Sex, Suitcases, and Tighty-Whiteys: Why I Can’t Let Go

As a woman, I’m very concerned about staying attractive to my husband.  I prioritize keeping in shape, wearing clothing he finds attractive on me, and even going so far as to consider his leanings when I’m at the hair salon.  Judge me, call me old-fashioned, or whatever, but I’m the last one he sees when he goes to bed at night and the first one he sees in the morning.  It means something to me when he thinks that we’ve still got it after all these years.

That’s not to say that there are not a lot of temptations out there.  He goes off to work every day and is confronted with attractive women who don’t ask him to plunge the clogged toilet.  Turn on the TV, and there are  Victoria’s Secret models having air sex, no strings attached, and certainly no time wasted with foreplay.  And there’s lots of business travel with his job these days—nameless hotel rooms, an extra beer at dinner with the guys, and stopping for a last drink in the lobby bar instead of going up to a lonely hotel room.

I think it’s tough to be a man in a world where sex is everywhere, but men are expected to keep their ride in the garage for occasional joyrides when we happen to be in the ‘it’s ok to touch me’ mood.

I don’t find fault in a man’s weaknesses.  I think men and their lust are akin to how I feel at a dessert buffet after I’ve fasted for a few days (okay, even if I’ve skipped lunch).  Do I need to say that I’d fall off the diet wagon and my behavior would be vaguely reminiscent of Cookie Monster?  I’m not saying women are falling all over him or he’s getting propositioned on a regular (or even not so regular) basis, but why not safeguard all I can?  After all, we’ve never had a house fire, but we still make it a priority to change the batteries in the fire alarm on a regular basis.

So being conscious of the efforts I continually make to still catch his eye every once in awhile and the need to keep things fresh for both of us, I felt completely within my rights to change him from tighty whiteys to colored boxer briefs a few months ago.   As expected, I received no complaints.  He’s a generally amiable guy.

But here’s where things get a little neurotic. I haven’t ditched those darn tighty whiteys.  First of all, do you really think that they have much of a market at Goodwill? Generally, I feel guilty hanging on to clothing that is in good shape and could be used by others.  But used underwear does not evoke in me the same feelings of corporate responsibility for the greater good of the earth.

Instead of sitting in a dingy bin at Goodwill, eight pairs are stuffed in the bottom back of his jeans/shorts/swim trunks drawer.  Why eight pairs you ask?  Eight pairs of underwear are about the maximum a person would expect to need on a weeklong business trip, with one or two extras in case of accidental loss or damage.

Last week, I was helping him fold his shirts and throw the last things into his suitcase for a trip to Chicago.  I nonchalantly swapped out the boxer briefs for the tighty whiteys. When he looked at me sideways, I tried to veil my motives by saying that tighty whiteys take up less space in his suitcase.  I think he saw right through me.  He humbly humored my packing and was unflustered by my clearly less than altruistic motives.

So here’s where it’s at.  I have never thought that my husband is having an affair, but I don’t want him to get a sense of false confidence.  After all, after twelve years of tighty whiteys, I was pretty enthusiastic about the switch to boxer briefs.  After such an encouraging reception,  I don’t want my husband at a conference in some far away city like Orlando or New York thinking he’s all that in his red boxer briefs when he has the convenience of a hotel room and a tipsy woman making beer eyes at him.  Though you can get statistics to say anything you want them to, it’s generally estimated that a full 25% of men have affairs, give or take a few percentage points.

And I’d just like to know how many of those 25% were wearing tighty whiteys.  I would venture a guess that it was significantly less than 25%.  Knowing you’ve got tighty whiteys on?  It’s like a vote of ‘no confidence’ in your pants.  Regardless of whether he removes his black dress socks before he takes off his pants (what a non-starter to see a man in only black dress socks and underwear), as he sits there at the lobby bar, he’ll still know that he’s been stripped of his boxer-brief edge.

And I’ll sleep better miles away knowing that his shirts arrived relatively unwrinkled, sandwiched between the tighty whiteys.

Men Have Their Caves. Why Can’t We?

