In sickness and in health. Yeah, yeah, I know. I said those words. So did DH. Does the "sickness" part also apply to deafness? I mean, a prolonged a case of "selective deafness"?
The selective deafness (literally) came crashing home to me one Sunday night, back when DD (darling daughter) was a baby and we were still living in the City.
DH out in the living room, watching the Yankees crush the Cardinals. No resentment from me there: DH had dutifully become a Yankees fan, forsaking his St. Louis upbringing. I appreciated the assimilation.
And hey, have I mentioned? I'm a low maintenance chick. Don't ask a lot of DH, who knocks down the mortgage payments better than I do (thank you, glass ceiling). DH is also funny as hell, plays guitar better than Clapton, and, like the best Wall Street traders, knows when to hold his positions. Couldn't ask for more, me being low-maintenance and all.
Okay, so last week I gave a nice shout-out to the mistress. Lest you think I'm one of those wives just blaming the other women for my husband's affair, don't worry. Two to tango, I know, I know.
So I promised you a missive to Dear Husband, after he was spotted shoe shopping with the mistress last month.
Hey DH, those really were nice Jimmy Choos you bought her. Always knew you had good taste.
Funny though. I thought your lunches were all booked up with clients, not expeditions to find three-inch heels.
I remember getting the call late in the afternoon. "Geeg, it's Rachel. Don't know how to tell you this, but I saw your DH in the Jimmy Choo store today with someone ... "
I had fun with that, later that evening, when you got home. And don't think I wasn't thinking about this when I watched that episode of Mad Men last night, where the wife is trying to get Don Draper to admit he was having an affair.
I just thought I'd take a late summer moment to give a nice little shout-out to my husband's mistress: Hi, hon! Love your new Jimmy Choos! Oh, your boyfriend bought them for you? Wow.
I didn't know he — my husband, I mean — had such excellent taste in shoes!
So he went right into the Madison Avenue store with you? Did you sit on his lap as Francisco, down on his knees, measured your delicate, expensively pedicured foot? Maybe you got a quick little reflexology session while Francisco disappeared into the back to gather your requests? How cool!
Did you know that that same man yells at me when I come home with a fresh pedicure from the Korean salon next to the train station? Yells at me when he sees the shoe bill from Century 21, let alone Jimmy Choo right on Madison.
When I tell him that my pedicure was a Wednesday half-price special, he says, "Screw the pedicure... shouldn't you be going to the gym?"
When my husband proposed to me a dozen years ago, he said, "You elevate me." I knew it was hyperbole, but it was pretty romantic. (And I said, "Right back at ya.")
"Together we can charm them all," he said, "We'll make our entrances. You'll whisper to me what to say."
And what not to say. That was our little arrangement. And it worked well for 10 years.
Now it's Year 12, and my whispered cues are just annoyances to him. I know we didn't write this anywhere in a pre-nup — hell, we don't have a pre-nup. But wasn't that part of our "deal"?
When did he stop taking my cues?
When did my telling him to switch ties or switch topics become perceived as an attack?
When did he start calling me a control freak?
He's fired me as his stage prompter. Now my job is doing damage control the next day.
It used to be okay when it was just us, and we made love on the kitchen stool when he would sneak home for lunch.
But now we are a family, and I have to defend more than my husband's choice of words, or choice of tie.
I think I've got a new answer this week: Monkey Branching. You know, brachiation, swinging from limb to limb. Something gibbons do in the jungle.
It's positively evil, emotionally unhealthy, this notion of keeping one hand on the solid branch of home, family and two cars in the driveway, while reaching the other hand out for some branch that may be out there somewhere.
But that's how I plan to go about searching the suburban jungle — finding something, some new guy, new while clinging to the old.
It's not like no one's ever done this before.
In high school we called it keeping another guy on the "back burner," in case some other relationship turned out not to be on the boil.
Alas, in high school, it was just you and the candidates for prom date. Now anyone on the back burner, or, to mix metaphors, any new branch, is going to have to hold not just my heart but my two children as well.
What sort of man would provide such a strong branch? Who would want to? One thing I do know: I won't be swinging on any new branches without my kids.
There are the times, usually carefully chosen, when I feel I have to say something to my husband, even if it hurts. On the way home from a recent dinner party: "Honey, the Carters have been telling us since last fall that their son Justin has his heart set on Brown."
"They are calling in all their chits in hopes of getting the dorky kid in there," he says.
"So when you dis Brown, and say his choice of college doesn't really matter, well sweetie, it kind of brought the dinner party conversation to a dead halt.
"Did you notice? Brown seems very important to them. Maybe next time you could say, 'Brown — great school. Fingers and toes crossed for you!'"
That's when he will jam on the brakes a block from our house and call me elitist. And then he'll get defensive: "I'll say whatever I want to say."
"Honey," I respond, "let's just play the game. Even though the less-than-brilliant Justin will never get into Brown.
"Who are we to burst their bubble?
"This is not rocket science, honey. It's just a social grace. Can't you just play along?"
If he does that one more time, I am calling a lawyer. That's it. He's been asked politely, with the proper phrasing from the couples counselor: "Don't say ‘You forgot to get the milk.' " Instead say, "I feel bad when you forget things like this, honey."
I remind myself: "The word 'always' rarely applies."
When he leaves the sprinkler on all night, and soaks the yard turning it into a muddy marsh, I don't always say, "We've got a gusher in the back yard ... again."
Usually I notice it when I'm up first in the morning, as I'm pouring the kids' cereal. So I dash out in my bathrobe and turn off the sprinkler.
By the time he's up and rushing to catch the train, I forget to even mention it.
I don't always use the midnight car ride home from a party to tell him that he raised his voice a tad too loud about Obama in a room full of known Republicans.
Usually I just make a joke: "Wow, you sure told them everything they didn't want to hear, sweetie."
Or, "Remember, these are the people who sponsored us for the golf club last year."
