he desperately needs to.

How did this nightmare end? We studied together for about 30 minutes. I asked him questions, and gave him multiple choice answers worded exactly as they are in the book. I repeated each question till he got the answer right. The next day he passed the test. The irony? Now my husband’s driving is very good, and mine is very bad. And my car is all crashed up, but his car is not. The mysteries of life, marriage, and change…

I strongly recommend that any and all married people read this article called “The Stages of Marriage” at AgeAndHealth.com. The 12 stages of marriage are outlined by Michael Gurian. Notice that this was written in 2005. It’s still worth reading!

This man’s book helped me through a very difficult time in my marriage. It was difficult, I learned from the book, because my husband and I went through a stage called “The Crisis” stage from Day 1 of our marriage! Usually this should be Stage 5. But for us, Stage 5: The Second Crisis occurred alongside Stage 1 and the ohters that followed. Our crisis was that my husband couldn’t find a job for a very long time, and that was hard for me to understand by about week #2 of our marriage:) But it’s all good now, as we are in year 9, AND he has had a really good job for years now.

Oh, see writing at 12:00am. That’s never good. Too many weird tangents. I apologize!

SO, as I was saying, these 12 stages are quite similar to real life, except that some stages will occur out of order. The stage that makes me saddest to read about is Stage 3: Power Struggle. This stage can last for years, and it is the stage during which most people get divorced. The reason it makes me sad is because for some couples, this stage would probably lead to Stage 4: Awakening, except that marriage is so confusing and hard, sometimes that couples don’t know there’s another stage around the bend.

That last paragraph does NOT in any way imply that I think people should avoid divorce. I know a few too many people who’ve been in dangerous or hopeless situations to judge. So, to clarify, the prior paragraph means ‘I get sad when marriage is hard and confusing for people, especially me,’ NOT ‘I get sad when people get divorced.’

Okey Dokey, so this post was a tad on the unfocused side, as I am writing it after 12:00am, which I think is against a rule I set for myself a LONG time ago for this very reason…But hopefully you’ll find the article interesting–and, should you be having a hard time with your spouse–helpful and a source of relief.

Years ago, I was a chain smoker with no hope of ever quitting. I was otherwise normal and in good health–I ate right, exercised, all that good stuff. Looked darn cute–sorry, I think the 10 years ago factor gives me bragging rights at this time, does it not? But I had a habit of smoking that I could NOT kick.

Then I met my husband. At first, he acted all okay with my smoking. See, this guy’s a sneaky one. From day one he knew he was going to force me to stop smoking. I only learned about this three years later.

The first wise move was not hinting about the issue until AFTER marriage–you know, when I was already totally trapped. At that time, the lectures started. By the way, my husband NEVER raises his voice. But he has this almost evil way of being brutally persistent and thoroughly unbothered by negative responses to his persistence.

SO, I’d begin to smoke, and he’d start rolling his eyes, fanning the air and groaning aloud. I’d run out to the balcony and start chain smoking due to the stress his antics caused me. He’d follow me out to the balcony (see his traps, and how I fell into them? marriage, balcony, and so on), and continue the lectures. Lectures about lung cancer, lectures about heart disease, lectures about smelling like smoke…

I would yell at him to stop, but I was on a balcony so, not comfortable to do so too loudly or too long. Finally, I’d go back in. Usually by this point, I had smoked at least 5 cigarettes due to stress his antics caused me. But the magical effect was that it was TOTALLY UNSATISFYING due to the lectures. (See, smokers smoke to get a break from reality. That effect is squashed when someone is annoying you and won’t go away.)

That wasn’t all. He also did very controlling things, such as steal my cigarettes out of my purse. So I’d go for a smoke break at work. No cigarettes. Pretty much, someone’s going to die when stuff like this starts happening. But he’s stronger than me, plus he didn’t care about my threats. As I said, his persistence approaches evilness. Later, he caught on when I’d check that my cigarettes were in the purse BEFORE leaving for work.

