A Word To The Wives

Here is some friendly advice that I like to call a word to the wives, specifically those of you who enjoy blogging. A blog is a wonderful tool that you can use to build relationships with others, express your thoughts and learn about yourself. When you are upset it is useful to use your blog as a place to vent and certainly if you have friends in the blogosphere it is a good place to find support.

However, I recommend that you not use it as a place to write stories about how your husband pisses you off. You may think that it is funny to paint him as a buffoon or moron. You may find that it feels good to have a good laugh at his expense. You may find that sharing your stories is cathartic and that you resent him less for whatever it is that he is doing to irritate you.

If you choose to do this you should bear in mind that it might not serve you as well as you would like. He might find your stories to be less than cute. He might decide that it makes him angry for you to share these stories and as a result your venting creates a brand new issue to deal with. It is the sort of trouble that you can easily avoid.

We're not perfect. Men find all sorts of way to create problems and issues for ourselves. I know this because I happen to be an expert at wreaking havoc. Still, we try to teach our children not to get involved in this kind of nonsense and that is what it is...nonsense.

It is your relationship so do what you want, but don't be surprised if he surprises you with more behavior that you don't like or his own set of posts documenting all of the stupid crap that you do. It may seem like we are oblivious to a lot of things but our silence isn't always indicative of lack of awareness. Like you we sometimes hold back because we don't want to fight. Like you we sometimes choose to be quiet because we don't think that the outcome is worth it.

But don't think that we don't notice or that we don't sometimes talk to the fellows about what happens. I have been part of conversations where the guys share stories or ask questions. There is a reason why some topics never appear on this blog. It is not because I am so smart- but I just don't need the additional chaos in my life.

So the next time you share a story about how incapable your husband is remember he might be telling his pal stories that would piss you off too. That old phrase, "If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy" goes both directions.

Let's Marry For Money

Ahh young Jessica Wakeman, you are entitled to your opinion even if it is childish, garbled and moronic. I can't decide if I am bored enough to have all of the fun that I could have with this...Let's play for a moment or two.

(The Frisky) -- There's a new book out called "Smart Girls Marry Money: How Women Have Been Duped Into the Romantic Dream -- And How They Are Paying For It," by Elizabeth Ford and Daniela Drake.

Forget for a moment that they annoyingly refer to grown women as "girls" in their title and check out their thesis: because, for a variety of reasons, men earn more money than women, it's a wise move to marry someone who can provide for you and your family.

I find it funny that someone who thinks that it is annoying to call grown women girls can turn around and say that she wants to marry for money.

I haven't read the book, so I have no idea if it is filled with sexist swill or not. But just reading Newsweek's article about the book, it sounds like pretty sensible advice to me.

Before you get upset, I will acknowledge a bunch of things that I know to be true: yes, women earn less than men for a lot of sexist reasons and that discrimination must stop. Yes, mothers get "mommy-tracked" and their careers are stalled. And of course there are all kinds of misfires to the "marry rich" idea, such as the rich guy who is an a-hole. But that doesn't change the fact that marrying a man with money can be a better idea than marrying someone who is broke.

A bad match is a bad match regardless of finances. It might sound like it is easier to marry someone who has money, but if you don't click the cash won't matter, unless you really are shallow.

Take me, for instance. I'm afraid I'm going to get tarred and feathered as a "bad feminist" for admitting this, but yeah, I do want to marry someone who can financially support both me and our kids.

I get the feeling that you don't know what side you want to take here.

I'm not ashamed to "marry for money," if that's what would you can even call it, because I don't fundamentally believe it is the "man's role" to provide for women.

So does that mean that you intend to earn enough to support the family. Would you support a husband who wanted to stay home and raise the kids.

My actual motivations, as I see them, are pure enough. I know of great guys out there -- journalists, teachers, non-profit dudes -- who will probably make great dads. But I personally wouldn't pair up with them because, realistically, our two salaries together just wouldn't be enough to cut it for what I want out of life. But, but, but, "Bank accounts shouldn't matter at all!" And while I agree with that in theory, sorry, a man who can provide for me and our children is just much more attractive to me.

Why not just have the intellectual honesty to do away with the fake apology. You have expensive taste and you don't want to have to give it up.

Bank accounts -- and debts -- do matter. And acknowledging that doesn't make me a gold digger akin to Anna Nicole Smith -- it makes me smart.

Nah it just proves that you are young and inexperienced. There is so much more to a relationship than a bank account.

Right now, I rent an apartment in New York City (not cheap) and pay all my own bills myself. But I'm living at the edge of my own means as it is. I don't make a lot of money as a journalist, I owe lots of money to student loans and unless my future husband or I had a great job prospect someplace else, I don't want to live outside New York City, or very far from NYC, because that's where the media capital of the world is right now.

It seems a bit hypocritical this position of yours. You can barely survive on your own. You hope to maintain residence in one of the most expensive cities in the US while simultaneously maintaining lifestyle that you can't currently afford on your own. You're fooling yourself.

Maybe this isn't "feminist," but logically, I need to marry a guy who makes more money than I do -- preferably a lot more money than I do -- for us to be able to afford what I want and I hope he will want, too. An apartment big enough for kids, prenatal care, doctors appointments, birthday presents, vacations, summer camp, college, their own car, all that stuff.

You don't have a clue how much all that costs and how quickly a decent salary will disappear. But if you have any sense you'll adjust your expectations like most mature adults.

I know parents can raise children well on much less. But personally, that's not the lifestyle I grew up with. I want to be able to give my children everything I had -- maybe a little less, maybe a little more -- because I think my parents did a great job.

