The “My Wife” Guy

(Here is my latest profile of a stereotype who stereotypes himself — you know, the guy whose entire existence depends upon him mentioning the fact that he has a wife.)

The “My Wife” Guy is self-explanatory: He loves to say, “My Wife,” and it matters not at which part of the sentence he opts to incorporate his pet phrase, so long as those two words whistle through his pursed lips. If it comes at the start of the sentence, then it come off as, “My Wife has my balls in a sling;” at the middle, “I enjoy the fact that My Wife has my balls in a sling;” or at the end, “My balls were pulled up to the ceiling in a sling, and yeah it hurt like a mother, but, hey, that’s My Wife.”

Why does the TMWG utter the iconic words through pursed lips? The best available answer is that he is actually gay – and thus must forever remind his listeners (and that includes himself) that if a man has a wife, then it stands to good reason that he may have at least once had sex with a woman, in this case the one whom he refers to as “My Wife.” At times, he will be put on the spot when asked, pointblank, if he has ever known his spouse in the biblical sense, to which he will purse his lips in high dungeon, and hiss, “That’s My Wife you’re talking about,” to which the other guy may say, “Yeah, I know, I banged her the night before your wedding.”

On the other hand, he may very well be a staunch heterosexual who just enjoys the feeling of smug superiority of letting people know that not only does he get laid 1.5 times a week but that somehow, against all rational odds, he landed a life-mate who is better looking than even the hookers these same people pay for through the nose. A huge self-esteem booster is the shrine in his office that features dozens of pictures of his spouse either standing alone on the Great Wall of China, or mugging cheek to cheek with him in order to demonstrate to visitors that he has scored a major league piece of ass, though he will NEVER say, “My Wife is a major league piece of ass,” since it is already implied by the one photo of her in a bikini striking a self-deprecating pose on the beach. Instead, he will look at you with all the self-satisfied complacency of a billionaire owner of an original Degas, and smile, “Yes, that’s My Wife. Isn’t she beautiful?”

This tendency of a man to drop the phrase “My Wife” more often when the woman in question is a hot number can be mapped on something called the My Wife Continuum. The MWC measures the direct correlation between the attractiveness of a female spouse and the number of times her husband trips all over himself to designate her as “My Wife.” A man with an ugly mate may never refer to her as My Wife, but rather as The Ball and Chain, or simply as Her; while a guy with an average looking bride will cite ownership only when another guy makes a drunken advance toward her, and then, lo and behold, he’s all about protecting the honor of “My Wife!” Of course, to follow the My Wife Continuum to the end finds our boy, TMWG, forever shouting from the mountaintops the words that sustain him through thick and thin as a veritable religious litany: “My Wife, My Wife, My Wife…” It can sound ridiculous when he uses the possessive form when addressing the girl’s brother, who may dismiss the fool by responding, “You mean fuckin’ Patty, my sister, who I used to beat the shit out of when we were kids?” Or it may come back to bite him worse when he answers a simple request from his darling mate by saying, “Yes, anything for My Wife,” to which she will snort, “Get a grip, dude, I only asked you to pick up some Diet Coke on the way home.”

Our boy may say, “I keep a mustache because it helps when I make love to My Wife.” Yes, he never says, “I plowed My Wife last night,” as this sentiment may as well be paraphrased as, “I plowed The Old Lady last night.” – and the TMWG knows full well that he will lose his safety net to social acceptance, if not social praise, if he ever gets too cocky about the stability of his marriage to a woman desired by every other man in the room.

Yet nothing warms the heart more than when this subspecies of TMWG does lose his ego-inflating woman to a hotshot cosmetic surgeon who rides a Harley. Then we can finally sit back smiling, with a bowl of popcorn on our lap, and enjoy the show of watching him suddenly shrink four inches in height, and age ten years in the face, as he shouts after his emotional meal-ticket walking out the door, “But you’re My Wife!” – and then pump our fist in triumph to see her deliver the coup de grace, “Pal, you never owned me — and besides your mustache is stupid.”

(Check out my Amazon Author Page at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008GBMBD4)

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