My son was taking something out of a toy basket when my wife suddenly went nuts and started yelling in the local language. I didn't understand her, and not because I didn't understand the words she was barking, but for another reason altogether: she was saying that she couldn't stand him taking his toys out because she just cleaned up, and he always took out toys from the same basket. I understood the words perfectly, but I was confused because there was no reason for her to be shouting.
My son started to cry, so I took him into the other room and made a little fort and slide for him to play in. My wife came in about a half hour later trying to "test the waters" by doing something innocuous to gauge how the two boys felt about her; basically, it was a ploy to not apologize, but to go back to a normal family anyway. My son was anxious to get back in her good graces, but when she tried to show me some skin she dug out of her ear or whatever and she asked if I wanted to see it, I just said, "No." She tried touching me in bed later, and I ignored her.
Silence, direct speaking, condescension, rudeness, coldness and other withdrawals of affection work well with an out of line wife. She needs me a lot more than I need her, and now she understands that fully. As for marriage, there are four things to be certain of:
1. My wife never did this crap when she was my girlfriend.
2. She always does this crap on Sunday.
3. She always does this crap to people who don't fight back (and after I stood up to her last year, I'm no longer a target).
4. I wouldn't have to deal with this crap if I weren't married.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Rejections
I asked my wife for sex, thinking that now that she was back to normal, we could go back to a normal, boring marriage schedule. She rejected me, saying her stomach hurt. I smiled inwardly, realizing that she was up to her old tricks again; just a few days ago, she accepted my offer for sex, but was hesitant about it and made me give her several reasons why we should. And now, here come more lies to avoid me and to try and prop herself back up as the leader of this marriage.
I'm not making the mistake of asking her again; it's time to secretly reject her, and not initiate, as I did over the past few months. It's very clear who of the two of us should be running the marriage, seeing as how I never verbally abused or disrespected her when I was in charge before 2010, but she did just those things when she was running things. And because sex and power are almost synonymous in a reptilian woman's mind, I refuse to give my wife any leverage over my life by allowing any undue sex between us.
I'm not making the mistake of asking her again; it's time to secretly reject her, and not initiate, as I did over the past few months. It's very clear who of the two of us should be running the marriage, seeing as how I never verbally abused or disrespected her when I was in charge before 2010, but she did just those things when she was running things. And because sex and power are almost synonymous in a reptilian woman's mind, I refuse to give my wife any leverage over my life by allowing any undue sex between us.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Another mistake
I screwed up today. When I came home alone with pizzas, there was absolutely no room on the table to put them, just as there has been no room on it for the past five years because of all the junk my wife keeps piling on it. I sighed and started to begin the neverending process of getting all the useless junk off of it, piece by piece, but only a few seconds passed before I had enough. After 40+ straight days of work and 5+ years of constantly cleaning this damned table, I just moved the six bottles and glasses of liquid to the side, then swiped the rest of the junk onto the floor. Medicine bottles, a tape dispenser, junk mail, tissues, capped bottles, food packages and much more went flying to the ground. I briefly considered cleaning it up, but decided against it, because I'm tired of being the butler in this house, especially when most of the messes aren't mine.
My wife came back and was pretty shocked. "What happened?!" she asked worriedly. Without looking at her, I answered, "I'm tired of cleaning the junk off this table." She didn't say another word, and instead started to pick up the mess I made in silence. I was an a-hole and I felt like it, but even after she had cleaned up, my wife was acting super nice to me again.
I told myself almost a month ago that I had to stop being the Iceman because she had cleaned up her act towards me, and here I am acting like a complete douchebag, and although I've never done something like this before the pushback, it's still indicative of the apathetic, frigid man that I used to act like last and this year to get my wife back in line. I didn't and won't apologize to her, because she'll just turn it into a reason to abuse me for the next several years (like she did from 2010-2012 when I apologized in 2009, only once, for using the computer too much), but this situation shouldn't even be here because it shouldn't have happened in the first place. So what happened?
There's no excuse for what I did today, but there is an explanation: I'm zoning out and running on autopilot, just as I have been since I got married. In fact, it's even worse now, because not only do I get the average of a single day off of work every month (and I zone through work days), but I also stopped smoking several months ago, which makes the zoning even worse. To be completely honest, every single day since somewhere around three months or so ago has been lived by the autopilot, unconscious me. I'm not exaggerating: the last time I actually, consciously looked at the number of days left to go before my marriage is through, rather than simply subtracting one from the previous day's number, was a season before.