Stop apologizing. Own this or give it up. You grew up with money and can't imagine what life would be like without it. Well, the beauty of life is that it has a way of providing its own education.

We all had hopes and dreams that we had to adjust to the reality of the day. So many things can happen that are beyond your control. One catastrophic accident can send your world spinning.

But let's ignore that and get back to the real point here. The worst advice anyone can give another is to marry for money. Money doesn't buy happiness or love and without those two items marriage is a waste of time.

Friends and Relationships

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
--Macbeth, Act V, scene v

Have you ever noticed that bad news has a habit of arriving at inconvenient moments. Not that there is a good time for it to come, but certainly the dead of night or those moments before dawn are particularly bad.

One of these days someone is going to preface the bad news by handing me a cup of coffee and an iPod with Yo Yo Ma playing. At least one can hope for these things.

Part of the joy of growing older are the many life experiences you get to be a part of them. Some of them are truly amazing, like the birth of a child and some of them are harder, such as the deaths of loved ones. And in between these are the tears that are shed over the ending of relationships.

And so I find myself on this Cinco de Mayo thinking about some of the recent conversations in which dear friends have discussed what it means to say goodbye to their marriages. I am not a therapist. I don't dispense professional advice.

I listen and if you ask I'll offer my opinion. That is a bit different from my youth. In these situations I am quite reticent to share my real thoughts because the situations are so explosive. I don't want to place myself between the hammer and the anvil, it is a losing hand.

That is not to say that I won't tell you what I think, but I am careful. If the relationship ends or continues I don't want them to blame me one day for their having made a bad decision.

Most people know that I am a creature of the night, albeit without fangs. If you need me you can ring the BlackBerry and I'll be there. And so it was that I received the calls that told me that a few more marriages had run their course.

Later on we'd meet for coffee and I'd sit and listen to their stories. I suppose that it is not surprising that there were similarities in their stories. At some point in time they stopped talking. They didn't share their thoughts with their spouses. As the distance grew the wives stopped sleeping with them and the husbands grumbled about it.

They wanted to use sex to try and restore the intimacy and the wives were irritated that they would be so insensitive. In turn the boys grew upset and the resentment on both sides built and then one day they realized that the flames had been extinguished. And just like that they transitioned into roommates who shared the mission of raising the children.

As I listened to them speak the traffic on the boulevard kept on coming. No matter what is going on in our personal lives life never stops. Or maybe it was proof that a sunny day in LA meant that Ventura Boulevard was going to be filled with convertibles.

Who knows, I am no philosopher. Think that I'll end this post here.

Do Men Have Feelings

Age is a funny thing. Until recently most of my experience with it had been waiting to get older. There were a million things that I wanted to do, but I wasn't old enough. Slowly but surely I hit those marks and gained the ability to do whatever it was that I wanted to at that point in time.

But until recently I never really felt old or felt the pressure that age can bring with it. Maybe it is all in my head, but with the end of my thirties rapidly approaching I no longer feel like I have eternity to fall back upon. Now I feel the weight of time and it makes me wonder.

You can blame some of this upon certain life experiences. Almost all of my friends are married, most for quite some time. Virtually all of us have children. And now we have reached that time when a number of the marriages are ending. As these relationships end or evolve I have noticed that some conversations that I had thought had been left in the past have resurfaced.

Four years I wrote a short post called Do Men Have Emotions? It wasn't anything special, but it is one that comes up in keyword searches on a regular basis. It is suddenly relevant to me again because lately the discussions about whether men have feelings have become more prevalent, and not just among the women, but the men.

I suppose that you can attribute the increased discussion to age and maturity. The boys don't really have that need to be tough, at least not among each other. Now there is far more support for sharing our tales with each other. It is far easier to talk about the girl that broke your heart in the past or the present as the case may be.

The other thing that I have found to be sort of funny is that I have heard a number of women complain about this show of emotion from the men. The cynic in me would accuse them of double standards. You want men to talk about their feelings, but when they do you complain that they are less manly. It is a catch-22 that not even Major Major could get out of.

I am not a social worker. I am not a therapist or some sort of shrink whose job it is to make sense of all this. That is not what I do. Men are men, women are women and we can only do what we can to try and figure it all out.

But I can guarantee that there will be a few women who end up on this post and ask for answers. All I can tell you is that we do have feelings. We fall in love and our happy. Relationships end and our hearts break. We are happy, we are sad and everything in between. We're humans just like you.

The biggest difference is that we're logical and you aren't. ;) And now if you'll excuse me I am going to employ the duck and cover technique while I sneak out of here.

The Science Behind Beer Goggling

Time Magazine has an interesting story called Does Beer (Goggling) Affect Whom We Find Attractive?

The new study, set to be published in June in the 100th issue of the British Journal of Psychology, examined how alcohol plays into all these murky attractions to youth. The vast majority of men don't act on their potentially inappropriate, or criminal, impulses, but can those who do blame the booze?

The study's authors, Egan and Cordan, asked their 120 drinking and 120 sober participants to rate the attractiveness of 15-year-old girls versus 19-year-old girls shown in photographs. The study participants were evenly divided between men and women. For ethical and legal reasons, the photos were actually altered images of 17-year-old students from McMaster University in Ontario; they had given permission for their likenesses to be used. Researchers digitally manipulated the pictures to make the students' craniofacial features look like those of typical 15-year-olds or those of 19-year-olds. The doctored pictures were then shown in random order to participants recruited in bars, airport lounges, cafes and other natural settings.

On average, the participants found the "15-year-olds" slightly more attractive than the "19-year-olds," which reconfirms our inclination toward neoteny. Both men and women found the more youthful images of girls to be a bit more attractive than the older ones.

