I Hate My Wife: A Love Story
We could not have a healthy relationship if it was sexy-time all the time. Nor would it work if we were constantly angry with each other. Life and love happens in the middle. This is what we work on.
Wifey-pants and my anniversary is on Saturday. We have been together now going on nigh some 37 years. We were living in sin for 19 years and now have been living sinless, as it were, for 18. Next year we will achieve equilibrium and will celebrate that milestone accordingly.
People often ask us how we have kept our relationship going strong for so long. Outside of the obvious like: we genuinely enjoy each other’s company, we make each other laugh (we met at the Groundlings School Of Improvisation in NYC1), and our individual strengths and weaknesses compliment each other. I am sure there are some weaknesses that compound on each other, but the same could be said about our strengths, so I am calling it a wash. I am sure there are some other generalizations I could make about what it takes to have a long lasting relationship, but I don’t think anything has mattered more than one very simple truth:
We give ourselves space to hate each other.
Woah, woah, woah! What the hell is going on? How is it possible to have a long, trusting, and loving relationship with hate as part of the equation? Well, we understand that we are each human2, and so allow each other to be human.
The way I feel about my wife ebbs and flows. Sometimes I really love my wife. She won’t have done anything different, I just—love her. Everything she does is great: she’s funny, she’s smart, she’s sexy. What’s not to love? But then there are moments when she drives me positively bonkers. She won’t have done anything different, she just—drives me nuts. Everything she does is annoying: she’s not funny, she does dumb stuff, and she chews her food too loud (or some other totally minor irritant). These two wildly different and unprovoked emotions simply happen. They have no rhyme or reason. I can’t control it. They just… are.
The movement of my feelings between these two extremes looks like a wave. It crests at the highpoint with all the gushy love business3 and troughs at the lowpoint with all that ugly contempt4. My feelings for my wife slosh within this wave height5. It look like this:
But here is the thing: wifey-pants has a similar wave pattern, the same crest and trough, towards me. The wavelength6 and frequency7 are different, but she is definitely moving between “my husband is a god” and “my husband is moron”. When you overlay the two wave patterns on top of one another it looks like this:
Coming to understand this phenomenon really helped us out. It explained our behavior as a couple that before didn’t make any sense. The overlaying wave patterns revealed some interesting realities that we had been experiencing but couldn’t put our finger on.
LOVE/LOVE
When we are both cresting on the love wave, well… grab a hose, the kids have gotten a bit randy. This is when we swipe things off the table in lusty passion8 and make weird noises. It’s where PDAs are perfectly acceptable. It is all mushy and romantic and sparkly eyed.
HATE/HATE
When we both find ourselves troughing, well… grab a hose. This is when we get prickly with each other. If we’re going to get into a fight, this is when we are both perfectly agreeable to allow that to happen. Voices get raised, names are called, pot and pans go flying9 and we make weird noises. It is not pretty. It’s all gritted teeth and rolling eyes. Ugh.
LOVE/HATE
This is a weird place to be because one of us will be angry and the other will find it extremely cute and endearing. Nothing stokes the flames of hatred more than when the person who you are trying to get into a fight with finds you very sexy. I got to tell you, you have to really want to get in a fight if it can’t be diffused with sexy-time.
The reality of all these crests and troughs is that it is not where we spend the majority of our time. We are not constantly lustily or angrily throwing things across the room and making weird noises. Most of the time we live between the two. If we chop off the highs and lows we get a better understanding of where we are spending most of our emotional lives together: nearer equilibrium10.
This is the place where daily life happens—outside of the crests and troughs. This is where we plan for our meals, do the dishes, tell the other to take out the trash for the third time, finally take out the trash, ask if our outfit looks good, give directions, ignore directions, and all the other mundane things that make up actually living with each other.
We could not have a healthy relationship if it was all sexy-time all the time. Nor would it work if we were constantly angry with each other. Life and love happens in the middle. This is what we work on. As we have learned to live with each other the amplitude of our wave patterns have softened11. The distance between cresting in love and troughing in hate has reduced. But the two extremes have not softened both toward equilibrium. If anything we crest at the same height, but we don’t trough nearly as low. Equilibrium has risen higher in love.
As the years have gone on our wave patterns continue to adjust and soften. Equilibrium rises higher in love. We don’t trough nearly as much as we used to. This probably has something to do with knowing how to fight with each other. One of us is usually wrong, must concede and apologize. Hugs and forgiveness ensue. We can usually, now, avoid all the pomp and circumstance and get to the hugs and forgiveness part much quicker than in the past. After a while fighting gets pretty boring. Especially when you are sparring with the same partner. There are more productive uses of our time. We spend far more time cresting. No doubt there are troughs: my wife can still drive me nuts and I her, but now it’s kinda cute (maybe).
Building a strong relationship isn’t easy. Sure, it’s easy to ride the crest when things are good and it's easy to call it quits when things hit the trough. But crests and troughs are only a small part of it. The rest of it is where the work is. If it is something you want, then it needs to be something you work on.
Ultimately I need to get out of this relationship what I want - otherwise what am I even doing this for? Thankfully wifey-pants wants to give me what I need. On the other end she needs to get out of this what she wants. I just so happen to want to give her exactly that. Are there concessions in that? Of course. You never get anything by not giving anything. Frankly, I think I am getting way more for the effort I’m putting in.
All of this to say—I love my wife very much (regardless of how often I hate her).
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BUSINESS IDEA: couples therapy through improv. Lot’s of trust is needed and “yes, and” fucking WORKS in a relationship.
Last I checked.
Crest: The highest point of a wave.
Trough: The lowest point of a wave.
Wave Height: The total vertical distance between the crest and trough
Wavelength: The horizontal distance between two crests or troughs.
Frequency: The number of waves that happen in a given time
Truth be told, we never swiped anything off a table in lusty passion. We carefully moved things aside.
Truth be told, we have never thrown anything at each other in a fight. We carefully moved things aside.
Equilibrium: The centerline of a wave, representing the rest position as if there were no wave.
Amplitude: The distance from equilibrium to the crest or trough.
Wife pants here.
I love hate you too.
I love the ebbs and flow. Regardless of the fight when he's almost asleep his had lands on my hip. That's how I know everything is actually okay when we are driving each other nuts. The lows have always made the next round of highs better and last longer. Sometimes its learning something about someone you think you know everything about.