Monday, November 11, 2013

The plague on modern marriages

I'm cheating on my husband.

Sorry. That was a cheap trick to grab your attention.

I'm not having an affair.  But I am being what one might call unfaithful.

Here's the thing. I am working on a long, tedious project that requires three to four hours of my time every day. I don't like to spend those hours in silence, and the work is menial enough that I can have the television on and not have a decrease in production or quality. These circumstances and subscriptions to both Netflix and Hulu Plus make for some hard core binge viewing.
I spent a couple of weeks devouring Scandal, with no ill-effect on my marriage. Stephen doesn't much care for Olivia Pope or her overly-edited, overly-acted show. But then I ran out of episodes and needed a new show.

At first it seemed like the happiest of happenstances that I should stumble on The Good Wife in my streaming "recommendations for you". Four seasons, with twenty-three episodes episode per season. I was set for months. But there was an unforeseeable problem: The Good Wife is a really great series. So good that I took to watching it beyond working hours. And since Stephen is my husband and cohabitates (fun fact: not a real word) my apartment, he noticed that The Good Wife is a really great television series and started bingeing (fun fact: not a real world) with me. Which was great! Spousal bonding! Shared interest! But. I still have this project that requires three to four hours of my day and I still like having the TV on during those hours. I try to fill the time with other shows, but there is only so much current watchable programming and I burn through that pretty quickly.

I just can't stay away. Guiltily I hit play over and over again, watching two, sometimes three episodes while Stephen is at school. Sure, he can catch up on these later, but it's not the same as sharing reactions to the shenanigans of the Lockhart and Garnder crew together. I  know what I'm doing is wrong and I know I need help.The show maybe be The Good Wife, but I am not.

6 comments:

  1. My wife and I have the same problem with some of the show's we watch. Only we've both been faithful in waiting for the other person so shame on you ha ha. You're not a bad person.

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  2. It has taken all the restraint I have to avoid watching Parks and Rec while MacKenzie is away. Only a few more months! Nobody spoil anything!

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    1. Oh man, it's so crazy when war breaks out in Pawnee and Leslie Knope becomes President of a new nation and Ron Swanson joins a circus.

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  3. I've had some really bad insomnia lately so I started watching The New Girl when I'm having bad nights, knowing that Lloyd finds Zooey Deschanel practically unbearable and that he wouldn't mind if I watched it while he's falling asleep (well, as long as I mute the theme song which I'm fine with; Zooey you can actually sing, what are you doing with your voice most of the time?). One night I went to play the next episode and he said "Wait, you watched two episodes last night?! That's... that's fine..." so there goes that.

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    Replies
    1. I kid you not, this exact same thing happened to me.

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