Not a bad pet name for Mrs. HD - or perhaps Martha Stewart (who I cannot imagine doing the dirty no matter how hard I try - even as I admire other things about her).
Knuckle-fist, clinking-thingy the sports guys do... yo.
Glad to see you 'round the water cooler.
Corri, who wonders why football players are the only ones who dance in the end zone, just because they did their job. I've never seen a mailman dance for getting the mail in the box, you know?
HD (clearly lost his funnybone today) - Margaret Hoolihan or Martha Stewart would both be good pet names for your W when she is in her nitpicky, OCD mode. OTOH - probably should steer clear of this kind of "joke".
Heya Corri. <knuckle punch> Hey Karen...oh, yeah, Martha? Margaret? No, she's more like, uh, have you ever seen "Young Frankenstein"? She's like Dr. Frankenstein's (It's pronounced, 'fronk-en-steen'!) girlfriend, Elizabeth, played by Madeline Kahn. As Dr. Frankenstein (played by Gene Wilder) leans forward to kiss her goodbye at the train station, she says, "No tongue!" Another time, he is leaning in for a kiss and she warns him that she's wearing taffeta -- "it wrinkles easily."
I have to mention something that happened to me last Friday. I had some time to kill, so I wandered into a Barnes and Noble and found myself in the familiar "Self Help" and "Relationships" section, sitting in a comfy chair, reading CeMar's favorite book, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands."
There's a lot of room to slam Dr. Laura, but so much of what she says is right on the money. Basically, your husband will do anything for you if you treat him with respect, love him, make love with him, and feed him. I don't expect my W to feed me (I'm a better cook), but the rest of it would be nice. Dr. Laura blames, in part, the more radical sides of the feminist movement for a lot of the "male bashing" that goes on in marriages, or that goes on between groups of wives when they get together. Having lived this, I have to agree. My W refuses to take my more physical needs/requests/wants seriously, and her rationale comes straight out of the radical feminist dogma playbook that I've seen in books, on the web, and other media. Testosterone is a poison. Men just need a hole. Men know nothing about real intimacy because they insist on including sex in that equation.
I finally had to stop reading it because it was making me angry and sad and frustrated.
My resolution this year is to be more independent and more confident. To "get a life." Do I expect that this will bring us closer together? I have no illusions that this will happen. I'll tell you why.
First, a little background. (dang, I am rambling like the good ol' days, eh?) We joined a church (yeah, I know, but Hairdog's Jewish?!). I call it a church, but to me, it's a "church." It's a Unitarian/Universalist church. Non-denominational. All-beliefs. We joined, initially, because we wanted to give our DD5 some sort of religious/theology background, and I went in, skeptical, as usual. By the end of the first service, I felt like I'd finally found my home. We took the "New Member" class, which lasted several weeks, and were welcomed as new members last month. I've even been able to get out of the house one night a month to participate in the men's group. (We sit around and eat a dinner prepared by some of the men, drink beer, and shoot the sh#t for two hours. It's a blast) Those of you who know me, know that Hairdog getting out of the house is a rarity, indeed.
Anyway, the point is, I've met people here I like, I know their names, and I enjoy hanging out with them. W has been to a couple of functions, and seems to enjoy it, but not to the same degree as me.
So, yesterday here's some things that happened: 1. As we're walking in, I say, "hey, let me take DD5 down to the classroom. I'll meet you in the service." 2. During the service, I put my arm around her briefly. 3. After the service, I was walking out and one of the Men's Group guys started talking to me about this week's meeting, when I got out to the lobby, I couldn't see W, so I figured she had gone down to pick up DD5. I went down to join her. She wasn't there yet, so I signed out DD5. W shows up at door, sees me, scowls, turns around.
I went up to the lobby with DD5. No wife. I decided to look outside and there she was. She had been walking toward the building, but when she saw me, she turned and walked back to the car. I could tell she was pissed. Why?
Here's why, distilled from the resulting conversation: She thought I was being "paternalistic." She thought I was being controlling, by dropping off and picking up DD5, and even by putting my arm around her. WTF?
Here's what I told her: I really like that place. I feel comfortable there. What you're seeing as controlling behavior, is confidence. You just aren't used to seeing it in me.
