Surviving Your Marriage Through the Rona

I tried to title this blog post just so. I wanted it to be good click bait for all of you in times of distress. As I’m typing, I am sitting here underneath a blanket in a house that hasn’t had power for 15 hours? No is that right? It’s something around there. But hey, hope is not all lost. Sure my job was cancelled in the traditional setting for a little bit, and my kids are depressed and rebelling. The animals have started sharpening their knives while I sleep and I had a full blown meltdown with the spectrum provider, but besides that I’m doing absolutely awesome. Do you think I’m ready to check out of this Covid19 party? Hell no, we are all in this together and when CMP squeezes his fat white ass down that power pole at some point we are going to be the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. I’m sorry , I’m sorry I couldn’t help myself. But anyways let’s start real talk. How is your marriage going through these quarantine times? Blissful? Have you reconnected in a way that would make others jealous?

Not at this HOUSE! Now it’s not all terrible. I married one of the good ones. He is just, well I nabbed him early thats all I have to say about that. He is one of those guys who will walk your grandmother to the door without being asked. He will shovel your sisters walkway. He will and has driven three towns over to a Starbucks for a coffee snob that lives at this house, simply because all the other ones in the state have shut down, but lemme tell you something. We had enough of each other. You feel me boo. He is creeping into my Netflix plans. He wants to do a “house project” when I have just started a new book. And thats some of the problem with the Rona. I’m sorry if I really personify this virus, but it helps me mentally get through. That is the exact problem with the Rona though, is when you are feeling motivated, your partner is not. For example, the one day that I was motivated (it might have been the only day). I took all the dishes out of the cupboard, and I mean all of em and I dusted and I rearranged and I threw out four bags of tupperware. I think I really reached a heightened state of mania with my purge of tupperware because instead of thanking the pieces, as Marie Condo suggests, I was saying F U RONA. But while this was all occuring, my husband was downstairs playing x-box with my eight-year-old with cooler ranch dorito dust on his sweat pants. I’m not upset at this exactly. I too, enjoy sweatpants, I too like the occasional cooler ranch dorito, I have been known to eat them so quickly they get stuck in my windpipe, but when I was swearing at the plastic dishes, I did not say Joe why don’t you help me with this project. Because I knew what place he was in. He was in the snack place, the lazy place, where we are never going to get out of this house place and I saw what escape room he was in and the fact that he didn’t want to escape and so I closed the door folks.

Fast forward to the next day and there I was in my faded sweatpants. It was a very Regina George day for me. I even said to my daughter when she remarked , Mom those are Christmas pants, I said to her these are all that fit me right now. I then took out my contacts, laughed at my make up on the counter, sprayed perfume on someone who wanted the day more and turned on Carol Baskin. All I’m saying, to the people of this blog and America, is Joe should have walked into the room, noted my current state and immediately turned around and walked right the f back out. This is relationship 101 everybody. This was written in our vows. Instead, he starts huffing and puffing, plugging something called a vacuum in and asking for help in the kitchen. Ummm, I”M GOOD.

The other difficult part about staying married through this, is my underlying condition of asthma. I NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE, ever. I’m trying to be good. I occasionally get in the car. I have gone running a few times, but besides that, he is playing hunter and gatherer and doing the grocery store bit for me and I get jealous of that. I think I started using my eyeliner for labeling hand sanitizer instead of meeting the public. But I do , I hold that resentment as a bad breather , that he gets to leave the house, and I get to stay in this prison.

Additionally, I read somewhere in a cosmo magazine or Women’s Health , that the way to connect with your partner is really through exercise. So I said to myself, self, why don’t you run with your hubby. I asked him about 25 times, before he said yes and then on Sunday he conceded. I got my map my run app out, I had Kesha playing and I started up running. He turned to me mortified and said Taryn don’t you have air pods? What are we 12 I asked him. The music that I am playing, the whole town of West G wants and has requested, therefore it must blast as I am running down the road. He just shook his head and then took off like a freakin rocket. Now in other backstory that you may not have, I work out most every day of my life. I do beach body work outs, spin classes, when I used to be able to see friends I would walk and run with them and my husband had not worked out in three or four weeks prior. But when he took off down that road, it was like he was the Michael Phelps of our pool. I mean I blinked and he was gone. There I was, making all the noises of a chainsmoker, hoofing it down the road, and he was already at the end of it. I think the neighbors were so confused when they heard Jumanji approaching and then saw him up ahead, like what the hell is making all that noise. Now that in itself, is not enough to blame your spouse. BUT THEN, he circled back to me and said do you want me to slow down for you. I’m sorry , did I understand him correctly? We are not at the beginning of our relationship, where I am the girl from She’s All That and He’s the cool jock doing circles around me. I told him to get gone and that I could smoker cough on my own thank you very much. And so that in a nutshell is how awesome our social soul crushing of a marriage has been going , with him running ahead of me, turning around to see if I’m okay and me telling him to go straight to you know where. But through it all , we will be stronger for it right? all you cool cats and kittens? Once we make it through this, we can make it through anything.