Posted by Patrick Corkum on May 12, 2010
I really want to know if I am being ridiculous or not. Yesterday (and many other times), I have peered into the Peanut Butter jar in the hopes of making a delicious peanut butter sandwich. I unscrew the top, look inside and there’s white crusty stuff in the peanut butter jar! See, my darling wife, God bless her, doesn’t want to clean the knife or get a new one when making fluffernutters. She makes them regularly for the kids and always puts the fluff on first. Then, using the same knife, goes for the peanut butter. So, am I nutso for being annoyed? I mean, the incremental cost of washing two knives over 1 is nil since we use a dishwasher. In addition, we have plenty of knives. If we were to run out, I could walk over to the in-laws (10 feet away) and grab one of theirs. But once that fluff gets in the peanut butter jar… it’s all over… start a new jar! So, am I alone in this?
Posted by Patrick Corkum on May 6, 2010
Okay, so Melissa thought it would be a good idea to blog about our fighting style (Read it here). Generally speaking she is right on track. She missed a couple things though. Namely that I am always the one that is right 
.
The funny thing about fights is that they always start with something stupid and insignificant. You know those kinds of things… they’re things like “leaving the bathroom light on”, or “forgetting to take out the trash”, or “leaving your shoes in the wrong place”. It usually stems from something deeper that the stupid thing just pushes to its tipping point.
The type thing that usually is the bubbling problem differs between men and women. And this may sound crazy to some of you, but the REAL underlying problem can usually go back to either the husband or wife not holding up their part in what the Bible says about husband/wife relationships. For instance, from the NIV:
- Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (1 Peter 3:7)
- Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. (Eph 5:22, 23)
- Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Eph 5: 24)
- Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25)
- In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Eph 5:28)
- However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself (Eph 5:33a)
- the wife must respect her husband. (Eph 5:33b)
- Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. (Col 3:19)
I know… some of you think that those are WAY out there and oppressing to women. I have one thing to say about that… “THEY’RE NOT”. God has ingrained certain characteristics in men and certain characteristics for women. Men, whether they know it or not, seek a woman to submit to them. They have an inherent desire to be respected and submitted to. When that doesn’t happen, many men are going to seek a different situation. Women want little more than to simply be respected and loved.
Anyway, I wanted to add to my wife’s list of fighting rules:
- Be slow to speak and choose your words wisely as you cannot take them back.
- Try to keep the volume low.
- Resolve before you depart or sleep.
- Don’t bring up past misdeeds.
- Always try really hard to remember how much you loved the other before the fight.
Shoot… I was going to try to make this post funny… oh well.. maybe next time.
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 28, 2010
As I am flying the plane to Summit VI, I am lucky enough to be flying on a flight with internet access and I get to post what I have been thinking about for a while. People all around me seem to be struggling in their marriages. This breaks my heart. I have heard the D word come up more times than I would like to think.
This past weekend, I was particularly disturbed by an advertisement I saw in the men’s room at one of the golf courses that I played this past weekend. The advertisement was a picture of a young woman dressed in golfing attire smashing a golf club over the head of her presumed husband. Tiger Woods thoughts entered my head. The caption was something like: “Things not turn out as you planned?” The advertisement was for a so-called family-law legal firm trying to sell their divorce services. Now wait… did things not turn out as I planned? They sure didn’t! The criteria for divorce is that things are not working out as planned? WHAT?
Things are not going to work out as you planned; they NEVER do. Now, I am not going to say that divorce is never the right option. What I am going to say is that it is seldom the right option. I by no means have the marriage thing down pat, but I’m not doing so bad, either. The advice I am going to give is not something that I have come up with on my own or something that I think is the end-all-be-all of marriage advice. I do think it holds a lot of water, though.