Have you ever noticed how when you bare your heart and soul to a man he retreats?  Into his cave.  And doesn’t come out.  For a very, very long time.  Or if he’s going through a personal funk, he draws inward, locks you out, refuses to answer the door.  If he’s your husband, he gives you that look when you walk into the room—that look that says, “talk to me or come near me, and I will totally blow up at you.”  And if he’s your boyfriend, he stops calling, stops e-mailing, doesn’t return your efforts to reach out.

And you sit there…stumped.  And wondering.  What did I say?  What’s wrong?  And why won’t he let me help?  Why won’t he let me in?

After you’ve lain awake for a couple of nights, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure him out, he reappears…as if nothing has happened, says, “Hey, you want to go out to that new bistro tonight and hear that band play?”

Did I imagine it all? You ask yourself.  Maybe he’s right, and I read into things, and nothing was wrong at all.

Chances are, 90 percent of the time or more, you did not imagine it, he is not right, you were not reading into things, and something was definitely wrong.  But men aren’t like us.  Where we question ourselves and every girlfriend who will listen when something goes wrong in our lives, they deny and avoid, pull back into the safety of the man cave where women can’t get to them and make them talk or feel…well, most of the time.

But every once in awhile, whether it’s due to lack of sleep or desperation, they seek us out, practically beg for our understanding, our empathy, our love in spite of every foolish, wayward, abnormal thing they’ve ever done.  And we have to be there.  Fail to be there, and you’ve set yourself back six months at least.  Because men don’t forget these things.  Their pride is easily wounded.  Reject them when they’re down, and they’re not likely to come crawling back again anytime soon.

So what happens when you’re having one of those days when the empathy isn’t coming or when he’s the one putting you into the funk?  Where’s our cave, I ask?

Well, ladies, the hard truth is…we don’t have one.  Just try to exercise your right to a cave, and watch what happens.  He will follow you into every room, claiming you don’t listen to him or respect him.  He will tell you for months afterward that “you’re never there for me.”  Or he may call you four or five times a day or send you kind of heartbreakingly desperate e-mails, rife with the words of love he thinks you want to hear (and you do want to hear them—that’s the kicker).  And if you don’t respond to these entreaties, ladies, what will he do?  That’s right…into his own cave he goes.

He just will not let you have your cave.  In fact, the whole idea that you even want one, much less have one, absolutely terrifies him.

So what’s up with the double standard?

It’s really not their fault there is one, so let’s start there.  Men are not typically raised to be empathetic, open, or giving.  To behave with that kind of attitude puts them at great emotional risk.  You may be asking yourself now, Well, I put myself at emotional risk all the time!  Yes, you do.  But you have that wonderful asset called girlfriends.  No matter what happens in your life, one of those women in your network of mutual rescuers will be there for you, prop you up, and push you on your way again.

You don’t honestly think men go to their male friends and say, “Man, I don’t think my girlfriend loves me the way she used to, and I’m really bummed about it,” or “My wife has been really down for a couple of months.  Do you think I did something wrong?  What should I do?”  Now, I do hate making generalizations, and there may be a man or two out there who asks these kinds of questions of his buddies, but if there is, I’d like to meet him.

The sad reality is, ladies, all these guys have is you.  It’s not just sex and companionship they want (though I know it seems like that at times).  Whether they will openly admit it or not, men need women for the emotional sustenance they provide.  We are the one place they generally feel pretty safe going to when life is a mess, that is, if you haven’t attempted to build a cave for yourself in the backyard.

If you have, however, my advice is to fill in the hole and put away the shovel…or at least build the cave at a single girlfriend’s house.  Because while the guys may indeed behave like Neanderthals at times, they really do need and want you on a level they don’t understand (and probably don’t want to understand) themselves.  Assume your role as caregiver to the cave dweller with love and care, and when you need your own cave, just make sure your husband isn’t around when you retreat into it…and remember to be back by dinnertime.

I’ve Got It Under Control: A Woman’s Guide to Male Speak

Have you ever noticed that men, generally speaking, don’t like to be questioned?  And I’m not talking the “Where have you been for the past four hours?” type questions.  I’m talking about any questions.  Dare to ask, and you’ll get one of two answers: the “oh shit” stare or the “I’ve got it under control” answer.  With my husband, it’s usually the latter.  “Are you going to change the oil in my car today?”  A simple “yes” or “no” answer is all that’s required, right?  Not so.  “I’ve got it under control,” he says.  What does that mean?  Does it men “yes” or “no?”  Or does it mean something else entirely?

