Chris Kula

Jun. 27, 2010 at 3:17pm with 23 notes

I’m getting married this fall. For more than six years now Sussy and I have built a relationship on laughter, love and the comfort in just being ourselves. She’s a special lady, my partner and equal, and it’s sad knowing this will all come to an end when she becomes my wife.

Because if there’s one thing Sussy believes about marriage, it’s that her personal identity ends the day she becomes “Mrs. Chris Kula.” I’ve told her that this is a ridiculous idea, and further, that she doesn’t have to take my name. “Oh silly, of course I do,” she says. “If I don’t, how will anyone know that you own me?”

You see, I’d always thought of marriage as man and wife joining as teammates. Sussy’s since corrected me: I had the “team” part right, but that it’s more husband as coach, and wife as the last back-up on the bench who’s just thrilled to have made the team.

She’s told me that once we’re married, changes will have to be made, exclusively by her. For one, she plans on closing her bank account. “If I need to buy something, I’ll ask you for the money,” she’s said. “And if you don’t give it to me, well, I guess I didn’t really need that thing.”

Our duties around the house will change, too. She says the only cooking I will do is that on a grill, and the only cleaning will be that of my sports car with a cloth rag, on weekends, in lieu of whatever activity she hoped we’d do. “Just kidding,” she said, winking. “I’ll know better than to have any plans for us.”

She said that choosing which restaurants to eat at will be entirely up to me, as is choosing whether she just waits in the car:

HER: It’s the husband’s right to enjoy his steak in peace. I’ll be completely content with a doggie bag of the leftover fat and gristle.
ME: But you’re a vegetarian.
HER: Ohh, no that was just one of those fads you go through during your teen years and through all of your 20s and into your 30s and then immediately drop for your husband.

Moreover, she claims a wife’s duty includes but is not limited to: speaking when spoken to; laughing when expected to; agreeing when agreed upon; and crying only once I’m asleep.

And then there’s sex. She said that starting on our wedding night, sex is to happen when I want, and how I want it, and that I’m not to stop no matter how much she might protest. I told her, “Sussy, I think what you’re describing is rape.” She laughed. “Oh sweetie, within the walls of marriage there is no such thing as rape.”

So, this is the new wife I must soon come to terms with. A wife who will ritually burn her college degree. A wife who will refer to painful childbirth as “earning her keep.” And a wife who will promise, in her wedding vows, that as we grow old together she will not die before me, claiming, “No husband should ever suffer the pain of burying his wife while there’s probably a ballgame on.”

And yet, I know we’ll make it work. Because buried deep down inside that new wife, like a Russian doll under layers of obedience and sacrifice, will be the sassy and smart lil’ lady I fell in love with. And it’s HER I’ll be thinking of when I hear that minister say, “I now pronounce you The Man! And his wife.”