Scrub! Again!

In addition to the expectation of compliance (and of my willingness to comply) to my wife’s schemes, plans, and resolutions, we have an ‘obey list’. It’s really a list of things she wants me to do – not necessarily that day or every day, just at some point. She’ll usually email me from work asking me what I already plan on doing for the day, and then add something from the obey list, sometimes removing something from my plan.

For instance, she had scrub the kitchen floor on the obey list last week, even said I could do it in sections for the baby’s sake and encouraged me that it wouldn’t take so long. Not so big a deal really, I’ve scrubbed the kitchen floor before when she has told me to, and I even wrote a story with the same theme.

So, today I happen to be on the phone with her about baking the lemon lavender scones she had put on the obey list (they turned out quite well), when I get an email from her saying,

“I notice you left the kitchen floor off the list–you need to keep up with that.”

So I ask her over the phone “Um, you want me to scrub the floor again?” as I’m thinking I thought she felt I did a good job with that, why again?

“Yes, I want you to do a section everyday. If you do a section everyday, it’ll be easy to keep up with.”

As you can imagine, I’m realizing now:
Oh, scrub the floor over and over again for the rest of my life, one section at a time…

“…Aye, Captain.”

“Good.”

Because yes, I’m okay with that.
Because it’s clear she wants (me to do) it.
Because I like it when she wants (me)(so clearly).
Because her wanting is so beautiful and fiery.

And Life is Good

We talked briefly last night and agreed the obey resolution has worked well, both practically and symbolically, as both a way to see life’s mundane tasks are accomplished in better accordance to her standard and priority and also as an effective way for me to express, and she to see, my love for her.

I must say I love how she’s approaching this as simultaneously fun and serious –there have been as many laughs as tasks accomplished.  I also love how she’s simultaneously cautious and effective –she doesn’t give me orders so much as expect me to obey/comply with her wishes, and she expects practical, tangible, bottom-line results.

It means she’s doing things her way and finding her own style of being more firmly in charge, it means she’s making sure she’s getting what she wants out of the added dynamic –making sure the symbols mean something that she wants and values, and that the symbols work in a way that works for her. And of course it also means I’m happy and motivated because I’m at one with her and her desire (harmony) and effectively feeding her fiery self.

I admit I haven’t been perfect with everything but it’s clear that what is getting done happens with more intentionality, more goodwill towards one another, and more intimacy.

In short: it’s working and life is good.

Better actually.

Resolutions

My sister-in-law made a resolution to use social media to better keep in touch. Of course I didn’t know this –even after she gave us a webcam for Christmas.

Now my wife only has one sister so I usually take it with salt when she calls me her favorite brother in law. However, I give her credit because she does know we’re neither technophiles or rolling in moola –my wife works but I stay home with the kids. We don’t have smart phones, large televisions, tivo, sweet sound systems or anything else. My wife has an ipod. We just got a printer for our computer because her work loaned it to us after they decided they didn’t need it anymore. You get the idea. I don’t know how much web cams go for, if this is cheapie or a high end. I don’t know if this is something the sisterhood collaborated on. What I do know is that whatever happens with it I’m going to be very … positive.

No less, Christmas (and New Year’s) fall on Sunday and it’s Friday before Sister-In-Law emails me: “Hey my sister said you’re hooking up the webcam and we can use it tonight!”

Well, we all knew who was going to be hooking it up. But I’ve suspected Sister-in-law has some inkling about the dynamics of our marital life. I mean we’re not exactly D/s and we don’t kink (we don’t even “just play in the bedroom”), but I’m pretty sure that my wife is in charge enough, and that I’m uxorious enough, that it shows. We’re happy and don’t try to hide it, say like when we visited last year.

But right now I have no idea if my wife is telling me to do something by way of her sister, or if Sister-In-Law is in some sort of webcam withdrawl and is desperately trying to get one past my wife. So I call my wife who says “Yes, see if you can get it hooked up. My sister has all the details.” Right.

Somewhere around six Sister-in-law emails, four hours (yeah, maybe this is why I’m not a technophile), and a ‘wife’s-name’ google+ account later (’cause they let you webchat free), I’ve finally got this thinga-ma-jig hooked up.

The next day, Saturday, New Year’s Eve, the day after the nieces, nephews, sistahs, and aunts try out the webchatter and have a great time, I’m sitting at the computer minding my own business (or as close as makes no difference for this story) happily thinking how glad I am to have gotten that whole web-camera-chitterer out of the way, and lo! this google+ IM window pops up with:

“Hey!”

