The Rules for Marriage. Ellen Fein
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but I really like pedicures. They make me feel good.’
Maybe your husband’s ‘bait and switch’ is that he used to want to go out a lot and have fun and now he’s glued to the telly and a little boring. Perhaps your husband’s change in behaviour is that he ran marathons when you were dating and now he snacks constantly, let his gym membership expire and has gained 2 stone. In this case, there is nothing you can do but live with it. It is unrealistic to expect a man to act exactly the way he did when he was dating you. We would venture to guess that you probably don’t exercise as much, wear as much makeup or those uncomfortable high heels and padded bras now as when you were single. The same goes for men. Once they’re comfortable with you, they tend to relax in their own ways, be it spending less or eating more or not shaving. They’re not trying to impress you every waking moment. Don’t expect them to. However, if your husband has blown up to, say, 22 stone and you are seriously concerned about his health, you can try stocking the house with healthy treats, cooking non-fattening meals and buying him an exercise bike for his next birthday. But no lectures, please – these rarely work! Unfortunately, sometimes a man has to suffer a heart attack mowing his front lawn or stuffing his face at a buffet to learn his lesson and go on a diet.
Different schedules and habits can also wreck havoc in the first year of marriage. Here is another true story.
Cindy knew Steve liked rock music when they were dating, but didn’t notice until they were married that he played the stereo loudly every day when he woke up at 6 a.m. She didn’t have to wake up for work until 7 a.m. and preferred the gentle sounds of birds chirping in their back garden. Every morning she woke up with resentment – not only was she up an hour earlier, but she had to listen to deafening music. She asked Steve if he could stop playing music in the morning, and just listen to the radio in the car on the way to work?
‘I’ve been waking up to music my whole life. I need it to help me get started in the morning. Why don’t you wear ear plugs or something?’ he objected. Cindy tried ear plugs but it only cut the sound in half. More upsetting than the music was Steve’s refusal to compromise. If he loved her, wouldn’t he care about her extra sleep and serenity? ‘How could I have married someone so inconsiderate?’ she asked us.
We told Cindy that she couldn’t expect her husband to change a life-long habit, and asked if there was anything that could turn her earlier waking time to her advantage, like going to a morning sessions at a gym. She now takes a 6 a.m. aerobics class and leaves Steve alone to enjoy his music, and she is thrilled to have her workout out of the way before her work day even begins.
Theresa also had to learn to adjust, rather than insist on her fantasies about the first year of marriage. She had always assumed that newlyweds ate dinner together, at least most of the time. A teacher, she was home by 4 p.m. and usually cooked a gourmet meal for her pediatrician husband, Robert, to eat at 6 p.m. Yet almost every evening he would ring to say he would be late. First he would ring to say he would be 10 minutes late, then half an hour, then ‘go ahead, eat without me’. There was either an emergency or paper work or a stop he had to make on the way home. He would come home around 7 or 8 p.m. and she would have to reheat his meal and just watch him eat. It was not what she’d had in mind.
We advised Theresa to be realistic about the nature of her husband’s work and to assume she would be eating alone Monday to Friday, so she’d be pleasantly surprised if she didn’t have to, or to invite a friend over or find something to do between 6 and 8 p.m. so she just wasn’t waiting in the kitchen for Robert’s call and fuming. Now they have turned their weekend dinners into special occasions, cooking together or splurging on romantic dinners out. Both of them look forward to these dinners all week.
Some first-year marriage dilemmas are more serious than eating dinner together. Here is Viv and Barry’s story. Giddy in love, Viv did not think twice about leaving her friends and family and career in the city, where she had lived her whole life, to move to the countryside where Barry owned a house and business. She just assumed that love would conquer all. But by their second month of marriage, Viv realized that she could not stand the sight of deer, missed the city, and was bored and lonely. She complained morning, noon and night. ‘If you loved me, you’d move to London,’ she would tell Barry. Her husband refused to relocate. ‘You’ll get used to it, everyone does,’ he reassured her. She found his answers cold and callous; easy for him to say, he’d lived there his whole life!
After arguing for another six months about where to live, Viv contacted us. We told her that if she wanted to stay married to Barry, she had to accept their living situation and that it was unrealistic to think he would relocate. We counselled her to stop telling Barry how unhappy she was and put her energy into finding work and meeting people in her area. Sentences beginning with ‘If you loved me …’ or ‘I hate the countryside’ should be removed from her conversation. The plan took time. But after a few months she found a part-time job in her neighbourhood and made a few friends by taking a night class and joining a gym. Suddenly, country life didn’t seem so bad.
Plus, Barry was so pleased by her adjustments that he suggested a weekend trip to London, and liked it so much that it became a frequent weekend activity.
If you are sparring with your husband over a serious or petty issue, try lowering your expectations of marital bliss. You may be pleasantly surprised, for he may meet you halfway. Remember, the only way to get your way all the time is to live by yourself – and even that is no guarantee. A noisy neighbour can interrupt your sleep just as much as a snoring husband!
We told you in The Rules to be independent, to keep your own life – career interests, hobbies, friends etc. – when you meet Mr Right. This is necessary because many women tend to drop everything and everyone when they start dating a man they really like. They become too involved, see him too often too early on, and he eventually loses interest. Like it or not, men very often fall in love with women who initially appear willing to take them or leave them.
But the same independent spirit that helped him fall in love with you can backfire if you don’t tone it down and learn how to be a team player when you’re married.
While you should certainly continue to cultivate your career, friends and interests throughout your marriage, you must retrain yourself to think as a couple, not a single person. Before you plunge into things as if you were still single, try to take his feelings and opinions into account. For example, before you make plans with a girlfriend to grab dinner and a film – no big deal, right? – run it by him. It’s not that you are asking permission – he just might want to see that film with you, and it might make sense to choose a different one tonight.
Little courtesies of this kind can make a big difference. For example, try to wait to have dinner together when he phones to say he’ll be a half hour late, even though the food is hot, you’re starving and a little annoyed. Make sure you have at least 20 minutes together at some point during the day – whether it’s for a meal, a cup of tea or a cuddle – so that you can catch up on the day’s events and so that you don’t become ‘two ships passing in the night’.
Go to parties together or not at all. Force yourself to go to his distant cousin’s wedding even though you don’t know anyone and have a million things to do that weekend. If he’s not in the mood to go to your friend’s New Year’s party, don’t force him to and don’t go alone. Rent a video and order in a Chinese take-away if he wants to ring in the New Year quietly.
Take your husband’s opinion into account before buying things or taking decisions that affect both of you. For example, before buying that Laura Ashley bedspread and matching curtains, ask him if he likes that kind of frilly stuff. Do not assume men have no interest in such things. You might be surprised to find out that married men have very definite opinions about everything from time spent apart to decorating.
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