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?
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