10.17.2008

Thoughts on marriage

So now that I'm pretty much a pro at being married (2 months, 1 day, ka-chow!) I would like to talk about this thing a bit. It's been interesting after years and years and then some more years of wondering how and if this would ever, ever, ever happen, to find how easy and normal the transition has been so far. (Note, Universe, that I said "SO FAR" and therefore do NOT need to be struck down for hubris, thank you muchly. Please save that for someone who actually deserves it. I'm sure you can find someone. Check the banks.)

Of course, it does help that I married a great guy. I know everyone says that but I don't think it's always true. I know women who blog about how their husbands are great when really they're just dill-weed jerks. But like you can start a blog entitled "My Husband is a Dill-Weed Jerk and I Wish Someone Had Maybe Pointed This Out to Me Before I Bound Myself to Him Forever, Not That I Would Have Listened." So let me assure you that GH really is good. He is so good that he will wait until I am gone to eat kettle corn so that I do not vomit from the scent or even the idea of kettle corn's disgusting sweet filth wrongness.

It's funny how living in such close quarters with another person teaches you certain things about yourself. For instance, I now know that I apparently have quite strong morning breath. Morning breath so bad, in fact, that it smells like poop. No wait, sorry, it doesn't smell like poop, it's more like what you smell when you walk into the bathroom after someone who has pooped.

Because that's totally better.

So yeah, there are adjustments to living with someone. In fact, now that I remember my past of living with about 42 other people, it was always after the 2 month point that roommate issues would start to crop up and tensions would rise. So it could be that a week from now I will blog to say that I could just not take the whiskers from GH's electric razor on my bathroom counter anymore and so I killed him and fed his remains to my neighbor's dog. And THEN just for spite I killed the dog with my breath. That or seduced him. I don't know which way it will go.

I've gotten used to the fact that my bathroom will never again not smell like boy. GH has learned not to say a word when it's my turn to do dishes and instead I let them sit in the sink for 2 days while I dirty up yet more dishes. (Hi, dishes suck. Also, like the kitchen could ever smell as bad as the bathroom.) Sometimes he will fabulously just do them for me when it reaches that point.

I am learning how to cook without onion (NOT easy, since pretty much everything good calls for onion), and on the days when I, um, forget, GH doesn't make an issue of it. He just picks at his food like a kicked puppy. On the other hand, dude will eat Brussel Sprouts and all manner of vegetables. And then take seconds. Which pretty much makes my loins go up in flames.

I have almost come to accept that we will go into debt supporting GH's Irish Springs habit, even though I have no idea how he goes through a whole bar of soap in 1 week. He, in turn, has stopped wondering aloud how how I make a bottle of Body Shop Satsuma shower gel last 2 years. It's called a loofah, friend.

And, you know, sometimes not bathing.

29 comments:

Cicada said... [reply]

I bought two packages of 10 100-cal popcorn packs. By glancing at the packaging, I determined that half of it was the good kind, and the other half was the gross kettle corn kind that Murray prefers. So I thought it was perfect. His and Hers popcorn!

Only I got it home and opened it and it's ALL kettle corn! And then I realized that it was only the design of the package that convinced me that the package was half and half. There's nothing on the package about non-kettle corn popcorn.

So now I have to eat Kettle corn ten times before I buy new popcorn. There are worse things in the world. Like eating caterpillars.

daltongirl said... [reply]

I used to do that cooking without onions thing when I was a newlywed. It's sweet, but impractical. After a couple of years of it, I decided to just chop them really, really fine, and put in only half of what was called for. After a couple of years of THAT, I started putting in the full amount, chopped finely. Now I am back to cooking with onions regularly. There have been few complaints--partly because DB is so sweet, but also because he has acclimated to them (I choose to believe). I make sure to cook them very, very thoroughly. That is the nod I make to DB's onion loathing. It seems to work.

Irish Spring? I don't say a word.

Heather said... [reply]

Bar soap verses liquid soap, one of the great differences between men and women. Good luck.

