We live in the same house and sleep in the same bed. So when did it become so hard to find time to see my husband?
 Fuse A few weeks ago I found myself sitting across from J., trying to schedule a date night. He was frowning at the calendar on his phone and I was furiously rifling through my planner.
“How about the last weekend in April?” I said.
“I have a tennis tournament and then we have that party. What about the weekend of the fourth?” he said.
“Nope. We have dinner plans on Friday night. You have that match on Saturday and I’ve got that party, and then I’m in Connecticut for a baby shower on Sunday. What about the following weekend? I have an event Friday night, but I’m free Saturday.”
“Well, that’s Mother’s Day weekend, but maybe we can fit in both of our moms on Sunday and the two of us can go to dinner together on Saturday…”
Neither of us actually admitted it out loud, but we were both doing it: literally penciling each other in. Date night tonight? Check with mom re: Sunday brunch. NOTE: Shave legs; wear matching bra and underwear. We were one dangerous step away from scheduling sex.
READ MORE
|
Because you take each other in sickness and in health—and as sleep buddies for life.
 iStockphoto Last week, I was in an office, talking to a co-worker. He was standing in front of a window and the sun beaming in made him fuzzy around the edges so that I couldn’t really make him out. We’d just come from a meeting, and he’d said horrible, derogatory things to me in front of the entire staff. I was blazing mad.
He continued shouting at me in the office, and I shouted back. I wondered how no one else had heard and why people weren’t running towards the commotion. Was anyone going to call security? This guy is nuts. Suddenly he said something that I don’t remember and I snapped. I threw back my arm and hit him square in the face.
“HOLY CRAP!!!” J. shot up in bed like a rocket, holding his nose. “What the hell was that?”
I think I mumbled something. J. jumped out of bed and pounded into the bathroom. I mumbled again. Why the heck was he up and being so loud? I looked at the clock: 3 a.m. Ugh.
“You just PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE,” he called from the bathroom.
Whoops.
READ MORE
|
When I met J.’s ex-girlfriend a few weeks ago, it got me thinking: Should we be wishing our spouse’s exes never existed, or thanking them?
 Aaron Amat I think that there are two groups of people in this world: those who can be friends with an ex, and those who can’t. I am one of the latter.
I call it the ‘dead arm’ effect. When I’m dating you, all’s good. Once we break up, I prefer to pretend you no longer exist. I, quite literally, cut you off. Like a dead arm, withered and shrunken and altogether unnecessary. I don’t care if you were my first love, or if you saved my grandmother from a burning building, or gave me a kidney. If we dated, and then broke up, poof, you need to go away. To a different country, or somewhere further. Like space. I delete your phone number from my phone, erase your birthday from my calendars, pack away or toss (depending on length of relationship and cause of breakup) all photos, gifts, and sentimental tokens from the relationship. You are methodically erased from my life and, before long, I’ve actually forgotten things like your phone number, birthday, favorite song, and then I pretty much do forget you exist, until someone mentions you, always by your nickname: Surf God. Nick the Dick. Nomadic Writer.
READ MORE
|
Will run for shoes.
 iStockphoto My husband is the embodiment of motivation. He’s pretty much a walking cheerleader, healthy and fit and smiling (smiling!) as he drives to the gym. When he says the word ‘cardio,’ it rolls breezily from his lips, sounding like it’s something fun: “Why don’t we get up this morning and do some caaardio?!” When I say ‘cardio,’ it sounds dirty and angry, like a curse word, and I spit it out: “I’d rather pry my eyeballs out of my sockets with a fork than do cardio.” You know, for example.
My husband springs out of bed on Saturday mornings (well, I imagine he does; I’m never actually awake to see him get up) and goes to play tennis. Like, at 9 am. Who does that? Who wakes up—on purpose—to work out? On a weekend? It’s insanity. It’s something my dad used to do when I was growing up, every single Saturday morning, and I thought he was crazy, too. I cannot believe there are two people in this world who will wake up, not at gunpoint, to slog back and forth, back and forth, on a tennis court when there is still dew on the grass. And I cannot believe I am related to both of them.
READ MORE
|
On all the little ways we get back at each other. (With a bonus appearance by Diana Ross.)
 Jupiterimages It was stupid, I knew it, but I was irritated with J. and I just wanted the bag of frozen broccoli to explode in the microwave already.
