Learning marriage

 Not only am I learning how to be a mom, but I’m still learning how to cohabitate with a member of the male species. The hubby and I are nearing our one year anniversary-yes we had a baby within the first year-so we are still training our means of communication. We often joke that I am Mrs. Communication, which is ironic because of our many MIScommunications.

I do feel that our generation has a lot going against the concept of marriage. We have so many technological gadgets that are supposed to keep us in contact, but it kind of keeps us in our own little private world. An old professor of mine used to say that he didn’t like the iPod because students would walk around campus listening to their own music instead of conversing or smiling with the people around them.

Now some could argue that this type of separation could actually bring a couple closer together because they would have to build a strong bond of trust. I’ll insert an example here.

A few nights ago the hubby and I were watching “Two and a Half Men.” The scene had Charlie in bed with Chelsea, who was working on her computer. Of course Charlie tries to put the move on his fiance and she declines because she had a report to finish. He goes to the bathroom and comments on the “maturation” of their relationship. Just then, the house phone rings and Chelsea answers only to find it’s a woman on the phone for Charlie. When he picks up the phone he finds it’s his ex-fiance, Mia, who was calling to congratulate Charlie on his recent engagement. Chelsea hangs on to every word of his conversation in the background.

This is where my hubby sarcastically inserts his comment, “You see, that’s why you don’t have a house phone because then you won’t have to know when an ex is calling…or School Time Jodi.”

Here is where I’ll insert a short back story. A few weeks ago the hubby backed up his phone on my computer. When I plugged my phone in, it synced all of his contacts onto my phone. The only reason I noticed was because when I called my mother the next day, it was under Mim and the Man (their grandparent names-yes my father has his grandchildren call him the Man). Now I’ve had that contact under “Mom” for almost a decade. When I went to “Mom” in my phone, it was an Oregon number, which is my mother-in-law. So now I had to go through the phone and update my contacts. That’s when I found “School Time Jodi”.

I am a teacher. My first, psychotic, paranoid, middle school instinct was to call the number and see who answered. I thought surely he wouldn’t cheat on me with some chick named Jodi while I was at school! Then I laughed at myself and figured I’d ask him about it later. The next day I calmly asked him, “Who’s School Time Jodi?”. He replied, without skipping a beat, “School Time is where we get our t-shirts made and Jodi is our contact there. I stored it that way so I wouldn’t forget who to talk to.” I started to laugh and then explained my moment of irrational insecurity. It’s been our running joke since.

So right as we started to discuss the easiness of cheating, my text alert went off and he asked, “Who is that? An old boyfriend?” And as we both laughed I looked at the sender and it kind of was. Oh life’s little punch lines.

It definitely made me think about how the dynamic of marital relationships have changed over the past few decades. There is rarely a house phone to unify the couple’s conversations any more. Twenty years ago, the only way one would figure out that one was unfaithful is if there were too many hang-ups.

Now when a young couple gets together there are almost a dozen modes of separate personal life: cell phone, Facebook, emails, Twitter, etc. It takes a little longer for everything to sync. Many modern couples don’t sync up everything either. We have yet to merge banking accounts and some of my marriage vets don’t recommend it. Like everything else, you just have to find what works.

I don’t have all of the answers, just plenty of questions. And we are learning what works for us. I’m not worried about all of the technological temptation. I think if you have great character, you’ll make the right choices no matter how society evolves. Besides, the more ways there are to cheat, the more ways there are to catch ’em.

So I leave you with the question. Do you feel that technology makes marriage/relationships more challenging?