There is a great discussion at About.com Marriage on  celibacy in marriage.  I was amazed to read many comments where the commenter seemingly quite happy about their sexless or low sex arrangement.  I wanted to see how other people felt about it so I went to my favorite go to marriage site, The Marriage Bed, and read this discussion which seemed to me more in line with reality.

 
Just curious.
You can buy them on Amazon…and some of them are temporary poles…so you could more or less put it up and then take it down before the kids came in to wake you up in the morning.  They even have excercise videos based on pole dancing so you could always appeal to the “good girl” within by reminding her how wonderful exercise is for a healthy body.
But my question is…

 
The debate continues.  Can a man and a woman just be friends?  Many say that they can.  I tend to agree with Billy Crystal, in When Harry Met Sally.

Barbecuing really is the one typical cooking domain of the husband, isn’t it? Well, that and pancake breakfasts. At least those are the only two meals that I am generally responsible for when they come up on the menu. Last weekend we had family and friends over for the holiday and I managed to turn the steaks inside out. That’s right: well done on the inside and pink on the outside. Not sure how I did it, so I’m sticking with calling them sea cucumber fillets.
No need to feel sorry for Kerri, though. First, she enjoys cooking and experimenting in …read more

Here’s a question for you: Let’s say you’re friends with another married couple. The four of you get along pretty well until one day you don’t. Or rather, they stop getting along with each other, and eventually they get divorced. What do you do? Double dates are, um, out of the question. Do you go with the third wheel approach? Does someone wind up getting cut out of the picture altogether? Kerri and I haven’t had to deal with this, but we have friends who have, so I thought it might make an interesting question.
image

Okay, okay, I know it’s probably hard enough to find time just to talk with each other (though many of you seem to be doing well there!), when in the world can you find time to spend with another couple???
Fortunately for us, we have some suckers down the street that we conned into being friends with us. They’ve actually become very good friends that we count on to entertain us when we have some down time!!
Since they do live down the street, and our kids are similar ages, most of our date nights end up being cards …read more

Sleep has not come easily for either Kerri or me this week. She’s experiencing a bout of insomnia again, something she’s battled pretty regularly for a number of months now. I have had a couple sleepless nights stressing over work. And although both of us have been going to bed late – not that that’s a good thing – we haven’t generally managed to go to be at the SAME late. So when one of us gets in or out of bed the other, who has inevitably just gotten into a decent sleep, is awoken.
Perhaps all those TV couples who …read more

Economic Woman has a post out on a study that shows how the division of housework changes post-wedding day. Women, it turns out, do seven hours of housework more per week after they marry than they did before. Men, on the other hand, do one hour less after they marry than they did before. Very interesting…
A couple of thoughts here. First, it seems the old definitions of “man’s work” and “woman’s work” still hold true to a large degree. While our culture is changing, the male breadwinner and female homemaker are still the image by which we define normal. When …read more

Spring is in the air, and this year it means a whole bunch of remodeling around the Aldrich homestead. We’ve got a deck at bat, a kitchen on deck, and about twelve other things waiting in the dugout for their turn. (I can’t believe I just used a baseball metaphor.) We’re doing most of this with help from my parents and a lot of sweat equity.
This week it hit me,

I came across a pretty good list of questions over at Haq Islam that would merit review by any couple probably, not just those considering or preparing for marriage. Some of the questions clearly express a particular religious perspective, but they can pretty easily be adapted to other circumstances. The questions run the gamut, from big picture stuff (#1 – “What is your concept of marriage?”) to nitty-gritty details (#52 – “Do you use foul language at home? In public? With family?”). I bet it would be interesting to answer the questions individually every five or ten years and see …read more