The Male Mystique

The Male Mystique
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published Saturday August 24, 2013

I live with a man who inhabits a different relationship to mine. Our marriage is a his-and-her version of the same conjugation. I can never tell what my husband is thinking because he’s master of the poker face. On weekends, having tried (and failed) to read his mood, I’ll squeeze in beside him on the sofa and inquire: “Honey, what are you thinking?”  

“Nothing.”  

I like to press him further: “You know, it’s impossible to think about nothing. Even nothing is something if you can’t think of anything.”

“Okay then,” he sighs. “I’m thinking about what a plonker that Hayden Ballantyne is.  And if I’ll have time to scarper to Bunnings at half time. And whether they’ll have a sausage sizzle out the front. Happy now?”

He shoots me a look that’s either bemusement or incredulity but I can’t tell because I can’t read his mind.

I’ve spent years trying to get inside his head. I have tried to follow his man-mind by over-processing everything he says and does. I look for hidden meanings in his shrugs and read far too much into his harrumphs.

Here’s my theory: my husband has a one-track mind. His brain chugs along the straightest possible route from A to B. He stays calm, measured and entirely predictable. As far as I can tell, he neatly divides his day into work, football, family, newspapers and sleep. (On weekends, in reverse order). And if the gentle hum of domestic life with a wife, three children and a cat turns into bedlam, he seeks refuge in the dunny.

On Saturday mornings, the bathroom floor is littered with newspapers. The sports section is in disarray, and the liftouts have had pages torn out willy-nilly. No amount of my shuffling can get the paper back in page order. I can hear contented rustling as I walk past the john on my way to the laundry. The fan is a muffled roar. The kids are yelling for their dad to teach them table tennis.

I’m expected to respect his hide-out by declaring: “Papa’s ducked out to the shop to get milk!” And then I fumigate the hallway with lavender spray to throw them off the scent.

Why do I protect him from his own children? For love, apparently. What’s a wife worth anyway? I’ve become as ever-present and useful to him as fresh air.  

Sometimes, marriage and its chores are stultifying. For every man who dives for the dishcloth after dinner, there are plenty who push back their chair and announce: “Delicious, darling.” Then they ignore the kitchen carnage and settle into the sofa to watch Four Corners.

It’s never 50-50 in domestic work. It’s 60-40 or 70-30. Or worse. One party works tirelessly to keep the household juggernaut rolling, the other takes advantage of the smooth ride.

Every six months or so I like to give our relationship a litmus test. I prop against the door of the study and casually enquire: “So, honey, should we go out to dinner, just the two of us, and talk?”

“Talk about what?” he says.

”The state of our relationship.”

And he’ll reply: “It’s chaotic. There. Now can we stay at home?”

It’s the same answer every time. No man wants to talk about his relationship. Every woman likes to dissect hers.

My husband thinks my working week involves sitting around with my housewifey girlfriends drinking pots of tea and gas-bagging. It’s the kind of ignorant accusation that infuriates me and my two best pals when we meet on Friday mornings to discuss the latest Nielsen poll and why our husbands are infuriating.

I admire those women who tell their man to shape up. Instead, I have a happy husband by default. I pretend I don’t mind him always getting his own way because I don’t want to sound like a nag. Instead, I only come unhinged every few weeks. The resentment backs up and explodes at inopportune moments. Usually on turbulent school mornings when he’s swanning around after a 20-minute sabbatical in the shower.

The sexes also divide over fine detail: I like a nicely made bed with hospital corners, my husband cuts corners by shutting the bedroom door. After dinner, he’ll earn an adoring glance from me by announcing: “Sit down Blossom, I’ll do the dishes tonight.” And then he’ll put the last four plates in the dishwasher and leave the crusty lasagne dish and a burnt saucepan on the sink.

Marriage is the accumulation of thousands of nondescript conversations held over thousands of unremarkable breakfasts. It’s the kindness of a husband who lets me have the first shower, and the tolerance of a wife who picks up the five socks scattered across the bedroom floor. But next time the kids are screeching for their dad on a Saturday morning and I can’t find the newspaper, I’m going to give them a wink and point them in the direction of the lavatory. I hope they annoy the crap out of him.