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.

My husband told a funny joke this morning. To regular readers of this site, you know this is a rare occasion. To new readers, I do realize that this sounds kind of mean, but trust me, it’s not mean. What’s mean are my husband’s jokes, which are not funny, and which are told at the worst possible moments in the most embarrassing situations.

Oh, but about the funny joke…We were getting ready in the morning. He was looking for socks to wear. Unfortunately, suddenly this year, I have become unable to put up clean laundry. I do the laundry, but then it sits in the floor in a pile. I keep meaning to fold it each day. But I don’t. This has gone on for months. I have no explanation or excuse. It’s my goal to change this, but I keep thinking about, rather than acting on, the goal.

Fortunately, messes don’t bother my husband in the least, so he barely even notices the pile and just continues to fish clothes out of it.

So, he’s looking through this horrible pile of clean clothing to find clean socks. And I felt bad. I said, “Sweety, I’m sorry you have to look through this pile. I keep meaning to put up the clothes, but I keep not doing it…”

He said, “Hm. That’s terrible. I think I’m going to start a blog about this” and laughed. he he he. This was a reference to my blog about his bad habits. Get it? I have to say, not only do I think this joke was funny, but I find it hilarious that he pays so little mind to this blog though it pokes fun at him.

This is one of those things I love about this man. He never worries about petty things. He knows a joke is a joke. He has clean socks, he doesn’t care if they come from a pile or a drawer. He really worries about the “right” things in life–I guess this is why he’s so mellow and steady. I’ve learned a lot from his example, but there’s much more to learn.

I’m looking so forward to this weekend! It will be great to have so much family time, but I am sure my husband and I will get on each other’s nerves. To prepare, I read about men’s brains.

This information is taken from the book What Could He Be Thinking? by Michael Gurian. The book is based on 20 years of neurobiological research. The book is all about different chemicals and activity levels in parts of the male and female brains.

Why Husbands Tense Up When Wives Just Want to Talk
Women have 15% more blood flow and neural pathways to verbal-emotive brain centers than men. For this reason, having a conversation, especially one that inspires emotion, can increase oxytocin levels. Oxytocin makes the female brain feel relaxed and connected. However, it makes the male brain “wake up.”

When the male brain is in a restive state, most of its activity is centered in the brain stem. The brain stem does not connect well to the frontal lobes at the top of the brain–where the verbal-emotive processing goes on.

So, in a nutshell, after work, both males and females aim to relax. Talking helps women relax. But for men, conversation stimulates chemicals and parts of the brain to work, rather than to relax. How evil of nature.

Why Men Ignore Their Wives When They Get Home From Work
When men get home from work, they want to rest, just like women do. What does help the male brain enter a restive state? Fixing electronics and channel surfing. I’m serious.

Why Men Watch TV at Defeaning Volumes + Can’t See Stuff In the Fridge
Women’s brains take in more sensory data than men’s brains. So women see, hear, smell, and feel more strongly than men. So, this is why men need to watch the TV at FULL BLAST and why they can’t see stuff in the refrigerator when they’re staring right at it. Also why the many messes they make don’t bother them at all–their brains don’t take these visual details in as women’s brains do.

So, over this nice long weekend, I guess if I want my husband to relax, I need to try not to talk to him, encourage him to channel surf as he ignores me, and try to understand that he simply can’t see all of the messes he creates.

PS. On a serious note, does anyone know of an organization that benefits families of fallen soldiers? If so, please email me! Also, here is a touching site www.anysoldier.com–it tells how you can send a letter to service men and women who don’t often get mail but need it.

Sara’s boyfriend went to a dinner party that was “black tie optional.” Sara couldn’t go with him. This little lucky twist saved her mucho public embarrassment. Guys: PAUSE FOR QUICK QUIZ!

1) “Black tie optional” means _____:

A. The same as “tie optional”–wear a tie, or don’t.
B. Wear a tie, but it doesn’t have to be black.
C. Basically “tuxedo optional”–wear a tuxedo or something formal.

2) When I have no idea what stuff means, I can avoid embarrassing myself by _____:

A. Guessing what it means and making a grand entrance or statement.
B. Ask my best friend what it means. He doesn’t socialize much, but he’s smart.
C. Do a Google search–this is reliable and only takes 5 seconds.

This guy picked options A and A. (Not the correct answers.) Later when Sara asked how the dinner party went, her boyfriend kind of grimaced and said that everyone else was so dressed up. He’d felt very awkward.

Rolling her eyes, she asked, “Well, you DID wear a suit, right?” He’s staring back at her all confused like. No, he reminded her, it was black tie optional, so he chose the option NOT to wear a tie. Or a jacket. He chose the other, more casual “option.”

Stop right here. See, he’s talking about imaginary options. He never checked out the meaning of black tie optional. When we make up or just try to figure out what things mean, rather than looking them up or asking about them, situations can get very sketchy–this includes dating, using instructions to build things, directions, finances, cooking, and of course, fashion. So basically, this guy failed to inquire, and he showed up to a tuxedo formal wear event wearing something like jeans and a button up pajama shirt.

