The antidote to endless, tedious, unhelpful marriage tips and articles

I'm noticing a trend. Marriage articles are written for the sake of confirming some set of values that ought to be inherent in a marriage. There are exceptionally good ones and not so good ones too. But the most interesting part is how few men weigh in on them. Women—we write them, read them, adopt them with religious commitment and sober personal resolve. Where are the men? Where are their remarks, their thoughts, their affirmations? Nowhere to be found. They must feel secure on the whole in their marriages since this need rarely rises to the top like cream.

The list of ways to stay married is as long as the institution itself.

But I'm sick of the list. I'm sick of the clever twists on lists.

My primary number one idea of relationship has changed:

1. Don't put in more than the man is willing to put in.

In fact, do less. Do less than he does. After all, he comes in with swagger, privilege, the memory of a woman meeting his needs (mother). Be more presumptuous. Expect more from him than from yourself. Demand your way a couple times a week and see what he does.

Most women's natural default is to caretake. You'll wind up doing that anyway. So do less. In those marriages where the wife is a nag and the husband is trying to "please," I know this sounds backwards. But the truth is—the man's withdrawal and cowardice comes from the same space as entitlement. You think you can "sneak by" without confronting your wife and saying your needs, you think bringing home the income or taking care of the yard or watching the kids is enough to keep her at bay. She's just doing the louder version of what the hard-working, earnest, less confrontational women do when they try to apply forgiveness and sharing and caring. Women who nag are saying, "Show up!" to men who are simply going along to get along. Women who never require the man to show up or have a man who dominates the space use a different strategy—they pretend they are happy.

Here's my second idea:

2. If you don't feel good, things aren't good.

Quit pretending that your marriage is great when you hate doing the dishes, yet he expects you to do them by his silence and "never offering," and you have continued to do them finding a way to justify to yourself that it's okay because he does the checkbook. What? If this exchange of services has not actually been negotiated as a true trade off, you are lying to yourself about the state of the marriage—those damned dishes 22 years in feel entirely different than in year 5, 10, or 14. And why don't you do the checkbook or share it? That's the most dangerous place for a wife to live: in ignorance of the finances. More divorces reveal the gross mishandling of money than affairs. Everything in a marriage should be shared and if no one likes doing it, negotiation or hiring out has to occur.

If you don't feel good, if you don't like something, if you are pretending to be happy when you are not.... guess what? You're not happy. Your marriage is not good.

By the way: you are pretending to be happy if you feel uneasy until your spouse seems happy. If you are not happy on your own, if your spouse makes you nervous or you have to make sure things are okay with the spouse before you feel happy, you're not happy and your marriage is not good.

3. Stop forgiving.

That's right. Hold onto that grudge long enough to see what's happening in front of your fucking nose.

Let me say this as a caveat: if you get a divorce, go ahead and forgive the other person for fucking up your life or for the fact that you were too big a weeny to grow or change or say what you need. Forgiving at that stage is the only way forward.

But if you are married right now? Quit forgiving things. That's just your way of hiding your real pain that you are too afraid to mention or else "someone will get mad." Forgiving as a guise for how shitty things are sucks! Stop doing it. Forgiveness in marriage can only be meted out after a sincere apology by the offending party that comes unprompted by your demands for it. If you have to ask for an apology, the other person is UNCHANGED. Do what you need to do to make the point that what happened is not okay with you (leave, take the kids to your mother's, go on a shopping spree, withhold sex, stop making the other person's meals, sleep in a different room, drive home or get a taxi, yell, get thee to your therapist). Don't let the person off the hook in your mind by pretending to forgive what should not be forgiven! Yes, occasionally a spouse forgets to buy your tampons at the store. If a sincere "Oops, I forgot" follows, forgive. But if every time you ask for something to be picked up at the store, and only 50-60% of the time yr partner remembers, you have a REAL problem! Stop forgiving. Start demanding. Get your needs met.

This is unconventional advice, I realize. But I wish I had taken all of it in my marriage. The biggest mistake I made is believing that my good will was matched by my marriage partner. Yet check out our book shelves. Who had the books on marriage read and alphabetized? Who recommended therapy? Who joined groups and suggested prayer and accountability? Who spent hundreds of hours of her prayer life devoted to asking God to heal, restore, fix, save, help her marriage and partner? Me. Who went on as though nothing happened the next day? Who expected to be forgiven every infraction no matter how painful? Who blamed the partner for not being accepting enough? Who relied on declarations of "I'm not perfect" as a salve to the wounds? Him.

I've heard it said that no relationship is more important than your personal development.

I want to restate that: Your personal development is essential to the possibility of a happy healthy marriage. If your development includes speaking up for yourself and the marriage goes to hell, you never had a marriage worth saving, forgiving, protecting to begin with. The idea of self-sacrifice, giving, serving—these are all adopted by women. Rarely do men put in the same committed energy to figuring out how to "save" their marriages through self-effacing strategies. They are much more likely to ignore, go on as if nothing happened, to expect forgiveness and second chances, to require you to be better to them than Jesus while they remind you that they are not perfect and deserve your understanding and lovingkindness.

What if we all got a lot more honest?

How about finding out if your marriage is tough enough, strong enough to handle the real you?

What would happen if you simply said what you really meant and did what you really wanted and stopped doing and saying things designed to "heal" or "save" or "protect" your marriage?

I wonder.