He started taking the cigarettes out of the box and replacing them with random objects. My very, very favorite was a hotdog. That’s right. I opened my Marlboro Lights all ready for my grand smoke break, the great calm-me-downer, and there are no cigarettes in the box, but there is a hot dog in the box. Folded in half, so as to fit in the box. Yes, that’s very scary. I almost called the police.

But police or no police, these little tricks had a very important effect: cigarettes became an unreliable source of pleasure. I could no longer count on them to be there for me. I was aware this was my husband’s fault, and there were many ways that I outsmarted him and his little tricks. But all in all, he made smoking unpleasurable and unreliable.

That is the true story of why I was able to stop smoking.

Ha ha! I’m cracking myself up. I had a flashback on several assumptions I used to make about marriage. I wasn’t even one of those “I’ll find my knight and white castle” type girls. I was more one of those “please don’t let my husband turn out to be an undercover drug addict/criminal/person with 10 wives in other states” types. I specifically remember being SURE that marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yet I still had no idea. Here are some of my thoughts from about 10 years ago:

1) Warnings about finances causing trouble in marriage don’t worry me at all. Our finances will be FINE. Hello, two people = twice the money = we’ll pretty much be rich.

2) Everyone says you have to communicate. OF COURSE we’ll communicate.

3) Why does everyone think children cause stress in marriage? As long as I marry a nice guy, this will be noooooo prooooblem. (Note: I did marry a nice guy. The topic of the problems a nice husband can cause with child-rearing needs a whole long post. I’ll write one soon.)

4) Women don’t want to have sex when they’re married? That’s a bunch of fluff. Not me. I’m sure we’ll have sex daily. Probably more than once each day.

5) Why do people say women get really bitchy and don’t care about their appearance after they get married? NEVER! I will make time to focus on me and I will make him help me. (And I just assumed this plan would unfold simply and easily.)

6) Why does everyone say it’s hard to handle your spouse’s habits day in and day out? That won’t really apply to us. We already know each other’s annoying habits, and we’re okay with them.

7) When you are married, you never feel lonely because you always have someone to talk to and sit with. (HA HA! Try NEVER. Married people are waaaaay too busy to sit and talk. And when they’re not busy, they’re too annoyed or trying to have fun and relax for once. Please.).

8 ) I don’t care if my husband gets fat. And he won’t mind if I get fat. We love each other, and our love runs much deeper than weight. Also, we won’t get fat because we’ll be on a lifetime good health plan. That’ll be one of the many things we do together as a couple. I will always have plenty of money and time for proper meal planning. We will be so healthy.

9) People talk too much about the hardship of sacrifices in marriage. Please. First of all, my husband would never ask me to give up anything really important to me. Secondly, even if he did, I will be happy to sacrifice for him because I love him so much.

10) When things get hard, which they won’t, we’ll just always remember that DIVORCE is NOT an option.

Any married people totally cracking up right now? If so, I’m glad I could put some humor into your day.

Not to have a competition for whose mother-in-law is the meanest, strangest, or craziest, but let me know if this could make me the clear winner nevertheless. (I’ve never won anything–so I’m hoping this might change all that.)

My mother-in-law is from a different country. That country is very mountainous and therefore quite closed off from surrounding countries (and the surrounding world in many respects, which explains many stories on this blog.) In that country, the people are highly educated, but only the richest have enough money to travel abroad. This means, the people there do see foreign countries in the media, magazines, and tourists, but they trust their own customs and regard many foreign ways as “strange” or “incorrect” (rather than “different” or “interesting”).

SO, when my mother-in-law visited for the first time, I knew she’d never eaten fried shrimp. As a nice gesture, I fixed a grand dinner consisting of 2 pounds of fried and breaded shrimp for her, along with many other foods. It was great, not to toot my own horn.

Well, these shrimp had tails. My mom-in-law was popping the whole thing into her mouth, tail and all. For the sake of her stomach lining, I delicately tried to say, “Um…We don’t really…usually…eat the tails.” Trying to soften the comment, I added, “I think they might upset your stomach, probably that’s the reason.” (And not, for example, because it makes you look like a freak.)

