Marriage done right

I was traveling the city with my son yesterday trying to find the temple that I went to next to a river. Because of that, my son and I have been walking every river we can find next to train stops looking for that place so I can see it again and share it with him. To motivate him, I told him it's a magic temple and he can make a wish, and he told me he wants his school to blow up.

While walking about, I was thinking about how I hadn't updated the blog because nothing happened in the last month, and realized that that is pretty much what most "successful" marriage are: ones where nothing happens.

And that's really sad. A successful businessman makes money and uses that money to furnish himself a free and comfortable life. A successful traveler learns languages, sees sights, has new experiences and broadens his horizons. A successful athlete pushes himself to the physical and mental limit and shows his prowess as a runner, thrower, fighter... But a successful marriage with children, more often than not, is one where a steady routine of awaken, work, return, sleep is in effect.

As a single man, I climbed mountains, I had untimed beach trips with my friends, I found my spirit on bad dates, I fended off unwanted lovers and I felt the exciting fear of being on my own, all because I had freedom. Today, while I can still enjoy time with my son, my life is utterly limited. I can't go as far, I can't stay out as long, I can't spend as much: that's life for a married man.

Speaking of my wife, I've been keeping her to the side and below me as usual. About a week or two ago, I asked her a question while she was looking at her phone. When she didn't answer, I lightly punched her butt. She looked up with irritation and knit eyebrows and demanded, "What?!" I repeated my question, then while she answered, I just smirked and walked away. Didn't matter if I was in the wrong, I wasn't going to apologize to a woman because I know the kind of shrieking that leads to. She was practically grovelling the next day when she offered me food, exactly as I expected of her.

She also continues to badmouth American women, giggle like a schoolgirl when I occasionally compliment her and laugh uproariously at all of my dumb jokes. Men at that awesome Don't Marry site, you were right all along.

There really isn't much else going on; like I said, marriage is a whole bunch of nothing where not a whole lot happens, and one day bleeds into the next in a giant slurry. I'm trying to spend as much time with my son as I can so I can teach him not to accept a life of domesticity and to instead live a life of freedom, and keeping my wife in line while I reward her intermittently for her dutifulness. I wonder if I'll feel a huge weight lift off of my shoulders like I did in my vacation in 2012? I'll never forget that feeling of momentary freedom, and I hope I have it again when I'm finally free to go.