9 years of marriage and still counting...

I just celebrated my 9th anniversary with my wife (11 years total knowing eachother) and it still amazes me how much I love her. She no doubt can push my buttons and get me more mad than anyone in this entire earth but all I have to do is think about her beautiful blue eyes and smile and it is almost impossible to stay mad. Half the time I have to pretend to be mad just to save some face in the argument. She is the most wonderful mother I could possibly have hoped to find for my children. She has done a tremendous job raising and nurturing our 4 kids. Not only them I guess, me too. She has kept this family on financial track since the beginning and really doesn't get a whole lot in return. I love her strong willed nature and at the same time her vulnerable side. I love the fact that everytime she is sick or has a wierd feeling somwhere in her body she researches and comes up with some new potential disease or infection. I love that even though we do eat a lot of the same stuff for dinner (mainly due to my lack of desire to try new things) she always tries to make it more interesting in some way with some personal touch of something. I love that after 4 kids she can wear a bikini and look good doing it. I love that she still thinks she is 5 feet tall... 4'11" to be accurate. I love that she wakes me up at least a couple times a week talking in her sleep about random things. I love that she tries to give our kids the best life they could possibly have. I love the fact that I can't wait to leave work to see her and the kids. Most importantly I love the fact she chose to love me.

Marriages hidden secret.... Mother in laws part 1

Ok, so I have stayed away from the biggest pain point in my life so far, my mother in law. I think it is time for me to get some home made written therapy... I am warning you now, if you get tied up emotionally in what you read, now may be the time to move to a new blog... Ok, so you stayed, here we go.

Now I think that deep down under the skin of evil, manipulation and scheming she is a good person. The problem is that most of the time we cannot get to that part of her. It all starts with me asking to marry her daughter... I made a point since her father and mother have been divorced since she was little that I would ask her mother for permission. I made it a point to meet with her mother one morning while my wife was working to go meet with her at my wife's apartment while she was in town. I told her my intentions and asked for permission. She got the usual cynical look and then proceed to say the following: "I want you to define marriage for me." That was followed by "I want you to define love for me" and "I want you to define commitment for me" and about 15 other more terms that believe it or not Webster's dictionary has had the definitions for several years. Anyway, this was about 1.5 hours of defining terms for her in my words. No dialogue between the 2 parties involved just definitions. We finally passed that and she finally said something other than give me a definition and it was that she thought we were too young and she would have to pray on it for a while and would get back to me in a couple of weeks. (In case you were wondering Jill was a senior in college and I was out) I said well, I am going to ask her this week so I would like your blessing. She of course said no and that she couldn't do it now and probably not in my time frame so she suggested I put it off until she was comfortable... yeah right, we would still be dating if that was the case. That of course is not where the drama ends. I did ask my wife and she said yes. Jill even debated on calling her after it happened because she was afraid she would ruin it. (She did not know about any of the drama with me at that point, just how cynical her mom was.) I told her please don't, let's have a good night and tell her tomorrow. Of course Jill says "Surely she won't ruin this for me, she will be fine for me, for this day." I might as well changed my wife's name to General Custer at that point because I knew an ambush was coming. So we called her and naturally it ended with my future wife crying the rest of the evening. The sad part was her mom didn't even bring up her and my conversation and still made her cry... I should have known then what I was in for but I am not sure I even now looking back knew what I was in for. So let's fast forward a little just to stay on this one event. It is now a 3 weeks before the wedding (we were engaged for a year) and one night my wife says "You know I am a little disappointed that you never asked my parents for permission, especially my mom." Naturally I about crapped my pants. (If I would have been a man with mafia connections and this was the 1920's my problems would have been over that night. That's how mad I was.) I said "what the hell are you talking about?" Apparently her mom had brought this up to her (which I knew because why out of the blue would she say this?). So I proceeded to tell her what I did and why she didn't know. She of course, still with the evil one's blinders on, says that there is no reason for her mom to lie about this. I of course said there are lot's of reasons especially this close to the wedding. Your mother has been divorced a couple times, doesn't trust anyone and has no one else but you to control. Of course she is trying to cause problems. Needless to say we had quite the "discussion" about this and not sure that it was really resolved for several years. Needless to say we got married and after 9 years of marriage, 4 kids, 2 houses, 1 apartment, 6 cars, 1 dog, 4 jobs we are still going strong.

Now this is just the entry into the series of "Mother in Laws". I will leave you with some other interesting teasers for future episodes:
a) The new house argument
b) Marriage advice... Really?
c) You won't be married long enough!
d) Don't undermind what I teach my kids.
e) Baseball 2009
f) Mother's day
g) Christmas
h) Anti social behavior (with in laws)
i) equal play time for kids, please clock in and out to ensure equality

Now these are not in any particular order but they are all topics that will be coming up in future blogs. Some just get my blood boiling just thinking about them. Also, any friends out there reading this if you recall any others that you have had me vent to you about that are not on this list please let me know so I can include them! :) Have a great week...

Men are from Mars, women... some galaxy far, far away.

