Marriage and the Modern Sitcom

For the past few evenings I’ve been at our new home unpacking and organizing while Matt is officiating basketball games and other such obligations. I turn on the TV while I work for the sake of background noise (being home alone is definitely not one of my favorite things).

On Wednesday the show I usually watched was postponed, and the next channel up was showing the new sitcom “Up All Night." Less than 5 minutes in I was totally disgusted by it. The main characters are struggling to regain intimacy with each other in the early months of parenthood and attempt to schedule a night when they can have time with just each other. Several nights pass where they can’t make it work. Mid-week the wife comes home exuberant and ready to focus on her husband. He’s sitting on the couch in sweatpants, playing a video game. She starts to cuddle up to him, and he, not even pausing the game, informs her that he has already pleasured himself because he thought she was working late. She stomps off. The laugh track roars. I almost threw a bottle of window cleaner through the TV.

Was that situation seriously just played for laughs? Do you have any idea how soul-crushing that would be for a wife to hear? “I’m sorry, honey. My personal needs were so great that I couldn’t wait an extra half-hour for you to get home. Yes, I’m telling you that I don’t need you in this marriage. Yup, I know that makes you feel unattractive and unneeded. So what if we’ve been planning on this all week? My needs have been satisfied, and now this video game requires my full attention. Go away.”

I haven't been though it yet, but I know having a newborn is no walk in the park. I know that there will be long stretches of sleeplessness and frustration. But that kind of callous act is like tearing stitches out of a healing wound. Pregnancy and childbirth are awesome but also physically traumatic, and regaining the energy and desire for intimacy takes time. Obviously the husband will be ready before the wife is, but taking care of your own needs while completely ignoring your spouse is no way to strengthen a marriage in a time of hardship. There are many ways to be intimate without actually having sex. Focus on that first and rebuild the foundation.

Even if he no longer felt “the need” he should have turned off that TV and focused on his wife. Intimacy to him seems to be only about his satisfaction. Once he has been satiated, nothing else matters. And that will kill a marriage faster than almost anything else.

I could probably go one for hours about this show and several other popular sitcoms, but I won’t (at least not now). I could see some positive elements in the show: their wildly successful friend Ava has become dissatisfied with her glamorous yet shallow relationships and longs for something real. She begins dating a single dad who will hopefully show her what responsibility really means. Reagan and Chris do love each other, but often show it in very crude and self-centered ways. Humor is a vital ingredient to successful marriages and parenting, but true humor should never come at someone else’s expense. Build each other up, don’t tear them down.

Overall, the moments that could be considered heartwarming in that show are few and far between. In the end it is yet another prime-time stab at marriage and the (apparently) hilarity of selfishness and dysfunction. Marriage today is suffering enough already – does it really need to be ripped apart even more?

New beginning

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end…”

                                                                                         -Semisonic





I think our new beginning from last fall has finally come to an end and we are about to begin again. It’s a life restart. A second chance to make it, really make it, on our own.

Friday we got the call that our application had been approved. Saturday we began organizing our long-stored belongings, preparing for the move across town. Sunday we planned, and Monday we started packing, anticipating 9 AM the next morning, when the new place would officially be ours.

Tuesday at 8:45 AM I sat in the car and sobbed because we had hit an unexpected wall.  I should have expected it with every obstacle we’d been through to get to that point, but it still hit me like a falling piano. My pride crumbled as we called our parents asking for help, then called the realtor’s office and told them we had been temporarily delayed. I sat stiff and red-eyed as we arrived at the bank to ask for a high-interest cash advance on our credit card. The joy of the early morning was gone. I prepared to settle back into familiar disappointment.

But the bank representative who helped us was kind and encouraging. The lady processing our lease talked us through the paperwork with a smile even though we were over an hour late. The keys were put into our hands and we unlocked our front door for the first time. I didn’t show happiness as much as I could have, and I apologize to Matt for that. But quietly, tearfully, I was happy. I am happy.

We still have a long, uphill battle to defeat debt, but we’ll make it. We can’t run out and buy fancy new things for our house, but so what? After having our belongings in storage for 14 months, it will all seem new to us. And new isn’t what’s important anyway. The important thing is what we make out of what we have.

It may not seem like a lot, but it is to me. I’m ready to make that house our home.