Out of Proportion?

"Marriage is like an un-funny episode of Everybody Loves Raymond" (Knocked Up).

Hi Kerri? Don't read this.
On second thought... read it, what the hell do I know??
Also, I'm a little medicated. And by "a little" I mean drugged to the gills and feelin' pretty fine.

So I have been a little down. (Really? None of us had noticed).
And mostly, I have been a little down on marriage. (Um, nope, hadn't noticed that either).
It is not that I don't love my husband. I do. Essentially he's a good guy (with issues). Essentially they're all good guys (with issues). I guess we more or less pick the guy with the issues we think we can handle the best. Or something.
Whatever.

But I have been watching a lot of comedies and comedy specials and stuff. You know, trying to take the edge off. In a nutshell: it didn't work. It sort of made it worse.

Because the funniest stuff in stand-up and in sit-coms is the "holy crap marriage sucks but I love him/her anyway so what the fuck divorce is expensive anyway" bits.

It occurred to me that maybe I am blowing this whole spousal drama out of proportion.

Yes, he needs to get a job. Yes, one of the other husbands needs to figure out whether he's gay or not. Yes, another one needs to get his anger issues under control. There are some issues that need to be fixed... but the thing that has had me in such a twist is that while I love the husband I don't really like him right now. I don't want to spend time with him and when he comes to bed I pretend to sleep. I am angry with him. Constantly. I want him to not be home when I am home. I would rather he leave the house and pretend to look for a job so that I can have a few hours alone and not have to be pissed at him about it. I resent the fact that emotionally he has been MIA for about a year. (Understandably, right? But just because my dad is still alive doesn't mean I have no emotional needs. Fuck, some of you know my dad... I might just have MORE needs than the average bear BECAUSE he's alive but that is a different story all together).

But maybe that is not such an unusual thing. Maybe we have been led to believe that marriage is supposed to be this mutual exchange of ideas and support... and it is actually... um... NOT. Maybe it's ok to not like him very much right now, and maybe that doesn't mean that my marriage is in trouble. Maybe it just means I'm married. Maybe it is ok to only get, I don't know, half of the support you need from your spouse and the rest from other people. I get more support and sympathy and help from my friends than I ever have from any man ever. The only thing I'm not getting from my friends is sex and financial support. (Again, a totally different post is in order to really discuss that one).

I can't be the only one. I look around at my friends and I know for a FACT that there are at least three or four of us.

I am not saying that we should all go out and get divorces and live alone forever. Not at all. I think that what I'm saying is that maybe we really can't expect our husbands to fulfill every emotional need we have and maybe our expectation that they will is causing some of this angst. I mean seriously.

I have known some of my friends since I was 13. Other friends of mine are relatively new and still others are people who I have known for a long time but only recently really developed a relationship with. And we all seem to be having the same sorts of issues with the men in our lives.

And it can't all be blamed on "the kids." Not all of us have kids. Unless you count our husbands.

I know that we're all old enough to have given up on happily ever after... but I think that we really did buy in to the whole "life mate" thing. We bought into the idea that somehow they would learn to communicate in the same way we communicate. We bought into the Ikea and Ethan Allen and Fucking Kodak commercials. I am really starting to think that we just might be expecting too much out of these only recently domesticated animals.

They're not all bad. Like I said, they're basically good guys, but when we expect them to love us and cherish us and support us like our friends do maybe we're asking for more than they can give.

I am not ready to give up on my marriage... I have talked about it a lot recently but I am not ready to do that. Maybe this is what marriage IS. Maybe this is what I have to get used to. You know, once he has a job.

Maybe the thing I thought I was supposed to get from marriage that I'm not getting is really better found with the women in my speed-dial. You know, except for the sex and financial support.