He's Not Cheating...He's Just Disgusting

It was just an innocent shower.  But it turned out to be so much more.

After a particularly unfresh, unsanitary, rather unkempt Wednesday at work I came home and immediately took a shower.  I arrived downstairs like a new man ready for some wholesome family time. However, my bride wanted to know why I took a shower as soon as I got home from work.

As it turns out Frequent Showering is the No. 1 sign that a man is cheating on his spouse according to every women’s magazine ever published in the history of women. Who knew?

I laughed, flattered that my wife might actually think that a 36-year-old, middle manager with four kids and three dollars in his pocket is marketable on the dating scene. “I’m not having an affair, Honey. I’m just disgusting….Oh, and I had to burn another pair of underwear. Now, what’s for dinner?”

But this got me thinking. What other random acts and false signs am I putting out there that’s telling my wife that I’m having an affair? So I went online. And apparently everything I do is a sign that I’m cheating on my bride. According to online polls and women’s magazines I am unfaithful.

So here are the signs…But hold on, Ladies. Your man is not cheating. He’s just disgusting. Let me explain.

Changing Grooming Habits…Great! It’s bad enough that every time I do a little manscaping down under my bride makes me clean the entire bathroom with Clorox wipes, but now I have to also assure her that this grooming is for her benefit. Well, it’s not. Once again, men are disgusting. We grow hair in the strangest, darkest of places. Ladies, if the vacuum cleaner ever breaks all you have to do is roll your naked husband all over the carpet and watch how much lint and dirt his body hair collects. Then just pick him up, take him out back and shake him off the deck like a welcome mat.

Yesterday while changing my shirt my bride pointed out a collection of lint wrapped up in bellybutton among my own hairy welcome mat. “Hey, not a single thing in this house still belongs to me anymore accept that little, empty space in my bellybutton,” I demanded. “That empty space belongs to me and I’ll put whatever I want in there. Mind your business.”

If your man is grooming it doesn’t mean he’s cheating on you. He’s just trying to gain a little self-respect back. He knows how disgusting he is.

Protectiveness of His Gadgets…This is a common one, and I understand it. I do. But listen, I have no friends. As in zero friends. Not one friend! So when my cell phone rings once a month I want to be the one who answers it. As a father of four, I am so desperate for contact with the outside world that when my cell phone rings I am hoping to God that it’s not a wrong number, that it’s some telemarketer who I can spend five minutes chatting up….“No, I’m not interested in upgrading my credit card to a premium account. But hey, what are you doing later? Wanna meet up for a drink? Go play some darts or something. I can drive to Delaware in like two hours. No big deal…. Hello…Are you still there? …Hello?…”

Change of Smells…I’m getting older now. Which means at some point I’m going to start to get that old-man smell. And I’m going to have to mask that smell with some sort of perfume or cologne. Better transition now, I say.

I’m sure the smell that old people have is probably a product of daily medication and an all-bran diet, but some of that smell is likely to be just the natural digression of a rotting body. At 36, my body is about halfway rotten. Even I can smell it on me. Now where’s that bottle of Drakkar Noir I had in high school. It’s probably still good, right?

He is Distant…Really? If it seems like your man is only halfway there in the house it’s because mentally he’s on vacation in some far off distant place. Do you want to know why I’m so distant? It’s because I’m thinking of baseball. Yup, that’s right. Baseball, or something like it. Opening day is just 86 days away.  Oh yeah, I’m also thinking about what it might feel like to be an 11-year old boy again. Oh yeah, I’m also thinking about my retirement and sitting in a lawn chair on my driveway and watching people drive by and doing nothing all day long.

If it seems like I’m distant, like I’m not truly engaged with the needs and day-to-day operations of this household it’s because the day-to-day operational needs of this household are physically killing me and I’m not going to let those obligations take out my mind as well. I may have sore knees and an aching back, but mentally I’m an eleven-year old boy running a deep rout in a two-hand- touch football game.

Increased Sexual Desires….Decreased Sexual Desires…Initiates Sex…Freaky in the Bedroom…Not Responsive in Bed…Wow, according to the internet these are all signs that your man is cheating.  Ladies, your man has sexual needs, desires, frequencies, hang ups, bang ups, memories, expectations and scenarios running around that head of his that you won’t ever be able to comprehend so do not even try. Accept the unacceptable.

There are nooks and crannies in your man’s head that you do not want to visit. Even if you have a Google map, and some sexual GPS system, and a PHD and years of schooling in the male mind. There are places in that man’s head where you’ll get lost and confused, hurt and dehydrated, scared and scarred for life.  Don’t try and decipher your man’s sexual signs and don’t ask any questions. This is a no trespassing zone. Enter at your own risk.

Unexplained Behavior … So you found a coupon to the strip club in his glove box.  He’s not planning on using it, as it has since long expired. This was given to him in the parking of the last sporting event that he attended. He and about two thousand other men received this coupon.  He’s just keeping it as a reminder of the very last time a twenty-year-old girl made eye contact with him….Ask him, he’ll tell you… It’s been 521 days and counting…

There are things about your man that you just don’t need to know. There are things about your man that you don’t want to know. You think you do, but trust me you don’t.

You don’t need to know about that strange ointment in his sock drawer. You don’t need to know why he drives around with an extra pair of underwear in his car. You don’t need to know what he’s doing on the internet all day, because it will embarrass you both equally to find out that your man, an adult man can spend sixty hours per week on fantasy football.

Your man is not cheating. He’s just… well…he’s just a man, a desperate, disgusting, lonely adolescent man. But he is your man…So you better take care of him