My Life of Mystery as a Married Man

There is the known, there is the known unknown and there is of course the unknown unknown. The known is something that we can identify and relate to; the known is that when I arise from bed in the morning to greet the day ahead, the outcomes are really dependent on the choices I make and how I greet and how my attitude is directed toward my spouse, Gerry, (SWMBO – She who must be obeyed).

And this is where the various factors relating to the word ‘unknown’ come into play.

Now I’m blessed with a wonderful wife whom I love dearly and happens to also be my best friend. We have now been married for – umm – well over forty years anyway. Gerry can tell you the exact dates of the first blind date, the wedding date and precise time and all the minute details relating to the day. She also has that unique gift of being able to remember dates of birthdays, ages of the participants from our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and toss in  few friend’s birthdays and we have Gerry with this encyclopedia type memory.

So that’s one of the known knowns – a prolific memory. There is no need to get into further tributes to her knowns as it would take too long, but I accept them all. So, the known about my wife by myself indicates that my life after knowing her for this length of time is one of peace and harmony because I understand her.

Wrong!  In fact, dangerously wrong would not exaggerate the situation.

And this is where the known unknowns become a factor. Determining the known unknowns requires skills which can well be described as unique as the requirements to decipher the unknowns require discernment, sensitivity and insight and understanding. (Understanding is an extremely difficult skill as in 99.9 % of the time  males in general will be suspicious with only mediocre confidence that what he believes he’s understood – or may have understood). But past experiences have shattered any previous confidence on knowing about these unknowns but not having any confidence about what the unknown might actually be other than the fact the  known is that it was all his fault and the unknown being not knowing what or why it was so.

We now have a new element that creates enormous difficulties and challenges for the male and they are hidden thoughts. Now all thoughts are hidden until we decide they should become words and this is where the difference between woman and man is as wide as The Grand Canyon. This is where the first glimpse of the Unknown Unknowns in the female can be understood and that understanding can be summed up and identified by using one word – Mystery.

It is my believe that the male gene is a simpler gene than that of the female species. It’s simpler from the perspective that male thoughts are much simpler than those of females.(Does this being simpler mean that males have lower IQ’s than females? Wisdom indicates that this IQ query should not be debated).

Now to safer ground and  if we use the explanation that the human species is superior based on the famous saying “I think therefore I am” or as Descartes  put it  ”Cogito, ergo sum” somehow proves that we humans are different from other forms of life. I understand the bit about humans being different and that is proven beyond doubt with the difference between male and females. But I believe Descartes was a little deeper with his statement than my interpretation. As to whether I understand where he was coming from  is another story, but the saying does tie in with the fact that before words are spoken they are proceeded by thoughts – ‘I think….’ .

However, this thinking  is also debatable as one watches interviews ranging from world leaders to politicians to business leaders and the younger generation who find it necessary to throw the word “like” three times in a twelve – word sentence. Now I like to think myself as non – political but as I watch statements and speeches made by some of the most powerful leaders in the world it begged the question as to whether people do think before they express words nowadays. Where have the great orators gone and when we do find a good orators we discover we can hear him/her by making a booking for them through their agent who then demands huge amounts of money.

But I digress. And I’m certain that males can identify with the mystery of hidden thoughts that when expressed by the female in words can be the total opposite of what understanding is believed by the recipient –  me, the male –  at that moment. This is based on irrefutable knowledge that what has been said at that moment, and  there is the possible glimmer of understanding of  these verbalised  hidden thoughts in SWMBO, and a feint optimism of confidence that we are reading from the same music sheet.

But experience has taught me that within a matter of minutes/hours/days/ weeks and months (in some cases, years) those hidden  thoughts that became verbalised will be changed to an entirely new concept with the new statement based loosely around the original one that the poor male – me – thought he had a handle on but it comes back to the one fact that we might not understand but have to accept – it’s my/our fault and we didn’t listen.

Now this brings us to the areas of the unknown unknowns. Whilst this area sounds complicated in actual fact it is the simplest of the three unknowns to understand. The unknown unknowns are those mystery areas within the female mind which are not only beyond having any logical definition or explanation but are a complete mystery to the woman herself.

It’s these unknown unknowns that cause the female mind to be completely unreadable and when some of these unknown unknown hidden thoughts are expressed in words that we might understand but when turned into sentences makes the male listener wonder what planet they came from let alone the mouth.

For the last seven years my wife Gerry, whom I love dearly, and I,  have had to go through the interesting experience of having to work together. In our previous lives Gerry was Queen of her Kingdom and I was king of mine. She did her thing and I did mine. However suddenly we have been thrown into the ring here at the hotel where we have two individuals with diverse backgrounds and both unaccustomed  to having decisions and methodology questioned – and, of course, being right.

The resulting experiences for myself as the mere male in this situation of working with my wife has resulted in my new found philosophy as expressed here.

In summation I guess it all adds up to one thing; females/my wife, lead me to believe that most of my time is spent living on another planet where there is a language spoken that I do not understand.

I live happily ever after by just agreeing – accepting I probably haven’t a clue to what I’m agreeing to.