With most of my married friends now balancing their lives simultaneously by being professional thisandthat and professional husband and wife. I unsurfaced a new kind of marriage (apart from the long distance one) - the weekend one! I found it incredibly fascinating - so here is a brief account for some weekend hubby-wifey.
Pudgy Fingers and his wife are both high fliers; about three years into their marriage they decided to take weekends off, irrespective of a world crises. So they fly, travel, party, work 16 hours a day for 5 days a week, and bond over the 48 hours that the weekend gives them. As Pudgy Fingers puts it, " It's our out time. We are free to gravely insult each other or passionately work-out together or just drive out of the city or laze in bed for two whole days. We set the rules that we'd be ourselves for the weekend and weekend alone. This gives me a week with myself and my life, with her on the periphery! There are too many plus points to not having your partner in your face."
Childmom claims that she clearly does not do any kind of bonding with her lesser half through out the week." It's not possible to talk to each other without landing into an argument or harboring an ill feeling. We both are strained with our work and our over-achiever attitudes. We fell in love because that was the driving force of our togetherness, now it's going to swallow us. We realized it soon and stopped playing the 'my tush is redder than your tush game' game. So we are our bosses from Monday to Friday with schedules stuck on the pin board, come Saturday and we yearn to be with each other. Now even a grocery shopping is an experience, not a chore. Also the weekend schedule allows us to be more accommodating and sharing, and it's great for our marriage."
R who had the most out-of-the-box wedding is now shuttling between the city of work and the city her husband works. However, it does not infuriate her in the least, " He is a lazy bum, I knew that way before we got married. I like to unwind by dancing my head off and he likes to be a couch potato with the TV remote as an attached limb. I moved continents for him, and then he moved cities for better prospects. I get that, it's freaking annoying but i get it. It is better that we spend the weekend together than 5 days a week cribbing about why we are not spending quality time together, why he is not dining with my friends or why I'm not watching the movie with him. So, I travel Friday night or Saturday spend a good day with him and return Sunday afternoon. I get my time, he gets his, and we have our time. Its a win-win situation."
Mini me has a more pragmatic tale of love with her beau working in the same industry as they are extremely competitive (enough to get each other sacked). "We both are very rude professionals, we have at many points cut each other short for our gain; but that was before we fell in love. With marriage, we became worse, we'd get the work home and take the home to work. So we both decided to be flat-mates for week and husband-wife for the weekend. Many of our new colleagues do not know that we are married, we are that professional. The weekly rules are clear, he does everything for himself, by himself and at his schedule. I do not touch any of his gadgets and vice verse. The weekend comes with its rules too, we do not discuss work or any thing related to it. If we are out and are spotted by our colleagues, we ignore them. The weekend is for us, and us alone, through the week we make time for our dinners and hang outs - weekends are for close friends, family, and our future plans, and over time, we have become very thrifty with that space."
I like and sound of it, the functioning seems a little crass but hey, if that saves your marriage from being a cliche one, its worth a shot.