Surprisingly, drinking had little impact on the results.

Getting Paid for Your Relationship

The New York Time has an article about a website that offers a different sort of matchmaking. SeekingArrangement.com provides a service that is available for use by men and women.

More to the point it helps arrange meetings between those who wish to play sugar daddy or sugar mama as the case may be and those who wish to be kept.

These sorts of relationships have long predated the Internet, but I can't help but be curious as to how many more have been created because of it. Not making a judgment call here, just commenting on yet another example of how the net has changed lives.

"... They’re not searching for longtime soul mates; they want no-strings-attached “arrangements” that trade in society’s most valued currencies: wealth, youth and beauty. In the cheesy lexicon of the site, they are “sugar daddies” and “sugar babies.”

There’s the 18-year-old from France asking for $5,000 to $10,000 a month from “a mentor who can provide me with the finer things in life and keep me happy!” And the 49-year-old investor from upstate New York willing to pay $5,000 a month for a “daytime playmate” for “intense connection without commitment.” Critics say the site is at best a convenience store for adulterers and at worst a virtual brothel, but Brandon Wade, Seeking Arrangement’s 38-year-old founder and chief executive, is unperturbed by the criticism. “We stress relationships that are mutually beneficial,” he says. “We ask people to really think about what they want in a relationship and what they have to offer. That kind of upfront honesty is a good basis for any relationship.”

The site now claims more than 300,000 registered members, far fewer than mainstream dating sites like Match.com, which has 1.5 million paying subscribers, but still a remarkable number. Sugar babies outnumber daddies 10 to 1, Wade says, providing what one sugar daddy called “the best fishing hole I ever fished in.”

This abundance of possibility is part of what the site is selling, along with fantasy. Some of these men — especially those shopping for women half their age — are digging deep into their pockets to pay for an illusion: that despite their receding hairlines and wattled skin, they’re still enchanting enough to charm pretty young women. One image on the site features a dazed, graying man doted on by two barely clad attendants — a caricature of an already caricatured relationship. But this marketing spin doesn’t capture the nuances of the relationships that often develop between the “daddies” and the “babies” who meet on the site — relationships that can turn out to be more complicated than even the members themselves expect."

Social Networks and Love

Here is an interesting article on CNN about social networks and relationships. It ties into how many people have used Facebook or similar media to connect with old friends and lost loves.

Not to mention how social media has also facilitated new relationships.

More than one-third (35 percent) of U.S. adult Internet users have a profile on a social networking site, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's daily tracking survey of 2,251 adults.

As more people join social networks like MySpace and Facebook, getting back in touch with old friends and lovers is becoming increasingly easy.

A search on both networks turns up a handful of groups dedicated to lost loves and first loves. Although neither site formally tracks the number of groups dedicated to the topic, MySpace spokeswoman Jamie Schumacher says it's common for users to meet on the site and fall in love and end up together.

Philematology-The science of Kissing

The science of kissing. Sounds like a study that I might have concocted in my college days, except back then it would have been funded solely by me. ;)

At the risk of ruining my reputation I'll concede that a good kiss has always influenced my decisions. In fact one kiss changed my life, but that is not a story to be told now.

"the practice of kissing is nearly universal. It is practiced in at least 90 percent of cultures among sexual or romantic partners, experts say. Now, scientists are investigating the biological factors underlying that ubiquitous expression of love.

The science of kissing even has a name: philematology. Research on the subject was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Chicago on Friday.

"Kissing is not just kissing. It is a major escalation or de-escalation point in a powerful process of mate choice," said Helen Fisher, professor at Rutgers University and author of the book "Why Him, Why Her: Finding Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type.

A study by Gordon Gallup Jr., professor of psychology at the University of Albany, showed that 59 percent of men and 66 percent of women reported that after feeling attracted to another person initially, the attraction ended after the first kiss, Fisher said.

Looking at a sample of more than 1,000 college students, Gallup and colleagues found that women also tend to emphasize kissing more than men, and are much more likely to insist on kissing before a sexual encounter.

A person receives information about the person he or she is smooching by locking lips, Fisher said. A kiss transmits smells, tastes, sound and tactile signals that all affect how the individuals perceive each other and, ultimately, whether they will want to kiss again.

Women tend to be attracted to male partners with a different immune system makeup from their own, Fisher said. They subconsciously detect information about a partner's immune system through smell during kissing, she said.

Research led by Wendy Hill, professor of neuroscience at Lafayette College, looked at how kissing affects the hormones oxytocin, sometimes called the "love hormone," which is associated with social bonding, and cortisol, a measure of stress."

Sex & Love- A Father Speaks

Ah the joys of fatherhood are never ending. The inquisitive lad you know as Little Jack has struck again and insisted that I explain love, divorce and girls in general to him. That little rascal reminds me of the Terminator. He is relentless and unstoppable. You can divert his attention but sooner or later he will be back.

We have been over this ground on a number of occasions. Here is an incomplete list of posts that help to provide some background:

Not Quite a Recap- Let's Talk about Body Parts
Dear Tooth Fairy
She Broke My Penis
For A Good Time Call...
A Life Without Regrets
Mr Nobody Made Me Do it
Proud and Humbled By the Four-Year-Old
Things My Four-Year-Old Has Done
A Six Year Old WondersWhere Babies Come From
Profanity- The Children Learn New Words Part Deux
Sex & Children
Great Moments In Parenting- Parts of our Body That Grow
Are You Smarter Than A Rabbi? Part I
Are You Smarter Than A Rabbi? Part II

And that is the short and incomplete list. It really doesn't touch upon any of the stories involving the dark haired beauty, which is good. I need some time to prepare myself for the coming onslaught that she is going to unleash upon me.

