Joseph's a Better Crafter than Me

Christmas of 2005 was the year that my knitting flourished and I made hats for everybody in my family.  Everybody.  And I don’t really have a small family, especially on Christmas when the lines everybody drew for themselves dissolve and open up to reveal that they still need those people who can aggravate them like no other people can.  So I had hats with cables knitted into them, hats with ear flaps knitted on them, hats with stripes, hats with checks, and even hats with sparkly, ruby red yarn.  I wrapped each had in wrapping paper I made from collected paper grocery bags and hand stamped and colored for each individual.  And I tied each one with a different bow I made from yarn, hemp twine, and other crafty things. 

Christmas of 2005 was the year that I drew a line in the sand and said enough with commercialism; Joseph and I would only give what we could make.  And this meant for another year or two that Joseph and I would only give what could be made by me.  Joseph just had to sit back and occasionally drive me to get yarn or other supplies for our festivities. 

It was a nice little set up until I started to feel like I had taken on a chore, not something fun to do in my spare time, and then used my self-inflicted punishment (creating Christmas gifts) to complain to Joseph that he “never does anything for Christmas, and shares in the glory.”  This complaint was lodged the year I had begun my pre-required classes for nursing school and was feeling a little put out studying to really get into knitting or canning for long periods of precious free time.  And like most of my complaints about my role in the relationship, this one back-fired. 

First of all, I am going to tell you a little about my role in the relationship and Joseph’s role in the relationship.  And it is going to sound very much like sexism and a little like feminism in places, but please hear me out because whether or not you believe in anything I am about to say, it works for me and has kept me and Joseph together for eleven years now. 

So, I believe that a successful marriage must have a husband and a wife.  This does not mean that every successful marriage has a man and a woman, please read my words, I said every successful marriage has a HUSBAND and a WIFE.  In the “good old days” the words husband and wife were synonymous with man and woman, because society left little room for any other genders to fill either roles.  But after World War II, especially in the 1950’s when those ideals were getting shoved down our throats, the roles were never quite the same.  So for me, a Husband is the person in the relationship that has that steady energy.  He or she is a little more logical, a little more practical, and a little more in tune with the outside world.  The Wife for me is a little more emotional, a little more idealistic, and a little more in tune with the world inside the home.  Neither one of these is better or worse, and yes, I think the bits of these roles can be shuffled to produce a Wife who is practical and a Husband who is more emotional, but there remain spaces that need to be filled and the successful Husband and Wife will compensate for each other and fill them. 

I am the wife.  Joseph is the husband.  I expect Joseph to watch the news, tell me what’s going on in the outside world, and to generally ignore things like cooking and cleaning even though I hate cleaning and think Joseph’s cooking is amazing.  We have been successful because I do not rebel at being the wife.  In many gay relationships, men rebel at the notion that there could be a wife, as they are two men.  And in many straight relationships, women balk at the idea that household work is a woman’s prerogative.  But I think that the negative connotation that comes with being a wife is just a flavor of the day peppered with liberal and feminist thinking.  I think wives are a vital part of every culture.  The world would collapse upon itself if everyone decided that they were husbands and nobody wanted to be wives.  A case could be made that either role has its benefits and its downside.  Joseph has to balance our check book.  Joseph has to worry about paying bills.  But Joseph also has his lunches packed for him and in his truck when he drives to work each morning with a to-go mug of coffee made lovingly by me in his hands. 

But I digress.  Suffice to say that we have come to identify ourselves with roles in our relationship that correspond to Husband and Wife and we are both very comfortable with those roles. 

So you could imagine that I was not only a little surprised but also a little threatened when Joseph taught himself to use a knitting loom to pick up my knitting slack.  Not only that but his precise, even stitches (Joseph is nothing if not precise) put my homespun knitting to shame.  I started telling people who saw his work that he “cheated” because he uses a knitting loom and not knitting needles.  And you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, either.  Joseph has been the primary knitter for all subsequent Christmases, and it pains me to say that he has taught himself a new craft this year and has begun making gifts which I will blog about in the post Christmas blogs so as not to spoil surprises.  I am beside myself.  As the wife of this relationship, the crafting and the Christmasing should come more naturally to me than to him, but that is not the case.  Somehow every time I complain, the Universe fills Joseph with the very skill I complain about and makes the case that “anyone” can fill my role and my duties.  It’s gotten so a guy can’t complain around here. 

(Yes, I said “Christmasing.”) 

So now I have to find a way to elbow myself back into the Christmas preparations this year, because I will not be upstaged by a know-it-all, Johnnie-Come-Easy like my Husband!   I’m bound and determined to pull something even better than his new craft out of my sleeve!  Just you wait.  Joseph not only crossed the line of Husband work into Wife work, he has threatened my very theory on what makes a marriage successful!  He’s going down!