At the time, I was just learning that my mother-in-law is extremely defensive and hated me as my husband’s non-native wife. So, I wasn’t aware that I would be attacked for trying to be helpful.

But I quickly learned. She gave me a VERY agitated look and replied: “My dear, I eat what I want how I want.” Then she very deliberately opened her mouth and dropped another entire shrimp into it tail and all. And proceeded to chomp on it and fake smile at me.

In her book, she really told me off. As you can imagine, I SURE FELT FOOLISH. (tee hee ha ha.)

Does your guy seem to get a lot of traffic tickets? For example, does he get traffic tickets that make your car insurance twice that of any other person you know? I would LOVE to tell you exactly how much we pay in auto insurance per year, but I have to pretend like I don’t remember. That’s what I tell anyone who asks because I am SO ASHAMED.

I am very happy to say that over 9 years of marriage, my husband has gone from receiving approximately 3 tickets per year to about one every other year. Not bad–I mean, as long as your standards are bottom of the barrel, as mine are.

My favorite ticket was the time he came to California about four years ago. We were soooo poor. We couldn’t pay for a room/apartment near his job, couldn’t figure out the bus schedule (or even if buses even went to his job location), and couldn’t afford to rent a car. SO, he bought this $500 clunker that was like 20 years old. He said insurance came with the car. I asked him to double check as that sounded strange. (He said he trusted the used car salesman–always prudent.) He mentioned that he needed to get the tail light fixed too. Soon after, he said he’d taken care of these things. Mm hm.

One week after getting the car, he got pulled over. $200 ticket for broken tail light. And the officer was going to give him a $1500 ticket for no insurance, plus mandatory court appearance. (My reaction: GOOD MOVE HONEY. Did the officer mention if we can pay that traffic ticket with a credit card?)

My husband explained to the officer that the car dealership had told him insurance was part of the package but he didn’t have the documentation on hand. So the very, very, very, extremely, SO VERY KIND police officer gave my husband the benefit of the doubt, omitted the mandatory court appearance, and made the ticket $200 (tail light) + $300 (no evidence of insurance or something like this). Whew! (Are you a police officer? If so, I love you because of this incident. In a nonsexual way of course, though has anyone noticed how attractive police officers tend to be? WOW.)

So my husband fixed everything, but he continued to get tickets. Till one day a judge blessed him out in court over a wreckless driving (due to speeding) ticket. I have no idea what was said, but after that, the tickets suddenly stopped. Now only one ticket every other year. I count my lucky stars every night. I love my husband, and I feel much better about his safety now. And our cars. And our finances. And our marriage.

PS. Are you a judge? If so, you may be the one who fixed my husband’s driving problem, so I will do anything for you that is morally sound… Need a free babysitter for your children? Need a maid? Need some one to do your online shopping for you? Need money? I’ll send any sum. You saved me thousands of dollars by scaring my husband. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Hi! I have gotten some very interesting emails this week. My personal favorites are the ones where guys are asking about my husband’s job. Nothing about girls or marriage. No, no. Just questions about jobs and money.

Alrighty. I love talking about jobs. In fact, I have the very odd hobby of job searching. I have a full-time writing job (from home). It pays nicely, and I love it immensely. So, I don’t need a job. But I NEED to job search. It’s probably related to filling a dysfunctional void of some sort–kind of like alcoholism, except instead of never getting enough whiskey, I never get enough job searching. (I just reread that, and it frightened me. Oh well.)

Um…yes, this brings me to my story about my husband’s job. OH, it’s related to animation. (Due to that detail, he may force me to remove this post–should this happen, I apologize in advance.)

If you or your husband wants to work in the movie industry–you could be in for a doozy of a time. Let me recommend Gnomon (wierd name, but very high-quality, famous school.). IF you have like $20-30,000 for your husband to attend a program like this, this could be a quick, easy path for you–assuming he’s talented and a go-getter type. We did not. So, if you are like us, here are some possible challenges you could encounter:

1) As your husband learns his trade, he will be on his computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and unemployed for at least 3 years. Actually, I suspect this applies to numerous techie job–not just animation. Of course, some men would work in the day learn at night…I’m sure that’s nice for you.

