Team work

This is a subject with which I have significant difficulty.  Having spent a significant number of my younger years avoiding work, I know that I am very good at it.  With that said, my goal with my wife is not to let her do more than she should.  I struggle everytime I hear that she is working because I am worried I have slacked off too much.  Ideally, neither of us would have to do any work.  I keep looking for a way to make that happen but the answer keeps hiding itself and mocking me.  Thus I am forced to conclude that I am going to have a certain amount of work that must be done.

Ok, so how much is mine?
Let us set a total workload of: laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, lawn work, and painting.
Okay, well we could divide it up based on a guess of the number of hours required.  We could sort it alphabetically and cut it in half.  We could separate, one inside and one outside.  We could play poker for it... the list goes on.  In reality, as far as I can tell, the actual answer is: all of it.   I am responsible for making sure it all gets done. 

Hold on now!  How is that team work?  You have all the work, what does she have?  Well, she has all the work as well.  You entered into a real relationship where you both share responsibility for everything. If the lawn doesn't get mowed, it isn't her fault any less than it is yours.  If the dishes aren't done, you are just as much at fault as she is.  Yes, you are quite capable of cleaning.

Take responsibility for everything that needs to be done. Truly work at the entire list.  If you both work on the same thing then you have each other to talk to and keep company.  If you work on separate things, that is fine as well.  Just remember,  if you come in from mowing the lawn and she is still working at the sink, pitch in and help.  The beer after will taste so much better with her by your side.

Also, before you leap at my eyes and spleen for typing in traditional gender roles, ket us remember that I am trying to help men be better husbands. The first step in breaking gender roles is for all people to realize they don't have to define you. 

My wife can weed whack better than anyone. 

I'm off to make potatos for dinner.

Application of Linguistic Principles

Oh my!  Cast your gaze upon the overly large words in that title!  English, like so many other languages, is a massive beast.  Most words have at least one other word that can be used in their place with a bit of brute force.  The fact that a word can be understood in a particular position does not mean it is the proper use of the word.  Even song writers are becoming lazy and are setting poor examples.  The first guy to approach me with the question, "Can I have your daughter?" will find himself quite saddened by the response he receives.  I am going to have a daughter shortly, so this seems like a perfect example of poor life choices brought to us by music.

I imagine there are a few people rolling their eyes at this point and calling me names for being fixated on grammar.  It is possible that, even now, they are wildly typing on their phones to their friends about how much they "H8 GRAMer naTZEES."  I am, surely fatally, wounded by this attack on my life choices.  I will now limp away to hide with my personal loathing of idiots who can not be bothered to type complete, and properly spelled, words.  Let us consider the query for a moment.  You would like my acceptance, encouragement, and permission, to request my daughters hand in marriage.  Your care, however, in choosing your words is significantly lacking.  If you are unable to use a word properly, can I really be expected to trust you in taking care of my daughter?  For the people "H8"-ing things: we have developed full qwerty keyboards on our phones now; the cause for you to shorten words has been removed, stop being lazy.  Finally, if you are unable to determine what to capitalize, please remember that a special portion of the Internet was created for you; return to AOL with all haste and never darken my comment section with your filth.

With the continued popularity of Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, and other similar services, people seem to forget the beauty and inherent variety in the language.  Great artists spent years writing love stories and sonnets.  People carefully crafted stories and wrote them into books for all to enjoy.  Your words are an opportunity to demonstrate your intelligence.  More importantly, the right words have the power to make your lady aware of how much you care for her. 

Do not <3 your lady.  Really go for it all; risk carpal tunnel and type the whole word out.
 
I have never seen anything truly amazing with a title resembling "DUD3-n-GRL!!!1"

The Dark Art

He viewed his prey, laying there, waiting.  He took his time and selected the knife carefully.  It needed to be sharp, it needed to be the right length.  He positioned the victim on the board carefully making sure the grooves would catch anything that ran off the side.  He brought the knife up and down in firm, fluid, strokes.  Slowly and carefully he chopped the onion up into small squares and added it to the pot.  The soup would be delicious...

WAIT!  Don't Go!  It's just cooking!  Yes, my friend, you can do it too!  Cooking is a very important skill for anyone to have.  Without being able to cook, you are doomed to paying a large amount for just about any Italian food worth eating.  However, with a little time, a halfway horrible cook can still produce a decent soup.  A reasonable one can do much more.

