Wifeness

I think there are some genetic predispositions that make you qualified to be a good wife. I might possibly have none of them. It would be nice for a wife to be organized, encouraging and not critical. These are three adjectives that least describe me. For nearly four years, I have been battling against my very nature and instincts to attempt to be an acceptable wife (when I say acceptable, I mean to the world, not necessarily to my husband - he loves me the way I am...).

When we were first married, there was a moment where we both looked at each other and thought "What are we going to eat?" Who was going to cook for us? When you are single, you eat whatever is around, you don't really prepare elaborate meals for yourself (at least we didn't). I remember my sister and mom were visiting and one of them said, "Cook something for your husband." Cook what? That's all I could think. How is it that immediately after being married, I was expected to become Betty Crocker when all my life I had been cooked for and then after I was just eating corn dogs and fruit roll-ups. So Mark and I did the only thing we knew how to - we went to Sam's Club and bought corn dogs, tater tots, ramen noodles. Since then, our health might have taken a turn for the worst. Now that we have a toddler, all the healthy groceries go to him. We are still eating corn dogs. Shame on you Lily for not making more effort to cook!

Next, organizational skills. Some people are natural cleaners. They want to tidy your house. I have never been one of those people. Coincidentally, I married someone who also does not like to clean. Therefore, our house could be declared as a natural disaster area. Recently, this started to irritate me. I didn't like dishes everywhere and laundry that forms mountains in every corner. It seems that I have morphed into half of a house-cleaner. I have developed the distaste for a mess. I have yet to develop the will to keep cleaning it. I will clean it once very well but get downtrodden the next time I come home and find it in shambles. What's the point? I ask myself. May it be known that emptying the dishwasher could be the most vile and unpleasant task ever to befall man. Instead, I just leave the clean dishes in the dishwasher and take them out one by one until it is almost empty (also the dirty dishes have piled up in the sink), then there are just a few dishes to put away. This system really does not work well.

Another unpleasant task is the laundry. We have a washing machine that is the size of a toilet bowl, but I over-stuff it until it is jumping across the floor, so I have less loads to do. I can fold the laundry and stack it on the stairs, but I can't seem to get it put away. The stairs have become a real hazard to anyone that can walk.

Why should these things come so unnaturally to me? Why couldn't I be born a "wife"? I see plenty of people who radiate the skills it takes (consequently I don't like any of them - that's my critical side). Maybe there is a class I can take, or a book I can read.

I do, however, do Sudoku very well.