Dating, Mating and Relating with Dr. Ish

The Wedding Day-After

I recently had the opportunity to attend a small invitation only seminar on relationships in Atlanta and was floored by what I learned! It was a room full of bright and extremely thoughtful couples and singles that were able to share their ideas and observations in a way I hadn’t heard before. I learned a lot! One of the interesting topics some of the men in the room brought up was ‘the change’ that happens in women after the wedding. Yes ladies, this time the men get to air their pet peeves!

Men felt like women were more concerned in their wedding ring, wedding day and the wedding dress than in what actually happens after the wedding…the marriage. Guys actually felt like they were an afterthought or accessory to the whole situation and after the wedding they were simply checked off their wife’s ‘to do’ list.

Husband? Check.

We hear all of these stories about the wedding ring, wedding dress, wedding vows, wedding planning, the wedding pictures, the wedding party, the wedding rehearsal, the wedding rehearsal dinner, horribly stressed brides-to-be or bridezillas, and the honeymoon but we hardly ever hear any thoughts on what happens when they get back. Guess what…life happens. The real day to day doing of work that goes into making each other happy. Getting to the wedding is the easy part…getting past the day after…that’s what get’s tough.

The men, some newly married, some married for tens of years expressed the alarming drop off in face time, intimate time (not just sex) and just the all around little attention they felt like they were receiving since they’d been married. ‘She changed’, they said. The ladies jumped right in with ‘we’re tired’, ‘we’re raising kids’, ‘we’re running the household’ or ‘we’re working too hard trying to do it all’. I get it. And the guys got it too…but that doesn’t change the fact that they were still not getting the attention they felt like they needed in the marriage.

News flash ladies…guys need to be wanted too…guys need to know you still want them and still need them. Once a man feels that’s lost from his relationship…it’s typically only a matter of time before he starts to look for it elsewhere. You’re lack of attention ladies, for whatever reason, brings ‘The clean-up woman’ right to your doorstep and into your bedroom…where she does her best to ‘clean-up’ your mess. Now, I agree, a wife’s job is tough…sometimes beyond tough. Raising children alone is a monumental task when it’s done right let alone if you have to hold down a regular job on top of that. So the ladies in the room asked for one simple thing…

’Help!’

Yeah guys, you’re gonna have to help. In order for her to pay you more attention she’s gonna have to have time to do so. Time she now doesn’t have because she’s doing lots of other things. So help her out. Do some things to free up her time… do the dishes…do the laundry…do the cooking (or bring home the already cooked cooking)…do the cleaning, or hire somebody to do the cleaning (not too cute though…please see above reference to ‘The clean-up woman’), take the kids off her hands for an hour or two…basically you need to give her a little ‘me time’ in order for her to give you a little ‘you time’. After all, it is a marriage…a union…of two people doing things…together. Right?

Women say ‘you need to do something for me or with me then you can do something to me!’ It is what it is guys…it is what it is…

So here’s the reality of marriage. It’s work. It’s more. It’s more work that you ever put into the relationship while you were dating or engaged. It requires more time. More attention More patience. More understanding. More forgiving. More doing!

So as guys we get it ladies, we get that the wedding day is ‘Your Day’. And it should be. We want it to be everything you ever dreamed of…we want you to be happy with it…but also with us. Remember, there are actually two people getting married on that day.  So while everybody loves a beautiful wedding day…I’m more concerned with what happens on the day after the wedding day.

Until next time,

Dr. Ish