Me: Um, hey?
['Cause why would I have a clue what's going on.]

“Very good, Favorite Brother-in-Law!”
[Of course, despite the fact this is my wife's account, said sister-in-law just would know it was me.]

Me: Thank you!

SisInLaw: Ha-ha! Tell my sister about this IM feature.

Me: Sure Sis-in-law, she’s putting Elder Daughter to bed now but I’ll tell her about it.

SisInLaw: NOoo! Tell her to come here now, put her fingers on the keyboard and make her do this!

Me: Um, have you tried to make her do anything lately?
Yeah… I’ll just tell her about it.

SisInLaw: Lol! Okay, so what resolutions have you made?

Me: Specifically for New Year’s? Never.
Every other day of the year? Always.

SisInLaw: Really? Like what?

Me: Like I’m going to be nicer to people – no, wait. I’m going to be firmer with people so I can have enough room to be true to who I am.

And like I’m going to write more. No wait. I should really probably write less and get more things done.

SisInLaw: Lol You sound conflicted!

Me: Yeah, so I don’t make big changes all at once. Better a little bit at a time.

SisInLaw: Right. Don’t change horses in mid stream.

Me: ‘Xactly. How about you?

SisInLaw: Well, I’m going to use social media to keep in touch better…

Me: Oh, now I see the master plan: a socialist media!
[Really I'm just saying this to cover for how stupid I feel for not figuring her long term intentions from the beginning]. 

SisInLaw: So you can keep in touch with Mao?

Me: ‘Xactly.

You get the idea: Others are good with resolutions. I am not good with resolutions (and many other things too, but I’m focusing here). I tell my wife all about this conversation of course, but I’m still surprised when this morning, New Year’s day, she says to to me, “Now since I know you weren’t going to bother making resolutions this year, I went ahead and made them for you.”

As my wife hands me a small piece of paper, I’m thinking –ok well, possibly not exactly thinking but: “Whoa. Ok. Actually, um, that’s kinda hot.” But of course what I really do is smile, laugh and say, “Really?”, and cover my reaction by looking down and starting to read the short list – which I read out loud because, well, I don’t know why, but I do.

“One new recipe per month.” Okay this has a lot of backstory to it and I’m not surprised – really it’s very cool because she’s the one who wants more variety and she’s making a resolution for me to cook for her to her satisfaction.  So I look up at her and I smirk a little smile while she looks all innocent and I go on.

“Light incense.” Again not too surprising, lot of allergies and asthma on this backstory, but when I look up she just says, “I like it” with all due emphasis on her ‘I’. I just say “Aye, Captain”, my stock affirmative phrase which means “you said it, discussion’s done, I’m doing it” and I go right on.

She’s talking to our eldest child as I read: “Exercise everyday” and “Drink water everyday”. Yes, I’m (ahem) a few pounds overweight, hard to lose as a house husband if you don’t make the time. And this is admittedly a resolution with some backstory I’d rather skip over.

My wife has dismissed our daughter to some task, so I take the opportunity to read out: “Write something everyday.” Sigh. I love my wife. She knows I love writing even when its hard and I just read books instead. (You wouldn’t believe the amount of philosophy I’ve been reading lately.) I look up as she smiles and nods at me. Yes, she knows.

There’s only on more. I read. “Obey your true love–” (and I’m starting to get that ‘thinking-but-not-exactly-thinking-feeling’ again) “–she is loaded with good ideas, and your life will be better for it!”

Well. I’m dumbfounded. I mean we’ve used the word ‘obey’ in casual conversations before –referring more to the expectation of my willful intent to do to make her happy than to any sort of ‘force-demand’ dynamic. Certainly not in any situation remotely even close to serious like a resolution – even if it is only New Year’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the part of her that demands and forces the world (including me) bend to her fiery, willful, and bossy inner self and I don’t mind using ‘obey’ –if carefully. But she’s an egalitarian feminist who has specially reserved names for the “women obey your husband” thing. On the rare occasions when she does use it, she always follows it up with ”and your life is better for it” precisely because of the historical connotations of people’s lives NOT being better when they obey others.

But here it is as her resolution for me.

I look up, and see this very large smile on her face. –Kiss. —Hug.

Well. Resolution to increase the usage of the word ‘obey’ is hereby  –Passed.