I hear a common complaint from both men and women about their spouses. I hear, “he just…..”, or “she just…”, or “my needs …”, or “I’m not happy”, and many other things like this. The common reason for the complaints is that the spouse is not holding up their end of the bargain. When you get married, you do not have a “treaty”, so to speak. Rather, we make promises and the only condition assigned to them is being alive. We do not say, “I will love and honor you as long as you make me happy.” No, we simply make promises. However, we set the expectation in our heads that the other person will satisfy some set of needs that we have. When they don’t, people think that all bets are off.
I am not trying to get on a soap box. What I am trying to say is that marriage requires something of us that is difficult. What happens when expectations aren’t being met is that you will often end up shutting down and your spouse ends up with the same exact complaint about you. Here in-lies the problem. This situation is an endless cycle of nobody ever being happy. My suggestion is that instead of focusing on what you are not getting, dedicate yourself to making your spouse happy. I know, this sounds crazy, but try it anyway. Do it not because you hope that they will return the happiness to you, but do it because you promised to love them. Genuinely pursue their happiness with a passion. If you wait for your spouse to make you happy, you are never going to be happy. Find happiness in making your spouse happy and see the difference that it makes in your marriage.
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 19, 2010
My wife, God bless her heart, has opinions about my physical appearance. Yes, I am sure this comes to you as a surprise! Well, my father recently retired from his job of many, many years and brought me the picture that he had kept in his office of me for the past 15 or so years. I am guessing that it is probably during my Junior year of high school. I am guessing this because of the fact that I was wearing blue jeans (before that I would only wear black). Also, I think that I might have been a little bit thinner in my senior. See picture:
So, it is not the best picture ever taken of me, but it isn’t THAT bad. I am/was a towering 5′ 5″ and in the picture was probably between 115 and 120 pounds. After seeing the strikingly handsome image of me in the picture, she proclaimed, “It’s a good thing that I didn’t meet you in High School. Yes, I am that shallow.” Ouch!
This leaves me in a bit of a predicament. Currently, I am a bit heavy. Okay, the stupid BMI things try to tell me that I am morbidly obese. This is a bit overkill (no pun intended). I can run a 5K faster than my wife who tips the scales around the 3 digit mark, so it isn’t THAT bad. That being said, I definitely need to lose weight. The problem is that my itty-bitty wife doesn’t want me to because she is afraid that I will lose my “cuddliness”. Basically, she is telling me that she would rather me be cuddly than healthy/alive. Okay, she really doesn’t feel that way, but she doesn’t want me to look like I did in High School (really, I think it is the hair she doesn’t like).
So, what is a big man to do? Well, I struck up a bargain with her. We are both science/technology/engineer/math freak (aka STEM freaks). So, I devised a method where we will optimize my health/attractiveness/cuddliness/etc…. What we are going to do, starting today is that I am going to start dropping the pounds by eating well and exercising. Then, on a weekly basis (Monday morning), I am going to blog about where I stand with my weight and fat% as it is reported on my scale. She is then going rate me in those categories that she finds so important (i.e. cuddliness) on her blog (www.theCorkums.com). Let the blogging begin!
As of waking up this morning:
- Weight – 186.6 lbs (which is low because I was like 190.2 just a couple days ago)
- Fat % – 30.9% (my water % is low in the morning which throws this number off)
Please, if I am to do this, I am going to need a whole lotta prayer!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 16, 2010
No, this post is not about the movie. This post is about my wife. No, I am not calling my wife an ant. My wife has an obsession about ants. If she sees ants in the house, life comes to an abrupt halt. Nothing else matters in that moment except the ants. Here’s the cycle:
- Melissa: AHHHH, ants!
- Melissa: Where are they coming from?
- Melissa: Arghh, how did this crumb get on the ground?
- Stomp to the kitchen to get the ant spray.
- Stomp back to the ants.
- Spray each and every single ant until they are all dead.
- Melissa: PATRICK, there are ants!
- Melissa: When are you going to do something about these ants? <Followed by one of the following>:
- the ant traps I bought aren’t working
- Pops just sprayed, why aren’t they dead?
- we have to get new ant bait.