As I sit here typing I am grinding my teeth, excuse me I am trying not to grind my teeth. My jaw is clenched and the muscles in my back and neck are tying new knots upon the existing ones.

Ok, I know that is a bit heavy for the normal tone of these posts. Usually they are a light hearted recollection of conversations between my children and I. But the rules of the blog dictate that I share what is really happening so that is what I am doing.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The big guy is acutely aware of the world around him and constantly exploring and asking questions about what he sees. Some of his classmates have parents that are divorced and some that are in the process of getting divorced so he is intensely interested in what this means and how it happens.

Today he asked me to try and explain to him what it means to be married and why people don't stay married. He also asked me to try and explain why men are interested in women and in a whisper asked me to tell him about kissing.

Now the first rule of Jack's tips for fathers is to keep your explanations short and simple. No need to answer the question of what time is it with a three hour diatribe on how to make a clock. Kind of funny coming from a man who is brevity challenged, but it is an important safety tip because everything you say opens you up for new questions.

Marriage

I really was tempted to start the discussion about marriage by sharing a clip from The Princess Bride but I managed to resist the temptation. Instead I provided him with a short description of marriage as a partnership between friends who love each other and have a desire to be together every day.

For a moment that worked for him and then he started peppering me with questions:

• How old do you have to be to get married?
• How long do you have to be married?
• How many times can you get married?
• Would you marry someone else?
• How do you know you won't marry someone else?
• Do you have to kiss the girl at the wedding?

We spent a few minutes running through answers and then he told me that he never wants to get married because he doesn't like girls. I smiled and told him that it was ok. I am not worried about it. He smiled back and told me that he is never going to change his mind because girls are far too bossy.

I let out a loud guffaw and muttered "you have no idea." I was tempted to let loose with my impression of Al Bundy and run through a list of of cracks about women but it was too easy. And let's face it my audience, an inquisitive eight year-old wasn't going to appreciate it.

He still wanted to know why I laughed so told him that it was because I agreed with him, girls can be very bossy and then he said illogical and irrational too. Ok, he didn't say that, but it would have been something if he had. Just what that something is I don't know.

Then he got serious and asked me to tell him about kissing and why people do it. And because I have juvenile sense of humor I had to restrain myself again from making a crack about foreplay and how men would like to skip right over it. But I didn't, because even though I have a juvenile sense of humor I have a romantic streak.

So I gave him a quick line about kissing feels good and helps to show that two people love each other and that is when he hit me with how do people stop loving each other.

It was a serious question and I had to think about it.

I paused and for a moment I thought about the great loves and heartbreaks of my life. Inside my head I remembered moments of intense passion and unfettered love. I remembered the feeling of utter joy and I remember the intense pain and loneliness of the end. I remembered that moment when you first realize that you are in love and you can't wait to see that special person. And I remembered the soul crushing feeling of being told that it was over.

All of that feeling is far too much to pass along. He doesn't need to know about that. I hope that one day many years from now we'll have the sort of father/son relationship where we can discuss those things. And then I can tell him about those things. Then I can give him the background on the relationships that helped shape me, but not now.

For now I tried to explain being in love as the feeling you get when you are with your best friend. You always have fun together and you never get tired of doing things together. And then I told him that sometimes people change. Sometimes when you grow older you grow apart.

That seemed to satisfy him, at least for now. As he went back to playing with his Legos I stared at him and tried to imagine what sort of man he'll grow into. I can almost picture him grownup, at least I can visualize the body. I can't quite see his face or picture what his voice will sound like.

I hope that he finds the sort of love that makes him understand what it is really all about. The kind of love that makes your heart pound like a hammer on an anvil. I want him to understand that there is a fierce love that gives you incredible power and strength.

But that is a post for a different time and place.

Change is Coming

Three weeks into the new year and I can tell you that I am still grumpy from the old one. Still have too many bills to pay and too few options. Tired of listening to people say that Bush is responsible for all of our problems. Tired of listening to people say that Obama is going to fix all of them. Tired of listening to Sarah Palin whine about whatever it is she is whining about. I am ready to turn on the television, open a newspaper and or surf the net without seeing her name.

Talked to the boys and confirmed that I am not the only curmudgeon feeling this way. But even if I were, I wouldn't care. It is how I feel. Spent more than a few hours talking about such things over the weekend. A few of us got together and held a state of the union and discovered a few things.

We're all ready to give up on women. every last one of us. The wives have gone out of their way to drive us to drink. There is a reason why clumps of hair keep falling out and we have knots in our necks. But I suppose that is only fair to say that the wives are telling similar stories among themselves and truth is that none of us are going to give on women.

To quote my friend John. "Jack, I love hanging out with you and talking to you is real easy. But it is much more fun to sleep with Kelly."

John hadn't quite finished his sentence when he realized how he had left himself open to all sorts of fun replies. Being a gentleman I told him that I agreed with him, it is much more fun to sleep with Kelly because she doesn't snore.

On a more serious note, I suspect that a few more of the boys really are going to hang up their spikes and seek greener pastures. I find these conversations about troubled marriages to be troubling. I don't really want to have give my opinion on whether they should stay or go. I think that it is the sort of conversation that is rife with pitfalls that I don't want to fall into.

Every relationship is different and everybody has their own ideas about what they have to have and what they are willing to compromise upon. I can't really tell anyone what to do, only what I'd do. I don't like straddling the fence, but sometimes it is safer there.

