A friend of mine, Joe, narrated to me his married life experience wondering if all men do live the same reality in marriage and eventually derive the conclusion that:” A man, any man in marital life, is ultimately bound to lose to his wife!” He said and I quote:

 

In the first years of my marriage it was normal that I was learning to cope with the new situation. I had to discover on my own the complexity of deciding to share my life with an unknown person (actually falling in love with another person and sharing moments or days together for a certain period of time is not like living together!)

I am not going to discuss all kinds of obstacles that any individual would encounter in his new life but I am going to concentrate on some of the bedroom issues like which side of the bed should I take, at which time should I go to bed, at which time should I get up, should I expect to go to bed at the same time of my wife and should I expect her to snooze for an hour or two after I wake up…

In theory, everything looks simple. But in reality things are more complicated! It is not like a piece of furniture that you buy from IKEA and that comes with instructions! Here, there are no instructions and there is no sequence to follow!

After resolving the issue of which side of the bed is mine, each person could go to bed whenever he feels like, wake up independently etc…there was a tiny problem that took me a while to solve:

Against all the recommendations of the specialists, I like before falling asleep to take a little time in bed to watch TV, or listen to some music (I wouldn’t mind to put the radio on the “sleep “ mode so it shuts off in 30min or so) or read a book or… That helps me rewind in order to forget about the stress of the day and get ready to close my eyes.

On the opposite when my new bride (at the time) slips into bed it is to go to sleep right away. She shuts the light off and she pulls up the blanket to cover her head completely! I was getting worried that she gets herself suffocated. But 🙂 she is able to survive the lack of oxygen!

As for me I cannot rest unless my head is completely uncovered! So desperately needing my 30 minutes or so, I tried all the following, one at a time:

o TV
I put the TV on. She complained that she cannot sleep. I lowered the volume. Still too much sound. I chose a subtitled program and put the noise off. Still she was deranged by the fluctuation of the light of the screen that was getting reflected on the walls then reaching under the bed cover!

o Radio
As you may have guessed, it was not an option to put the radio on! So l thought about a bright idea that would solve my problem: use an earphone to listen to the radio. So I inserted the earpiece into my ear with a smile on my face thinking “Eureka “. It didn’t take long seconds before she complained that she was irritated by the little noise coming out of my ear!

o Reading a book
As it was my last recourse, I bought an interesting book put it by my bed and was ready to enjoy my first night! It didn’t take long before she protested that she was not able to sleep because of the light of the side lamp!

o The “Itty Bitty Light”
After getting desperate about my situation (and Google didn’t exist yet to help me out) I discovered the “Itty Bitty Light”. It is a smartly designed light with no glare that clips into the book and enlightens the spot you are reading without disturbing your bedmate! Thinking that finally I found the solution I started reading the first page. It didn’t take long before she was awakened by the sound of turning the page!