- <Stomp to closet and get vacuum cleaner>
- <Stomp back to ants and vacuum up the dead ants>
- Melissa: I hate ants! Why are there always ants in the house?
What is it about ants? I mean, if there is a crumb and it is attracting ants, big deal! Shoot, give them a little while and both the crumb and the ants will be gone. I am not saying that I wouldn’t spray ants if there were tons of them or they were being obnoxious, but life does not come to a halt because ants are crawling around. Am I alone on this? Probably.
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 14, 2010
So, the topic of conversation yesterday was: is it appropriate to talk about your *** life in a blog post. Certainly most of us would agree that there are definitely certain aspects of what goes on in the bedroom, or wherever it happens to take place, that are certainly to be kept between husband and wife. However, I have a big problem with the fact that Christians don’t want to talk about ***. God sure talks about it; try reading His book sometime, I hear it’s a best seller!
So, I ask, why not be open about the husband/wife relationship? Perhaps if we did, the divorce rate among Christians would not be the same as the rest of the population. What if newly-weds or pre-weds (is that a word?) were given a realistic view of marriage before they had their expectations shattered because they were set by TV and movies (and the media at large)?
Don’t worry, you’ll never hear me talk about the *****, or ***, and definitely not ********.
As for my wife, she has decided to “respond” to my post. You men can tell her that *** is not a “perfect end to a perfect day” or “an ultimate fix to a crappy one”. Rather, it is just the end of the day 
. AND, contrary to her opinion, it is definitely a theology post!!!!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 13, 2010
The conversation went something like this:
Melissa: I’ll blog about it if you’ll blog about it.
Okay, you know your life is a little weird when that phrase comes out!
Patrick: Ummm…. I’ll blog about it if you have *** with me .
Ahhh yes, the difference between men and women. I don’t get women when it comes to this kind of thing. Okay, let me rephrase. I don’t get my wife when it comes to this kind of thing as I am sure most of you men can understand. Oh, perhaps I should explain. We got to THAT part of the conversation from here:
Melissa: Kiss me.
Patrick: Ummm…. No.
Okay, STOP! I love my wife and I kiss her all the time. This isn’t me being a prick. This is me saying that we each have weird sicknesses going on.
Melissa: I’m not having *** with you if you don’t kiss me.
Patrick: Ummm…. What? <Insert monolog about *** life and kissing here>
Melissa: Well, I want to feel emotionally attached.
Patrick: Ummm…. What have we been doing for the last 10 years? If we’re not emotionally attached now, we’ve got an issue!
Melissa: But I mean in the moment.
Patrick: Ummm… I’ll tell you what I want in the moment.
I want to know why women think that 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 does not apply to them! Where does it talk about her mood? Or her “feeling emotionally attached due to kissing?”
Oh, and you bring up 1Cor 7:3-5, you might as well have signed a death warrant on you *** life. That being said, I wonder if I should have wrote that…
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 9, 2010
You know, I don’t know what it is, but it seems I get in trouble with my wife for forgetting the dumbest things, yet she gets away with practically murder on a daily basis . I mean, sure, I forget to do things on occasion. Usually she’ll tell me to remember to do something that is hours or days away and I get in trouble with her each time, long after the fact <Regardless of whether or not she even remembered herself up until that point.> So, I forgot to change the headlight in the car. She acts as if though it is like the end of the world as we know it. Now her, she uses the microwave like it’s one of those off-site, long term storage places. Day after day after day, I find random food and drinks in the microwave. The other day, I found wings in the microwave that she was supposed to feed us for dinner the night before when we had guests over. I find a variety of teas and drinks that have their own eco-system because they have been in there so long. I find her breakfast left in the microwave, from two days ago! Now, I don’t know if she went and got something else to eat, but if not, it sure explains why she disappears from sight when she turns sideways.
Anyway, I am just saying, maybe she could lighten up a little on me when I keep forgetting to take down the Christmas lights until the end of March!!