If you wanted a list of complaints about these marriages I can provide it without trying too hard:

Not enough sex
Too much sex
Money problems
Different ideas about child rearing

I suspect that those are relatively universal problems that can crop up. But if you ask me the thing that I don't hear any of them say is that their wives are their best friends or even good friends. Mostly they refer to them in a way that sounds more like a business partner that they occasionally have sexual relations with.

If I have any real advice about marriage to offer anyone it is that you need to like your partner. That is different than love and different than lust. If you don't like them I don't know how you are going to make it for the long haul.

Enough about all that. Here we are less than two hours into the Obama presidency and I wonder what we are going to see happen over the next four years. I am curious for any number of reasons. I suppose that part of it is because President Obama holds the title of first president that I consider to be a contemporary. As far as I am concerned he and I are pretty much part of the same generation.

It is kind of different. Until now I had always thought of the president as being either a really old man or closer to my parent's generation then anything else. Maybe I really am getting older, who knows.

We Leave The Toilet Seat Up

Before we begin the exciting topic of what position to leave the toilet seat in let me share some of what I have been listening to this evening.

God Only Knows- The Beach Boys
My World Is Empty Without You- The Supremes ( I prefer the original- no time to search)
Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major- Bach (Played by Yo Yo Ma)
Gimme Three Steps- Lynrd Skynrd
No Leaf Clover- Metallica

Ok, let's move on to the incredibly interesting topic of what position to leave the toilet seat in, up or down. I have to give credit for the topic to the illustrious Therapydoc. If you tool on over there you can see that she and I engaged in a bit of back and forth about whether the toilet seat should be left up or down.

Having grown up with more sisters than you can shake a stick at (I tried that once. Bad idea, my father had none of it and, well let's say that I only did it once.) I learned that women have this funny idea that the toilet seat must always be left down so that if they decide to use the powder room it will be ready for them.

I take a different position and I hope that my fellow men will join me in overthrowing the tyranny of the toilet seat. It is time to force these dames to do as we do and learn how to look at the seat before sitting down upon it. Somewhere my mother is beginning to grimace and squirm, she has this weird knack for sensing when I am going to cause trouble.

And yes I am well aware that suggesting that we don't have to put the seat down is a recipe for a fight. But ladies I ask you if you would consider crossing the street without looking both ways. You would not. You don't drive with your eyes closed and you usually take a moment to check yourself out in the mirror before leaving the house.

So I ask why you who are capable of so many things claim to be incapable of determining what position the toilet seat is in. It makes no sense.

We can take this from a different position too. Every now and then we men have to respond to a need that requires sitting upon the toilet. We haven't any problem checking the position. I have no more interest in falling into the toilet than you do.

Ok, that is about as much energy as I am willing to lend to this topic.

Kissing

The big guy who helps run this joint has become interested in kissing. He routinely tells me that it is gross and that he never wants to do it. But every now and then he'll approach me and ask if I like to kiss girls and why.

I tempted fate once by telling him that if he does a proper job of kissing a girl he can leave the seat up all the time and gain a maid and personal shopper. Men, learn from my experience, don't say this thing in range of women who wear pointy shoes or have heavy purses. Those things leave a dent in the old melon.

But because I push my luck I once said that kissing is a necessary evil called foreplay. This in turn generated the question of "does that mean that I get to kiss and play with four girls at once." I said something to the effect of it only works that way if you are Hugh Hefner.

Anyhoo I have attempted to try and explain to the young lad that kissing is an exercise that can blow your mind, but only if you are kissing the right person. Because when you have that sort of chemistry it is an organic experience that is worth doing over and over again. In fact a good kiss has been the reason why I got onto an airplane to fly untold miles to experience that again.

It was a life changing kiss that one. It was the sort of kiss that you find unsettling. It is so good that you can't help but ask yourself it is real. And if you are like me you open your eyes in the middle and find her staring back at you. At that point in time you reach into your pocket and hand her a breath mint. Don't forget to duck.

But on a serious note it was the kind of thing that spoke of unlimited potential. The kind of kiss that makes it clear to yourself that if you don't pursue the situation further you will forever be known by the moniker of "Super Schmuck" because only a super schmuck would walk away from that. There are some things in life that you can dream of and experience. And some experiences that are so good they are a dream.

Before I forget today's lucky numbers are as follows:

1 15 03 8 31 68 5 9 69

If you share that combination of numbers than you are guaranteed a chance to engage in the most incredible and amazing experience you have ever had. Sheer bliss.

I hate to walk away and leave this post half done, but I have to attend to putting a young child back to bed.

True Love Can Last A Lifetime

I thought that this story on CNN was interesting:

"...scientists have discovered that people can have a love that lasts a lifetime.

Using brain scans, researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have discovered a small number of couples respond with as much passion after 20 years together as most people only do during the early throes of romance, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The researchers scanned the brains of couples together for 20 years and compared them with results from new lovers, the Sunday Times said.

About 10 percent of the mature couples had the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as those just starting out."

Who says I love You First

This has got to be one of the dumbest articles I have ever read. I have to wonder if the author truly believes what she has written or if this was a feeble attempt to meet a deadline. If you read the article you'll see that this woman says that men should always be first to say "I love you."

"So what happens if you get there first and you say it and he's not there yet? What happens when your "I love you" is met with a "thank you," or worse, a deer-in-headlights look? Well, it stings, sure, but more than that, it can stop a perfectly happy and healthy relationship in its tracks before it's even too far from the station.

If a woman asks a man out and he says 'no,' at least she knows where she stands with him and she doesn't waste any time pining over someone who isn't interested. Same thing goes if she makes a move on him and she's rejected.

