“(Starting in the 1970’s) Newly empowered, women across America turned to men and began insisting on levels of emotional intimacy that most men - raised under the old regime - were not readily able to meet.
The new marriage takes the stability, the building of a life together, that was the whole of marriage a generation ago, and grafts onto it the expectations of a lifelong romance - deep talks, exciting times, and great sex.
Contemporary women have two “sets” of relationship strategies: the traditional set handed down from the beginning of the twentieth century, and the “liberated” set handed down from the end of the twentieth century.  Neither gets you the love you want and deserve.”

- Terrence Real, The New Rules of Marriage: What you Need to Know to Make Love Work
pages 6, 8, & 9

When I read these first few pages last spring, something clicked inside about why Herb and I operate on such different playing fields sometimes.  And if you read only one book on marriage this year, please please please make it this one.  I do not think you will regret it!

In this book, Real suggests that women in Western culture are an entirely different species than they were just 50 years ago, whereas men have not changed much in that time.  While women have been on a wild journey, have a completely new perspective on things, and are craving different things from our marriages, men are left slack jawed, confused about all of the commotion going on around them.

Our culture and lifestyle no longer requires the “companionship marriages” that worked so well during the farming days of the first part of the twentieth century.  He did this.  She did that.  And they came together at the end of the day to fall into bed together once they knew that the cows and horses and children were all secured for the night.  It was a partnership, to be sure, but one in which they were often forced to divide and conquer in order to survive.  They did not have the luxury of taking long walks on the beach during that two week vacation every summer.  Paying a babysitter $10/hour while they lingered over small plates and wine would have been unheard of.  Small plates are what you ate once the Great Depression hit - not an overpriced foodie trend!  It was not practical or even on their radar.

Whether this model was “fair” or “right”, I think it made some sense during that time.  In the 1950’s and 60’s, we started to see the dark side of the model.  The husband went to work.  The wife stayed home.  Both partners were not equally appreciated (and it goes without saying which partner fell into which category).  By the late 60’s the ladies were fed up with that nonsense and they revolted.  And thank goodness for them!  It was time for a change and they were very courageous in demanding it!

So here we are.  2009.  We are equal in so many ways that our grandmothers did not even dream to think about pursuing.  Things sure are not perfect, and it certainly took too long for such a drastic shift to finally occur, but let’s all be fair - we have come a long way in a short amount of time.

And yet.

And yet, we are not completely content, are we?

We want things that were not valued in marriage 50 or 100 years ago.   We want to be partnered in every aspect possible.  We want to talk, and pick out the brand of diapers together, and have a whirlwind romance together.  We want intimacy to cover every part of our culturally new interdependent relationship.  Because our husbands have not been handed the legacy of the past two generations that women have been given, their heads are spinning as they try to catch up.  Sweet guys.  They are, in many ways, okay with the companionship model.  While so many of them have more respect for their wives, they don’t have the desire to share every thought, feeling, and trip to Costco!  Romance is for wooing a woman and the thought of continuing to do so throughout the entire marriage is confusing to some guys.

I am very lucky to have found an evolved man.  He is still trying to figure out the romance thing, but he does the dishes and talks about his feelings and likes to cuddle after love making (if we are being honest, he likes this last part more than I do!).  Many of you who I know personally also have pretty amazing husbands who are very different than the stereotypical 30-something male during the 1950’s.  And yet.

So now the question is this:

If what we want (more intimacy) is a fair thing to ask for (and it IS), how do we get it?

Real asserts that this is where women have been left unequipped by our mothers.  During the 1960’s and 70’s, they had to be very loud in order to catch the attention of an entire culture and cause the tectonic plates of thousands of years of gender roles to drastically shift.  They had to make some noise if they were going to be heard.  And then they did a disservice to us by passing down the idea that if you want to be heard you have to be a loud, angry bitch.  While it may seem sad or silly or unfortunate to us, it is easy to see how they came to this conclusion.  I mean, sure, if you are having trouble obtaining equal rights for women in the workforce, I can see how being a loud angry bitch might be necessary.  But it does not seem to have the same impact as we are shouting: “Buy me flowers and take me to dinner, and not just on my birthday, damnit!”  For some reason, guys just don’t feel compelled to respond well to that.  Go figure.   But now we are stuck with two choices:  be silent and go with the flow, or raise your voice and be a bitch.

I don’t know about you, but neither approach works in my marriage (I will let you guess which one I have tried more often).  Real’s book tries to give women a new arsenal to use in communicating with our husbands and getting our needs met.  Thank you Mr. Real, we appreciate a dude’s perspective that both honors our needs and also gives a little insight into what men respond to.

What have you found to be helpful as you try to integrate 21st century desires for intimacy into the 20th century model of companionship marriage?  In what ways is your marriage opperating in the 20th century?  In what ways have you successfully steered your way into the 21st century?  The more we discuss these things, the more likely we can all enjoy healthier marriages.

As always, if you found something here that made you scratch your head (for good or for bad), shout it out - we would love to hear your voice!