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<div class="tweetmeme_button" style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"><iframe src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/button.js?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwhitneyclaire.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F09%2Ficb-lying-in-marriage%2F&style=normal" height="61" width="50" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div>
My good friend <a href="http://limpetfan.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Christina</a> and I have been participating in <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a> together for two years now. Next year, we were contemplating choosing a storyline and characters and each writing our novel using the agreed upon plot and setting. I’m not sure how this is going to work out, but it sounds rather interesting. I was also recently inspired by my Twitter-bud, <a href="http://melissaoh.com/" target="_blank">@melissaoyler</a> and her friend (<a href="http://www.sabennett.com/wp/" target="_blank">Amy</a>) who are choosing a random topic and then each blogging about it. Christina and I thought this would be an awesome way to test out our ability to write individually on a collective topic.
This week’s topic: Lying to your spouse is acceptable?
Visit Christina’s blog to read about her thoughts about lying to your spouse: <a href="http://limpetfan.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/lies-and-love/" target="_blank">here</a>.
 
*/Begin shameless plug for new blog/* 
I also want to take a short moment to say that there are only 71 days until the beginning of NaNoWriMo.  And thus, I have officially opened my <a href="http://nanowrimo.whitneyclaire.com/" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo ’09 blog</a> where I will be posting musings, excerpts, etc leading up to and throughout the NaNo season.  Christina and I will be doing a Collective NaNovel.
Oh, and I’m lazy… All future posts of Individually Collective Blogging will have the prefix ICB instead of the full topic name.
<h3>Why are we writing about this?</h3>
I recently came across an article on NewsWeek’s website called: <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/213574">Married, With Lies</a> by Raina Kelley. When I saw the title, I was a little floored. In fact, I was a little outraged! And instead of doing what a sane person would do (ignore the article and write a terrible post about how Mrs. Kelley must know nothing about marriage and thus is a complete idiot) I did what I would normally do… settle down and read the whole damn thing.
I would recommend you take my approach. Read the whole thing… start to finish… and try not to groan when you start.
<h3>“Marriages cannot exist without dishonesty. They can’t.”</h3>
Mrs. Kelley mentions at the very beginning of the article the quote that you just read above. Taking that completely out of context you might think that she’s implying that everyone cheats, or that we all lie to each other, or whatever other negative thing… but then she goes on to say:
<blockquote>Husbands and wives have an unprecedented ability to get on each other’s nerves—not only do they know each other really well but they also spend a lot of time together doing things like changing dirty diapers, trying to find a plumber on an early Sunday morning, and filling out income-tax forms. To end lying in marriage under these kinds of circumstances is tantamount to ending sex in marriage.</blockquote>
And she does admit that not all lying is good lying. What Mrs. Kelley is really talking about is fibbing to your spouse.
<h3>Marriages cannot exist without fibbing</h3>
You all might know from some of my previous posts that I am approaching my fifth year of marriage. Now, I don’t pretend that I’m an expert at this in any way shape or form… however, we’re getting to the stage when the newness… the prettiness… has worn off a bit. We’re not all shiny around the edges. I don’t want to hold my hubby’s hand while we’re taking a walk because we’re no longer out to stroll along and enjoy each other’s compnay; nope, we’re out to try to work off the “Newlywed-20″ (something that I don’t think anyone will tell you about and something that is so far worse than the Freshman-15 that I can’t even begin to tell you the horrors). We’ve definitely had moments with plungers that were not something that I want to ever repeat again in my life. We still love each other, but goodness… being married is HARD!
Anyway, so, as I got into Mrs. Kelley’s article I actually started laughing out loud at some of the stuff that she mentions! Because I can literally put my husband and I into these situations and see us!!
Here are her 3 principles about lying and my thoughts about them:
<h4>“1. Spouses are always trying to trick you into admitting something they think you secretly believe. The only defense is a lie, especially when you really do believe it.”</h4>
YES!!!
I admittedly do this. Is it nice? No, probably not… but I do. Women are conniving, so can you blame our husbands for making up a little white lie to get past this little sneaky thing that we try to do to them?
Steve & I took this pre-marriage communication course at some point during our engagement. The folks there said that you’ve got only a few “negative” tokens in your possession. And you can use them all at once if you want to, but that it takes nearly 3 times as many “positive” tokens to counteract the negative ones. So, the moral of the story is to be careful how many negative tokes you dole out… because you might just get in over your head.