She "kind of" apologized, in that she said she was kind of stressed and probably over-reacted; but she also said that I needed to be sensitive to that, and "tone it down."
Sigh. So, back to my resolution and the resulting lack of any illusion that any new-found confidence will bring us closer together. See?
And so much for my resolution not to post too much on the SSM boards.
Hi hairy-- I was a Unitarian for a while on my journey from Roman Catholicism to Reform Judaism. (I even conducted a few services and toyed with the idea of becoming a Unitarian minister... mostly because the name of the west coast seminary is so cool: "The Thomas Starr King Seminary." ) The rabbi at our synagogue has written a book (mostly a collection of excellent sermons) and one of the chapters is about how close Unitarianism and Reform Judaism are. The Unitarians are a "community of seekers" with no dogma or doctrine. That's why I loved them. (As a former R.C. I missed the candles, chanting, arcane rituals, and the foreign language-- LOL-- so moved to Judaism.)
Your W's reaction was, as usual, over the top. Personally I think she's jealous that you've found a place where you fit in and feel comfortable.
I think you should have bought that book, plus Dieda’s book, and left them both on the coffee table for your wife to read. IMO, they both say the same thing, but from male and female perspectives. Both inform on how to please the male/female and both explain what each sex wants.
My wife did not like looking Schlessinger, thinking she knew it all and that it was just a disguised way of subjugating women. But I read some of Dieda out loud to her a while ago. She seemed to like what she heard from that book (or at least was open to hearing it) because it put the focus on the man’s responsibility, instead of on hers. With that as a backdrop, she seems to be a LITTLE more open to hearing what Schlesinger has to say.
Quote: Here's why, distilled from the resulting conversation: She thought I was being "paternalistic." She thought I was being controlling, by dropping off and picking up DD5, and even by putting my arm around her. WTF?
Here's what I told her: I really like that place. I feel comfortable there. What you're seeing as controlling behavior, is confidence. You just aren't used to seeing it in me.
She "kind of" apologized, in that she said she was kind of stressed and probably over-reacted; but she also said that I needed to be sensitive to that, and "tone it down."
My opinion is that you should revisit the conversation, HD. Because your confidence needs to extend into your marriage.
"Now that I am aware that you find my arm around you as insulting, I will not do that again during service. But, when it comes to my daughter, I am her father and I am going to express my fatherhood in my own way. I am not going to squelch my relationship with my daughter to fit into whatever your current sensitivity might be. I am not going to allow your personal sensitivities to control my reletainship with my daughter."
It's bad enough that she insists on forcing you, squelching you and squeezing you into some convuluted mold in order to bypass her irritations in your marriage.
But, I would make farking sure that she doesn't extend that crazy-making control into your relationship with your daughter.
And I would let her know it. This would be one issue that I wouldn't passively avoid. I would be farking raging at this.
Daughters need dads, and they don't need their relationship with their dad to be forced through some maternal filter.
Whatever you do, don't willingly give up the church attendance, because I can see this becoming a wedge in the missus's control issues and she's not going to like it.
Mrs. Nop made some very good points there. I think that putting your arm around W was a very natural gesture since you were in a place that felt comfortable and good. Too bad she had to let her own discomforts and insecurities ruin the moment.
I went to a Unitarian church for quite a while and very much enjoyed it. I liked the way that they melded the different belief systems and discussed issues of "social justice". You need a place to belong. It is a very good thing.
Keep on Hairy. You will be ok. Maybe Mrs. HD will find out along the way that she can have sex, be a woman, be a wife and be an accomplished person too without having this tight azzed, politically correct, prickly approach to everything. I wish I were her best friend who could tell her - RELAX!!! Many of the most feminazi women who were key to getting women where they are today have had regrets/rethought their positions as they mellowed out, got a bit older.
) The rabbi at our synagogue has written a book (mostly a collection of excellent sermons) and one of the chapters is about how close Unitarianism and Reform Judaism are. The Unitarians are a "community of seekers" with no dogma or doctrine. That's why I loved them. (As a former R.C. I missed the candles, chanting, arcane rituals, and the foreign language-- LOL-- so moved to Judaism.)