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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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marriage

Who is Middle Aged

May 8, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

America is a culture that is obsessed with youth, or so I hear the pundits say. Pundit, now there is a term that is relatively meaningless. Just one more way to describe a person with an opinion that is not necessarily based upon expertise in the field they are commenting upon.

I am going to be 39. There, I said it. That is twice in one week. My birthday is Friday. In a year I am going to be 40. How many television shows or movies have I seen about people turning 40 and their struggle with middle age. Far too many.

I don’t consider myself to be middle aged. Here is my formula for determining when I am middle aged. I have two grandparents who are 94. Take their age and divide it in half. Once I reach that age I might be middle aged. So I have a few years left.

My concerns with aging are relatively simple. I don’t like the new aches and pains that seem to show up. That crick in my neck didn’t ask for permission to hang out. It doesn’t pay rent or contribute anything other than aggravation. The freeloader just hangs out and reminds me that I can’t sleep in certain positions anymore.

I played two hours of basketball today. I feel pretty good, but tomorrow morning I’ll pay for it. I’ll wake up and for the first five minutes or so my posture will resemble a question mark.

Aging is not something that I fear. I am not ready to die. There are so many things to do and so many things to see. When I spoke with my friend about her marriage I spent the majority of the time listening, but I did make a few comments. The primary one was about living life.

Life is not meant to be floated through. It is not something that you just kind of show up at. Life is meant to be participated in. You can’t stand on the edge of the room and watch everyone else do a Viennese Waltz around you. You need to grab a hold of your partner and do a little Tango, quickstep your way across the room and back.

We all have moments of fear and doubt. I get that. I understand it. I have made so many mistakes, so very many. Most of my regrets are not about what I did, but what I didn’t do. Sometimes my fear paralyzed me and that is what makes me sad.

I can’t say that she should live as I would. I can’t tell her to do things just as I would and expect her to live like that. Some major decisions are only for her.

But, we have a special friendship and if I wasn’t completely honest I would be untrue to what we have. There is a reason why you can find so many quotes in my blog. In fact, I think that it is time to share some of them again. I’ll do that in the next post.

Filed Under: Life, marriage, Relationships

This Will Strengthen Your Marriage

May 7, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I wonder if the people who make this TwoDaLoo are familiar with the pink version here. For those of you who are salivating at the idea of sharing this intimate moment with your loved one, here are the specs:

The TwoDaLoo features two side-by-side toilet seats with a modest privacy wall in between. An upgraded version includes a seven inch LCD television and iPod docking station.

Suggested Retail Price: $1,400.00

Filed Under: Couples, marriage, Relationships

Chores for two: Why men don’t pitch in

April 21, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I don’t know how I stumbled onto this article, but something tells me that if I had somehow ended married to this amazing catch I’d be divorced.

It is a polemic about household chores and who does more. As you might have gathered this woman goes on and on and on about how hard women work and how men do not do anything around the house.

Call me what you will, but I found her shrill rant to be annoying. And the poor schlemiel she is married to, whatever is he going to think of her portrayal of him. Let’s take a look at this.

“And yet everyone acts as if Jeremy deserves some kind of medal just for making a run to the supermarket. No one has ever suggested that I’m a heroine for doing the things every mother is expected to do. I admit that my husband helps out more than many men, but here’s another news flash: It isn’t because he’s such a fabulously enlightened being. Left to his own devices, he would doubtless park himself in front of the TV like some sitcom male-chauvinist couch potato while I did all the work. The reason Jeremy “helps” as much as he does (an offensive terminology that itself suggests who’s really being held responsible) is simple: He doesn’t have a choice.

From the beginning of our relationship, I made it very clear that I wasn’t going to be any husband’s unpaid servant. If Jeremy wanted to be—and stay—married to me, let alone have kids, he couldn’t stick me with all the boring, mundane stuff nobody wants to do. We were going to share the work, or we were going to forget the whole deal.Unlike my first husband, who announced after our wedding that he didn’t like the way the French laundry did his shirts and he now expected me, the Wife, to wash and iron all of them, Jeremy recognized both the righteousness of the principle involved and the intransigence of the woman he’d married, and proceeded to pitch in.

