Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Survey Says

When I was a kid I was prone to not turn in my homework.  Truth is that it was a challenge to get me to do my homework, not turning it in was just part of the process.  I was and continue to be a goofball.  I wouldn't turn in my homework and then I would get in trouble.  And I thought that unfair.

My logic was that I shouldn't get in trouble for something I didn't do.

I'm less about study and more about logic.

So imagine my reaction when I read in the online version of one of my daily newspapers the following:

"When Wives Sleep Poorly, Marriages Suffer"

Uh..... duh.

If mommy ain't happy, daddy's not happy.

The article specifically says; "When a marriage is happy, men sleep less. But when women sleep less, the marriage is not apt to be so happy."

Our marriage must be one of incredible bliss.  I get 7-8 hours a night and she's going for an Olympic record. 

And that's not fair to say about her.  All of our kids would gladly miss most of the day if they could.  We just have a bunch of sleepers in the house. 

When my oldest son was a teenager he once slept to 5:00, PM.  He completely missed the daylight.

So my wife is incredibly happy and I'm just happy to be here.  With the kind of reasoning this study provides it is clear that I need to sleep less and encourage my wife to sleep more. 

Maybe the reason that there is more happiness in the marriage is because if she' sleeping longer there is less interaction and less of a chance of the guy saying something stupid and inappropriate.  Or write about the subject in a blog.

It also means that if my wife was in a coma I'd more than likely be translated.

Does a study like this qualify for duh?

I look around and I see guys doing stupid things all of the time and I just file it away in the little gray cells to not do that stupid thing.  I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm certainly not stuck on stupid.  I have a theory that over 40% of homeless men are just good guys that said or did something stupid to/at/for their wives and then walked out of the house after the argument.

Without their keys.  We walk a fine line as men.

As for the study that men are happier when they sleep less and women aren't happy if they don't get more sleep I have to report that the test included only 32 couples.  I don't know how many couples there are in the world but the potential, if every man, woman, and child were in a relationship is over three billion.  32 couples is equivelent to only, well not very many couples compared to three billion couples.  There was a +/- error of say 2.5 billion.

My own warped theory is that her happiness and mine are totally unrelated to sleep.  I think it's simpler than that.

For instance, she's happier in the morning when I've had the courtesy to turn on the light and lift the seat on the toilet rather than blindly take a potty break at 3am.

She's happy that I'm employed and actually get up and go to my job.

It's possible, but not probable, that I finished a project that I had been working on for say 3-5 years.  What women wouldn't be?

Maybe I decided to save some of my 10,000 words for the day and actually used a couple of hundred on her when I got home.

Maybe she's happy because telemarketers or the random child didn't call her and wake her up from blissful sleep?

Or maybe the last quote at the end of the article hit the nail on the head.

 "Couples that have more positive interactions during the day may be engaging in other activities in bed at night."

Duh.


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