Hey, not everyone knows what phrases like “black tie optional” mean. Many who do still hate getting dressed up. BUT the point is NOT “be classy”–goodness no, by all means, please don’t try that. The point is, don’t always try to guess. Just ASK sometimes. What’s the big darn deal???

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.)

My husband, the kind, handsome, wonderful man he is, definitely marches to the beat of a different drummer. A very different drummer. A drummer who can be annoying at times due to being so unaware of and forgetful of obvious things, yet still feel thoroughly convinced that he knows so much about everything. Especially health, driving laws, and child-rearing. About once every week or so, he shocks me with some bizarre question or statement. I thought I’d list the 10 examples that come to mind–ALL 100% TRUE.

1) Using a seatbelt is dangerous. Also carseats are dangerous for children. (We have children. He abides by the law, but that doesn’t make me feel much better about either of these statements.)

2) Driving the speed limit on the freeway can be dangerous. Sometimes you have to go faster to be safe.

3) What’s my mother’s area code? (As in, his mother’s area code.)

4) Do you spell our son’s name with a “c” or “k” at the end?

5) How old are you? (As in, how old am I. He has known me almost 11 years.)

6) How many years have we been married? (He would probably be at least two years off if he guessed.)

7) Who is Angelina Jolie? (He rattled off this question in 2005 when she’d been very famous for many years. Also he works in the movie industry and was about to begin working on “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” when he asked this question.)

8 ) You know the Airborne you gave me to stop my cold? I think it infected my kidneys.

9) I can’t apply for another job yet. I still haven’t gotten a response from the last one I applied for 2 weeks ago. (This helps explain why he was unemployed for a very long time during our early married years.)

10) It won’t be hard to have a 3rd child. You’ll be fine. (Of course, as he works 9am to 11pm-ish most days.)

PS. His jokes are even stranger than his quotes and questions. They also cause people to stop and do a double take. You can read about those here and here.)

When my husband gets involved with planning, a REALLY efficient, inexpensive, easy plan gets turned into something horribly expensive, overwhelming, and extremely difficult to accomplish for numerous reasons.

Perfect example: our recent emergency preparedness conversations. My husband actually has some very valid experience. He lived in a country that was turned upside down overnight due to connections with the economy of Russia in the early 1990’s. He witnessed a whole nation of people who lived very comfortably become a population of mostly unemployed, desperate, hungry people very quickly. They lost electricity, running water, and for a time, it’s amazing that people figured out how to survive. But they did, and my husband was one of them. SO, one would think that this experience taught him some REAL efficient, inexpensive survival skills, yes? Well, I’ll tell you this story, and you decide.

Because we are in Hollywood, it makes sense to prepare for an earthquake. We sat down together to list items we’d need for an emergency. I had about 10 critical items in mind–stuff like food, cash, water, flashlights, and a radio. After conferring with my husband, the list grew to 100 items, including things like flotation devices, raincoats, tea, and honey. (I am not joking, the list actually included these items.) Naturally, this list did not get purchased–too many things, much too expensive, and no place to store these numerous items.

However, with all the recent stuff about food shortages and Costco limiting rice sales, and so on, it seemed prudent to revisit the list. So, I said, “You know, we really should probably get some emergency type items. But that list we made was too long–let’s get a few things now that we’d really need in the case of an earthquake or other emergency.” I’m thinking water (still don’t even have that), weather radio, map, pocket knife.

My husband says, “Well, two things I can think of right off hand would be a SHOVEL or LARGE STICK and a LARGE PLASTIC BOX.”

You can imagine my facial expression as he said this. It was kind of a tilted head, perplexed, confused, frustrated type look. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, I asked why we might need these things. The stick/shovel is to dig the car out should it lose traction while driving out of town (hu?!? We’re in Hollywood, not the Amazon jungle), and the box is to store all of the other things we get.

So, there you have it. Emergency preparedness from an expert who’s lived through a severe crisis and learned…hmmmm, a lot from it.

Many people emailed me about my post on my husband’s odd sense of humor to tell me that I’m not alone. It was nice to learn that other spouses and significant others out there tell bizarre, show-stopper jokes. (By “show-stopper,” I mean, socially all’s going well, then your husband tells a joke, which causes an abrupt silence and everyone sits there looking around confused and nervous for 2-3 minutes.)

This happens nearly EVERY time my husband tells a joke. Fortunately, reactions to my husband’s jokes are highly amusing to watch, so I no longer need a husband with a funny sense of humor. Mine has a sense of humor that does funny things. It’s almost the same. My standards sound low? Well, that’s because they are. (But they used to be much higher, so ha, I told you.)

