Married Black Men

I remember playing “The Sims” years ago when it first came out.  It was quite an addicting game for me back then and it was interesting listening to their garbled speech and dealing with harsh realities of a virtual life.  But, I recall playing one day and going about my daily tasks and forgetting to speak to a neighbor that had rung my door bell.  While, that usually wasn’t an issue, this time a little bubble popped up with the text:

“Friendships are like plants, you must water them to enable them to grow”.

Now, while that quote may not be verbatim, I do think it’s a very good way to look at marriage or any relationship.  Too often when things are going well and strong we tend to reduce resources to those relationships.   But, it’s amazing how quickly these relationships can whither without sufficient time, energy, or care put towards communication, appreciation, and support.   Sometimes, I think I can be the worst offender and I have to be conscious of making sure that I treat my wife as good as or better than I treat others.   I’ve seen myself and other men in marriages do all sorts of things for others and then when it comes to do similar things for our wives we baulk.  Then, we end up like Theo from “The Cosby Show” with our hands in a bowl reciting lines like “I have to pay attention to my woman”.

The funny thing is that I typically don’t realize how bad things are until the little things stop happening.  Perhaps, she doesn’t give me as much special attention, conversations are short, tempers are short, or worse I stop hearing about her day.  Now, I know listening to my wife’s day at work is not always easy.  First, those conversations are *Extra* long and they deal with people you’ve never met or care to meet.  However, if she isn’t telling you those extra long stories – who is she spending all that *extra* time telling?   We have to nurture our marriage, and that doesn’t happen once a year, month, or week.  We have to do a little each day, because if we don’t things may look good on the outside,  but will be crumbling from the inside.

So, call/look/grab your wife and tell her your love her, and starting “watering” that marriage, because it’s easier to keep something healthy than trying to revive it.

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend and they said that “DINKS don’t have it nearly as bad as everyone else.”  We were talking about the economy and such, but I had no idea what that word meant.  Well, I had no idea what that term meant for someone apart from a 5 year old on a playground, but I’ve digressed.  For those unfamiliar with the term it stands for “Dual Income No Kids”.

I certainly understand that children are expensive, but I had no idea parents had their own “secret” terminology for their friends without kids.  DINKS? Makes me wonder what other grudges parents have against their friends who may have chosen or cannot have kids.  Do they grumble that we don’t have to find babysitters, change diapers, or chauffer kids to various venues?  I mean, what other names are we called apart from “DINKS”? Which I’ve never heard (in my short time knowing the word) used in a positive manner.  Call me a “DINK”, because at the moment I’m not ready for children and having a dual income, doesn’t equate to financial prosperity either.  While, I have numerous friends with kids, until recently I’d never felt a “divide” between us, but I may not have been paying close enough attention to the subtle signs or comments.  You know what they are – “Uggh, don’t you people ever stay at home? Sure must be nice to go out as much as you do” or “Humph, if I had as much free time as you did, I’d be able to x,y,z”. Ok, perhaps they weren’t so subtle and in hindsight, I guess they’ve been calling me things worse than “DINK” for a long time, but it just didn’t seem as bad.    Just for the record, in case the “non-dinks” think that it’s all fun and games on this end, it’s not as though everyone without kids are living like Jay-Z and Beyonce!  But I think I’ll use another post to elaborate on that argument.

For all the other “DINKS” in our community let’s not fall prey to the name calling that our counterparts would have us engage.  Instead, why don’t we all go out for a drink and good entertainment, I mean what else are we supposed to do with “all our free time”. LoL.

She tells me, she’s ready to go, and i’m not so sure he’s aware of the gravity of the situation.  So, I’m left to wonder if I should talk to him or simply allow them to work it out for themselves, though I fear he may be making matters worse.  While, I do feel a certain obligation to sit him down and explain to him what’s going on in his marriage, I’m also keenly aware that he won’t deal particularly well with that type of conversation and I have to ask myself if I want play in that sandbox.   It would be easier to sit back and just let things play out, but I’m not sure – what would you do? Would you stand idly by or intervene?

While, there is also the possibility of them developing a unified front against you.  I’m sure many of you have seen that happen before – where someone with good intent tries to intervene in another relationship and next thing they know the couple develops a unified front against the individual.  In addition to the fact, that people have a tendency to avoid conflict and could disavow any knowledge of even mentioning they were “thinking about leaving” and that I must be “mistaken” and that perhaps i should mind my own business.  Well, perhaps that provides my answer, because if they were serious about leaving – wouldn’t they just leave?