By Alicia Charboneau
What does it mean to be “wifey” these days? What happens when you get stuck between the advice your mom gave you when you got married and lost in your own idea of what it means to be a wife? Well, for me it collided into a shit storm of whatever statement this is:
“I can’t wife. I seriously didn’t sign up for this shit. I mean, I know I said vows and shit, but seriously, something has to change. I just feel like we should just change the label to “person who does a bunch of random shit at dinner, somehow producing us all food, because I mean, I was going to eat anyway.”
Before we all get into what kind of marriage I have and start gossiping about how my husband must suck and I can’t seem to get my life together, think about what kind of day and age we live in. We’re stuck between the labels of wives past and the aspirations of wives present. Some of us are wifey. Some of us domestic partners. Some of us best friends who just got married. Some of us give 190% at wife-ing, complete with the steak dinner and b.j for dessert and some of us sling spam sandwiches and grumble before sinking into the couch to catch up on the latest crap on Netflix. I’m not one or the either. I’m a middle ground wifey who on that particular day had a wife identity crisis. So what happened after I said that? Nothing. I took a deep breath and carried on. Wife-ing. My husband went back to whatever husband thing he was doing and an awkward silence crept up. He didn’t want to encroach after I had just had the equivalent of a two-year-old fit out of my mouth and I couldn’t believe the words that fell out randomly while making dinner. But they did. And it was because I was overwhelmed, tired and hungry.
So what do you do when you don’t want to wife but you enjoyed getting married and want whatever that means but you seriously can’t deal with this having-to-make-dinner-every-night-shit?
What do you do when you’re seriously fed up with dishes, and babies, and laundry and picking up and planning? OH THE PLANNING OF EVERYTHING. Not to mention the family outings, seasonal shit that somehow is only our responsibility and OHMYGOD apparently it’s too much to ask anyone to PICK UP THEIR OWN SHIT.
What do you do?
Shhh. It’s a secret. Lean in real close… Closer… Ok good. I’ll tell you what you do. You take a deep breath and rub your eyes. THEN you tell your husband that apparently that’s how you feel. You don’t apologize. You explain that you feel like the roles have taken over the marriage and something should change. You look him dead in his eyes and say,
“ssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttt. I’m soooooooo tired.” Make sure you breathe it out like a huge sigh of relief too. Finish it up with “I think if you just helped out more maybe I could breathe. It’s just starting to suck and I married you and I don’t want it to suck. How could we not suck?”
And no guarantees, but maybe he’ll respond similarly to mine. His response was,
“I guess we can be like, what like… gay people do… domestic partners that is. I mean, what is the clear definition of a ‘wife’s duties’ anyway? Like baking and shit. You’ve never really been good at that anyway. What’s giving up a few of those things for your sanity?”
So. That’s the story on how I gave up my wife title. At most I am a medium wife. As in that statement is a verb statement. Idk if that is even a thing because I am only so so at writing. Let’s add it to the list of other things I am mediocre at. Maybe we all should just cash the wife thing in, because really… what’s a “wife” anyway?