047 never more certain

.

Perhaps by now you deem it true
but never am I more certain than
whenever I am far from you
(or upon reflection closest too)
the place that I am meant to stand

is by your side no matter how,
doting, adoring as best I may,
to love and feed your fire obey
so much more than any vow,
so much more than times allow.

.

Power & Passion: Partner/Dynamic Balance

This is the fourth of five in this series on relationship balance:
1. Symbol Distance
2. Metaphor Direction
3. Self/Other Diametric
4. Power/Passion Dynamic

~

As Richard John Neuhaus puts it [in 'American Babylon'], ‘libido dominandi’ is “the lust for power, advantage, and glory.” It shouts, “My way or no way!”

This lust for domination doesn’t just characterize politics in the City of Man, it characterizes each of us. The libido dominandi is that within each of us that plots and strives to have our own way and force others do as we say.
~ James Tonkowich, Libido Dominandi: St. Augustine and the Lust for Domination (emphasis mine)

Of course power and passion are close cousins in human experience, we can see how close by looking closely at the word ‘ambition’:

Ambition:
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment

Synonyms:
appetite, ardor, aspiration, avidity, craving, desire, drive, eagerness, earnestness, emulation, energy, enterprise, enthusiasm, hope, hunger, initiative, itch, keenness, longing, love, lust, passion, pretension, push, spirit, striving, thirst, vigor, yearning, zeal

I might like to think of myself as a passionate ‘sensitive guy’ but it is no secret men often have their interior experiential want and desire for things egotistically attached to their sex drive as if their will-to-power‘s force of self were the very fist of their phallus.

It’s why St. Augustine called it ‘libido dominandi‘, “the lust [to dominate and] for power, advantage, and glory”. So it is I wonder if my interior “desire for” is comparatively merely more attached to ‘emotional requite-ment’ of passionate (romantic) love, rather than to lustful (orgiastic?) climax of powerful domination. In a way this topic could easily be about ‘sorts of uxory’ and the difference between uxory and submission, however rather than compare kinds of relationships I think this issue more educational about negotiating a functional power-passion dynamic within a single relationship.

For I don’t think libido dominandi is always bad (certainly not always “sinful”) in and of itself; the libido dominandi by another name might be Nietzsche’s ’will-to-power’, something neither moral nor immoral but merely essential about life and living. And if some women like a sensitive man, I can also see how some women find the sensitive man “too (emotionally) needy” and instead prefer a man with more ambition, drive and will-to-power. In fact such grit, moxie and determination is sometimes thought courageous, independent, self-reliant and oft idolized in ‘the rugged individual’. And of course, not only is there going to be a range of behaviors among men and expectations among women (or vice versa) along this spectrum, but there’s certainly also variance within any particular individual character from time to time – and such variance of personalities and expectations  within a relationship dynamic means (re)negotiation, adjustment and coping.

And if some men like a sensitive woman, I can also see how some men instead prefer a woman with more ambition, drive and will-to-power. I think my wife manages to minimally define any other person when she says “I want” – rather than forcing another to do it “my way or no way” she more often simply says ”I just want what I want – and you can do what you want”. But if I happen to like ”her will to power” more than “her power over me”, I can surely see how other people might prefer something further down the spectrum and may even experience a more dominating dynamic as something more intimate, loving and functional – for them.

Moreover what I might label my “passionate, emotional sensitivity” (or ‘emotional requite-ment’ of passionate romantic love) my wife sometimes labels with a simple “emotionally needy”. This mismatch doesn’t happen often enough to be a serious issue for us (though it can in some relationships) and when it does we adjust and negotiate: I find a balance of self and other that’s right for me (as does she) and each of us (with our partner in mind) try (re)negotiating our love symbols in order to attain a balance that is functional for both of us. And of course we don’t get everything we want right away and we often end up coping with whatever unmet desire (for ‘more of the other’ or for ‘more space’) as best we can. I always try to remember that she doesn’t always get everything what she wants either, when she doesn’t get all the relationship ‘space’ (or the immaculately clean home) that she wants (from me) she has to cope with possibly having more guilt and less freedom than she wanted.

Finding the balance and dynamic of power and passion that works for both people in the relationship is a process probably best approached with patience – and also with some recognition of the interconnectivity of these four different relationship balances. In a very real sense each of these balances are merely different perspectives, each highlighting slightly different aspects and nuances, of the intersection between two individuals in an intimate relationship.