“Good wife”, “good girlfriend”

Last week, I was out of town on business. The week before that, I had a few things to get ready before the trip. Meanwhile, Wife spent several days telling me she was going to iron a week’s worth of shirts for me. She also told D all about these plans as well, and two days before I left D wrote to me as follows:

“It's odd; Wife spoke again of her responsibility to iron your shirts as a ‘good’ wife. It came to me that there simply are no ‘good’ girlfriends. I am myself, and it either is enough or not. That's a very lovely freedom. I would far rather have the reality of our love than the form; and a certain disregard for convention seems healthy. Of course I don't mind ironing your shirts, but I would rather the job be part of being together with joy, not some calculation designed to impress you. Who knows; maybe you will iron mine one day!”

I replied, ...

“I had never thought about the question whether there is such a thing as a ‘good girlfriend’ (taking the word in its adult, not adolescent, sense) but you make a good point. Honestly, I wish my relationship with Wife could have been characterized from the beginning as ‘being together with joy, not some calculation designed to impress.’ I remember that every so often when we were first married, Wife would tell me how disappointed in her I must be (trying, as usual, to manage my own feelings as well as hers) because she ‘hadn't been much of a wife to me lately.’ I had to ask her what on earth she meant by that bizarre-sounding phrase; it turned out that this phrase was a synonym for ‘We haven't been having a lot of sex lately.’ I can't tell you how hurt and offended I was by those words, encapsulating as they did the assumptions (1) that the solitary defining feature of a wife is that she puts out, (2) that any shortfall in how much sex we were having must by definition be her responsibility, (3) that I would measure how satisfied or disappointed I was in the marriage solely by counting scores on a tally sheet without regard to any other factors, (4) that ... I can hardly go on. It made me almost speechless. Then when I would object to Wife that she owed it to herself not to say or think things so demeaning, she could not understand: this was simply the way things were. When I got more frustrated and raised my voice, she concluded that not only must I be -- by her definition and by her count -- disappointed with her as an inadequate wife, but I was angry and yelling at her too. From here I think the line to ‘You have no respect for me and you are always yelling at me’ is more or less a straight one, ... albeit quite long.”

D’s next e-mail expanded on the thought.

“I understand and sympathize with your hurt and dismay regarding Wife's evaluation of what a ‘good wife’ does, but I'm not surprised. Wife has never felt intellectually equal to you, and she has made almost no effort to learn anything about what you find fascinating; even reading a science-fiction novel [‘Speaker for the Dead’] is asking too much. She has extremely low self-esteem, and while you are shy, I don't believe you suffer from the same sense of inadequacy that she feels almost every day. Wife has made little effort to overcome and work through the resentment and pain her childhood hurts have left, and so...she sees herself in very narrow terms as a wife. I think most people would be surprised to realize how small a role sexuality plays in many long term relationships such as ours. I'm not denying that I know more of romance and Wife more of practicalities (that schedule again) but there is more wholeness to our relationship than that dichotomy suggests. Girlfriends are not glamorous creatures who never have to clean house or do dishes; I am unapologetically domestic. I just don't think it's the biggest thing in life. By definition, I have to develop my own life and career, and it's my mind and spirit you treasure, not being a Don Juan or an adolescent. Monotony and indifference can destroy a marriage from the inside; a relationship like ours simply dissolves under their weight. So no, there is no ‘good girlfriend’ for you. There is just a woman, a whole person with brain and hands. If I'm to be loved by you, I'd better learn something, risk more than I think I can, care something, become something.”

I can always count on D to take any simple thought like this to the next level.