When my husband (then fiance) suggested we start our married lives together TV-free, I thought he was joking. We hadn't moved in together yet, but weekends with this Big Ten grad, sports lover, and fantasy football devotee almost always involved at least a glimpse of some game on TV. Had he gone crazy -- or was this truly a brilliant idea?
Assured by his promises of more quality time as a married couple -- and the chance to stop zoning out in front of the tube together -- I agreed. So after our wedding bells rang, my newly betrothed and I moved into a condo together. Our TV had a new home too: a locked storage unit in the basement. Here's how we endured:
The Plan:
Television wasn't completely off-limits -- we just wouldn't have it in our home. If my husband wanted to watch Sunday-night football, he had to make plans to watch it at a friend's house or at a bar, or drive 45 minutes to watch with his dad. Likewise, if I wanted to unwind with the latest
Boston Legal episode, I had to go to a girlfriend's place. But at home, it was time to talk, read, and enjoy the first year of marriage.
The Beginning:
At first, we both felt the TV withdrawal. My morning routine felt empty without Katie and Matt at the
Today show. Gone were the days when my husband could de-stress after work with a good
Seinfeld rerun. Life seemed less complicated when I could lose myself in a funny
Friends repeat, or when the TV could simply provide background noise for our tired nights. Was marriage really this quiet?
We both felt a little left out when it came to conversations with friends. My husband was no longer well-equipped to play Monday-morning quarterback with the guys at work. And when a friend mentioned
Laguna Beach, I was reminded of a fun weekend there, not an MTV reality show. Was this really a good idea?
Then my husband hit rock bottom. After 88 years, our hometown Chicago White Sox had made it to the World Series. My husband was fine following his routine of watching the previous games with friends. But imagine my surprise when I walked into our cable-free condo to find him staring at our television -- with the game in play. It was fuzzy but viewable with the aid of an antenna-like concoction he'd created. I had to laugh -- it was quite a relapse.
The Adjusting:
Once the World Series ended (and the White Sox won!) and we returned to our no-TV routine, we actually
liked not having a television. I replaced the
Today show with National Public Radio. Dinnertime became just us --
communicating about our days, our goals, our lives. Days of the week were no longer defined by shows on TV -- as in, "I have to be home by nine because it's
Apprentice night" -- but were now based on what we would do together that evening.
We started new projects, like painting rooms in our condo. I made countless messes in our kitchen trying out new recipes for dinner. We stopped taking shifts to walk Buddy, our golden retriever, and began taking him for long evening walks together. My husband started playing chess on the Internet and read more books in a few months than he'd read the entire previous year. We were enjoying our new life so much that we didn't know when we had ever found time to watch so much TV.
The Verdict:
What does our TV future have in store? Ask my husband, and he'll likely say a wide-screen, flat-panel LCD with a built-in DVD player and virtual surround sound. Someday maybe. But the current plan is to make it a full year before pulling our old 32-incher out of storage.
And for now, as peculiar as it may seem, this TV-free experience is giving us a priceless gift: the ability to kick off our marriage with a solid foundation of communication. Having no TV has challenged us to stop watching
other people live their lives and to start living our own. I recommend turning off the tube to all couples. I guarantee you: It's reality TV at its finest.
by Casey Jones
6/26/08
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