Black Hockey DadCentric Reviews: Marital Discord

Being a Dad in the midst of marital discord is maybe the worst thing ever. See. Women carry around this deeply ingrained bias that believes the well being of the children is more important than your current dispute so you can't slam doors or smash dishes or call each other names when the kids are around. I swear it's some old wives' tale. I genuinely don't think a little strife is gonna break the kids. And what about my poor son? I'm essentially teaching him that married life goes off without a hitch. You watch. He's gonna march into my house on his 5th wedding anniversary and punch me in the face. And besides, when the hell AREN'T the kids around? The kids never go away. So it's like the only thing you want to do in the whole world is slam doors and scream at your wife but you're actually saying "Oh look at Barbie's silly dress. Chuckle chuckle. Yes I would like to hear a tedious step by step narrative of your video game progress. Oh ha ha ha whoooo dandy."

Marital discord lurks on the edges of your marriage like some pouncy animal with claws and teeth. It's kind of a small pouncy animal with claws and teeth but that's only so you forget about it. It's small, looks cute even, harmless. You forget about its claws and teeth and tendency to pounce. You just go your merry way, unaware of what lurks on the edges of your marriage.

And then POUNCE!

Usually it's you, Dads. You're just talking talking talking being yourself. And that's where you fucked up. You got so easygoing and comfortable that you forgot about the pouncing lurker. What the hell were you thinking? That you were at the bar with your boys and you could just say whatever floated through your melon? Damn. You're just talking joking even smiling talking talking insert something here that you were too dumb to realize would initiate a pounce talk talk joke around talk.

But the wind has shifted.

And that's when you innocently round a corner and WHAM you've got a bunch of feelings all over you. A minute ago you were joking around and now you're covered with girl feelings. It's like that old show on Nickelodean when the kids would get the green slime dumped on them. Your wife's feelings exploded all over you and you're dripping. Your hair is wet. You've got feelings in your eyes. It's a mess. And remember that these are feelings. They do not obey laws of calculation and reason. You stepped on a landmine, son. The next couple days are fucked.

Now you're thinking I'm going to give Marital Discord zero stars, but you forgot my wife reads this shit. So no. I gotta spin this around. Just like you gotta spin your wife's feelings around, I gotta spin Marital Discord into a positive.

Sometimes a marriage gets old and crusty and paralyzed by its own routines. This stale marriage syndrome is like a sidewalk. I know it's a weird simile. Roll with it. Stay with me. Your marriage becomes so regular that it loses consciousness of itself. It's on autopilot. If you're not careful, you can ride inside this autopilot mode, like, forever and you'll wake up 71-years-old and be all WTF?!? That's where Marital Discord steps in. Marital Discord is a big old crack in your sidewalk, forcing you to become aware of yourselves and your marriage. You suddenly realize that you don't talk anymore, all you do is Twitter, and you've been pulling the same old sex moves for 2 years.

But what you thought was a nasty crack in your sidewalk is actually a blessed crack through which a flower grows. And what is that flower? It's nasty sex on the couch like you're porn stars. That's the flower bursting through the discord in your rigid sidewalk. And talking more too, I guess. I'm not too clear about that part. But there will be more cracks. They lurk on the edges waiting to pounce.

So you see Marital Discord might feel like zero stars. But it leads to a bunch of stars. The stars are there even when you can't see them.