That was 17 years ago, and while we haven’t exactly achieved equity, we’ve come a lot closer to it than most of our peers, judging by all the dreary surveys proving that men are slugs and their wives are superwomen. So how have I accomplished this? By holding my husband’s feet to the fire every single day of our lives, of course.” (emphasis added by me)

It must be nice to be married to a stereotype, a caricature of a person. The poor husband couldn’t possibly do anything by himself. Of course by using sex you can get your way. No really, you can offer it as a bribe or cut it off, just ask the amazing author.

Yes, dear readers, it’s true: Maintaining some semblance of parity in your marriage requires you to deploy the same kinds of nasty tactics you swore you would never stoop to as a parent but nonetheless found yourself using the minute you actually had a kid. Bribery and punishment work; so do yelling and complaining. Threats are also effective, as long as everyone knows you mean business. With husbands, tender blandishments and nooky are particularly useful, as is the withholding of the aforementioned.

Who wants to be married to Cruella Devil. If she is half as nuts as she comes across in this piece I’d tell the man to run to the nearest divorce lawyer and get the hell out.

My word.

Filed Under: marriage, Relationships

A Life Without Regrets

March 29, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Music that accompanies this post includes:

My Way– Frank Sinatra
Suspicious Minds– Elvis Presley
Hurt– Johnny Cash Cover version
Whiskey Lullaby– Brad Paisley & Allison Krauss (Live version here)
You’re Gonna Miss This– Trace Adkins

Believe it or not my children and I talk about a lot of things besides body parts and funny noises.

Lately my son and I have spent quite a bit of time talking about what happens when you grow up. He wants to know if you have to get married and how you decide what kind of job you are going to have.

I really enjoy these discussions. He is still so very innocent and open to so many different ideas and possibilities. A blank tablet. I often wonder what he is going to draw there. What kind of man is he going to grow up to be. I do my best to try and give him some guidance, teach him what to look out for, who to avoid and how to get all that he wants.

The bottom line is that I want my children to live a life without regret. One day, a thousand years from now when they look back I want them to have more than a wistful smile. I want them to talk to their grandchildren about having lived a very full and rich life. I suppose that some people might ask what that means.

The answer is that it is different for everyone.

I am not sure if anyone can really say that they lived a life without regret. There are always things that we do that we look back upon and shake our heads. We’re human. We’re fallible. You can’t always hit a homerun, sometimes you can’t even get on a base. But if you can stay above the Mendoza Line things are probably going to be ok.

It is funny in a weird coincidental sort of way that the big guy decided to have these conversations with me. This is the first year in a long time that I have really been aware of my birthday. For the longest time I have been between milestones. I still am. In May I’ll turn 39. Just one more year until 40.

Forty doesn’t sound old to me. As a kid I remember people making a big deal out of it. So many comments about 40 being when you have a midlife crisis. I have two grandparents who are 94. That is more than double my age so I figure that I still have a while before anyone can truly call me middle aged.

Still, it is hard not to take a look at myself and wonder if this is all there is. It is hard to look in the mirror and not recognize the guy looking back at me. In my mind I see that 19-20 year-old guy. Flat stomach, full head of hair, metabolism that let him eat with reckless abandon. He is still there. I know that he is.

Yet, the look in my eyes is different. My mother used to speak of a mischievous glint in my eye. My sisters all say that they can always tell when I am up to something. That glint is accompanied by a smile and sometimes a full laugh.

Except, the guy looking back at me seems to be missing those things. It is an older face, worn and a bit weathered. The lines and the never ending five o’clock shadow give an edge that never used to be.

Musical interlude:

Boys of Summer– Don Henley
Just Another Day– Jon Secada
Just Another Day live– Oingo Boingo (Video version)

Still, I am not as melancholy as I might sound. Sentimental, but not totally mired in sadness. Confused and unsure about a few things, but age has given me a few gifts, more on that later.

If you asked I could give you a list of regrets. It is not a huge list. There are a few key items on there that I still might be able to change. I have a lot of time and infinite energy to try and grab that brass ring. The ponies go up and they go down. Sometimes you just have to have faith that when you go up you end up with the silver instead of the brass.

