I know what you're thinking. I'd rather have someone love me for me. That's unrealistic. Think of all the things you do when no one's looking. Actually, think of what you look like when you get up in the middle of the night to pee. That person staring you in the mirror through one squinty eye is who you really are. That's the person who relishes the splat of pus from a popped zit, whose pubic hair sometimes pokes through her spandex capris because she refuses to wear underwear to yoga, and who has maybe once called in sick because Barneys was having a sale. Is that the kind of person you imagined committing a lifetime to?
I can hear you saying, "But that's what love isssss. It's accepting another person in all their unsavory glory. It's unconditional." No, that's what parenting is. Romantic love is a much more fickle and fragile being. It requires constant maintenance. It needs patience, understanding, seduction, a good sense of humor—and bathroom doors.
Thank god once you're married you can leave all that behind. You can stop holding your stomach in. You can lay spread-eagled on the couch watching The Mindy Project. You can suck Cheetos dust off your fingers with an enthusiasm you used to reserve for...erm, popsicles, and then wipe your spit-soaked hand on the sweatpants you've been wearing all weekend. Or worse. Because now you have a legal contract that creates an administrative nightmare should your partner decide he can't take the smell of your armpits for one more day.
But if you're lucky, the basically perfect human being you're married to makes you want to be better than the creature that shuffles around in the middle of the night cursing at the furniture for being in its path to the toilet. That's a nice thought, isn't it?
Of course, we've only been married for three weeks. There's still time to let myself go.
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