Cooking is easy enough.  Take a pan, add food, heat and stir until food is combined and appears to be cooked.  Once you get a few basics down, you can start experimenting and working on foods you like.  In addition, try finding someone who doesn't appreciate a home cooked meal.  My wife likes my food so much that if there is cooking to be done at home, I am usually doing it.  Surprisingly, it is fun once you start.

Try something easy to start with:
-Take 2 slices of bread and butter them on one side each
-Take 3-4 slices of cheese and place them in-between the slices of bread, butter side out
-Heat pan to Medium-High-ish and spray with cooking spray or add a small amount of butter to make pan shiny.
-Place sandwich in pan

-Wait a minute or two then use fork or flat object (or even a spatula if you have one) to flip sandwich over.
-Wait a couple more minutes then remove sandwich to plate.

Congratulations, you have cooked a meal!  Offer it to your significant other, then make yourself another one.

If you find this was well received, try making a soup next.  Soup is easy to make and pretty forgiving when adding flavors and trying something different.

I recommend Italian soups for starters.  Garlic and tomato are pretty familiar to most bachelors and it is easy to tell when you have enough of both in a soup.  Since we are working to end the existence of the bad bachelor (the kind who doesn't want to be one, not the kind that does), small changes will help more than sweeping ones.


One last word of advice: If your wife says "Let's have [insert fast food chain name here] tonight," don't argue.

Flowers

Well now you have done it... You screwed up and your SO (Significant Other) is upset with you.  So, flowers right?  Wrong!  Sure, it sounds like the right thing; you screwed up so you get them something nice to help make up for it.  The only problem here is that it lessens the effect flowers can have at other times.  Worse yet, if you do it enough, they will start seeing flowers as a sign that you have done something you know you are going to be in trouble for ("Uh oh, he's got flowers again").  Remember when you bought them flowers for a first date?  How about on a holiday or a birthday?  If you buy them flowers because of the wings you spilled on the couch too, it just wont have the same effect anymore ("Happy Birthday, dear! Here's some more of what I got you when I screwed up!") Bottom line: Don't use a gift as a way out.  If you want to give them a gift, give them a gift.  Don't give them gifts because you think it will soften the blow or decrease the time they are angry.

A flower is a simple gift that shows thought about a person.  It doesn't have to be roses; they don't have to be expensive (though showing up with a handful of dandelions is probably not the best move).  When properly thought out, flowers can be a wonderful surprise that can brighten your SO's day.  Since flowers do not cost much, they are something that you can use on a somewhat regular basis to let your lady know you care.  I have never seen my wife complain about getting flowers.  I have seen her get confused when I tell her she received flowers because it was Thursday and therefor she needed flowers.  It is perfectly okay to have your lady be confused by a good surprise.  Try it: on your way home tomorrow, stop somewhere, buy some flowers, take them home, present them to your lady.  When she asks why, tell her the truth: "Because you deserve them."  If you have taken the time to think about them, they have made a decent impression on your life.  If you are willing to buy them flowers, I would say they deserve them, wouldn't you?

As for what you should do when you are in trouble?  Try a heartfelt apology.  It sucks having to deal with all the consequences of your life choices, but in the end, "I am sorry I got wing sauce on the couch," is better than "No really, I did not do anything wrong this time!"

Limits

Why does your SO feel it necessary to clean when you don't?  They have a lower threshold for a mess than you do.  A simple way to think about this is the kitchen sink.  Some people can not deal with any dishes in the sink.  Other people can deal with dishes piled 3 feet high in the sink.  Some people don't care as long as the Glade Spray can cover the smell...  If your SO has no problem with 4 plates in the sink, but when you add a fifth they demand the dishes be done, they have a 4 dish threshold.  To deal with this, you could simply wash a dish every time you hit 4 dishes and then you wont exceed the threshold, or you could do them all when you hit 5 (the trick being to start cleaning before they have  a chance to say anything).

