A Girl...

Just Preachy

Yesterday Carrie linked to MIM's post about a woman's relationship to her weight post-wedding. The entry's about a lot of other things too, but if you want the bullet points, check out MIM's follow-up entry, in which she clarifies and enunciates and either makes the haters hate more or the supporters rally louder.

Taking a step away from that article, I don't want to talk about marital weight gain specifically but about what I see as the larger issue, which is how "comfort" in a relationship is so often defined as "the ability to finally let one's self go, and thank god because I've been sucking in my gut and pretending I like basketball for far too long." This makes me sad.

Sure, sometimes when a single person acts or appears a certain way so that he or she is more attractive to potential mates "false advertising" is absolutely at work, but I'm not really interested in those calculating, manipulative bait-and-switchers who very consciously put up a front and have no qualms about the fact that they are willfully deceiving one of the most important people in their lives. *inhale, exhale* I'm even less interested in the people who believe in some sort of Demented Marital Hotness Contract that says Party A has to maintain the same weight/haircut/activity level/whatever throughout the marraige or else Party B has every right to divorce her sorry ass posthaste.

What I'm interested in are the people who are in between, people like me, people like you, who neither intend to "let themselves go" nor, to be honest, try all that hard to prevent it. For me, the real issue isn't about pounds or bangs or anything that superficial but about the process of staying engaged in your relationship so that you don't have to be healthy/exciting/attractive/whatever but that you want to be all of those things--for your partner and for yourself.

We've all done it--felt the settling that happens when you've found someone who loves you for you. Gone are those heady times of primping before a date, being extra creative and romantic, shutting down the sour moods in favor of your happy-happy-sunshine personality. Given a few years (or even months) you don't shave your legs as often, you suggest t.v. and pizza instead of hiking and Peruvian food, and you're still wearing the shamrock socks the day after St. Patty's because, that's right, you can't be bothered to shower and change clothes when you're just hanging out with your boyfriend and if he thinks you stink, well then he's just going to have to deal with it. Sad, sad, sad. And guilty as charged.

It's true, that old adage that we treat acquaintances better than we treat those closest to us. We do it because we know they can handle it, because we know that we can be ugly and smelly--both physically and emotionally--and they'll still love us in the morning. And thank god for those people we can be lazy and irritable and unkempt around because last time I checked I wasn't living in Stepford, and no one can survive with that kind of pressure to be perfect. But never again making an effort for your long-term mate the way you made an effort when you were first courting? That is what's called "taking advantage" and "taking for granted," and I'll be damned if I allow myself to rampantly perpetrate that again.

In many ways, Simon and I are both starting over with each other. Although we're coming together with relatively clean slates, the slates themselves have the markings of past relationship experiences--a knick here, a scratch there, a crack on the underside if you look really hard for it. Rather than let the past discourage us, however, we acknowledge, discuss, and learn from our mistakes, and Dr. Phil should be sending us our Healthy Couple Award any day now. (That is my way of saying I'm fully aware of what a Preachy Pollyanna I'm being.) For us, though, knowing all those past-relationship scars are there helps us do better justice to each other (and to ourselves), and one of the things we've talked a lot about is the danger of settling into a comfortable sloth and what we're willing to do to prevent it.

I won't speak for Simon here, but I know that when I settle it looks like me sitting on the couch saying, "I don't wanna go out and be social. I don't wanna be proactive. I don't wanna try new food in new restaurants with new people." With a boy like the one I've got, that attitude can be crushing, and even though I love being lazy, I like myself a whole lot better when I actually get out there and do something, especially when I see how much Simon appreciates it.

But would he dump my ass if I turned down an invitation every now and then? No. Do I have to primp for two hours and be perfectly shaved and coifed and ironed before he'll be seen with me in public? Thank god, no. But does he like having a girlfriend who's excited about life and supportive of his interests? And who regularly makes an effort--the same effort I did when we first started dating--to look cute and sassy when we go out on a Friday night? Yes, yes, hell yes. I love you, baby, for accepting the inevitability of granny panties, but it thrills me to see the look on your face when I wear those little black underthings with the polkadots and the hot-pink lace, you know the ones, and therefore there will always be frillies in my drawer, don't you worry.

Over the hours and hours of relationship talk we've done, we've both realized that we're people who thrive on tangible affection. What that means is that even though he knows I love him and think he's the dreamiest dreamboat in the whole wide world, I tell him so daily. And not a day goes by that I don't hear some version of "Have I told you yet today that I think you're beautiful/cool/wonderful/hot/wicked smart?" If he never again told me he loved me, I'd still know it by the way he treats me and looks at me and does my dishes, but why stop the "I love you"s just because you can? Why stop shaving your legs and getting gussied up for a hot date? Heck, why stop planning hot dates? True, I no longer need to work on snagging him, but man it's fun to snag him anew every chance I get.

"I'd still love you if you gained sixty pounds," he's said. "But I hope you don't, because you are smokin' hot!" And so we go to the gym and so I have convinced him that the best gift he can give me after I birth his babies is a personal trainer. It may not be the way for everyone, but it's the way for us. I look forward to always being the girl he first fell in love with, even though we're bound to change.