On Driving and Being Driven

I admit to be the WORSE backseat driver on earth. It's stronger than me, I am TERRIBLE. I am coming to term with it, but seriously, when I say I am bad I mean it. I point the way. If I am not saying it out loud, I am pointing interiorly. On the bright side, I manage to keep this at bay with people I don’t know very well, but the more comfortable I get, the more I start taking control of their driving habits. My MBA classmates can confirm to this (sorry ladies!).

What this mean is that, with my husband, I am so bad that I "might" be driven, but I am actually DRIVING all the time. I tell him which lane he should be in, tell him what speed he should drive (usually higher than the one he drives at), and better yet, I actually POINT the way HOME! As if he didn’t know where we live!! If I am in the car with him, he might be holding the wheel, but I am driving- I give him a lot of credit for bearing with me when we go somewhere. Do you know how hard it is for someone to always tell you, over and over again, how to get to your own apartment??? I can only imagine, so I love him so much more because he doesn’t yell at me, he doesn’t get upset, and he doesn’t even make fun of me (anymore). I would be the one getting upset and yelling at me. Ehm, at him, whatever!

What is best, though, is that while he never complains (I would say he has given up), sometimes I try to operate a certain degree of self restrain. That’s when he misses the exit, ends up in the wrong lane, and has to make impossible u-turns in ridiculously narrow roads. (Okay, it doesn’t happen ALL the time I manage to shut up, but sometimes is good enough and to the point!) I think this gives me moral latitude to point the way out loud for the next ten times we’re in the car together. And, yes, I still understand how much he must love me to put up with that!

On Husband’s Inebriation

Apparently, “Drunk” trumps “Right Answers”.

Conversation last night after a bottle of champagne (I GOT A BIG GIRL JOB!!!):

“…Then you don’t really love me”

“No”

I thought right answers were embedded in the source code. Boy was I wrong (and I hope he enjoyed the couch!).

On Being Disgruntled

I am having a tough time being light-hearted and funny when I am disgruntled. I will be disgruntled for a few more days, then I will hopefully get a job offer and life is going to smile on me again. And I will be back and funny and witty- but right now I am not being a very good wife!

Should not write when pissed off. Should not post when I am being a bad wife.

On Husbands in School

While my husband is pursuing an MBA at the same as me while keeping a full time job to pay the bills, my friend’s husband is also in school, getting his JD in LA. We rarely talk about this side of our husbands, but today was venting day, and so we decided that it was time for it to happen. We just so happened to be talking about our fabulous weekend in Napa, a girls’ retreat that did all of us a lot of good, when I mentioned that my husband was a bit upset about leaving him behind and all alone on Easter day. Well, I wasn’t really having any of it, because:

1. 1. I have spent way too many weekends locked up at home because he needed to study;

2. 2. He was just in Italy for about ten days, doing little to no work, and

3. 3. I was NOT going to stay home just to hear he could not do anything ‘cause he has final this weekend.

I thought I was absolutely brilliant in deciding to spend the weekend away, and it turns out he was a bit disgruntled about it. My friend’s take was that although he did not want her to go visit, he decided to spend the weekend without studying. As said before, it’s good to know you’re not the first, nor the only person struggling with the same issues!

I am so ready for my husband to be done with school… I might be a pain when I am bored, but he’s a whiner when he’s miserable, and he’s been miserable several times (and WAY too often!) during the past year. And I understand the pressure of being a triple-A performers while keeping a full time job, but my argument is…

Are we really sure that the A+ in Organizational Behavior is better than spending a Sunday outdoor with your wife???

On the Struggle to Find a Partner

Some of my friends, in school and not, are in the unfortunate position of being pressured from all sides to be finding the right partner and settle down. At the same time, the support network says thing like “You don’t need a man to define yourself”, “You are a talented young woman, you don’t need to be married”, and so on. This is a topic to which I am most sensitive, as we get so many contrasting signals as women it’s not even funny. In our 20s, we are successful if we’re independent, if we have a career, if we’re fighting for not being tied down to a role, and if we’re single. In our 30s, something changes, and our success is measured in whether we’re married or not, whether we have children or not, and- god forbid- whether we can “balance” a career and a family. It drives me nuts.

I am a big supporter of not being in a long relationship till you’re 30, and then find a partner and settle down. However, I am seeing my friends who chose this route struggling constantly with what is expected of them. I feel for them, because if I were single now, I would be miserable no matter what kind of career and what kind of financial success I could claim for myself.

Being married- or I should say, in a relationship- ends up defining me more than the things I could achieve on my own. I am the kind of person I am today because of the constant rebalancing and renegotiating that happens every day in my relationship. I am a better person because I get to always define myself in a pair, and I get to think about my role and my actions and how they affect my husband every moment. I am a friend, a partner, a woman, and then I am an MBA, a talented individual and a successful person. Who I ma is more about what I ma after the workday than during it.

I don’t think this is specific to women- it works for men too, although they are under a lot less pressure from society to do so, and they also are a little bit more numb to this kind of feeling.

I feel for my friends and for their struggle. Although the temptation to try to console others by saying things we know for a fact are not true for ourselves is strong, I try to avoid the entire “you don’t need a man”. It would be pretty hypocritical on my side, don’t you think? This does NOT mean they should settle for the first comer, but it for sure means I am trying a bit harder to introduce them to the fantastic talented single men in my network!

On Other People's Marriages

If you’re married, you should really hang out with other married people. Seriously. It’s an exercise in realism, it’s like going to couple therapy, it’s like learning by osmosis. It’s fantastic- you get an insight on other people’s relationships, and it makes you feel better. Instant Prozac for couples- really! It’s in general a good thing, but if you start hanging out with more or less the same people you will also end up witnessing bickering, retaliation, and even proper fights! It makes you feel SO much better!! You will learn that the husband-wife dynamics tend to be creepingly similar to your own, that the arguments are about the same things, that everyone else argues, fights, and have feuds while ending up sharing the same bed every night.

It’s seriously therapeutic…

On Right Answers- Again

"So, what was the best part of your trip?"
"Being back home to my wife".

(In the interest of full disclosure, he's been having a few communication glitches during the time he was gone, including forgetting to ask about an interview I had and writing "Home Sweet Home" on his Skype message).

On Talking About Marriage

I was talking to a friend today, and she asked me what are the three things about marriage that people don’t really tell you. I came up with almost three:

• Getting married is not the “end”, it’s the BEGINNING. The “end of dating” doesn’t really hold: it’s the beginning of a journey that will keep you busy for the rest of your life. And you should not stop dating your husband either. As my friend smartly put it, “Keep on waxing!”

• Marriage it’s a lot of work. It’s about learning, and making it work, and deciding which battles to fight, and where to compromise- every day!

• It’s not true when they say that, if you’ve been living together, marriage doesn’t change a thing. Your level of commitment changes drastically, as you don’t have the security blanket of being able to walk out at any point. (This is by far my weak spot!)

…not like I would walk out, husband, don’t worry…