Marriage

A Play Date for my Man

I think it was Chris Rock that was talking about married couples and their relationships with other married couples. Generally, the wives set their husbands in front of a TV together and say “Hey honey, he likes baseball too! Y’all get to know each other.” As newly weds, Marshall and I found this segment hilarious. Married women don’t really do that to their men, I thought.

Oh…but they do. Fast-forward 5 years into wedded bliss, and I find myself this weekend at a girlfriend’s house chatting with 2 other women. The topic: Fishing.

“Girl, Johnny loves fishing, you hear what I say?”  This was my new friend Cheloyn.

“Nuh uh! Marshall loves fishing too!”

“Girl, we need to get them together so they can go fishing at some of these holes.”

“Yeah, and say about 3 words to each other.”

We cackled and clapped in delight. Cheloyn called her husband to tell him the news, and I made immediate plans to go to Bass Pro Shops to get my hubby some new fishin’ gear. My man had a DATE, and I didn’t want him out there on those banks with raggedy lures, reels and bait. I thought about getting him a new hat and T-shirt as well.

When I excitedly told Marshall about his new fishing buddy, he looked at me with disbelief and then laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he said. “The whole thing is just pathetic. Why do you women do that?”

“Pathetic?” I bristled. “I was going to Bass Pro Shops to get you all new stuff!”

He laughed harder.

Seeing that I was not amused, he tried to clean up his choice of words and proclaimed my actions as “cute”, not “pathetic”. He slapped my playfully on my butt and I retaliated by slapping him mercilessly in his balls. Call ME pathetic…

So I guess C Rock was right. When it comes to third party relationships, we women do treat our men like kids. But can you blame us?