If she's in a serious relationship -- one where the expression of love has been made clearly by both partners -- and she's eager to make a deeper commitment, there's nothing wrong with proposing. At the very least, it'll start a conversation of where the relationship is headed so the woman can decide for herself if and how long she's willing to wait if the man isn't interested in getting married yet.

But an "I love you" uttered too soon, before the man has processed his feelings and reached the same level of adoration could end a relationship that just as easily could have had an eternal shelf life. As soon as those words are said, they change the dynamic. If a man isn't feeling the love quite yet, he may suddenly feel pressure to manifest that emotion. And if the woman doesn't get the response she expected, it could damage her confidence enough to derail the whole relationship entirely."

I suppose that part of what annoys me about this nonsense is that there is a lack of logic here or at least a lack of acknowledgement that men run the same risk. If a man tells a woman that he is in love with her he risks her bolting from the relationship just as she does in the reverse.

Not All Marriages Are Meant To Last

Some posts are sad by nature and some are sad by association. I am not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but it does to me. And since this is my blog it is my vote that counts. Anyway as I grow older and presumably gain more wisdom I get to bear witness to more life experiences.

Marriage, divorce, childbirth, life and death. I have seen a little bit of everything. Can't say, or won't say that I consider myself to be an expert on any of it. But if there is one thing that I have learned it is that we all have separate paths to walk and that there is no one right way to live life.

Some people have accused me of trying to take a stance of being a fence sitter. I suppose that it is nice to live in a world in which everything is black and white, good or bad, etc. I wish that it were so easy. I wish that I could divide the world up in this manner, but I just can't.

It doesn't mean that there aren't areas in which I draw lines or that I don't have very clear feelings about what is right or wrong, I do. But I learned a long time ago that in some areas of life it is not so easy to make these claims.

Denise and I have been friends for many years. We met at youth group event a thousand years ago, attended the same summer camp and have a number of friends in common. I was at her wedding as she was at mine. So it is fair to say that we have been a part of each other lives and that we have grown up together.

A while back she confided in me that she and her husband were having some problems with their relationship. For a while I did nothing but listen and try to absorb it all. From an outsider's perspective you'd never guess that they were unhappy. They are good actors, but that also comes from trying to protect the children.

Anyway, Denise told me her story and then waited for my response. I was very cautious in how I replied. I tried to go for the safe response and suggested that she consider going to counseling with him. She told me that she really didn't see the point and that in her experience once the love was gone it never came back.

So I asked her if she wasn't going to go to counseling why she would stay in her marriage. In response she told me that her husband was a child of divorce and that he had told her about how horribly it had affected him.

I didn't say anything. She pressed me for a response and gave me the speech, "I won't be angry, just tell me." On a side note I hate that speech. It is no safer than the "does this make me look fat" talk.

Anyway, I hemmed and hawed and decided to give her my real opinion. Here is a rough outline:

1) I do not believe that all marriages are made to last.
2) Divorce doesn't have to be a nightmare for you or for the children. Sometimes it can be the best thing.
3) Staying married solely for the children is not always smart.

Please remember that I am not a doctor, social worker or miracle man, I just play one on television.

On a serious note, Denise was surprised when I told her that I didn't think that all marriages are meant to last and that I am not an advocate for staying married solely for the children.

I won't rehash the entire conversation, but I'll share this. I think that marriage is a wonderful thing that a good marriage is amazing. And I'll say as I have many times that relationships take work. You have to take care of them or they start to suffer and bad things can happen.

But the thing is that sometimes even if you try to take care of them you find that you and your partner grow apart. As you age sometimes you just go in different directions. Sometimes you can bridge that gap. Sometimes that works and sometimes you find yourself so far apart that you don't recognize the other anymore.

At some point you have to commit to working together to find new things in common or you have to accept that you have chosen to go a separate way. But if you do choose to take that separate path you are really sailing in uncharted waters.

Denise came right out and asked me if I thought that she should get divorced. I told her that I couldn't answer that question. I am not a part of that marriage. I can't say whether it is beyond repair or not. It is not my place.

All I can do is listen. I really don't know what she'll do. As our last conversation she was going to try and hang on until her youngest graduates high school. If I remember correctly that is around 14 or 15 years.

But if you ask me, it won't last that long. Based upon what she told me I just can't see it lasting that long. They don't do much as a couple anymore. They're more like roommates. She is a serious romantic. At some point in time she is going to miss that and she is going to begin to grow more irritated with him.

Unless something happens, I give it five years, but what do I know. I am not part of that relationship. Maybe it is better than she suggests.

Crossposted here.

CNN Reports Men Responsible For All Relationship Issues

CNN has one of the most ridiculous articles I have read in quite some time. The premise of the article is that there is a lack of equity in the division of labor around the home and that as a result women bear an unfair load.

Let's grab some excerpts and see what is contained within.

"I am very turned on when he's doing housework," says the 36-year-old Camden, Delaware resident, a middle school teacher.

"If there's a sink full of dirty dishes, he knows I'm going to take care of that before I want to get intimate. If he wasn't helping with the housework, I would not find that very attractive."

Simmons' attitude is pretty typical of married women, researchers say. They like it when their spouses share the household chores, but also find that -- paradoxically -- a husband may also create more work for them, or not contribute as much as women would like. In other words, science has once again proven what many people already suspect: Relationships take work, especially when it comes to keeping a happy (and tidy) home."

This doesn't provide a real breakdown of who is doing what around the house, just a suggestion that there is an imbalance. But if you ask the author science has proven this theory to be more than supposition.