My sight, my hearing, every sense is in almost complete darkness, and I only briefly wake up here and there in the day to play with my son or play a video game. The rest of it is handled by autopilot me, which is sometimes still set to Iceman. Switching between different personas isn't like a light switch; it's a gradual process of change that takes time to completely happen.
I need to work hard on being nicer to my wife now that she's beyond her abusive stage, and I need to do so while I remain in this dark pit that passes time through this marriage as fast as possible.
My wife came back and was pretty shocked. "What happened?!" she asked worriedly. Without looking at her, I answered, "I'm tired of cleaning the junk off this table." She didn't say another word, and instead started to pick up the mess I made in silence. I was an a-hole and I felt like it, but even after she had cleaned up, my wife was acting super nice to me again.
I told myself almost a month ago that I had to stop being the Iceman because she had cleaned up her act towards me, and here I am acting like a complete douchebag, and although I've never done something like this before the pushback, it's still indicative of the apathetic, frigid man that I used to act like last and this year to get my wife back in line. I didn't and won't apologize to her, because she'll just turn it into a reason to abuse me for the next several years (like she did from 2010-2012 when I apologized in 2009, only once, for using the computer too much), but this situation shouldn't even be here because it shouldn't have happened in the first place. So what happened?
There's no excuse for what I did today, but there is an explanation: I'm zoning out and running on autopilot, just as I have been since I got married. In fact, it's even worse now, because not only do I get the average of a single day off of work every month (and I zone through work days), but I also stopped smoking several months ago, which makes the zoning even worse. To be completely honest, every single day since somewhere around three months or so ago has been lived by the autopilot, unconscious me. I'm not exaggerating: the last time I actually, consciously looked at the number of days left to go before my marriage is through, rather than simply subtracting one from the previous day's number, was a season before.
My sight, my hearing, every sense is in almost complete darkness, and I only briefly wake up here and there in the day to play with my son or play a video game. The rest of it is handled by autopilot me, which is sometimes still set to Iceman. Switching between different personas isn't like a light switch; it's a gradual process of change that takes time to completely happen.
I need to work hard on being nicer to my wife now that she's beyond her abusive stage, and I need to do so while I remain in this dark pit that passes time through this marriage as fast as possible.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
What could have been
It's the end of the month, so I had to transfer money to my wife. As I was walking into my bank, I saw a balding foreigner in pretty good shape walk happily by. When I was done getting the cash, I came outside to see four young and fit foreigners, Americans from their accents, very excitedly discussing some future sporting event.
Keeping my hand on the $1500 in my pocket that I wouldn't personally be using, I drove to my wife's bank to deposit the money into her account. On the way, a scrubby foreigner hipster drove by, locked eyes with me for a fraction of a second, then did the "foreigner fakeout" and looked quickly ninety degrees to the side to avoid further contact. After depositing the money, I flashed back to the cabin restaurant in Then and Now 42 and remembered my old life as I returned home.
Six guys, at least five of them happy and abroad, all on the same night. And then there was me, the married loser with a fistful of cash that was as quickly frittered out as it was withdrawn from the bank.
- I could have used that money for a plane ticket to the next country I wanted to travel to and live in.
- I could have bought a high end laptop.
- I could have saved two or three dozen hungry children's lives for the month.
- I could have saved it to cover the next two months' living expenses.
- I could have bought every last game that I've ever wanted right now, and never eyed another one for years.
- I could have combined any number of these things in some form or fashion.
And I could have made every last penny back in a single month, when I would be free to spend it again.
Instead, I passed happy foreigners
who probably get more satisfying sex in a week than I do in a year
while I held money that I made but isn't mine
and returned home to chores
on the 37th straight day of work
so I can do it all again tomorrow
and the day after
for the next thirteen years and change.
Don't be me. Don't get married.
Keeping my hand on the $1500 in my pocket that I wouldn't personally be using, I drove to my wife's bank to deposit the money into her account. On the way, a scrubby foreigner hipster drove by, locked eyes with me for a fraction of a second, then did the "foreigner fakeout" and looked quickly ninety degrees to the side to avoid further contact. After depositing the money, I flashed back to the cabin restaurant in Then and Now 42 and remembered my old life as I returned home.