2) Your husband’s going to “need” to buy lots of computer equipment in order to GET projects, and later a job–so this will be around $15,000-20,000 altogether. Not buying the equipment will mean that you’ve survived the 3 years of unemployment for nothing. Again, this pretty much applies to all techie jobs.

3) If you’re like me, you’ll get lucky and live on the East Coast, while all movie jobs are on the West Coast. BUT your husband will get offered contracts, not jobs, meaning you will now get to pay for 2 places, so he can go, but you can stay and maintain your full-time job with benefits in Virginia. (So you would be a single mother to your first child, oh, and pregnant with your second child. Also, you might have horrible morning sickness, not for 3 months like most people, but for 6, while your husband is away). This will last at least 6 months. And it may happen 2-3 times before your husband gets a full-time job.

4) Then you will move to California, quit your job, and never see your husband again because he’ll be working all the time. HAHAhahahaha. (This is a joke, but not so funny.)

5) It’s not over. Now your husband will need to “specialize.” So, get ready for him to go study in Canada at Vancouver Film School for 4 months while you stay in California with your, now 2 children, as a single mom. Oh, don’t expect him to have a valid passport. He might forget to renew it, as he forgets to renew his driver’s license (which he now has 3 of, which is not really legal–but it’s due to living in 8 cities in 9 years). Point being: you might freak out for 4 months while your husband is in Canada studying, as the passport law changes–you will be worried that they will not let him back into the US.

Okay, but it’s not this hard for everyone. It’s also not this easy for everyone. My husband is very talented both artistically and in science, so once he got his first real job, things moved extremely quickly. He has friends who have had the same job for years but want out and can’t find anything.

Finally, he didn’t job search. I job searched. For years, I sent out 10-50 resumes a week, along with demos. Yes, this was very dysfunctional of me. Of course, my husband should have done his own job searching. However, as I mentioned in a prior post, his theory was you apply to ONE job and wait for the answer before applying to the next job. Guess how often companies like Dreamworks answer–NEVER. Unless they want you. That wasn’t the case. Fortunately, it was fine with him to “let” me take over and start sending out stuff like mad. And it worked very well with my job searching..um..hobby.

These things said, this was fuel for our marriage. It was very hard, but at the same time, we are both risk-takers and like setting goals. We are not afraid of tough times and can handle stuff. Now that things have been settled for a few years, life is pretty good. But this is NOT the road for everyone. We have seen a few divorces among friends already due to the work hours alone! Beware of demanding techie jobs…beware.

Yesterday, my friend saw the post about my husband’s hanger trick, and suddenly it hit me that I never told her about it. When she mentioned the hanger, I had a flashback to the time period when she and I met. At that time, life was much too serious to ever talk or think about the trivial stuff I do now–hangers, wrinkled clothing, chipped teeth–oh, sorry, I did talk about chipped teeth, as we had this problem even then…So, some people have much more serious difficulties to deal with. I realize this, since I was one of them.

Anyway, it kind of made me sad thinking about people having a really hard time in marriage. …I don’t have much advice (not that you’d want it anyway, after reading about what I put up with). BUT, I can tell you two things that helped me gain some understanding that made the rocky times a little easier:

1) The book “What Could He Be Thinking?” by Michael Gurian–he is a psychologist who did decades of research on men’s brains. He describes the stages during marriage and really grounded info about men and how they operate in a marriage. It’s NOT a book that makes excuses–it just tells what and why. Very, very, very helpful. For me, it really helped me understand how a man’s job can influence his behavior and why my husband acted so mean all the time.

2) Movies like “Cinderella Man” (misleading title–this is about a strong, wonderful man who in no way acts like Cinderella). When I had a hard time, my friends were all happy, had plenty of money, and their husbands were so nice to them. Movies reminded me that some people have it worse than me. The BEST one of all time–”Cinderella Man” with Russel Crowe. Hard times like crazy, but also strength of the soul. On a lighter note, “Click” with Adam Sandler–teaches you not to hurry too much, even in times of stress. (In case you’re interested in getting either, I’m putting a search bar here so you can search for the right DVD format for your TV.)

