Some BG: Dh and I love to wrestle. He tries to pin me down, I know some of his weak spots, its a lot of fun. We do this almost nightly. Its a huge stress reliever and we both enjoy it.
Cake Smashing, in the original thread, was called disrespectful, cruel and passive aggressive. I disagree with that, because I think that if both people want something, how can it be any of those things? This got me thinking about something that happened many years ago.
Dh and I were living in Texas and discussing the possibility of moving back to his hometown in DC.
His best friend of many many years, Ed, tells DH that they need a roommate very badly. He had just met and married someone in the last 6 months. This was their first place together, but she lost her job a little while back. The only problem is, he needs someone to move in NOW. Ed and wife lived in DC.
DH and I rush a plan together. He will quit his job and I will take time off my job. We will go to DC and find jobs. Then, I will go back to TX and pack up our place and bring DS.
When we arrive at Ed's apartment, we are given a loft with its own bathroom. I don't know if a loft is the same everywhere, but in this situation, it was a bedroom without the privacy. One wall is open for the people in the living room to see. No privacy.
DH and I get started with the job searching and the apartment searching with some wrestling on our downtime. We also make fun of each other sometimes. In fact, the making fun of each other usually leads to the wrestling. Because we only had the one bedroom, we couldn't do all of the usual running after each other, so it was pretty tame.
Anyways, less then two weeks in, Ed's wife tells us that we need to leave. She thinks our relationship is disgusting and unhealthy and doesn't want to be near it. Ed left the apartment at the beginning of the conversation.
Dh and I were both pretty upset, and I would have loved to say a few things to her, but I had to fly into action to figure out what we were going to do.
For a long time, I have been upset with her for judging our relationship like that. I was upset that she thought she had the right to decide what a healthy relationship was for us. I was also upset Ed pressured us into moving, knew that we had turned our lives upside down, then kicked us out without warning. It could have ended very badly for us.
So, some of the reactions to the cake smashing thread made me think about this situation from long ago. I am wondering now if Ed's wife was right to dictate how a couple behaves with each other in her home. Were Dh and I wrong to assume that, because we were paying for the room, that we could use it as we wished?