“I see you don’t like to use that soap either.”
The guy showering next to me at the athletic club where I play racquetball was making conversation.
“Yeah, it’s got formaldehyde in it I think. Something nasty, anyway. If I use it, my wife can smell it on me, sort like cigarette smoke if I’ve been at a bar. And as long as she keeps kissing me in all the right places, I’ll use whatever soap she wants.”
He laughed and then asked, “How long have you been married?”
“We just spent two days at a B&B in Hastings last week, celebrating our 29th anniversary.”
“We got you beat,” he said. “We’re at 31.”
“Hey, allllllright.” I gave him a thumbs-up and he smiled. I don’t know this guy’s name. He’s not a racquetball player, just a guy who lifts weights and takes a sauna after work. He owns a small local roofing company.
He kept up the chit chat. “Not many of us long-marrieds around these days. You gotta keep working at it. Most of my friends are divorced. Lot of ’em gave it up too early, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, if you can get through the hard times, the good times on the other side are that much better.”
“Right, but there are some people I know who are miserable together and have been miserable for years and they make their kids miserable.”
“Yeah, my parents were like that.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised. “I guess I’m lucky. My parents had a great marriage. Sort of set a good example for me.”
“Yeah, you are lucky. My in-laws were like that, so I did see it some. You got kids?”
And we continued to chat a while longer till we both left the locker-room.
It’s not unusual to hear upbeat chatter about fatherhood in an all-male setting. These days, dads are proud to be dads. One guy I play racquetball with bragged to me recently about how he told his supervisors to shove it when they pressured him to work an extra weekend shift. “I got my kid on weekends. I’m not giving up time with him just so I crank out more freakin’ widgets.”
But it’s less common to hear upbeat chatter about being a husband. Last week, I emailed a guy that I couldn’t play a match because I was “heading to a B&B for a couple days with my sweetie.” He wrote back, “Does your wife know? Hah hah!”
While that kind of joking is still common, I’ve noticed that if I follow it up with some lighthearted BS like “Hey, give me some credit man, I’ve been married for 29 years, the last ten pretty damn good” then invariably I get a response like, “Man, you’re lucky, I hope I can say that some day.”