So according to a famous book, men are supposedly from Mars and women are from Venus... Of course that is just a title and a play with words but honestly I don't think that they are even remotely accurate. Men and women to use this persons idea, in my opinion are not even in the same galaxy. Lets look at a few scenarios:

1. Friendship - Have you ever noticed that even when men don't know each other or even possibly like eachother that a beer and a football game will resolve any issues. That is because men are focused mainly on what they like and how they can turn a situation into something they enjoy. (EXAMPLE: Ok, so I don't like Bob and we have to go over there, but on the otherhand Bob has a nice TV and cold beer. I will be fine.) Women on the otherhand are always judging and to a level almost conniving when in groups. Very rarely can they just be in the moment, they actually have to think about the next hour, days, weeks and years and what certain actions might do. They have a wolf pack mentality almost and will prey on whoever is the percieved weak link at that time. (EXAMPLE: We have to go to the smith's tonight since they invited us. Great, now we will have to have them over, what am I going to wear? I bet she is going to wear something where her new tummy tuck is going to show. It will probably look skanky. I wish I had a tummy tuck. I bet her kids are going to run wild and my husband is just going to sit on his ass with Bob and watch the game while I do everything. I have to do the dishes tomorrow and then I'll probably have to go to the grocery store and I bet I'll run into Lisa, great, she'll want me to scrap book again....) That is all from the same episode. Now the reality is the women could get together, chat, have a few drinks let the kids play and all would be fine but in their mind the world might end if they just were to relax. The other thing is that if you notice men often will all just huddle up in one big drinking group. That is never the case with women. They are always in small cliques. They may start big but there will always be more than one group no more than 5 minutes into any event. This isn't good or bad, just fact. We are wired way different.

2. Sex. Now here is a great one... Lightyears apart. Women's biggest flaw is everything is a feeling/emotion. Men's biggest flaw is that nothing involves feelings/emotions at all. Again, this goes to the making the most of a situation or analyzing the crap out of it. Now ladies don't get me wrong as I know there are some of you that enjoy sex for what it is but for the most part you girls go crazy with this idea that you were raised on which is SOAP OPERAS. Men were raised on the the idea of Playboy and high school girls. Unfortunately for men, we never change and keep those ideas our whole lives. Women on the other hand mature and go from those high school girls to women that need emotional/personal satisfaction. Not that it is a bad thing just hard for us men to adjust to since we don't really change our ideology at all. Let's just take a look at the main highlighted differences:
Men prefer:
- Spontaneity
- Dirtier/kinkier the better
- Vocalization
- Direction (positive, not nagging direction Example:"I like that", not "What are you doing")
- Experimentation

Women
- Romance
- Predictability (to some extent, can't be too out of the norm)
- Love
- Cuddling
- Take charge men (as long as it is within acceptable guidelines)

Now if you just look at the things above they almost contradict themselves. I joked with my wife that I wanted to create a movie that was just about the real sex lives of people. Since then there have been numerous sit-coms that have tried and some have done pretty well. Think about it though, there is nothing out there that accurately depicts what sex is really about, during and after. There is nothing with the quotes "what are you doing?", "you want me to do what?", "Is that even legal?", "You got that stuff all over me?", "get the towel", "Is the door locked?", "Why on the table?", "Why on the bathroom sink?", "Why isn't the bed good enough location?", "You just got it 2 days ago!", "My back hurts.", "why do you want pictures?", "You might hurt the babies head". Anyway, you get the idea. I could do some funny stuff with that. Anyway, I don't have the time or resources but you know what I am saying. It would be a best seller amongst couples of all ages. So now to my recommendation on this. Have 2 guaranteed nights a week. One is for you and one is for her. Your night anything goes, as quick or kinky as you like. Her night, as slow and romantic as possible. HOWEVER, you both have to commit 100% to the idea or just like anything else it will just fizzle away.

3. Self image - This is a huge one as well. You ever notice how a guy can walk around with his belly hanging out and think he is a walking love machine? This is due to the ability to accept what we have and not dwell on the things we can't or don't. So men, maybe while getting dressed think "Man I could lose a few pounds and am getting flabby". After that, we don't think about it again. The rest is focused on the day at hand and what we need to do and when we can have sex. Women on the other hand goes something like this as they are getting dressed: "Man my thighs are getting flabby, is my pouch getting bigger? Do I have circles under my eyes? Honey quick watching me get dressed. Man I hate he is always looking at me like a hungry lion. It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't start drooling. I wish he would lose some pounds. Speaking of pouches, how does he not see that. My feet are gross. Ok this outfit isn't too bad... Oh nevermind it makes my ass look fat. Let's try another one. OH GREAT he is drooling again. I cannot even change jeans without him on me like a vulture. These jeans look really good. Now I have no top. Is that a grey hair, speaking of hair, can't he see his is falling out. That must be terrible. I am feeling bloated, how many days, surely it isn't that time yet." Now back to the MAN's point of view: "Man she looks hot for having kids, I wish I could lock us in the bathroom for a few minutes. That is a nice, wait I guess that was a nice outfit. Oh boy here comes the fat worries, please let those pants get over the hips, we don't need that kind of excitement this morning. Great they did, Oh boy, the hair thing again, I think my hair is holding strong, a little thinner but overall good work. Oh well, nothing I can do about it anyway. I like she still hasn't found a top to go with those pants yet. Too focused on her grey hair to put a shirt on. NICE!!! Good way to start the day. Maybe I will get lucky tonight." Anyway, bottom line... Men love their wives no matter what they look like. We all think they are hot and most importantly they are all ours. Women are too worried about everything other than just being a confident self. Don't get me wrong, we love that you girls get done up. When you guys put it all together it is HOT. Just don't let the act get in the way of the true beauty that is inside.

There is no right or wrong obviously I just see things all the time that make me laugh and wanted to share some of it. Anyway, Hope you enjoy and if not sorry. I will try to please you in the next blog.