Not only is there no breakdown of responsibilities to analyze, it doesn't spend any time discussing what happens if one of the spouses is a stay at home parent. The article then goes on to discuss how doing chores around the house may lead to more intimacy. Ya know, some people would argue that someone is trying to use sex as a tool, but we'll ignore that too. Let's take a look at some more of what was written.

"When a man does housework, it feels to the woman like an expression of caring and concern, which then physically reduces her stress," says Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco-area psychologist and author of "The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework."

"A guy can be completely stressed out and want to have sex to burn it off, but women are not wired like that," says Coleman, who is also a member of the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research organization. Instead, he says, women need to feel relaxed in order to feel sexy -- and it's hard to unwind when there are chores to be done and a husband who's oblivious to them.

Blah, blah, blah. Who pays this guy for such insight. Women need to feel relaxed to feel sexy. They'd never see sex as a way to relax, they can only put out if there are no dishes in the sink.

But the best part of those two paragraphs is the last sentence "and it's hard to unwind when there are chores to be done and a husband who's oblivious to them."

Talk about editorializing. Why not just call all men lazy and insensitive. Why not indulge in promulgating stereotypes, I guess that it helps to sell more books.

"Now, the bad news: The same research found that men create, on average, seven more hours of housework a week for women. That extra work may not be as obvious as doing the dishes or mowing the lawn. So-called "emotional labor" -- tasks like writing holiday cards, scheduling doctor appointments and planning family gatherings -- is too often left to wives, says University of Michigan sociologist Pamela Smock.

"As long as the invisible labor is borne by women, things aren't going to be equal, even if surveys show they are," Smock says. Such work can be a major source of mental stress, she adds."

There are a lot of questions here. It doesn't account for how many hours each spouse works outside of the house. I know a lot of families who are lucky enough to have a stay-at-home parent. They're all women. And since they stay at home with the children they're usually the ones who take the kids to see the doctor, which is why it is only natural for them to make the doctor's appointments.

You could also make the case that since they don't have a boss looking over their shoulder it makes sense for them to make arrangements for family gatherings. But of course that sort of data is not included in this article as it makes it much harder to blame men for relationship problems.

The rest of this article is really just more of the same. "Poor women, they have such mean husbands. If only they did something to help them they'd prance around the house with smiles plastered across their faces.

I wonder why they didn't spend more time talking about the division of labor. I'd call this narishkeit, but perhaps they could have talked about who handles repairs of household items and automobiles. Who takes care of yard work. If you are going to engage in stereotyping why not go for broke.

Blah, blah, blah. Articles like this just make me role my eyes. The bottom line is that every relationship is different and unless you are in it you can't really say what is going on.

The Story of Two Souls (Replayed)

I wrote this post quite some time ago. It must have been picked up by someone because all of a sudden the traffic has spiked around it. Anyway, since it seems to be so popular I thought that I'd run it again.

This story has a beginning and a middle but there is yet to be an ending to it and in some ways that is most fitting because it is a story of love and not just any kind of love but one that is all consuming.

The love we speak of is the kind in which you are addicted to the other person, they are your air and your blood. They share your heart and own a piece of your soul. It is the best kind of love and the rarest to find outside of the love of a parent for their child.

Daniel and I had been friends for quite a few years when he first mentioned Anne to me. They were both married to other people and happily so, but somehow they had met online through a bulletin board they both posted upon.

At first it hadn't been anything more than a minor flirtation that slowly matured and developed into a deep friendship and then into a raging inferno of love and lust. It was not planned and it caught the two of them by surprise as it was clear that the feelings that they had were quite deep and very strong.

In some ways it was a very different and unique kind of love. Daniel and Anne were not strangers to love as they had both had past loves and of course they were both married to people that they thought were besheret. Neither one of them had gone to the chuppah with any thought or sense that one day they would view the work week the way that they had viewed their weekends for it was only at work that they had real freedom to write and speak with each other.

Their love was different because of how they had met. They were an online match, almost a cliche in the information age but it was an accurate description. So it was when they began communicating with each other they were able to avoid the pitfalls and challenges that sexual tension in men and women brings. There was no concern about whether he should try and kiss her or if she should let him. No worries about finding the perfect dress, shirt, jeans, heels, cologne or perfume. It was very freeing.

Anne and Daniel bypassed all that and concentrated on communicating with each other because words were all they had. And something interesting and amazing happened, there was complete honesty. It was the kind of honesty that you sometimes feel when you share your life story with the stranger who sits next to you on a long flight.

I remember well the day that Daniel told me about how happy he was and how scared. Somehow he had stumbled into or onto a relationship that he knew was different. Every time he spoke with Anne his heart sang and he knew that she was someone special.

Anne felt the same way. Daniel said that he felt foolish at how fast she figured it out and how at ease he felt when she told him she loved him. There was no awkward moment and no uncomfortable silence. He smiled and repeated it back to her. He loved her too and he apologized that he had to say it over the phone and that he wasn't able to show her in person his true feelings.

That moment changed their lives in a dramatic way because it called their current married status into question. It changed their relationship, molded it and forged it into something that had to be characterized as a torrid love affair. It was a burning love based upon friendship, respect, and believe it or not incredible desire.

When Daniel told Anne that he was going to find a way to come and see her he could feel her heart pounding and he knew that when they finally kissed he was going to have to hold her firmly because her knees would buckle. That kiss would be another defining moment.

Shortly thereafter they found a way to meet. It was only for a few hours but when they hugged each other it felt like they had always been together. Lovemaking was something that could not be described as anything but the merging of two souls in common cause and desire. They moved together as one and their goodbye was bittersweet. For though they knew that they would see each other again it felt as if a hole was being ripped out of their being. There was a huge gaping wound that bled and ached.