Anonymous said... [reply]

One of the oft overlooked things LDS missionaries learn is how to live with someone 24/7 without killing them. Of course, that may just teach them how much they value time alone. :)

Science Teacher Mommy said... [reply]

I hate Kettle Corn. HATE.

Not crazy about Irish Spring either. It is old man. Still, it is better than morning male smell, which is only charming, well, never.

Kelly said... [reply]

I just informed Jason, who gets offended when I remind him to brush his teeth as if I'm implying he's stinking up the house, that I could be much, MUCH meaner about the whole breath thing. So thank you to GH.

Señora H-B said... [reply]

I'm suddenly extra grateful for the Lever 2000 Man soap in my shower. It doesn't smell like an old leprechaun at all.

I must agree with anonymous. Being a missionary did teach me to be around someone 24/7, although I kind of undid that by living alone for 3 years...

I love kettle corn. Don't hate me.

Tricia said... [reply]

Yes, I love kettle corn, too. Don't like regular popcorn much at all.

Also, enjoy the love while it lasts. People say the first year of marriage is the hardest. For us, it was the seventh. I don't know why. Maybe because by then, you both start letting your true feelings out about those little things like the dishes in the sink and the one-week disappearing bar of soap.

We still love each other, of course, but those little things start to get on each other's nerves after a while. Like daltongirl said, maybe those onions might eventually work their way back into some of your recipes...

Anonymous said... [reply]

I have found there is a kettle corn paradox: the stuff you pop at home is DIS-GUS-TING, but the kind you buy already made (at an event, farmers market, or packaged in the store) is freaking tasty. I do hope you'll give the latter kind a try.

As for the morning breath, I already know mine is disgusting--I don't need a husband to point it out. :)

Christina said... [reply]

Oh, how this made me laugh!!

DanaLee said... [reply]

I cannot believe all of these people are commenting about the freaking soap and kettle corn when you used the phrase "Which pretty much makes my loins go up in flames." I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard.

Janssen said... [reply]

I also have a husband who is totally in love with Irish Spring. And he gets unbelievably panicky if we have less than 12 bars in the cupboard. What's the deal?

Anonymous said... [reply]

My husband and I are opposites on the subject of soap. He uses a loofa thingy with Axe Body Wash and I use Dove bar soap. I don't know why, but I just don't feel like I'm getting clean without a bar... but it takes me a heck of a lot longer than a week to get through it.

I will say, however, that my husband can smell stinkier than anything at any given time and I rarely make a fuss since it's fairly frequent... but the moment any part of me has the slightest smell (or I have stubbly legs even), he's making sure I know about it and that I take care of it immediately. What. The. HELL. But that's a whole other post.

Anonymous said... [reply]

agree with you on the kettle corn thing. it hasn't darkened our doorway since we've been married (almost 3 years).

on the onion thing-we are now up to using dried onion/onion flakes-not as offensive-and occasionally putting in about half the real onion called for, but chopped really small. like sometimes we use the food processor.

glad you've had 2 months of bliss, here's my wish for YEARS more!

JB said... [reply]

Hi Nem! Glad you're liking married life. Good on ya for not killing him and feeding him to the dog yet. ;)

My brother goes through a bar of soap a week, too. I think he must wash everything four times a shower and shower twice or more a day! I share a bar of soap with Lunk and it still takes at least a week (usually more like 3) to use it up. But, as you suggested, not bathing helps. . . not that I would ever not bathe. Ever.

buffyvandabailey said... [reply]

Shouldn't we be grateful when husbands use a bar of soap a week? I mean, doesn't that generally mean that they are VERY clean?

I also think it's part of the great Costco conspiracy. If you have 80 bars in your cupboard, you feel like you NEED to go through a bar a week.

chosha said... [reply]

There are so many great images here that I'm having almost no trouble at all getting the one of you seducing the neighbour's dog with your morning breath out of my head... O_O!

