Thursday, February 27, 2014

Who Can I Blame?

Alright, this one requires that we all agree on one basic truth. Marriage is hard. If you are one of those weirdos who pictures marriage as doves landing on your shoulder as the couple sings duets then move on, this one is not for you. Marriage is hard and we all at numerous points in the marriage get to a place where we have to start asking some questions. The questions are probably varied from one marriage to another, but I think we can all agree that they basically take one of two paths.

Path One is the easiest and certainly makes you feel real peachy about yourself at the time. Path One is simply putting all blame on your spouse.  “My wife says I don’t do enough to help around the house, but last week I washed my pop tart dish one time. How come she didn’t notice that, huh?” This path is simple. Short term it feels awesome because it allows you to feel right and blame your jerk of a spouse for everything. Long term it’s no good because it either leads to divorce or the worst life of all time.

Path Two is hard on the ego but awesome on the marriage. Obviously it’s just the reverse of Path One. When there is an issue in the marriage you look for ways that you can improve. This requires choosing daily to love your spouse more than yourself. It’s the path that all the marriages you are jealous of take, but holy moly it’s hard. It means you must not only accept that your spouse isn’t supposed to be perfect but also accept that you need to be the one to change. Bleh.

So, Path One only works for those who really enjoy paying lawyers to take away half of your possessions and give them to the person you now hate most on the earth. Path Two requires admitting that your spouse has lots and lots of faults, but actively choosing to love them anyway. Path One sucks, but Path Two seems really difficult.

This is why I’ve come up with Path Three. In Path Three you don’t blame yourself or your spouse. Path Three is, blame someone else. This could really be anyone and it might not actually fix anything but it also at least focuses your distaste for your life of you and your spouse and onto to some other poor, innocent sap. This person can really be anyone. Good options would be one or all of your parents, another couple that grate on both of your nerves but you inexplicably continue to hang out with, or your boss who just won’t let you catch a break.

So, who did I pick for my scapegoat along this Path?

Batman.

Yes, Batman.

Much like most boys, I grew up enamored with the awesomeness that was Batman. He was a detective, who had amazing toys, dressed like a boss, constantly had beautiful women interested in him, knew how to beat up people who knew karate, lived in an a mansion with a secret hideout cave underneath, and had Scrooge McDuck levels of money. If the creators of Superman cheated by giving Superman all the powers then the creators of Batman cheated by giving him all of the cool.

There wasn’t a moment that I decided that I wished I was Batman. I think it was just a given and slowly became part of my being. I wasn’t the kind of kid who wore Batman shirts at all times and plastered my walls with Batman posters because that is the exact opposite of what Batman would have done! Seven year old Batman would have beaten up the teenage bully across the street, swiped a pack of Camels out of the bully’s pocket, and smoked the whole pack while he did his daily routine of 100 sit ups and 100 push ups.

Somewhere along the way my brain decided that this exactly what a women would want. If Batman is the very definition of awesome then I need to be as much like Batman as possible. Now, I can’t exactly afford a Batmobile, I have no idea how a grappling gun works, I can’t afford a mansion, I don’t think there are any caves in my area, and mysteries are hard.

So I had to focus on Batman’s attributes that I could attain and I wasn’t even very good at those. In my mind a real man is a loner, speaks rarely, doesn’t deal well with his emotions or with past hurts,  and mostly shows his feelings physically. If Batman doesn’t like you he doesn’t say much to you and then he punches you. If Batman does like then he doesn’t say much to you and then he makes the sweet, costumed love to you.

You can see where this became an issue once married. Girls in comics might like the dark and mysterious guy who thinks emotions and talking are overrated but real girls don’t go for this. I mean, it might work great for picking girls up in the bar but not once you actually are living life with a person. Wives don’t dress in cat themed clothing while fighting crime at night and they also don’t like to be ignored.

So, I’ve decided Batman is my scapegoat. I could take Path B and try and admit that I need to really focus and pray through engaging my wife’s heart more often. I could take Path B and look at each individual situation and assess how I can better love my wife. I could take Path B and pursue my wife even harder than I did when we were dating.


But that’s all really hard and it’s just way easier to blame Batman and move on. Maybe I need a new role model. I always thought Ferris Bueller was pretty cool as a kid, I bet he’d be perfect!