3) If you find books and movies about relationships helpful, there are many more in the Husband Clothes giftstore here. Look at the links to the left called “Books About Relationships” (duh) and “Movies.” Choices include only relationship books that get top reviews. The movies all show many different types of relationships and partners–criminal partners, partners who can’t read (a VERY good movie, by the way, called “Stan and Iris” with Robert De Niro), partners who can’t speak English, others with obsessive compulsive disorder (another great one–”As Good As It Gets.” FUUUUNNNY!).

Oh my gosh. I just saw through the news that 22,000 more people are jobless. It’s so hard when the husband/live-in beau has no job. (But fun when I don’t have one…sorry if that sounds catty, but I have earned the right to say it. Also, I currently do have a job, actually 3 of them–but more on girls and jobs at another time.)

I remember well the days when my husband was applying for jobs, never getting them, and then failing when he finally did. [Update: he did finally succeed and now does very well in the movie industry—but who knows about tomorrow—don’t worry about us, thanks to my husband, we experienced poverty and could certainly overcome it again.]

Anyway, I thought I’d write a lil’ “How Not To” based on his early job experiences and, more often than not, unemployment. Guys: if your family is desperately in need of you getting a job, don’t do these things:

1. Do NOT find a job that does not pay sick days and take one day off each week because you “don’t feel good” or you “are sure the boss doesn’t mind.” (Note: especially do not do this if you are getting only $7 per hour. Your honey can probably accept a low salary, but not the weekly day off that makes the salary even lower, k?)
2. Do NOT apply for a job and feel that you need to “hear the results” before applying to the next job. Note that when you don’t get results soon, that usually means that the result is “no.” So waiting simply means you will be out of a job much, much longer than your wife or girlfriend can put up with you.
3. Do NOT show up to interviews 2 hours late. If you do, do not accidentally spill your Mountain Dew all over the receptionist’s desk while she stares at you like you are a freak.
4. Do NOT show up to a job, try to show them something you “know how to do” on the computer, and freeze their entire network. (Yes, my husband did this.)
5. Do NOT ask for $50,000 salary when the job is worth $30,000. In fact, for all of you newbie’s out there, PLEASE don’t ask for a salary—really. Tell them to give you a range, and pick the middle number. Or, if you’re super desperate, pick a lower number in the range—but not the bottom one.
6. Do NOT assume that, because “in your opinion” it’s better to wear casual clothes, the place where you have your interview will find that admirable. They will not. They will think you have been living in a cave because everyone knows you wear a suit to an interview. (Well, not in the movie industry–I have to give him this one.)
7. Do NOT say that you will wear a suit, but that a tie is “taking it too far.” A suit without a tie is like a car without wheels. Trust me—it will make you look dumb and will get you nowhere.
8. Don’t wear damn white socks to an interview. I can’t even get into this topic again without getting annoyed. Listen to your girlfriend on this one. Read GQ. Please tell me that you at least know what GQ is—if not, ask your girlfriend. (And be really thankful that you managed to get a girlfriend.)
9. DO look darn busy at home while you are unemployed. Try to be out of the house looking for jobs a lot. Do NOT be like my husband was–sleeping most of the time, sitting around the house, getting crumbs everwhere due to continous snacking (hey, he had nothing else to do), and be playing Nintendo when your lady gets home from work. Hey, fix freaking dinner sometimes please. You may not have a job, but your wife does, and it’s annoying to come home and cook for your butt when you’re sitting around cruising the Internet. Use your brain.
10. When you are offered your first job in a long time, DO take it. Don’t turn that crap down thinking you’re going to wait for something better–like my husband did. Take that job, then quit when you get the better one.
11. Oh, oops, did I start sounding bitter? My, my, well try being a teacher for 5 years (and going to graduate school) while your husband “learns 3D animation,” and doesn’t ever have a full-time job OR benefits, and you’ll understand:)
12. For anyone who is too sad to think this post is at all amusing, I am sure there is a light at the end of the tunnel. If my husband found it, BELIEVE me, anyone can.