Six guys, at least five of them happy and abroad, all on the same night. And then there was me, the married loser with a fistful of cash that was as quickly frittered out as it was withdrawn from the bank.
- I could have used that money for a plane ticket to the next country I wanted to travel to and live in.
- I could have bought a high end laptop.
- I could have saved two or three dozen hungry children's lives for the month.
- I could have saved it to cover the next two months' living expenses.
- I could have bought every last game that I've ever wanted right now, and never eyed another one for years.
- I could have combined any number of these things in some form or fashion.
And I could have made every last penny back in a single month, when I would be free to spend it again.
Instead, I passed happy foreigners
who probably get more satisfying sex in a week than I do in a year
while I held money that I made but isn't mine
and returned home to chores
on the 37th straight day of work
so I can do it all again tomorrow
and the day after
for the next thirteen years and change.
Don't be me. Don't get married.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Refusal mistake
My wife said we could have sex after the gym today. I dreaded coming back to deal with it, but thankfully, she seemed to leave me alone for a bit while I played a video game. She did try to be cute and put a wrapped sausage sandwich on my crotch and say it was a sausage for my sausage, an obvious ploy for me to turn her joke into something sexual and invite her into the bedroom. I just smirked and gave a fake laugh, then went back to playing.
A few hours later, she stood up from her book and came to the couch next to me, moved her head in and watched me play. I could tell it was another ploy for me to look at her and invite her into the bedroom, so I just said hello, then turned off the game to go to the bathroom. When I came out, she was still on the couch and asked if I "wanted to do something" with her.
For the first time in this marriage, I refused her. "Maybe later," I said, then returned to the couch to play more games. I wasn't looking, so I didn't know (or care) what her reaction was except to go quiet, then move off to the bedroom to nap. Later, I went out to pick up my son as soon as I could to solidify the sexless day, and when I got back, she was out of bed and looking somewhat happy. She made more of an attempt to talk to me and our son then the rest of the day, and was basically on excellent behavior. Simply more proof that treating a woman with apathy is a great way for her to start treating a man like a king.
To be honest, the refusals were wrong of me. First, the sex refusals may lead to a divorce in the future, which is putting my son in harm's way, which is the one and only thing that has kept me in this marriage for the past six years.
Second, I stopped the punishment through complete withdrawal for my wife's nagging, overspending, huge weight gain, abusive rage, sexual cutoffs and such quite a bit ago after she showed great improvement in her personality; I can't be sure of the date, but it was sometime around the middle of this year when I started engaging with her again, about a year after I first started the pushback in November of 2012 (the Last fight post). My recent refusals of sex with my wife was me accidentally conflating two different things: punishing my wife, and avoiding something I now actively despise.
The punishment should be done now. I think my wife has learned her lesson about both abusing, and taking advantage of, me as a hostile dependent, at least for now. And if she slips back into the creature she was from 2010-2012, I'll just bring back the Iceman for another few days or years.
Also, there are a lot of things I despise about marriage, but sex seems to be the only thing I'm trying to avoid like a contagious disease. Driving to work today, I realized that I need to look at sex as less of a disgusting trial (looks half nauseating, sounds silly, smells horrible, tastes even worse, no longer feels good, takes too long and requires cleanup), and more of a chore, no different from washing another load of dishes or pulling more wet clothes out of the washing machine. I won't directly refuse my wife in the future for the sake of our son.
Secret rejections keep her on her best behavior and make her go through a multitude of mental gymnastics to explain away why I don't answer her or why I don't initiate anymore, and she even makes excuses for me, like how I must be tired or busy or my phone must be broken. She's also joked several times that I have a mistress, which shows some obvious fear, which keeps her treating me well to "win me back." These secret rejections lead to an even more pliable and docile wife, but I will knock it off from here on... unless she returns to the person she was two years ago.
I never thought I would write something like that, about controlling my wife. I've always been more or less an equal treatment guy, and I tried to be that guy for most of this marriage.
And then the 2009 Christmas fight hit. I had no idea what was going on, or what the hell happened to the girl I married, to leave that monster behind for me to deal with. I couldn't tell why the behavior only got markedly worse as the months dragged on, or why she wasn't responding to logic, friendliness, apologies, pleading, less work, more money or anything else.