If there is such a thing as love at first sight they were the couple that would have experienced it. Later that week Anne received a card from Daniel that said:

"One kiss. One touch. One man and one woman and nothing will ever be the same. You know it and I know it and we live it."

She cried tears of joy. At her desk she looked out of the window and wept because she could imagine losing this man but wasn't sure how she could manage to get him. She had never wanted to be the other woman. It wasn't even a passing thought.

Until she met Daniel she had thought of herself as being very happy with her marriage and her first husband. Her first husband, that is how she thought of the man she lived with. He was the father of her children and someone she cared about but not someone she wanted sharing her bed any longer.

She was a good wife and a good mother. She doted on her children and she tried to keep the first husband happy in all ways, but every time she slept with him her heart cried out as if she was being violated.

For his part Daniel was in a similar situation. He felt trapped and experienced bouts of extreme sadness at the time he had lost and would not be able to spend with Anne. She was so good to him and did so much to make him happy but he never could completely forget about his own home life.

It was also good and he was also a good husband and a good father. But Daniel knew that it was only a matter of time before it was obvious to everyone that his heart had a new flame and it made him feel guilty.

He hadn't gone searching. He hadn't done anything to short circuit the marriage but somehow he had found someone new and he couldn't imagine living without her. Sometimes he would try and be practical and think logically about it. He'd think of walking away and telling her that he was sorry, that it was too late.

But every time he thought about it a dull pain in his head appeared and a sharp ache in his side. And he knew that one day they would leave their current spouses and go to each other. One day they would have to face the pain of ending one love affair and beginning a new one and though the thought of it pained him he was more upset by the guilt he felt at the excitement of starting a new life.

So there you have much of the story of of Daniel and Anne. It is tale with a beginning and a middle but the end is not yet written. Some loves can only be delayed but they can never be prevented.

I wrote a second part to this. You can find it here.

Loveless Marriage Part 2

This part two of A Loveless Marriage. You can read the original post here. BTW, for those few people who know me and are curious who is this about, I am not going to tell you. I have intentionally adjusted things so that you won't be sure who it is about. If he/she wants you to know, they'll tell you.

I think that one of the most horrific events I have ever been to was to D's funeral. If you are lucky you will never have to see parents bury their child. I remember more from that summer and that day than I mention. The look of shock and horror on his parent's faces was something that I won't forget.

And I won't forget our tears either. I say our tears because there was a group of us there who were tight. We had basically grown up together and in many ways losing D was like losing a brother.

When the phone rang and you told me your story I sat and listened. I tried to be quiet so that you could get it out. I didn't want to offer any suggestions on what to do or how to fix it, at least not until I was sure that you were ready and interested.

What I didn't share during that first phone call was a memory from D's funeral. If you recall we buried him. I couldn't stand the idea that some stranger would do that. They didn't know him. They didn't love him. It didn't matter how sensitive or nice they were, they would never understand the profound loss we suffered

It was the middle of summer and we were shoveling under a hot sun, in black suits. I was drenched in sweat. As I took a break from shoveling you came and stood next to me. For a moment we said nothing and then you hugged me. You buried your face in my chest and sobbed. My own tears fell on your head. It was a moment when n o t h i n g m a d e s e n s e.

I remember the shrieks of pain and sorrow. I remember holding onto his grandfather's jacket as he stood graveside, scared that he would slip and fall into the grave, or drop dead on the spot. I felt angry. I felt sad. I empty. At times I was numb.

Fast forward to the present and listening to your recitation of how your marriage was failing. You know that I don't have an opinion about that. I offer no judgment on whether you married the right guy. I don' t know him well enough. He seemed nice enough, but nice enough isn't the same as being the right one.

And when push comes to shove I believe in the right one. I don't think that relationships last without work. I don't believe that you and your spouse stay the same. I change. You change. We change. Sometimes we grow together and sometimes we grow apart.

My opinion about a lasting relationship hasn't changed. Some relationships will not last. It is not always nice. It is not always fair. It is life. I hate saying things like that, they sound so trite.

You told me that you think that you have to survive within the marriage until the children go to college. I don't think that you can plan that far in advance. Five years ago you never would have believed that you could be in this place.

He may not be a monster. He may not be an addict, a gambler or have any relationship destroying vices either, but the cracks in the dam started a long time ago. You don't wake up and realize that you don't love him anymore without there being more to the story. It didn't happen overnight.

It is not an indictment of you or him. It is not a comment on what kind of wife, mother, husband, father you are. It simply is what is.

If there were no children you'd be out and you know it. The goal of protecting them is the right thing to do, but let's be real about it. Don't martyr yourself to an unhappy decade just to try and spare them.

I say that out of love and concern for you and them. You won't make it. Resentment will build and things will deteriorate, or so I suspect.

The question to me is not about surviving until the kids are older. The question is what are you going to do now. What are you going to do this month, this summer, this fall, this winter, this year. What is your plan.

The angst you feel is because you haven't got a plan. You don't know what you are doing and you don't do well without one.

My best advice is to figure out a short term plan and then re-evaluate later on. Break it up into chunks and then look back.

Remember that feeling we had at D's funeral. We weren't even 30. Things can happen. Car accidents, cancer, plane crashes, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Don't suffer through a decade and hope that you'll find happiness down the road. Life is too uncertain, too fragile.

Don't forget that your friends love you. Whatever direction you choose we'll be there to laugh or cry with you. Try not to sing, because then we will cry. ;) Just kidding.

And don't forget that this post will self destruct in 30 seconds. ;) You know how to find me.

Who is Middle Aged

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.

This Will Strengthen Your Marriage

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