Communication...Do you remember that ole thing

Okay I am finally calm enough to talk about Angies post. To paraphrase she talked about an episode of Montel that talked about parents who disagreed on how to discipline a child. In short I will try and paraphrase with out using a string of cuss words. There was one fucker who thought slapping his fucking 7 week old babies hand to teach discipline was okay...ROT IN HELL ASS FUCK. Then there was another piece of shit who has "disciplined" his kids so great he has left bruises...OFTEN. YEAH THIS FUCKER NEEDS TO BE RAPED AND KILLED! (Hey I didn't say I wouldn't cuss I just said I wouldn't make a string of cuss words).

I thought and thought and thought about this whole thing. What finally came to my mind was DID THESE ASSHOLES NOT DISCUSS THIS SHIT BEFORE MARRYING THESE MEN? I know I mean, what am I thinking, people actually talk about stuff before entering into a life long marriage and having kids, pshaw, planning and talking is so 1990.

It got me thinking about that honeymoon phase. No not the one that has shit to do with a honeymoon, you know, that other one. When you first start dating, and you say assaine shit like:
"I totally get horny cooking my man dinner every night"

"I have never had a dirty house, I'm such a great house keeper"

"Giving you back rubs is the high light of my day"

And my personal favorite, "No dear really, I LOOOOVE doing the laundry please make more."

I think it is funny we can make all these bold statements and somehow completly miss talking about the actual important stuff. LIKE PARENTING!

I know before Rob and I were ever married we would talk about friends with kids, or us having kids and wayyy before marriage was ever discussed I made it clear NO MAN OF MINE WILL EVER LAY A FINGER ON MY CHILD. I meant business. By the time we got engaged and married Rob was well aware that touching my child would equal the fastest divorce you ever saw in your life. He agreed to this. He didn't like it, but we talked about it to no end and he agreed. Then I got pregnant, and again we talked about discipline. This was more like a refresher course...Study guide...DO NOT SPANK SHANNONS CHILD OR A VENGEFUL PAINFUL DEATH INVOLVING LOSS OF TESTICLES WILL OCCUR.

Let me say first of all that I did openly listen to his side of the argument for spanking, I just had a better argument for not. However the best argument of all came the day our son came out. I asked him if he thought, NOW after seeing him, if he could spank Brandon. He said no. I will be the first to admit there are times I have wanted to slap the shit out of my son, but I always remember that first day, and that small fragile baby and I realize, no matter what Brandon is still smaller then me, and he still has no idea what is happening if I hit him. Thats all it takes for me to come to my senses and walk away from it all.

The point I'm trying to make is that we talked about this first! WE TALKED. The same way I imagine you would talk about other things: The decision to have kids or not, what religion to raise them, what state you want to live in and other future plans.

After reading about this show I had to wonder to myself, did these women really marry these men with out discussing discipline? Or are they simply the kind of women who just marry a man and take on their values because they are afraid to have their own identity?

Either way I have been bothered by this post since she wrote it. I realized that in the relationships around me there seems to be a high volume of people who got married with out really addressing the important things. This led me back to my post about divorce. I suddenly realized I had stumbled upon what I feel might be one of the biggest causes of divorce. LACK OF COMMUNICATION.

I looked at the relationships around me, here are a few things I realized are some fatal miscommunication inside of those relationships.

• The decision on how many children to have (in example some people adamantly want two while the other only wants one or none)
• Where to live
• Whether or not the mom can work
• Religion to raise the kids
• Time line of events (ie when to have kids, or buy a house)
• One partner not understanding the need to purchase a home instead of rentin

I've even noticed smaller things, things that seemingly don't matter but build up over time.

• What flavor cake to give for your childs first birthday
• How to decorate your house
• Appearances
  

I started to think about a few of the things that Rob and I talked about in great detail before getting married.

• The fact that I will not leave Reno while my parents are alive
• That I do not believe in spanking
• That I want to own homes (yes plural)
• That my child will not go into day care
• That I don't like dishes
• That I will handle the money
• That he likes a clean house (not as in dust free but not messy or cluttered)
• That he will never dust
• That there always needs to be money for a car wash for his vehicle
• That we both need separate lives as well as combined lives.
• That we will raise our child to believe what they want about religion however we will baptize them Catholic to appease his family
• That our child can make up his own mind about eating meat but I am not allowed to say mommy doesn't eat meat because it is stinky rotten cow flesh.
• That I need Starbucks to live
• That Rob needs beer and steak to live
• That we will have a fry daddy in our house..sigh
• That I will cook what Rob likes to eat and not make him eat vegetables
  

I know some of these things seem small but believe me they add up. I know friends whose husbands can't understand their wives spending money on gourmet coffee. I also know wives who don't understand having beer or large vats of oil in their house. I also know a friend who won't cook with certain foods because SHE doesn't like them. This means when her husband comes to dinner he always snarfs up the food with those ingredients in them and tells me how much it frustrates him his wife won't just make what he likes once in a while. I think a large part of the way that Rob and I were so quick to talk about all of this is the fact that I AM VERY LOUD AND TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING! I had no problems talking about everything, and asking him question after question after question about what it would take to make him happy in the long run. Oh yeah, of course I made sure to be really verbal about what it would take to make me happy in the long run to.

I guess I was so frustrated by Angies post because ruining your own life is one thing, but bringing a child into the world with out first discussing their future just boggles me. Are there things you were adamant about before getting married or having kids? Are there things you wished you had been more clear about before making a long term commitment? What about the things you did communicate that turned out to be very helpful in your future? Let me know, am I the only one out there who feels like this sort of communication is key before marriage? Or am I simply making a big deal out of nothing? Let me know!