Seriously, while the loins in flames line was hardly a surprise (hello, newlyweds) the fact that it was over a healthy appetite for greens was adorable. It actually sounds like you two are making a good job of learning how to compromise and live in harmony with one another. Let's hope that the future has him appreciating onions and you finding washing dishes relaxing or something. It could happen.

chosha said... [reply]

I also need to find out what the heck kettle corn is.

Nemesis said... [reply]

Chosha, kettle corn is an ABOMINATION. An ABOMINATION, I tell you. Only GH is right now trying to wrench me away from the keyboard and is doing crazy old-man ramblings. "NO, don't tell her that! She's like me, she would like it! SHE WOULD LIKE IT!!!!"

Jennie said... [reply]

Another solution for the onion problem (ie. what my mom did with five onion-hating children): grate the onion. You can use less because it is stronger grated, and picky kids and husbands don't even realize it's in there.

Anonymous said... [reply]

I have missed your tirades on wedding announcements. Especially from the HJ. Please do yourself a favor and read the first announcement from this past Sunday's paper. It is indescribable.

Shauna said... [reply]

Oh no...you got one of the Husbands Who Hate Onions. I got myself one of those, and it is NOT easy. My fix? Everything that calls for an onion gets an extra dose of garlic. I haven't even purchased an onion for about 5 years. I'm not sure I even remember what they taste like. (and if your husband is anything like mine, he does not fall for any of those "grate the onion, cook down the onion, hide the onion" tricks. It's beaten the sneaky right out of me.

Pie said... [reply]

If only my husband had a fear of onions... when he is chopping them up to put in his dinner, he will often pop raw onion into his mouth. yea. RAW ONION EATER- he is then banned from me.

Have you noticed that instead of toweling off men will just wrap a towel around their waist and call it good? then you can tell wherever they've been in the house after they shower. I hate wet socks.

also: 'which pretty much makes my loins go up in flames' is my favorite line you've ever written :)

Anth said... [reply]

Yeah, what is with the Irish Springs usage? My husband goes through those like water.

Audra said... [reply]

Oh... so many things to comment on!

Ok... 2 months! I don't think we lasted 2 months without wanting to kill each other. It took us 2 months to NOT want to kill each other... but then it was all good after that! Hahaha! Never hath there been more opposite roomates!

Have you already had the poot confession time? When there is only 2 people in 1 apartment (or 2 in 1 really teenie tiny dorm room)when you poot you gotta fess up... because when you don't have a dog then it is obviously you! There is no other person around! Then that is when the "You love him so much that his poots dont stink" southern phrase is no longer valid. It turns to "You love him/her so much that his/her poots stink but you just realize that everyone poots and you just have to get over it!"

My oldest son got home from Ethiopia, put an onion on his plate when we had cheeseburgers at a part, and ate the onion raw... yucko!

And I am on the "fan of kettle corn" side! Sorry! Add sugary sweetness to anything and I'm yours!

Lady Steed said... [reply]

Are you sure that he's not eating the soap? I think that's the only explanation--how else would a person finish up a whole bar of soap in one week?

Anonymous said... [reply]

Try pureeing the onion in a good blender or food processor...as in, liquefy the sucka. Might give you some cookery options.

Nells-Bells said... [reply]

again, love this. my hubby hates onions too. i still use them or use onion powder (which doesn't taste as good, in my opinion). with our wedding anniversary on the 16th (it will have been 7 years), i loved reading your thoughts of marriage after two months. i have found to still be learning a lot about dan. we were more civil to each other about morning breath or stinky bathrooms. but now, we (more me) are more candid about morning breath and stinky bathrooms. "um...honey? your breath smells exactly like naomi's diaper." believe me, everything becomes more entertaining as time goes on. :)

JustMe said... [reply]

My husband believes we have magical bathrooms & closets. He'll say, "Honey, I opened the closet doors this morning, and there were 2 brand new shirts in there. I guess the closet fairy came last night." NOTE: The closet fairy NEVER visits my side of the closet.

He also so thinks all bathroom items magically appear. Therefore, he uses whatever soap I buy him, and then when it’s gone, a new bar just magically reappears in the shower.

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