Thank God for the internet and the multitude of surrogate fathers out there that revealed to me the true nature of a reptilian woman, and how best to deal with her stupid outbursts. But why did I have to believe the lies of society that marriage is a partnership of equals and the blissful end of painful solitude that leads to a shining future, instead of the putrescent institution of coerced caretaking that it really is?
A few hours later, she stood up from her book and came to the couch next to me, moved her head in and watched me play. I could tell it was another ploy for me to look at her and invite her into the bedroom, so I just said hello, then turned off the game to go to the bathroom. When I came out, she was still on the couch and asked if I "wanted to do something" with her.
For the first time in this marriage, I refused her. "Maybe later," I said, then returned to the couch to play more games. I wasn't looking, so I didn't know (or care) what her reaction was except to go quiet, then move off to the bedroom to nap. Later, I went out to pick up my son as soon as I could to solidify the sexless day, and when I got back, she was out of bed and looking somewhat happy. She made more of an attempt to talk to me and our son then the rest of the day, and was basically on excellent behavior. Simply more proof that treating a woman with apathy is a great way for her to start treating a man like a king.
To be honest, the refusals were wrong of me. First, the sex refusals may lead to a divorce in the future, which is putting my son in harm's way, which is the one and only thing that has kept me in this marriage for the past six years.
Second, I stopped the punishment through complete withdrawal for my wife's nagging, overspending, huge weight gain, abusive rage, sexual cutoffs and such quite a bit ago after she showed great improvement in her personality; I can't be sure of the date, but it was sometime around the middle of this year when I started engaging with her again, about a year after I first started the pushback in November of 2012 (the Last fight post). My recent refusals of sex with my wife was me accidentally conflating two different things: punishing my wife, and avoiding something I now actively despise.
The punishment should be done now. I think my wife has learned her lesson about both abusing, and taking advantage of, me as a hostile dependent, at least for now. And if she slips back into the creature she was from 2010-2012, I'll just bring back the Iceman for another few days or years.
Also, there are a lot of things I despise about marriage, but sex seems to be the only thing I'm trying to avoid like a contagious disease. Driving to work today, I realized that I need to look at sex as less of a disgusting trial (looks half nauseating, sounds silly, smells horrible, tastes even worse, no longer feels good, takes too long and requires cleanup), and more of a chore, no different from washing another load of dishes or pulling more wet clothes out of the washing machine. I won't directly refuse my wife in the future for the sake of our son.
Secret rejections keep her on her best behavior and make her go through a multitude of mental gymnastics to explain away why I don't answer her or why I don't initiate anymore, and she even makes excuses for me, like how I must be tired or busy or my phone must be broken. She's also joked several times that I have a mistress, which shows some obvious fear, which keeps her treating me well to "win me back." These secret rejections lead to an even more pliable and docile wife, but I will knock it off from here on... unless she returns to the person she was two years ago.
I never thought I would write something like that, about controlling my wife. I've always been more or less an equal treatment guy, and I tried to be that guy for most of this marriage.
And then the 2009 Christmas fight hit. I had no idea what was going on, or what the hell happened to the girl I married, to leave that monster behind for me to deal with. I couldn't tell why the behavior only got markedly worse as the months dragged on, or why she wasn't responding to logic, friendliness, apologies, pleading, less work, more money or anything else.
Thank God for the internet and the multitude of surrogate fathers out there that revealed to me the true nature of a reptilian woman, and how best to deal with her stupid outbursts. But why did I have to believe the lies of society that marriage is a partnership of equals and the blissful end of painful solitude that leads to a shining future, instead of the putrescent institution of coerced caretaking that it really is?
Monday, September 23, 2013
Sex and punishment
Sex and power are the same in a reptilian woman's mind, and an excellent way to get a horrendous wife back in line. Or at least, it is if you didn't marry in a western country where she can cheat and be praised for it.
As continuing punishment for the way my wife treated me for the last three years, and as a reminder that she will never treat me the way she did again, I have been withholding sex from her. She said we could have sex after we worked out today, and that just wouldn't do. When I was done teaching today, I drove back and was outside of the house, then I did some quick calculations of how long it would take to drive to the gym, work out, then come home, and found that there was plenty of time for sex. So I instead wasted about thirty minutes sitting in the stairwell surfing the internet on my phone. Then at exactly 1:30 I went up and into our apartment, and thankfully avoided sex for the day.