You need to be aware of your own thresholds as well.  If you know that you can only deal with 2 dishes in the sink, while they can deal with 4, they aren't putting 4 dishes in the sink to spite you; they do it because until they hit 5 dishes, they don't think about it.  If it really bothers you that much, clean the dishes so that the antagonist is gone, then when you are calm - and preferably when they are getting ready to put more dishes in the sink - talk with them about how the excess dishes make you feel.  It may seem stupid, but really it is just a conversation.  If you feel too stupid to bring it up, maybe that is a sign to re-evaluate your own thresholds and decide if they need to be adjusted.  Either way, don't expect change overnight.

Thresholds exist for all people in all things.  If you are really into sports, your threshold for watching or playing them is probably high, several hours or more.  If you are in a hospital, your tolerance for the channel that only displays relaxing pictures and ads for hospital sandwiches, which you are not allowed to have, is likely to be low - 5 minutes or less.  Motivation can adjust this threshold to some extent.  If you know the doctor won't let you go home until your blood pressure drops, and the big game is coming up in a day or two, you might watch that Lies of Sandwich channel so that you can watch the big game later.

I, personally, have a chin-up threshold of 0.  If I have to do more than 0 chin-ups, I am going to need a lot of motivation. 

Division of labor

Take a moment and think about the last time you had fun cleaning the house.  I don't mean sarcastically; I mean, when was the last time you truly enjoyed cleaning the house?  Remember the thrill you felt while you were vacuuming?  What about the sheer bliss of scrubbing the bathroom?  Not to mention the thing you found under the refrigerator (was it breathing?), wasn't that exciting?  All these fun memories that never occurred.

Let us really think about cleaning... If you aren't already cringing, you should be.  Cleaning is boring and infuriating.  On the long list of things you could be doing, it is probably at the bottom - next to flossing your eye-sockets - in terms of desire.  This is perfectly normal and healthy attitude. 

Now, I am going to let you in on a secret.  Your significant other feels largely the same as you do when it comes to cleaning.  They don't like it either.  Really!  They do not see pink fluffy bunnies all over, nor do they hear happy music when they think of cleaning.  They think about strangling you with the sock they just picked up off the bookcase where it seemed like a good place to rest it for a moment while you took off the other one.  Sadly, however, you forgot to take it along with its mate to place them both in the hamper.  Now you have a sad sock-family and an angry Significant Other (SO from here on).

With so much to do at home and so much to do at work, it can often be overwhelming to think about it all.  Once you start, you rapidly become disinclined to work on it because you see there is no way you can get it all done in one day.  This is especially true if you are working on it by yourself.  So we come to our next bit of advice: Divide the labor.

To be clear, I do not mean that one of you should take all the home chores and one should do all the money earning.  It also should not be about trying to find an even amount of work.  Equality is a moving target.  A particular responsibility can be easy to work with until something changes.  The trick is to break each item down to its simplest actions and then look at what can be done and where some logical break points are.  For example: I really used to hate doing laundry.  When I helped my wife with it though, it wasn't so bad.  So what changed?  Well, I found that it wasn't laundry as a whole that I hated.  I was okay with running the loads down, checking pockets, applying stain stuff to any stains, sorting and running loads, swapping to the dryer, and bringing it all back up.  I loathed folding and hanging.  When my wife and I worked together on it though, she usually watched tv and folded while I ran the loads up and down.  Suddenly the work was not quite as bad!  I ran the loads around which saved her from knee pain from the evil stairs.  She folded and put items on hangars which meant no hangar shaped wall dents.  Then I would hang the clothes and put away the folded items (unless she got to it first). 

Try your best to identify what household chore most annoys your significant other and then see if it is something you can do instead or something you can assist with.  Once you have identified something to help with, and a way to help, then do it.  The trick here is to try not to think about how much you hate it as well.  Think about how much of a relief it will be to them when they realize they don't have to do that part.

The beginning of the end

As with anything, we must always start with a beginning.  Since I am newly (7 months) married and will be a father in about 4 months, I seem to have a lot of new beginnings suddenly.  Since this started off with a discussion of how I am making my wife's coworkers jealous, I will start with the proper treatment of a lady...  I am sure this will take a while. I also know that I will eventually get to saying that making your lady pay for the first date at anything with a jingle is a whole mess of wrong; this will anger some people.  As a man, I like things simple.  Thus we arrive at our beginning:
Buy a scalp massager.  It looks like a whisk with one end cut off, and it will make your significant other feel incredibly relaxed.  Buy it and use it well...