Seeing as I have Oingo Boingo playing in the background let me share some lyrics from We Close Our Eyes. I kind of like these.

“And if you come to me
And if you touch my hand
I might just slip away
I might just disappear
Who am i?
And if you think Im worth it
And if you think its not too late
We might start falling
If we dont try to hard
We might start falling in love

(chorus)

We’re on the healing path
We’re on a roller coaster ride
That could never turn back
And if you love me
And if you really try
To make the seconds count
Then we can close our eyes”

So I sit on his bed and listen to him read a story to me. This boy, this very large boy who once fit into my arm. The baby I held in a pretend Heisman Trophy stance asks me what he should be when he grows up.

“Happy.” That is all I want. Just for you to be happy.

But at seven he is too young for major philosophical discussions so we try to focus the conversation. I explain that he should learn every day, that knowledge is a tool that he can use to take him anywhere. I sound like such a cheesy greeting card, but it is true.

He wants to know if he can get a job working with me. He says that it will be really cool and that he’ll be a good listener. I smile and tell him not to worry about it. I don’t mention that today I heard that a few more of the boys are getting divorced. I can’t help but chuckle thinking about it. He doesn’t like girls, he’d be happy to hear that the boys were going to live on their own.

Ok, secretly he does like girls. He won’t admit it but he loves it when they chase him.

He asks why I didn’t work with my dad and we have a brief conversation about why people have different interests. He nods his head and tells me that it sounds a little weird to him when I call my parents “mom” and “dad.” He has seen a lot of pictures of me as a child, but he can’t quite reconcile the boy I was with who I am today.

That is ok, I am not sure I can either.

Filed Under: Children, Life, marriage

A Sexually Incompatible Marriage

March 4, 2008 by Jack Steiner 12 Comments

CNN has an interesting article about sex and marriage. It caught my eye for any number of reasons.

Just judging from the responses to my old post Does Having Children Prevent an Active Sex Life this is something that many couples wrestle with. (The comments on this post were made using Haloscan. Since I disabled and removed it from the blog you obviously won’t see them there. But trust me, there were plenty.)

Let’s take a look at the article.

(LifeWire) — He’s a 38-year-old executive. She’s a 34-year-old homemaker. He says they never fight, and in many ways they’re compatible — but not when it comes to sex.
“It’s almost like a checklist,” says Jon (who asked that his real name not be used) of their once-a-month lovemaking. The problem, he believes, is a lack of desire.
Sexually unfulfilling marriages aren’t limited to new parents or aging baby boomers with hormone imbalances. They can ensnare even the relatively young and the recently married. When they are unable to blame kids, stress or physical issues, many couples struggle unhappily to identify — and resolve — the problems behind their lackluster sex life.
Couples end up in sexually unfulfilling marriages for a variety of reasons, says Marty Klein, a licensed marriage counselor and certified sex therapist in Palo Alto, California. One reason, he says, is America’s obsession with marriage.
Laura Berman, a Chicago sex therapist and relationship expert, agrees. “We put the blinders on when we’re dating,” she says. “We focus so much on the wedding, we don’t notice the warning signs.”
Those who believe passion inevitably fades may downplay the sex factor, picking someone they think would be a good father or a good wife even if they’re not an ideal lover, Berman adds.
“I chose her because I thought it would enhance me in some way,” Jon says of his wife.
Berman has seen it before: “People choose partners who have the right resume but maybe not the entire package.”
Other couples enter into relationships with so-so chemistry because they think they’re in love and overlook key differences, says Klein.
Bobbie Jonas, a holistic health practitioner in Calistoga, California, acknowledges she ignored obvious warning signs during her courtship. “I was more interested in a way out from home,” she says of her first marriage. Poor communication compounded the effects of weak chemistry. After 10 years, they divorced.
“Couples wondering where the sex went should be asking if it was ever really there,” says Berman.
That explanation makes sense to Jon. Although he said he and his wife, who live on the West Coast, started off with great chemistry, the cracks in the relationship began to show before they traded rings. After a four-month dry spell during their engagement, his wife brought up the idea of canceling the wedding. “I just really wanted to get married,” Jon says. “I felt that it was what I was supposed to do.”
Now Jon is having an affair with a woman — also in a sexually unsatisfying marriage — for whom he feels intense passion. “I didn’t realize the importance of sex,” he says.