By the way, yes, my husband knows all about this, and if he reads this post, trust me, it’ll make him proud and not embarrassed in the least. He even has a joke about his jokes: The ones that really confuse people are “Level 7.” The ones people laugh at are “Level 1.” (He jokes that this means Level 1 are just easy to understand, whereas Level 7’s are much funnier, so much harder to understand. Now, that joke is funny.)

Since my last post on this topic, I’ve been waiting for a good example of one of his jokes. Today, the perfect “joke” surfaced. Get ready:

I read a scary article about stocking up on food (basically that people in the US should due to the global market). My husband LOVES Costco and bulk-buying. So, I emailed him and said, “Hey, look at this scary article. Maybe we should get some extra food at Costco every weekend for a while, like canned stuff, rice, etc.”

His response (verbatim): “Yes, also we should get a small house in Central America. It’s not expensive there, and we could go if there is a crisis in the weather. If not, we can sell it when the prices rise.” (Seem confusing? Not at all funny? I’m right there with ya.)

I love these articles that help me learn about the psychology of men, and namely, the psychology of my husband.

This article is scientific in nature. It’s on livescience.com–it doesn’t get much more scientific than that. I am positive this article was NOT supposed to be humorous or funny. However, I was laughing aloud as I read it.

I recommend that you read it: Clueless Guys Can’t Read Women. Then correct me if I’m wrong, here’s basically what the article says:

1) Don’t misread the title. It doesn’t mean “Only some guys are clueless–those guys can’t read women.” The title actually means “All guys are clueless and unable to read women.”

2) If you smile at a guy for any reason, he thinks you’re flirting. Frankly, I find this alarming. Girls smile at guys they feel sorry for, guys they are scared of, even guys they hate–just to make a situation less awkward. So, in summary, I guess this means geeks, psychopaths, and evil ex’s all over the world think girls are flirting with them when really they are just trying to think of a way to escape–the room, the seating arrangement, whatever.

3) Guys mistake friendliness for sexual come-on’s. Great, so, pretend you are a guy, and you need a dollar–say for a drink. If I give you this dollar to avoid thirsting to death, and I give it to you and smile (because I feel sorry for you at this moment)–does this imply I want to have SEX with you? I am assuming the answer is no. But based on this article, I am VERY nervous that the answer might be “yes.”

4) Guys mistake girls’ sexual signals as friendly ones. I love this. In this study, each guy was shown 280 photographs. In the ones that showed a female actually being alluring, most guys reported that she was giving friendly signals. Okay, so, if a girl smiles at a guy, she wants to have sex. If she, say, winks and gives him the sexy eye (not sure what that is, just trying to think of something alluring-sounding), she’s trying to be friends?

5) A common theory on guys’ misinterpretations, one of psychologists apparently, goes like this: due to the fact that men have an inherent, biologically based interest in sex, guys have lower standards for what qualifies as a sexual advance. However, the psychologists who designed this study said, “No, it’s not that guys have lower standards. It’s just that guys really can’t read signals correctly.”

Summary
So, it kind of seems like we’re back to square one here. Guys read women’s signals incorrectly. They interpret friendly signals as sexual ones–so to be sure we don’t tease anyone, girls should be careful about smiling, using nice voices, and generally being friendly. Guys interpret sexual signals as friendly ones. SO, if you are a girl trying to make sexual advances, don’t be surprised if you get invited to partake in a burping contest instead.

I hope you feel as enlightened as I do.

I suspect that my husband doesn’t know our address by heart. To his credit, we have moved 8 times in 9 years. We haven’t lived in our current apartment even a year…Still, would it not freak you out a little if you suspected your husband hadn’t memorized your address and/or phone number? (Yes, this means I also suspect he may not know our phone number.) I know, speed dial. No one knows anyone’s number. Yet, usually, they know their own number…

Why do I suspect that he doesn’t know our address? Because he carries around this piece of paper in his wallet with the address and phone number written on it. How do I know this? Please, I don’t search through my husband’s wallet. Okay, maybe once a year. Never anything suspicious in there though, and he reads my email, so we’re even. (By the way, he doesn’t even try to hide this. He’ll just say “Hey, who’s that guy who emailed you today?” And I will say “Uh, he’s my cousin, the guy who was in our wedding.” And he’ll say “Oh.” I know, it’s strange–probably dysfunctional. But I have nothing to hide, so if he finds my email entertaining, more power to him. I DO delete the mean emails about his mother. This is very healthy for our marriage.)

SO, actually, I know about the paper because sometimes he loses it and starts asking about it–of course, I’m supposed to know exactly where this 1-inch x 1-inch piece of paper is. “Where’s my paper? Did you get it?” What paper? Get it for what? No, I already know our address, why would I need your paper? Then he immediately makes another “address paper.” He copies it while referencing a piece of mail. Each of the three times this has happened, I have said, “PLEASE tell me you KNOW our address.” And he says he does but gets confused about two digits at the end of our zip code.

Yeah, SURE ya do.