She and I went to the gym, then when we were done with aerobics, she snapped at me for ragging on the crappy techno music they were piping into the gym, where every song discussed getting high on something and sleeping with scumbags. I walked off without a word and lifted weights without her, then returned home on my own. I picked up our son on the way back to cement the "no sex with the wife" thing, then he and I went home. Hopefully she'll forget about her offer tomorrow and leave me alone about sex for the next decade or two. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be that lucky.
As continuing punishment for the way my wife treated me for the last three years, and as a reminder that she will never treat me the way she did again, I have been withholding sex from her. She said we could have sex after we worked out today, and that just wouldn't do. When I was done teaching today, I drove back and was outside of the house, then I did some quick calculations of how long it would take to drive to the gym, work out, then come home, and found that there was plenty of time for sex. So I instead wasted about thirty minutes sitting in the stairwell surfing the internet on my phone. Then at exactly 1:30 I went up and into our apartment, and thankfully avoided sex for the day.
She and I went to the gym, then when we were done with aerobics, she snapped at me for ragging on the crappy techno music they were piping into the gym, where every song discussed getting high on something and sleeping with scumbags. I walked off without a word and lifted weights without her, then returned home on my own. I picked up our son on the way back to cement the "no sex with the wife" thing, then he and I went home. Hopefully she'll forget about her offer tomorrow and leave me alone about sex for the next decade or two. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be that lucky.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Then and Now Final
For the past two and a half years, I have written down every single experience that I can remember from my single time abroad, and I hope that I not only was able to entertain, and not only able to inform about the differences between single and married life, but that I was able to convince at least one man out there to not get married.
Since I was 21 and started the path to manhood, I've reflected a lot on my life, analyzing everything I've done wrong to avoid doing the same in the future, and everything I've done right to repeat those actions for myself and others; the unexamined life is not worth living, after all. Sometimes, when I was reflecting on a previous stage in my life (from college on high school, for example), I would strangely look back on a miserable period of my life with a sense of nostalgia and fondness, and miss what I had left behind. But through careful analysis, I have come to the conclusion that there wasn't really a single period of my life before I got abroad where I was really happy.
Of course I had several happy moments, even happy days or weeks, with my friends and my first girlfriend. But when they were gone or had returned home, it was back to the apathy or misery. Knowing intellectually that I wasn't fondly looking back on perfect lives that I had given up, I have been able to discard those misleading feelings of nostalgia for those times, knowing that high school was just as miserable as college was just as miserable as that year I worked for minimum wage as a college graduate, and so on. I now keep my happy memories of my friends and ex-girlfriend close to my heart, and simply noticed the other memories with a slight, dismissive shake of my head.
And yet, turning my single life abroad around and over, about and through my mind with my Then and Now posts, I know for a certain fact that that time was different. I regret what I gave up when I married, but it isn't my mind playing tricks on me, or laziness overtaking me; I truly was happy, for the first and only time in my life, during those six months.
While I was mentally studying my single life abroad to come to the final conclusion that I really was happy then, I challenged my own beliefs with several questions to get to the truth of things. I want to share those queries and answer them again here in case any readers want to know the results I came to, because these are the observations I need to address before I can bring my Then and Now experiences to a close:
Your Then and Now experiences lack detail, which makes them scarcely different from the married days you zone through.
I'm aware that I left out a lot of details in my stories. A few times it was to protect my identity by not getting too specific with the locales and landmarks (and I'll fill in all the blanks when it comes close to my son's high school graduation), but most of the time, it was because these experiences of mine occurred around five years ago. It can be difficult for me to remember pieces of those experiences because of the amount of time that has elapsed. But there are two things I need to explain:
First, I don't fill in the blanks with lies. If I don't remember, I don't remember, and I say so. Not a single one of any of my Then and Now posts contains any falsehoods meant to pad them out or make myself look better. If I couldn't remember the bulk of the specifics for an entire day of fun, I turned my limited memories into Odds and Ends experiences, five to a pack.
Second, the fact that I can remember those experiences to such a degree is very telling of how great those times were, and how alive I was. I can't even tell you what I did after work three nights ago.
Your experiences are boring.
