Why did I marry someone totally different from me?

Dear Dale:

My wife and I are totally different. I’m a wild man and she’s Miss Goody Two Shoes. We don’t agree on anything. So why did we get married?

Signed,

Mismatched

Dear M:

A lot of people think it’s sex. You want a woman so bad you agree to spend the rest of your life with her. But that’s not true. Not anymore, anyway. It was in the past but these days, only Christians arrive at the altar still virgins.

Others say it’s love. The attachment is so strong you can’t live without her. Certainly, that is what women aim for. Tying you tight with the lasso of love. But still… of all the women in the world, why did you fall for her?

The answer is buried deep in your brain. Fact is, we’re all fucked-up. No matter how rich or protective your parents, odds are something bad happened to you. Being banned from a birthday party for crapping in a kid’s bag. Being laughed at for using your long undies as a Halloween costume. Finding out your dad’s beer is alcohol-free. We all have trauma we need to recover from. And so we seek out someone we think can help us do that.

By your own admission, you’re a wild man. My guess is you wanted a no-nonsense woman to keep you from going over the cliff.

And your wife is clearly the prisoner of her inhibitions. She wanted a rebel who would rescue her from the cage of convention.

Now if you had managed to free her from her fears and she had put you on the straight and narrow, you’d both be happy. Or at least, content.

Problem is, you don’t really want to stop being a wild man because it’s fun and, like a lot of prisoners, your wife is afraid of leaving her cell. And so you go on, year after year, feeling frustrated but not doing anything about it.

So what to do? First, accept the situation. Admit you have problems and need help. Then, challenge one another.

Make her go streaking with you. I recommend a mall. Besides being crowded, it’s warm. Running naked in the cold soon ceases to be fun. It also makes you less than impressive to female onlookers. Believe me, I know.

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