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" May 19 Dropped the kids off at preschool today and was surprised by what their teacher Emily said. Well, not so much at what she said, but my reaction to it. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve noticed they&amp;#039;re both a lot less aggressive on the slide lately,&amp;quot; she said, handing me a &amp;quot;sculpture&amp;quot; Steven Jr. made me that resembled poop. &amp;quot;I have to think it has something to do with having a male figure in their lives. It&amp;#039;s such a stabilizing influence for children this age.&amp;quot; Normally, a comment like that would have struck panic at the core of my soul. Not anymore. It actually had the reverse effect. I felt good, like I was making a difference in their lives. Seriously, I would throw myself in front of a train for the little snot-nosed brats. I&amp;#039;ve noticed another strange thing lately. Used to be when I saw parents struggling with their kids in the supermarket or in a restaurant \u2014 I felt sorry for them. It was usually followed by a snide little remark to myself like, &amp;quot;How do people put up with it? I&amp;#039;m so happy that isn&amp;#039;t me.&amp;quot; Now I have a different reaction. I feel a bond with those moms and dads. I don&amp;#039;t feel pity as much as an odd kinship. Now I feel sorry for the people who will never know what it&amp;#039;s like to love kids. What the hell is happening to me? It&amp;#039;s like when Peter Parker got bitten by the radioactive spider and, against his will, slowly began to transform into Spiderman.  I&amp;#039;m FamilyMan.  Lately I&amp;#039;m starting to forget who I was all these years. I sneak into the den to watch some porn online and instead find myself ordering parenting books on Amazon. It&amp;#039;s frightening! I&amp;#039;ve never felt closer to settling down than I feel right now. The craziest thing is how quickly the change is happening. Whatever bug bit me, it got me bad \u2014 the venom went straight to my brain. My only hesitation or fear, I guess you could call it, is the idea of having sex with one woman for the rest of my life. Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong \u2014 I adore India, and I&amp;#039;m pretty sure I love her more than any woman I&amp;#039;ve ever known. But guys need variety. I firmly believe this. It&amp;#039;s been programmed into our DNA since the beginning of time. Monogamy is not a natural state, but something that was concocted by religions and governments to preserve the human race and ensure that society didn&amp;#039;t devolve into some sort of mass orgy. I&amp;#039;ve talked to my married friends about the monogamy issue, and they usually just shrug their shoulders and say something like, &amp;quot;What are you gonna do?&amp;quot; Some of them cheat with hookers, some have affairs, some swing (dad did all three) \u2014 but most just hang in there and bear it because the alternative \u2014 losing their wives and children \u2014 is not worth acting on their impulses.  If you get a married guy drunk enough, he&amp;#039;ll admit that sex with his wife isn&amp;#039;t that great \u2014 if it&amp;#039;s happening at all. He doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily love his wife any less \u2014 in fact, sometimes he loves her more that he did when they got married. It&amp;#039;s just different. The relationship evolves, the novelty wears off, the bedroom routine becomes routine. The Seven Year Itch is not what it used to be. From my unscientific calculation, it now kicks in at 4 years. Sooner if you have babies. I was talking to Hector about this the other night, and he said an interesting thing. Nobody had ever put it to me quite this way before.  &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re never going to lose your urges, kid. They just become less important than they were before. When you&amp;#039;re married, other priorities take over \u2014 your money, your home, your life together, your kids. Sure, you&amp;#039;re gonna look at other women. Any guy who tells you he&amp;#039;s not attracted to other women is either gay or in the closet. It&amp;#039;s just not your central focus anymore. Don&amp;#039;t worry, if it&amp;#039;s meant to be, it all works out. I was happily married for 35 years. My wife started to drink a lot, but that just made me care for her even more. I could have easily left her many times. Could&amp;#039;ve had affairs many times over. That was never an option.&amp;quot; It all sounds good. I just can&amp;#039;t imagine ever tiring of sex. The bug has infected every part of my body, except Thor. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/mens-perspective/a5005/becoming-a-family-051909/?src=rss>