Putting aside the lack of detail for a second, I assume that this is because the things I was doing weren't very appealing to specific readers. And that's fine; the point of my Then and Now posts isn't to say, "Hey, if you don't get married, you too can move abroad and wander around like a hobo." The point of my Then and Now posts is twofold:
First, it's to show the things that made me personally happy, like time with friends, time with history, time with nature, time with my girlfriend, and other things that came together to make the great time that was my single life.
Second, it's to show unmarried people the kind of freedom they will give up if they tie the knot.
If my Then and Now posts were boring because you prefer to club and barhop, then replace every single one of my experiences with your experiences out with your friends, or taking women home every other night. If my Then and Now posts were boring because you prefer the arts, imagine that every one of them took you to a new presentation by a different troupe of performers.
The point of my Then and Now posts is to say that if you marry, you will lose all of that. I know very few happily married people, but the ones who seem to be have either given up on life, or have not truly lived and have no idea what they've lost, without exception. My Then and Now posts are an attempt to open up a little spark of interest, or to ring a bell of truth in the mind of an unmarried person, so they realize that they, too, could lose everything by marrying.
75 full days of fun in a six month time span? Come on. That means every two or three days, you had a completely fun day.
Actually, this criticism is correct: 75 is not the amount of fun days I had. It was actually over 100.
Even leaving behind the fun days I had completely forgotten and subtracting the specials 41, 56 and 66 where I talked about my respective apartment, studies and phone, you still have to add back the dozens of days I left behind for Then and Now 25, which was a catch-all post for all the times my girlfriend and I got together on the weekend. You still have to add back the other two days in the three parter Then and Now 16, which talks about the time I went to the big city for the first time. And you also have to add back the other thirteen days of Then and Now 74, which was my two week Christmas vacation.
It's ludicrous to assume that you would keep up this pace of happiness, especially considering that, by your own admission, you spent the first two or three months unemployed and enjoying yourself.
It's true that a lot of my Then and Now posts were bunched up in the first two months when I was unattached and free of work. But is there any reason I couldn't do that again?
I made over $2000 a month. It cost me $700 a month to survive, or $1000 a month to thrive. It doesn't take a math genius to see that I could have taken a year long vacation for every year I worked if I took the $1000 route, and a two year vacation(!!) for every year I worked if I just lived very simply. Compare that with now, where I get a day off on the average of once a month, and 95% of the cash gets taken away to be spent, in part, on useless clothes, massages and restaurant trips by my wife.
Condensing those vacations to just two months, just like when I first arrived in this country, would be pathetically simple. Even factoring in the high cost of a hostel, it would have only been about $4000 to have that two month vacation every year in a new city or country. It would have only taken three months to make that money, another month to pay for a plane ticket, and the last eight would have netted around $10,000 to give to charity.
But none of that is possible now; I'm married. My Then and Now experiences are said and done, and all I have left to do is to add in details where I can, so I'll never forget that best part of my life. More importantly, I will continue taking my son out as much as possible to try and reclaim the glory of those past days with him, and to teach him the kind of life he can have if he avoids marriage like the rotting disease that it is.
Since I was 21 and started the path to manhood, I've reflected a lot on my life, analyzing everything I've done wrong to avoid doing the same in the future, and everything I've done right to repeat those actions for myself and others; the unexamined life is not worth living, after all. Sometimes, when I was reflecting on a previous stage in my life (from college on high school, for example), I would strangely look back on a miserable period of my life with a sense of nostalgia and fondness, and miss what I had left behind. But through careful analysis, I have come to the conclusion that there wasn't really a single period of my life before I got abroad where I was really happy.
Of course I had several happy moments, even happy days or weeks, with my friends and my first girlfriend. But when they were gone or had returned home, it was back to the apathy or misery. Knowing intellectually that I wasn't fondly looking back on perfect lives that I had given up, I have been able to discard those misleading feelings of nostalgia for those times, knowing that high school was just as miserable as college was just as miserable as that year I worked for minimum wage as a college graduate, and so on. I now keep my happy memories of my friends and ex-girlfriend close to my heart, and simply noticed the other memories with a slight, dismissive shake of my head.
And yet, turning my single life abroad around and over, about and through my mind with my Then and Now posts, I know for a certain fact that that time was different. I regret what I gave up when I married, but it isn't my mind playing tricks on me, or laziness overtaking me; I truly was happy, for the first and only time in my life, during those six months.
