Through a Father's Sighs: Simple Guide to Making Relationships Sorta, Kinda Work a Little Better

It's 12:50 a.m. and, really, don't ask why I was just now unloading the dishwasher in the home of my youngest children's mother. Don't ask why I rinsed a stack of dirty dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher either.

Really, I'm serious. Don't ask.

OK. What type of schnook would mention unloading and loading his ex-wife's dishwasher and keep the back story a secret?

See? I immediately mentioned that I'm a schnook. That's the result of my never having anyone guide me through the murky waters of marriage ... or lasting relationships with any women ... even a woman I really, really cared about.

After two divorces, both the result of me being a less than attentive and not completely motivated husband, a guy starts to assume he has schnook'ish qualities. A schnook? You know? Two divorces from bright, attractive, intelligent women who gave birth to two each of my four amazing kids. (One of them raised all four kids with me.)

The marriages didn't work. Upon reflection, a fella feels like a schmoe.

Neil Young Sings For a Schnook

I sighed so loudly before deciding to just unload, then load the dishwasher for my kids' mom that my 29-year-old son heard me from the living room. He's here, hanging out for the holiday weekend. He, his youngest brother and my oldest son are the best of very best buddies. My daughter loves all three brothers and they love her. That's why he's at the house of the woman who raised him while his real mom was, thank God, getting her life together for a decade or so.

I didn't want him or his brothers ever standing in someone else's kitchen, in someone else's house at 12:50 a.m. trying to decide whether to load somebody else's dishwasher. So, I thought I'd make a quick list of ways to avoid the mistakes I made that led to two divorces from, really, very nice women.

1. Don't sigh!

Easier said than done when, as in my case, a sigh can mean just about anything. My kids reflexively ask, "What's wrong with YOU?" I usually say, "That sigh had nothing to do with you. Honest." I might be sighing because I'd just figured out that the mathmatical probability of the San Francisco Giants winning the World Series again had finally reached zero.

It turned out that both of the women I was married to, as well as other women, assumed that sighing was a sign of disgust. They came to believe that because I didn't think about the Giants or the NFL playoff races or the new running course I'd found when I was with them while the sizzle still existed in our long relationships. So, when I sighed, I was usually actually disgusted -- with myself.

Nobody likes to be around somebody who sighs. So, guys, don't sigh when you're with a woman you love. It's just easier that way.

2. Load the dishwasher early on.

After roughly a decade with my youngest kids' mom, I still hadn't yielded to the simple notion that some people actually believe that there's a right way and wrong way to load a dishwasher.

Oh, I know enough to reasonably rinse food off of plates. It's clear that one must put glasses and cups in top side down.

The last ex-wife I'll ever had has a very particularly way she wants her dishwasher loaded. I spent about 10 years trying to show her, without saying a word, that the dishes get clean if you load the machine the way I load it, too.

We bickered about me being too lazy to load the dishwasher correctly. Argue about enough things as ridiculous as how to load the dishwasher and your marriage is headed down the toilet.

One reason I hesitated to load the dishwasher tonight is that, well, she saw me loading the dishwasher the last time I was here and said, "Just leave those. I'll load them ... because ... "

Because I'm a screw-up and, even though she's nice enough to let me hang around, she doesn't want to have to go in behind me and re-load the dishwasher ... which she did all the time when we were married.

Quick, men ... what do you feel like doing when your wife lets you do a job, then follows you in and does the job over again the way she wants it done? Right-O! It makes you never want to do that job again for as long as your married.

Well, that might be just how I felt. I'm not sure. I know when I was at woman's house months back, a woman I care for deeply, I unloaded the dishwasher while she was out. Seconds after she arrived, I heard the dishwasher crash open.

"Oh, Joe, bless his heart he tries to help ..."

Joe is the kid she thought had unloaded his dishes and put, I guess, the spoons and forks in some sort of disarray. It wasn't anything too messy because, by now, I take my time thinking about how people want their dishes unloaded.

"Joe didn't unload those dishes. I did. Sorry I messed 'em up."

"Oh. No. Thanks. (Long pause as I hear silverware being shuffled.) I appreciate the help."

So, I hope my sons load a dishwasher around a woman very, very early in any meaningful relationship. If they disagree on how to load a dishwasher, they'll talk it out while there's still some snap, crackle and pop in their hook-up. She might even think that their way works best.