I can’t remember why I was annoyed with him, but it wasn’t enough to warrant a full-fledge vegetable blowout. Maybe just, you know, a tiny leak of the liquid that always pools in the bottom of those SteamFresh bags. Your standard microwaving mishap.
In relationships, there are two types main of revenge. The first is Soap Opera revenge, grand theatrical displays like spray-painting ‘Chuck is a cheater’ all over Chuck’s car. Or drizzling bleach over his wardrobe and then tossing the whole lot out the window. This is crazy stuff. We’re too boring for this kind of drama. Our revenge is more … pedestrian. The second kind of revenge. I have come to think of it as Microwave Revenge.
READ MORE
|
“I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” — Meat Loaf
 Hemera It seems that, in every relationship, there is a sticking point. A weird, niggling annoyance, like a stubborn hangnail or a splinter. A very big, or very small, issue—always sort of nebulous, but solid enough to pit you against each other. One stubborn, the other pushing.
Our just-big-enough sticking point is On Demand movies. Specifically, On Demand movies that aren’t free.
READ MORE
|
Does the packing part of any vacation inevitably cause a fight between other married couples? Or is it just us?
 Stockbyte We were standing at our gate in the airport, waiting for our boarding group to be called, and we were nervous.
“That guy over there is really eyeing up everyone’s bags,” J. whispered to me. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”
I looked at the guy standing next to the United Airlines podium. He was brutally serious, thick eyebrows furrowed over angry eyes he trained like lasers on the bags of each person who filed past him. Suddenly, he gestured to a woman.
READ MORE
|
Even when you’re married, it’s natural to think members of the opposite sex are attractive. But when I found myself drooling over a bartender—in front of J.—I wondered: Is it ever okay to talk about it?
 If you thought this guy was hot, would you tell your husband? {Eyecandy Images} When a non-chain opens up in our tiny town in the ’burbs, it’s news. After all, we live in the land of T.G.I. Friday’s and Bonefish Grill and Olive Garden. So when a non-chain craft brewery with cool lighting and sexy low-slung banquettes opened mere minutes from our house, on a sleepy street full of real estate offices and banks, J. and I were delighted. We quickly became regulars, eschewing pints of Bud and burgers for small-batch IPAs and gourmet wood-fired pizzas.
It just so happens that the owner of this too-cool-for-the-suburbs bar is good-looking. Really good-looking. I first noticed it when J. and I met my parents at the bar for drinks one evening. My mom kept awkwardly jerking her head at the owner in this weird way that made it look like she was having a seizure, and mouthing: “For your sister? He’d be cute for Ali, wouldn’t he?” And that’s when I saw him and realized that, yes, he would be cute for Ali, because he is really, really good-looking.
I must have gawked a little because when I tore my eyes from Hot Bar Owner, J. was looking at me, eyebrows raised. “Seriously, babe?” he said. “I mean, could you be any more obvious?”
READ MORE
|
Here, my annual Life and Marriage Resolutions, which I will most likely break by February. Cheers!
 Hemera {Ed. Note: In 2010, Em declared her first ever list of marriage resolutions. They’re here. Last year, she re-presented those 2010 resolutions to J., that he might grade her on how she did. His verdict on her wifely success is here. This year, I requested she write these resolutions without revisiting the ones she’s written before. Notice any repeats?}
READ MORE
|
A new dye-job got me wondering: How much can you really grow in a marriage … without growing apart?
 Em's crisis-inspired, bright pink locks. The night before Thanksgiving, I found out that two of my friends are expecting. That brings the current number of my pregnant friends to seven. Seven.
Seven.
I received Katie’s text with a photo of the ultrasound as I was in the hair salon, dyeing the underside of my hair bright pink. I’d had a particularly frustrating day at work and so I did what any mature 30-year-old woman would do: I scheduled an impromptu Angry Hair Appointment at a salon I’d never been to before. When the receptionist pointed out Lizz, the girl who was going to be my colorist, I cheered inwardly. She was covered with bright tattoos, and her hair was a My Little Pony-esque rainbow of aqua and navy. Perfect.
“I want to go pink,” I said fiercely as I plopped in the chair.
READ MORE
|
PHILLY
EVENTS