While I was mentally studying my single life abroad to come to the final conclusion that I really was happy then, I challenged my own beliefs with several questions to get to the truth of things. I want to share those queries and answer them again here in case any readers want to know the results I came to, because these are the observations I need to address before I can bring my Then and Now experiences to a close:
Your Then and Now experiences lack detail, which makes them scarcely different from the married days you zone through.
I'm aware that I left out a lot of details in my stories. A few times it was to protect my identity by not getting too specific with the locales and landmarks (and I'll fill in all the blanks when it comes close to my son's high school graduation), but most of the time, it was because these experiences of mine occurred around five years ago. It can be difficult for me to remember pieces of those experiences because of the amount of time that has elapsed. But there are two things I need to explain:
First, I don't fill in the blanks with lies. If I don't remember, I don't remember, and I say so. Not a single one of any of my Then and Now posts contains any falsehoods meant to pad them out or make myself look better. If I couldn't remember the bulk of the specifics for an entire day of fun, I turned my limited memories into Odds and Ends experiences, five to a pack.
Second, the fact that I can remember those experiences to such a degree is very telling of how great those times were, and how alive I was. I can't even tell you what I did after work three nights ago.
Your experiences are boring.
Putting aside the lack of detail for a second, I assume that this is because the things I was doing weren't very appealing to specific readers. And that's fine; the point of my Then and Now posts isn't to say, "Hey, if you don't get married, you too can move abroad and wander around like a hobo." The point of my Then and Now posts is twofold:
First, it's to show the things that made me personally happy, like time with friends, time with history, time with nature, time with my girlfriend, and other things that came together to make the great time that was my single life.
Second, it's to show unmarried people the kind of freedom they will give up if they tie the knot.
If my Then and Now posts were boring because you prefer to club and barhop, then replace every single one of my experiences with your experiences out with your friends, or taking women home every other night. If my Then and Now posts were boring because you prefer the arts, imagine that every one of them took you to a new presentation by a different troupe of performers.
The point of my Then and Now posts is to say that if you marry, you will lose all of that. I know very few happily married people, but the ones who seem to be have either given up on life, or have not truly lived and have no idea what they've lost, without exception. My Then and Now posts are an attempt to open up a little spark of interest, or to ring a bell of truth in the mind of an unmarried person, so they realize that they, too, could lose everything by marrying.
75 full days of fun in a six month time span? Come on. That means every two or three days, you had a completely fun day.
Actually, this criticism is correct: 75 is not the amount of fun days I had. It was actually over 100.
Even leaving behind the fun days I had completely forgotten and subtracting the specials 41, 56 and 66 where I talked about my respective apartment, studies and phone, you still have to add back the dozens of days I left behind for Then and Now 25, which was a catch-all post for all the times my girlfriend and I got together on the weekend. You still have to add back the other two days in the three parter Then and Now 16, which talks about the time I went to the big city for the first time. And you also have to add back the other thirteen days of Then and Now 74, which was my two week Christmas vacation.
It's ludicrous to assume that you would keep up this pace of happiness, especially considering that, by your own admission, you spent the first two or three months unemployed and enjoying yourself.
It's true that a lot of my Then and Now posts were bunched up in the first two months when I was unattached and free of work. But is there any reason I couldn't do that again?
I made over $2000 a month. It cost me $700 a month to survive, or $1000 a month to thrive. It doesn't take a math genius to see that I could have taken a year long vacation for every year I worked if I took the $1000 route, and a two year vacation(!!) for every year I worked if I just lived very simply. Compare that with now, where I get a day off on the average of once a month, and 95% of the cash gets taken away to be spent, in part, on useless clothes, massages and restaurant trips by my wife.
Condensing those vacations to just two months, just like when I first arrived in this country, would be pathetically simple. Even factoring in the high cost of a hostel, it would have only been about $4000 to have that two month vacation every year in a new city or country. It would have only taken three months to make that money, another month to pay for a plane ticket, and the last eight would have netted around $10,000 to give to charity.
But none of that is possible now; I'm married. My Then and Now experiences are said and done, and all I have left to do is to add in details where I can, so I'll never forget that best part of my life. More importantly, I will continue taking my son out as much as possible to try and reclaim the glory of those past days with him, and to teach him the kind of life he can have if he avoids marriage like the rotting disease that it is.
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