How Marriage Gives You Freedom, and When Not to Take Advantage of That

The frat house/movie analysis is that marriage ties you down and keeps you from being free. Let's be honest, there's some truth in that. Most of us insist that our partner doesn't have the freedom to sleep around, spend our shared income indiscriminately, or move to Rio on a moment's notice.

But marriage also gives you freedom in ways that aren't always stated. Here's where we're getting real, folks ... and if you can't take it, get out of the blog.

There are two freedoms that come to mind immediately:

1. Marriage gives you the freedom to fart.

Now men, perhaps you never felt your farting freedom was restricted. But we women have been taught never to let one rip - and to be woefully embarrassed if it does happen. We've perfected looks of feigned ignorance, and many of us have resorted to blaming our non-verbal children when the unfortunate incidence does occur.

That's not necessary in marriage. Right? It's simply impossible to hide our natural body functions, and so we just get used to it. Ahhh, the sweet scent of freedom. Errr ...

2. Marriage gives you the freedom to let go a little.

Perhaps, in your single days, you never left home without a good dousing of your Obsession cologne. Maybe you never went out on a Friday night without putting on clean boxers, just in case. I bet, when you were single, you couldn't imagine noticing a significant stain on your shirt, and not changing.

Enter marriage - and especially parenthood: if I changed my clothes every time a child wiped his nose on my shirt, it would multiply our laundry ten fold. And we already do a lot of laundry.

So yeah, marriage gives you some freedoms. And these are good: it's part of being real with each other - no facades, nothing artificial.

Until it causes trouble. Because freedom can go too far.

I was reminded of this earlier this week when reading another marriage blog, The Generous Wife. You only need a few lines to get the picture:

"Time for an underwear check: Yup. Go through your undies drawer and remove anything worn, ugly or that doesn't fit. Replace with pretties."

Who among us can't use that advice? (Singles and newlyweds, is my guess.) We can get so comfy in our Fruit of the Loom cotton briefs that we forget they're not exactly enhancing our relationship. That's where freedom fails you.

This came to mind when a friend, a new mom who just returned to work, sent me an article on the pumping breast milk. (Thank God those days are over, I say.) The author comments: 

These days, when I am home, I pump on the sofa in front of the TV — an image I hope will one day unburn itself from my husband’s retinas. I imagine I look like some weird experiment in animal husbandry in which I am both the farmer and the cow.

Again, marriage gives you the freedom to pump on the couch. But is it really a good idea?

One last "freedom fail" example: naked bodies aren't always attractive. A certain husband who shall remain unnamed once hinted that perhaps his lovely and shapely wife should change in the bathroom after her workout. Point taken, thank you. The classic pop culture example is the Seinfeld episode where Jerry has a girlfriend who is always naked. And while that may seem like a turn on, it's definitely not:

So I think we've all learned our lesson here: Marriage gives us some valuable freedom. It's not to our best advantage to always act on those freedoms.

Off to take stock of my undies drawer.