Clint Edwards has a message for his younger self concerning the realities of married life.
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Sex will not happen every night.
One day you will be folding laundry and your wife will mention that you don’t fold her underwear properly. You will become offended because of your naïve assumption that simply folding the laundry made you a hero. This laundry fight will linger for one year, and end once you understand what it means to pick your battles.
It will take you nine years of marriage to realize that the sexiest thing you can do is wash the dishes.
About seven years into your marriage you will look at the curves in your wife’s hips, maturity of her eyes, compassion on her hands, confidence in her stride, and realize that, somehow, she has grown more beautiful with age.
This will be the most frustrating stalemate in your marriage: Dates lead to intimacy. Intimacy leads to dates.
You will never understand why your wife is attracted to you.
Your wife will convince you to take huge leaps forward in your life through a combination of compassion, withholding sex, the silent treatment, and moments where she just stares at you, her soft eyes never blinking, her face a mix of irritation and understanding that seems to say, I will break you. It will be a clever mix that works every time.
The person you married will change. And you will change too. For example: a few years into your marriage you will tell your wife that instead of becoming a power lineman, you are going to get an English degree. She will nervously support you. And a few years after that, your wife will tell you that she has decided to become a vegetarian. You will reluctantly support her.
Your wife is not your mother.
One night your wife will be away at a family reunion. In her absence, the bed will feel like a massive void, scary, big, and cold. You will sprawl out to fill the absence, but it will not work. You will be lonely and unable to sleep until you pack her side of the bed with pillows.
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Photo: Attila Malarik/Flickr
What a serious load of nonsense.
I find this man to be a wet rag.
I wonder if perhaps she wasn’t with holding sex as punishment, but rather because there was a distance between the two that she was having a hard time spanning. Sex may be hard to initiate or reciprocate enthusiastically when you feel you no longer know your partner and feel insecure. This is a beautiful piece of writing that I feel explores the realities of relationship and our humanity. None of us is perfect and we all come with our issues and insecurities. I feel the author is speaking about how they have grown through the years and what it took… Read more »
I think people are missing the brilliance of his writing. He says he makes his biggest strides forward from a combination of things. One being his wife withholding sex. He sees the compassionate nature of his wife and seems to understand the interplay between a man and a woman learning to become their best selves through love. He says so much with few words. He’s a great writer.
While his examples are concerning – especially as they connote ’emotional blackmail’ in various ways – I think his main point is more subtle . . . I think, and I could be wrong, that at some point one needs to drop their preconceived ideals regarding what a marriage /*should*/ be and accept what it is. That is, nobody is perfect and nobody remains in the balanced, mature, sovereign energies indefinitely. Over the course of a lifetime, even the most mature and balanced among us will lose it . . . resort to anger or emotional bribery and so forth.… Read more »
This is… cute. A lot of what’s written here has solid merit. Unfortunately it also shows that you have a lot left to learn about maintaining a heathy and sustainable relationship. What i see here should be entitled “What I should’ve known about keeping my wife’s emotions at bay.” While that’s sometimes necessary, it’s no guarantee of a happy or sustainable MARRIAGE unless all you need from your relationship is occasional sex in exchange for giving her support and stability. “You will never understand why your wife is attracted to you” implies that she’s not very good at expressing her… Read more »
I find this man to be insincere about his attraction towards his wife (& maybe she feels the same?) and he seems to be enduring his marriage. Sad.
Will someone PLEASE take my husband (27 years) aside and explain this to him? Especially the part about “your wife is NOT your mother”.
Also,
Be pre-emptive. Tell her that she is folding your underwear wrong…
At least he is having sex. Any sex is better than none.
You must have missed the “withholding” part…?
It will take you nine years of marriage to realize that the sexiest thing you can do is wash the dishes It “only” took me a couple of years of a cohabitating relationship to relize that whatever time I spent doing dishes, or any kind of household chores, only led to my GF spending more time in front of the TV. (And No, I’m not saying it’s a woman’s job to maintain the household. I’m just saying that if you’re dividing it pretty evenly but your GF is still on your a$s for not doing enough while she spends 2-3… Read more »
If she punishes you using sex, she no longer respects you or finds you attractive enough to power through her annoyance. Imagine a lust filled coed punishing her bad boy who makes her vagina tingle. Not happening. Only women who have lost that tingle punish you with sex withholding for the dishes not being done. That, added to the stare down “I will break you moments”, which apparently work at breaking you, say divorce / frivorce is on the horizon. When she no longer respects your authority, you are toast. Google “Athol Kay, Married Mans Sex Life” before it is… Read more »
Yes I agree
I could have put more succinctly then that. Sex is suppose to be a intimate, mutually enjoyable activity that can let to people grow closer together as a couple. This behavior is a play for power, an excuse to block passion and endearment, serving only to create distance. If someone did this to me, It would turn me off from having sex with them.
“Imagine a lust filled coed punishing her bad boy who makes her vagina tingle.” Um, “lust filled co-eds” are a myth propagated by people who don’t want to think of young women as full beings, just sex robots. Speaking as a young woman, there are times where my emotional anger will get in the way of sex happening, regardless of the studliness of the man i desire. That is true for all women I have ever known, from puberty up. Don’t objectify young women please.
WItholding sex as a tool of discipline. That you find that anything but unacceptable is telling.
Yep… that withholding sex business is super concerning. There are other texts even on this very webpage that eloquently discuss the relationship between sex and emotional intimacy.
The description of your wife’s increasing beauty was lovely, though.
Marry a dude. Spare yourself the ten years of becoming your wife’s slave.
Decide to get the job you really want without needing her reluctant support.
My wife just read this. Interesting what her one word comment was………….Pathetic.
You need a new wife…
I agree with your wife. So tired hearing men whine about chores like washing dishes. Who cares! Just do it! This article was a major turnoff and sexist bullshit.
Ah, this is so true. And yes, women like that become so incredibly more beautiful with age.