{"id":9152,"date":"2018-04-21T13:33:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T19:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=9152"},"modified":"2018-04-21T13:33:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T19:33:31","slug":"needs-vs-wants-date-night-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/04\/needs-vs-wants-date-night-edition.html","title":{"rendered":"Needs vs. Wants, date night edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

I try not to do too many of the\u00a0\u201ctake a look at this terrible article\u201d type of post, but I couldn\u2019t help myself today.<\/p>\n

The article in question is at Slate (where else?), \u201cThe Work of \u201cMarital Maintenance\u201d Is a Privilege<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 In it, the author explains to readers that she is divorcing her husband and is tired of being told by friends that she and her husband should have worked harder at \u201cmarital maintenance,\u201d which is apparently the new word for Spending Time Together, except that in this author\u2019s world, it has evolved.\u00a0 That is, it seems that she is the \u201cpoor one\u201d in her social world, who, along with her husband, works at paying the bills on time, while her friends hire babysitters and travel on couple-only vacations, or so-called \u201cmarital maintenance vacations\u201d and instagram their time in Italy or on the beach.\u00a0 And, watching this, she acquired the notion that lower-income couples split up more often not just because of the financial stress that they deal with, but because<\/p>\n

It also means fewer dollars to put into keeping your marriage afloat. If you aren\u2019t making deposits, literally and figuratively, pretty soon you\u2019ll be coming up empty. . . .<\/p>\n

What\u2019s not said enough is that becoming passing ships doesn\u2019t just happen out of sheer negligence, though. Romantic dinners and getaways might be one helpful component to a lasting marriage. But imagining everyone has that kind of freedom is a certain kind of privilege. No, money might not buy happiness, but it does buy more date nights, therapy, and those ever-loving adults-only vacations I keep hearing about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, one could pick apart the many comments the author makes about how she and her husband chose to live their lives.\u00a0 In order to make her husband\u2019s one week of vacation a year \u201ccount,\u201d they put it on the credit card and went further into debt.\u00a0 She describes herself a freelance writer trying to make a living with one day of family-provided childcare, plus night and weekend writing \u2014 but at the same time, she speaks of the household chores as an \u201cextra\u201d duty that added to her burden, which suggests that she\u2019s fallen into the trap of imagining that her children\u2019s waking hours with her have to be suffused with \u201cquality time\u201d rather than \u201clet\u2019s do laundry together\u201d time and \u201chelp mommy cook\u201d time.<\/p>\n

But the notion of \u201cdate night,\u201d let alone \u201ccouple\u2019s vacations,\u201d has gone too far if people are getting the idea that marriages will fail without the proper amount of \u201cquality time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, my husband and I occasionally go on \u201cdates\u201d \u2014 that is, out to dinner without the kids.\u00a0 But until the oldest became old enough that they could stay at home together, this was a rare event.\u00a0 We have had one overnight \u201cvacation\u201d\u00a0alone, when the kids were babysat by my in-laws, plus two instances of attending conferences together.\u00a0 And, when we both worked at the same office, we occasionally had lunch together, instead of with our respective workgroups.<\/p>\n

But \u2014 and be sure you\u2019re sitting down if you\u2019re easily surprised \u2014 I have a helpful tip for you:\u00a0 you don\u2019t need a \u201cdate\u201d to connect and spend time together.\u00a0 You can have conversations at the dinner table.\u00a0 You can talk while folding the laundry after the kids are in bed.\u00a0 \u00a0You can go on a walk together.\u00a0 And so on.<\/p>\n

Of course, the author then says that, in her case, they did not have any such time available due to long work hours, and, of course, we readers have no further details on their finances or other aspects of her life.\u00a0 But she\u2019s not going to persuade me that low-income couples can\u2019t reasonably be expected to stay married because they can\u2019t finance couple time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0\u00a0a flicker photo; https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/69184488@N06\/8091027271\/in\/photostream\/; creative commons license.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I try not to do too many of the\u00a0\u201ctake a look at this terrible article\u201d type of post, but I couldn\u2019t help myself today. The article in question is at Slate (where else?), \u201cThe Work of \u201cMarital Maintenance\u201d Is a Privilege.\u201d\u00a0 In it, the author explains to readers that she is divorcing her husband and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[151,959],"class_list":["post-9152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-marriage","tag-slate"],"yoast_head":"\nNeeds vs. Wants, date night edition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I try not to do too many of the\u00a0"take a look at this terrible article" type of post, but I couldn't help myself today. 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