A friend of mine got his wife pregnant recently. I won’t give you his name, but I’ll tell you that his wife was already a difficult woman before the pregnancy. The pregnancy was making her even more difficult. Being that I went through this before him, he assumed I had all the answers, and called me every time his wife called him at work to yell at him for leaving his sneakers in the middle of the living room, or something equally trivial.

His assumption was wrong. Yes, I went through this before him, and yes, in my history men have come to me for my unique understanding and point of view on our feminine counterpart, but no, I do not understand pregnant women now any better than I did before living with one. In fact, I probably understand less. I would go so far as to say that unless your name is Jesus Christ or Nostradamus, then you have about as much chance as rationalizing your pregnant wife’s behavior as I have of being adopted by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Basically, what I’m saying is that pregnant women are completely unpredictable. I did learn a few consistencies that help, and I will pass those along, but I will do it with the disclaimer that it’s very possible that I’ve evaluated all these things completely wrong.

The first change I noticed about my bride, even before the random acts of violence and anger, was that she’d become part beagle. My bride could smell a BBQ two zip codes away. I once challenged her on this sense of smell, and like Toucan Sam, we followed her nose all the way to the BBQ, which was over a mile away.

Then her sexual behavior changed. I’d heard all the horror stories about how once your bride gets pregnant that your sex life is over. I was relived to discover that not only was this not true, but that my bride became like a sixteen year old boy. She couldn’t get enough. If I wasn’t making love to her, she was doing it to herself.  It was awesome!

Until it wasn’t.

She was abnormally horny for about two months, and then, frigid. Talk about leading a guy on… I thought I was in for nine months of living with a porn star.

Then, the nausea. This came at about week seven. It happened while she was in Puerto Rico and I was in Costa Rica. My Christmas present to her was to send her, with friends, to Puerto Rico. We found out after Christmas that she was pregnant. She decided to go anyway, as she had been feeling fine up to that point. I went to Costa Rica at the same time, because, well, why not?

The trip was not the get-a-way that either of us had envisioned. I spent at least 45% of my waking time in Costa Rica, consoling my nauseated wife. “Matt, I want to come home. I’m puking every five minutes.”

Her going home early would mean that I’d have to go home early to be a good husband and take care of her. “Just hang in there baby. This is probably the last time you’ll get to do something like this for a few years, so try to make the best of it.”

Then, the anger. This is probably the worst part of living with a pregnant woman. They get freaking angry, and half the time it’s hard to even understand why. I already told you about the pork chop incident, and I promise you that this incident was not isolated.

At least twice a week, I’d be on the couch watching a Clippers game, minding my own business, when either a shoe, or a piece of trash would go whizzing by my head, close enough for me to feel its wind.

“You’re so lazy, Matt! I don’t ask for anything around here! All I want is for you to take out the damned trash once a day so that I don’t have to smell day old rotting freaking food!” she’d scream. “I don’t understand how I ended up with such a lazy slug! You disgust me so much!”

The first time she freaked on me like this, I took it personally and fought back. That ended with me sleeping on the couch for two days, and her not speaking to me for four. After that, I learned to accept that she was not herself, and she didn’t mean the things she said. “The only thing you’re good for is sex, and you’re not even that great at that!” she’d yell. Or, “Can you take a damned shower? I can smell you from the other room.  You’re such a pig!”

Now, let me note that my bride is probably the sweetest woman to ever live. Her friends will attest to this. I’ve never heard her say a single bad word about anyone, even myself. So, this bizarro behavior completely blew my mind.

One time, I tried the line, “Baby, you don’t mean that. It’s just your hormones talking.”

If I learned one thing during the pregnancy it’s that you never, ever, no matter what, utter those words. I won’t repeat what she yelled at me after this, but let’s just say that I wasn’t allowed to sleep at home for about three nights.

I’m horny. Always. And I love women. All of them. And my bride is my best friend. When I see a hottie, I tell her, point, and we talk about the girl’s breasts and buttocks.

Once she was pregnant, this was no longer a good idea. The first time I did it, she started crying on and off, for two days, “You don’t love me because I’m fat,” she’d cry. Then, her tears would turn to vicious anger, “Why don’t you get the hell out of here, and go be with that slut with the little butt from the beach! You’re such a sex-addict.”

I tried to rationalize that all men are sex addicts.

Never try to rationalize anything with a pregnant woman. Just repeat after me, “I’m a jerk. I’m sorry. I love you. How can I make this better?”

That is the only thing that works. And even then you’ll only have about a 25% success rate.

The truth is that I am a lazy jerk off who often forgets to take out the trash, make the bed, clean my car, pick up my shoes, etc. My bride is a freaking champion for putting up with me. She’s given up in the dishwashing and laundry department as I have screwed those activities up so badly that I am actually forbidden from doing them. So, it’s a miracle that my bride doesn’t have these kinds of outbursts on a daily basis, and I’m grateful for that. However, during the pregnancy…wow.

Next, I noticed that her memory, which was typically about 100% better than mine, had gone to shit. I’d always relied on my bride to remember important things such as doctor’s appointments, birthdays, and the names of my in-laws, but once her memory failed, we were walking around like a couple of Alzheimer’s victims. It got embarrassing. Typically, before a party, my bride would remind me of the names of everyone that was going to be there, so that I wouldn’t look like a jerk when we got there. With her new dementia onset, not only was I left out to dry, but she started forgetting things as simple her sisters boyfriends names. At one gathering, my forgetful bride had forgotten to put on panties. She realized this in the car, but then she forgot it by the time we got to the party. She was seated in a relaxed position on the couch, looking at a magazine with some girls, when I noticed the abnormal number of men crammed onto the couch from across her.

My bride’s ho-ho was out, and they were taking total advantage. I knew that if I told her that she’d probably cry from embarrassment or lash out at me, somehow making it my fault, so I didn’t.  I just walked over and put my hand on her thigh, which of course made her tense up and close her legs.

“Show’s over,” I mouthed to the pervs seated across from us.

There’s other symptoms that come along with pregnancy as well.  There’s the back pain, muscle cramps, inability to sleep, inability to wake, swollen feet and ankles, bad breath from reflux, gas, spider veins, swollen painful breasts (my favorite symptom until I wasn’t allowed to touch them anymore), constant hunger that is unquenchable because everything tastes crappy, stretch marks, fatigue, vaginal discharge, headaches, water retention, etc, etc.

So, men, I’ll tell you the same thing I told my friend. When you’re girl gets pregnant it changes everything.  It completely changes who she is. She will literally become a different person. Do your best to understand and accept this and do not, under any circumstances, fight back. Ever! Your life will change as well. If you are a social fun guy who can’t sit still and doesn’t care much about living in a tidy home, you will learn. Hopefully, you will be as lucky as I was and your wife will break you in to your new life slowly.

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