I know from conversations with the boys that several of them are less than happy with the state of affairs in their bedroom. It is kind of a funny change. During our single years the guys didn’t spent much time bragging. You might hear about who they were dating, but in general there wasn’t any talk of conquests.
And now I look at what we talk about and I have to shake my head and smile. There is the guy who complains that before marriage his wife loved oral sex and now hates it. There is the guy who complains that his wife is never in the mood and then there is the guy who says that he can’t keep up with his wife’s sex drive. And let me tell you, he receives an enormous amount of crap about his complaints.

I can also say that I know of two couples who intentionally did not have children because they were convinced that it would kill their relationship. Kind of reminds me of a guest post that ran here last year called Pressured into Parenthood- A Guest Post.

So dear reader, what do you think?

Filed Under: Life, marriage, Parenting, Sex

How to Train a Husband

February 18, 2008 by Jack Steiner 5 Comments

File this Newsweek story under the “We’re Not As Stupid as You Think” category. Before we comment on this story let’s take a look at a story from a U.K. publication that provides the average time it takes for a man to propose.

“The average man proposes two years, 11 months and eight days after first meeting their love, research has revealed.”

And it takes the average married man five minutes to tell the newly engaged man to run and never look back, but I digress. Let’s take a look at this ridiculous Newsweek story.

“Attention, frustrated wives: if you want your husband to start listening to you and stop leaving his socks on the floor, all you need is a little patience and a lot of mackerel. Such is the putative relationship advice of Amy Sutherland, a journalist who spent a year at an animal-trainer school and decided to apply the trainers’ techniques to her husband’s annoying habits. According to Sutherland, the key to marital bliss is to ignore negative habits and reward positive ones, the same approach animal trainers use to get killer whales to leap from their tanks and elephants to stand on their heads. So to teach her husband, Scott, to stop storming around the house when he couldn’t find his keys, she practiced what trainers call Least Reinforcing Scenario, which means she ignored his outbursts, and didn’t offer to help with the search. To prevent Scott from hovering over her while she tried to cook, she engineered “incompatible behaviors” by setting a bowl of chips and salsa at the other end of the room. Soon she had a key-finding, salsa-eating mate and, she says, a happier marriage.”

Sounds like a great marriage to me. It is so easy to picture her putting out her dear spouse’s water bowl for him. Of course none of this accounts for her behavior and that she might have more than a couple annoying habits of her own.

“While Sutherland claims that animal-training techniques work on both genders, in another new book, “Seducing the Boys Club,” Nina DiSesa advocates a gender-specific approach to changing people’s behavior. DiSesa, who was the first female chairman of the ad agency McCann Erickson, argues that women should use their femininity to manipulate the men they work with and advance their careers. Instead of criticizing an employee’s ad proposal, she flatters him for his “brilliant” idea, then sweetly asks if he had any other inspirations. “Women use these tactics with men all the time,” she says. “We’re mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters. We know how to handle men, we just don’t do it at work.”

Blah, blah, blah. How many times have I heard/read the same foolish comments about how women control men. Most of us are very aware of what is going on. Don’t think that our response is solely based upon your master manipulation.

“While DiSesa’s tactics may appall feminists, the appeal of Sutherland’s approach is obvious: no tearful couples-therapy sessions, no tantrums about unmet expectations. But Sutherland says it’s not a quick fix. In fact, she was the one who wound up being retrained, as she taught herself not to take her husband’s actions personally, and not to react when he did things that annoyed her. DiSesa also says she retrained herself to stop criticizing and confronting the men she worked with, and instead use “S and M,” seduction and manipulation, to get her way.”

Right, bat your eyes and we’ll swoon. We just can’t help ourselves, especially if we think that helping you we’ll lead right to your bedroom. It is laughable. Actually the part of Sutherland being retrained is kind of funny.

Whatever. Treat us like children or animals and you get what you deserve.

Filed Under: marriage, Relationships

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