It’s like Mrs. Kelley says in her article, if you hate your spouse’s chili, and they try to trick you into telling them so… you might not want to waste one of your negative tokens on something trivial.
And you tell a lie.
<h4>“2. Spouses should remain constantly vigilant of subtext.”</h4>
This has to be one of my favorite of her three principles. Mrs. Kelley really gets to the crux of marriage in this one. No matter if you’re a husband or a wife, or you’re in a less traditional relationship, you have to be vigilant to what your spouse is really telling you! Being married is really more like sticking a mime and a Somali Pirate into the same invisible box and make them try to ask each other to pass the salt!
It’s a translation game. A much harder translation game than you’ve ever experienced before in your life. And the point of Mrs. Kelley’s #2 is that while you might be answering a question truthfully on the outside, the internal meaning might just be the honest to God truth.
Her example is the classic, “Do these pants make me look fat?”
So, what does “Do these pants make me look fat?” really mean?? Does it mean, do I need a new size of pants? Does it mean, “Do you think I look fat?” Does it mean, “Hey look honey, I’m pregnant!” Or does it mean something else entirely. Mrs. Kelley suggests that perhaps many women who have been married for years are really asking their husbands “Do you still find me attractive after 5 kids and all these years?” In which case, the appropriate answer (even if she looks like Shamu in those pants) is “No… you look beautiful.”
<h4>“3. Spouses need lying for venting purposes.”</h4>
OMG. OMG is all I can say about this particular one!!! Steve & I have so gotten to the point in our relationship that I do this to him all-the-time.
Mrs. Kelley explains in point #3 that we are constantly annoyed by our spouses, and that it’s cathartic (in a way) to highly exaggerate what we would like to do to them if they continue doing the annoying little things that they do.
Mine? The thing that annoys Steve more than anything on the face of this planet that I do?? It’s chewing ice. I love it. He hates it. And by hate, I really mean he loathes it with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I just can’t stop. I don’t want to drive him to lunacy…. but I just love my ice!
So, why not make it a game? Why not try to find the most creative way of stopping your spouse from doing that one (or ten) annoying little thing? If you can’t laugh about it, eventually it will just kill you. And in the process it will kill your marriage. I honestly think that this particular example is a perfect thing… something that all couples should do! I guarantee you’ll end up laughing by the end of it, and you’ll probably forget all together what it was that annoyed you about that thing your spouse did.
<h3>She’s a smart cookie</h3>
I take back any horrible things that I might have thought about Raina Kelley when I first read the title of her article… or, to be fair, the first paragraph.
I think that if she ever wanted to quit journalism she could make an excellent suburban marriage therapist. What I think? I think that maybe you should get off your high honesty horse and realize that there are times when a white lie is OK, and there times when it’s not. And there are times when the things that matter are making each other happy.
Now, for big stuff? You gotta tell the truth.
“Honey, whose panties are these?” is not an appropriate time to make up a story about how you rescued some stranded granny, and then a golden eagle flew down from the mountains and ripped her panties right off her butt and stuffed them in your coat pocket. That’s probably not going to fly.
“Honey, did you remember to buy the dog food?” is also probably not another one that requires an elaborate story about the obstacles you had to overcome and why you couldn’t make it to PetSmart.
“Honey, do why do you hate my mom’s Pumpkin Pie?” that might be one of those instances when you just grin, bear it, and say as sweetly as possible, “I don’t hate your mom’s Pumpkin Pie! I love it.”

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<h3 class="related_post_title">Random Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li>August 9, 2004 -- <a href="http://whitneyclaire.com/blog/2004/08/update-on-sidekick-the-escapee-rodeo-bull/" title="Update on Sidekick–the escapee rodeo bull…">Update on Sidekick–the escapee rodeo bull…</a></li><li>January 29, 2007 -- <a href="http://whitneyclaire.com/blog/2007/01/a-right-to-a-trial-by-your-peers/" title="A right to a trial by your peers.">A right to a trial by your peers.</a></li><li>February 19, 2009 -- <a href="http://whitneyclaire.com/blog/2009/02/roadkill-catharsis/" title="Roadkill Catharsis">Roadkill Catharsis</a></li><li>July 7, 2008 -- <a href="http://whitneyclaire.com/blog/2008/07/mark-this-day-on-the-calendar/" title="Mark this day on the calendar…">Mark this day on the calendar…</a></li><li>February 3, 2009 -- <a href="http://whitneyclaire.com/blog/2009/02/turn-a-scrabble-board-into-a-picture-frame/" title="Turn a Scrabble Board into a Picture Frame">Turn a Scrabble Board into a Picture Frame</a></li></ul>

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