No. That won't happen. But, a dad can dream.

3. Fold laundry. Lots of laundry.

Sadly, I can't count my meaningful relationships by the number of different ways I can fold towels fresh from the dryer. So, for the record, I can fold them four different ways -- ah, that's actually the result of three meaningful relationships and me just aiming way too hard to please fresh out of the box after my first divorce.

Every way that I've learned to fold towels works fine, given that my goal is have them fit neatly in a cupboard or drawer. All four ways to fold towels are completely different, wind up with a folded final product that looks different one from the other.

So, guess who caught the devil for folding clothes the way his first wife folded them? It took awhile for me to even grasp the concept of folding clothes. My mom folded all my laundry until she died when I was 17 1/2. She didn't show me how to fold them. When pressed to fold my own clothes, I did my best and she was my mom, you know? She told me I'd make a helluva clothes-folder someday.

My second wife folded towels to make them fit under her sink in the bathroom in a big rectangular shape, nothing at all like the tri-folds my first wife used. By the time I was thinking, "I've got this deal aced" and was folding towels for the woman I really, really care about now ... I was absolutely screwed!

"Here ... lemme' show you how to fold them. If you fold them like THAT (eyes rolled with a look of disgust), they won't fit in dresser."

I really wanted to please her. Really. But, I felt my jaw clench because ... I knew I wasn't going to let the moment pass without mentioning that, um, I was sitting at her house, on her couch, spending time with her ... folding laundry for her and her kids. So, it seems like I'd get gold stars on my Man card, not a symposium on folding towels.

I've argued with three women about folding towels ... and shirts ... and pants ... and even my own damned underwear. Criminy! It's my underwear?!?!

"If you don't fold it just right, it won't all fit in the dresser ... "

Wonder how my life would've been different if I'd never said anything?

"Well, yeah, they'll fit in the dresser just fine ... just not like YOU want them to fit in there."

I've been emasculated more than once over this stuff. My youngest son once heard the "it won't fit in the dresser" lecture and said, "Who cares? It's your stuff. I hope nobody ever just starts folding my stuff because I'm gonna fold it like I wanna fold it. It's my stuff!"

Ah! To be 15 years old and naive in the ways of love.

My sons, frankly, should bring some clean laundry with them on a date when they realize they're getting serious about a woman.

4. Take turns driving.

Everybody drives a little differently, right? We all can agree on that.

Some of us follow cars a little more closely on the highway. Some of us stop a little herky-jerky at intersections. We all take turns a little differently.

No big deal, right?

Wrong.

I've driven with a woman who, inexplicably, leaves me feeling carsick. She is arguably the woman I have loved more than any woman ever in this world. Yet, we had a shouting match that let her enraged when I mentioned that, for some reason, I get carsick in her car.

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything? Well, maybe I thought that vomiting in her car would've caused a bigger problem than telling her I didn't feel well whenever we drove in her car.

And, yes, the fact that I get carsick when she drives came up over and over. It became a black mark against me.

So, man, drive with that special lady.

If she's really special, you are going to take turns teaching your kids how to drive. Children have enough to worry about without hearing mom and dad argue about the proper way to place your hands on the steering wheel when making a sharp, right turn.

I've been told to, "Sit back there and be quiet! He's trying to drive," for whispering to my older son that his younger brother seemed to be using some new technique for steering a car.

Again, if driving with her can result in her giving you a black mark on your Man card or in her snapping at you to, more or less, shut up ... you will have argued a great deal about driving.

Argue enough about how to drive a damned car and you will find your marriage in trouble. If you're marriage is solid as a rock, you wouldn't argue about ... you get the idea.

So, my sons, will ideally drive with the woman who matters. She how she handles it and how she expects you to handle it. The woman who makes me carsick, for no reason I can explain, consistently wanted me to drive with the cruise control engaged. I gathered that slowing down and speeding up on the highway really aggravated her.

I don't want my sons nearly driving off the road because someone reaches over and snaps, "They put cruise control on here for a reason!"

The list goes one. That's plenty to digest for now. Besides, it's only 2 a.m. and there is a basket of clean laundry out in the hall.

How does my youngest kids' mom like her towels folded again?