Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [83]
I met my wife literally across a crowded room twenty-five years ago. When she stepped into the doorway and I first saw her, it wasn't so much that my knees buckled-it was more of total soul collapse. All the blood in my body went into my shoes and then shot straight back up into my brain-twice. Now that was probably a purely visceral response-my penis knew that looks-wise, she was right in my wheelhouse. SO in my wheelhouse that if she was even remotely smart and funny-I was a dead man.
Which I was.
Right after she started talking and making me laugh.
Twenty-five years and two kids and a lot of ups and downs and arguments about everything from how much pepper I put on my potatoes to why I don't bother to put my clothes from today into the laundry hamper tonight (answer? Because I'm planning on wearing them again tomorrow morning) in sickness and in health, in good times and the bad, for better or worse and four marriage counselors later (one was an asshole, one was an idiot and the third one I'm pretty sure was a Yankees fan)-I still wake up and wonder how I got so lucky.
By the way, guys-here's a few quick and easy steps to follow before you enter the first session with your wife and the marriage counselor. I found these to be very, very helpful:
1. It's all your fault.
2. Really. The fault is yours.
3. Still your fault.
Write those down on some five-by-eight-inch index cards and flash-memorize them. Better yet-stick 'em in the glove compartment for safekeeping.
A lot of women I know not only need to be in therapy, they prefer to talk to a male therapist. Why?
Because he's a guy whose JOB it is to listen.
To listen and learn.
About them.
Listen as they register all of their complaints, anxieties, worries, frets, marital woes and relationship friction. Listen INTENTLY as they ramble on and on about their husbands, their mothers, their fathers, their step-dads, their sisters, their bosses-it all gets laid out and the man in the room has to keep two very wide-open ears.
The Man Shrink. The perfect partner.
He nods and squints and murmurs in agreement and when he asks her a question to probe further it's almost always offered up as "How did that make you feel?" or "How did you feel about that?" or "Did that make you feel such and such a way blah blah sympathy blah?"
The Man Shrink takes mental notes and pays rapt attention and is absolutely guaranteed to agree with her. For forty-five minutes. Then-it's time to go.
Man Shrinks are the female version of hookers.
You pay him to provide a necessary service that has a strict time limit and though it involves what seems to be an incredibly intimate exchange-you don't see or talk to him again until the next time you pay him.
Plus, this kind of prostitution is not only legal-it can make your marriage or relationship better. And let's face it-you want her to be happy.
The girl in your life will always be better than a life without your girl. She will make you a finer, more upstanding citizen in our society-and not just in a psychological sense.
Every guy I know has had the experience of seeing another guy he knows amble into a room sporting a fresh new frou-frou haircut, six-hundred-dollar designer jeans and something akin to clown shoes. No one wonders if he joined the circus. No one asks him why his eyebrows no longer meet. They all know he got dressed and groomed by the new