The Bacon Theory

I've had the bacon conversation with a couple of different people over the last couple of months. What's the bacon conversation?  Actually, it's more of a bacon theory. 

The theory goes as such: If a person in a family is bringing home the mouth feeding portion of the money each month (the bacon) you can not give them crap about working.  No, not "working" but that annoying stuff like answering business calls at 10pm when you are trying to get them to go "downtown." 

This theory is interesting and I find that Brazilians do not give their partners much crap at all about working a lot. Contrary to popular belief abroad, Brazilians put work horses to shame! Working until 830 or 9pm really isn't that big of a deal here, and I have a theory as to why. Shocker, huh.

There are numerous factors in this. First off, it's really not uncommon at all to have 2 income families down here. You are totally not going to bitch at your husband for answering that call if you were on the phone in the first place. 

There's also the Nanny/Maid situation. People have them. They are a buffer between overworking spouses and stay at home moms/dads.  Hell, they are the stand-in parent for the 2 income households.  And in the case of the Nanny/Maid, they can't complain to the bacon bringer. Hell, they are paid to wait around and cook the bacon that's brought.  

And that fact that there is someone in the middle, who's job is to pick up the slack, makes a huge difference.  The biggest complain of this stay at home Mom is the lack of buffering. I can get pretty chafed sometimes and it's not pretty! 

Of course, that's only with my minis as I do have a maid twice a week to help me around the house.  It's a good thing for Mr. Rant. He sure as hell would get a lot more crap for his socks being littered around the entire apartment.  He denies it but it's either him or we have a serious sock-mold situation growing in this place. 

The point being, it can be hard to be a supportive partner for a busy spouse. It can be upsetting to see the kiddos little faces pressed on the window as they look for Daddy on the street because they know he's going to be home before bedtime.  

And when they complain, I open sacks of bacon and throw pieces at the ungrateful little bastards. Actually no, that would be cruel. Good bacon is far too expensive in Brazil to be wasting it like that. 

But we have had the talk that everything costs money and the reason Daddy works so hard is to help pay for things like food, soccer practice, and cable tv. Priorities. And they get it. The chatter box even offered to not have snacks for a week if Daddy could come home early. 

Then when I put them to bed after a day that had, I swear, 321 hours in it, I go out to the living room. I sit down and I have the same conversation with myself using wine, internet connection, and staying home with my babies as my examples. 

Freaking Bacon, always expanding our minds. 

What is a spouse?

I started thinking this evening, while my husband was working late, what is a spouse?  There's this sense that it's that person you love and you decide you don't want to see anyone else.  Is that it?

I beg to differ.  A spouse, a real husband or wife, is so much more.  You are the one that receives the other at the end of each night. Every evening, when they return from the war of the world, you take them in. It doesn't matter if they won or lost, if they were profitable or not.  You take them as they are.

When you say your vows, you are essentially saying that you'll accept them as people. You won't judge every action or punish them for change.  You will see them for who they are, even if that's as far from the person you married as possible. We change. Life changes us.  Ideally it changes us for the better.

When my husband brought me to Brazil for the first time we had been married for 2 months or so.  I was 23 years old. I thought I knew everything. I knew nothing.  My poor husband. I was a very sheltered and innocent little girl.  And I rebelled. I rebelled against being sheltered, I rebelled against Portuguese, I rebelled against my husband.  He had a cross to bare and it was me.

Almost 7 years later, I'm a shell of the person I once was.  Don't get me wrong, the shell is the good part of who I was.  It's the essence of me, the rest is what developed once I opened my eyes.  The rest is what happened when I stopped being scared of the world.  I never even knew I was scared.

I'll never forget when my now husband told me he loved me shortly after coming up to San Diego, as his family tells me now, to get his future wife.  I asked him why he loved me (it had been all of 2 weeks or so).  He told me he loved me for the woman I would become.  In all my immaturity I was angry and scared.  What about the woman I am now?  He was and is a smart man. He never pointed out that I wasn't quite a woman yet.  He just told me that he could see the womanly greatness that will come out of me.  I didn't get it.

I get it now.  I am lucky to be able to say that I married a partner, not a spouse or a husband, a partner.