I know I’m not alone here.  One of my best friends, who has been married just under two years, has already had this experience.  “Men do not like being probed,” she tells me about four months after their son is born.  She has contacted me to try to unravel her new husband’s frequent response of “I’ve got it under control.”  She recounts to me how she walked into the kitchen one morning to find a bag of breast milk sitting on the counter while her beloved spouse was surfing on the Internet with his iPad, the baby comfortably asleep nearby.  Now as any nursing mother knows, it takes a good 30 minutes to pump out four ounces of milk, and most of us are so time-strapped we’ve even been known to engage in the process while commuting to work.  You would think men would be cognizant of the sacrifice.  As my friend gracefully pointed out when relating this story, “If the damn milk sits out for more than two hours, it goes bad, and you know how freaking time consuming it is to pump that stuff!”

Yes, I do.  Her husband, however, does not, or so we think at first.

My dear friend began to question the man: “What are you going to do with it?”

He became frustrated, told her not to worry about it, that he was “handling” it.

And my friend wondered, What the hell did that mean?

Being the direct kind of creature she is (after all, she’s a woman), she said, “What do you mean?  Should I warm it up?   Where are you going to put it?  Do you need an ice pack?”

Of course, that line of questioning, unbeknownst to her, was going to get her nowhere.  All he said was, “I’ve got it under control.”

My friend’s response to that was to take the milk pack off the counter and put it in the refrigerator.

So what does the “I’ve got it under control” answer mean anyway?  Because it obviously does not mean “I’ve got it under control.”  The unrefrigerated bag of breast milk is a case in point.

We must dig deeper because, as my friend noted, “Men are masters of avoiding and diverting.”

And mental sleuths though women are, we really cannot read minds.  And how indeed are we supposed to figure anything out if these men don’t answer simple questions?

Never fear, ladies.  I have the answers.

Because this phenomenon is not unique to husbands and boyfriends.  My dad does it.  Hell, my lawyer does it.  But the reality is, to a man, there is no such thing as an innocent question.  Unfortunately, women unwittingly ask simple things like the following, expecting simple, straightforward answers:

1)      Are you going to fix the tractor today?

2)      Why is the milk sitting out on the counter?

3)      When are you going to remodel the basement?

4)      Where would you like to go on vacation?

They seem like innocent questions, yet they can stifle the male brain for hours.  Why?  Well, the reality is that men, generally speaking, find questions threatening.  Though women have often been blamed for “reading into things,” I would like to suggest, ladies, that the gentlemen are projecting.  Never heard that term?  Time to take Pscyh 101.

The trick is to share information about yourself first. It loosens them up, makes them more comfortable with the concept of talking.  Or ask the question in a way that takes their opinions into account, gives them an opportunity to share expertise (i.e. instead of “why are you doing this,” ask “what do you think about doing this.”)

So, let’s try the above questions again, keeping the male brain in mind:

1)      I really like the new tractor. It’s fun to drive.

2)      That’s interesting that the breast milk is sitting on the counter. What do you think about breast milk sitting on the counter?

3)      It will be wonderful when the basement is finished.  I am dreaming about how it will look.

4)      I’d like to go to Egypt on vacation.  What do you think about that?  What do you think our chances are of getting shot?

Just remember, under no circumstance should you ever use the word “feel” when asking a question.  Never ask “How do you feel about going to my mother’s for the weekend?” or “How do you feel about our relationship?” The word “feel” gives men the willies, no matter how it’s used.  You will never get any useful information out of man by asking how he feels.  Trust me.

If you get the “I’ve got it under control” answer, that’s a clear indicator you’ve just achieved communication failure.  Because what “I’ve got it under control” really means is “when you question me, it makes me feel like you don’t trust me and don’t believe I can handle things.”  Of course, it might also mean, “I forgot to put the breast milk back in the fridge, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to admit I screwed up.”

So, ladies, remember: share yourself, and give him an opportunity to offer his expertise, and you’ll get a lot farther.  He might even take out the trash for you.