I wish you could take your honeymoon 10 years after you’ve been married instead of 10 minutes after you’ve been married.
When you first get married you don’t know how to vacation together. You’re amateurs at this whole “doing life together” thing. On my honeymoon for instance, I decided to spend four hours winning a ping pong tournament. Why? Because I’m an idiot and didn’t know that one of Jenny’s love languages was “Spending quality time together.” I swore that her love language was “My husband winning a ping pong tournament at a Sandals resort.”
The vacations we take now are so much better than the ones we took 13 years ago.
But despite what we’ve learned about each other and our relationship, there’s one marital crisis no counselor prepared us for. Despite our best attempts at oneness and leaving and cleaving and every other phrase associated with marriage, there was something we were not ready for…
Netflix cheating.
Thanks to the Instant Watch function of Netflix, Jenny and I have a bevy of programming available. There are tens of thousands of hours of online shows we can watch. The cornucopia of instant Netflix overfloweth.
One of the shows we watched was called, “Midsomer Murders.” It’s a British program about detective who solves crimes in a quaint village called “Midsomer.” There are more than 10 seasons available since apparently Midsomer is the most dangerous place on the planet. Every episode someone is getting killed, you would think the fine folk of Midsomer would have left the area already. It’s a more deadly show to be on than even Downton Abbey.
We were watching it together peacefully, probably holding hands with interlinked digits because we’re in love like that, when something happened.
I started traveling a little for public speaking gigs. And when I was stuck in my hotel, the Netflix app called to me on my iPhone. It said, “You can watch one episode without Jenny. It’s just one episode. What’s the harm? She doesn’t even have to know.”
That tiny little red and white icon, much like an apple in the Garden of Eden, was too much for me to handle. I gave in, thinking that it would only happen one time. But one episode turned to two and two to four and four to 12. Before I knew it, I was entire seasons ahead of Jenny. Main characters had left the show, massive plot changes had come and gone and Jenny was none the wiser.
I don’t know if there’s a counselor focusing specifically on Netflix affairs, or if perhaps, “Shared online television watching” will be added to the 5 Love Languages, but I do know one thing. Netflix will get you if you’re not careful.
Beware the app icon!
Question:
Have you and your spouse ever experienced this?
