I Aspire to Be a Low Vibration Wife

a counterpoint to the "high-vibration woman" of our heteromonogamous feeds

The other day, I came across a woman with cute freckles in a topless Porsche talking about how being a “high vibration woman” got her more gifts from her husband.

I’m not above the allure of a gift, so I bit. I watched a few of her reels. It entertained me.

I told my husband about her that night. He didn’t quite get what “high vibration” meant, so I did a little performance.

“Hi, babe,” I said, breathless with a head tilt and eye flutter. “I took a moment to reflect on my mood lately. I know I haven’t been the positive, peace-spreading wife you deserve. I’m going to do better for you.” I pinched my entire face like those cutsie people do.

He put a hand on his crotch. He thought I was initiating role play.

“Okay,” I said, dropping character. “Now fast-forward a week.” Back in character, I said, “Hi baby, I’m so grateful for how well you take care of me. I know you feel the same. For Mother’s Day, I’d like a Porosus Birken. You can choose the color. I love you!”¹ Then I did a couple air kisses, without touching him.

This, as thirty minutes of research taught me, is a high-vibration woman. She is dutiful, but has boundaries. She’s positive femininity incarnate, but with an undercurrent of masculine authority. The kind of woman who lets her partner order for her, but only after training him with overt and subversive tactics.

It’s a little hot. But it is not me. That’s why my husband assumed it was roleplay.

I am not a high-vibration woman. I am not constantly cheerful. When I spread peace, it’s after I’ve spread a low hum of anxiety. My vibrations are in flux. I contribute high vibes to our relationship and home life, but they’re intermittent. And if I aspired to any stasis, it would not be high. I aspire to be a low-vibration woman.

A low-vibration woman, as my imagination defines it, has an uncurated personality not because she’s ‘cool’ or anything, but because curation itself is far too much energy for her. She is too consumed with savoring the (sometimes sweet, sometimes sour) flavors of her inner and outer worlds to even have a preferred restaurant order, let alone deal with the orchestration of instilling that in another human. She’s a gently plucked C minor on bass. A head rocking to Lana Del Rey.

Carol Kaye, session bassist on The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” — a line known for “its complex, triplet-based, descending(!!!!!!) pattern.”

I complain. I have moods I don’t conceal. And never aim to. Sometimes I lean fully into said moods and do a wee pity party and pout. This isn’t an inconvenience to deal with in private and wrap up in toilet paper to discreetly dispose of like a bloody tampon. It’s opportunity.² For my spouse and children to see me dust myself off, do a dance, move on, and through. Not in a manic pixie way.³ The low-vibration woman does these things intentionally because she is too lazy to deal with the repercussions of suppressed emotions – how they build into ugly things like resentment and numbness and loss of self – and she knows that concealing these feelings, or pushing through them rapidly in private, deprives both herself and her partner from being/seeing herself. Which is also laziness – she teaches and trains simply by being.

Yes, this means that my stress vibes send my children into flight-or-cling states, and makes my husband say, “What is wrong with you?” in that way that makes me glare and say, “Nothing!” until I’m ready to explain (once I myself recognize what exactly is wrong). The low-vibration wife hums up and down, and because of the lack of resistance to the downward hum, she maintains a grounded wave. The kind that feels like a children’s smile and fresh lake breeze. Not a fluttered eyelash. She rolls with and through her emotions, letting that low frequency keep her closer to the floor rather than manufacturing an airborne state.

I don’t want to elevate my home. I like to bring my husband down, ideally to the bed or couch, but the ground works too. Isn’t that also hot?

The impulse to hide our ‘bad’ vibrations from a partner is understandable. But being bratty doesn’t make me a bad wife. It makes me an honest one. One who doesn’t require a strategic, manufactured perfection to train my spouse to provide me with my desired gifts, or baseline safety and acceptance.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t shit on transactional relationships. Every communion among humans is defined by give-and-take, and those who realize this are often better for it. But I like my exchange to operate on a separate plane from my state of being.⁴

Aspiring to be a ‘low-vibration wife’ isn’t an avoidance of personal growth. I long for an evermore reliable state of zen, an increasing aptitude to notice my triggers, pluck the chord I’d rather vibrate at, and to more gracefully express fear. Like the other day, when my husband said, “Oh, did Henry pee already?” and I, in the midst of fear manifesting as anger, said, “How could you possibly think that?” I don’t want to be snappy, or even the less hostile version, snippy. But I would never, ever, consider intermittent moodiness or any non-exclusively positive vibration to be a bad thing. Expressing myself with unmanicured insecurities allows my partner to see me, so he can know me, and help me be a better me.

Some people are, as I’ve been fortunate enough to witness, innate positive angels. Bless them. But even angels experience strife! And angels deserve a patient partner to bear witness to their bitchiness, too. Because then, with their full demigod humanity in view, perhaps fewer people will expect others to be exclusively heaven-sent, and fewer people will pretend to be perfect themselves.

I am positive. I do exude peace. But high vibrations aren’t meant to be constant.

It’s not just me, it’s science! Good vibrations are only ‘good’ in short doses. Low-magnitude, high-frequency vibrations help with pain, circulation, relaxation, and even (unsubstantiated claim!) DNA repair or curing diseases. But turn that high wave into a high magnitude, or a full-time high-vibration, and we no longer have a useful, or even entertaining frequency. We have tinnitus.⁵

Perpetual high vibrations are not human. The front makes me wonder what’s hidden.⁶ Pretending, outside of the container of roleplay or showtime, is a lie. It is non-disclosing parts of oneself for a convenient narrative. It’s diminishing one’s wholeness into palatability. That is a fear-based behavior, too – constructing oneself so loved ones stay with them, and reward them with luxury goods as evidence of their value. And it is manipulation. It’s a strategy, not intimacy. Besides, the partner who expects perfection in mood is the person who doesn’t accept imperfection in the physical. And who wants that?

I want a partner who takes me at my intermittently bitchy, and realizes it’s not only a natural ebb on my zen cycle, but also an opportunity to coquettishly request his steadfast guidance. Which is what my husband thought I was doing that evening when I told him about the high-vibration wife.

First, I sucked his dick, and then let him fuck me, but I never let him use me, and had strict guidelines for how he could touch me. The sex was fine.

My husband said in the morning that he found it confusing. He felt he had to treat me a certain way, and he’d rather be himself – a man who likes his bratty wife in the streets, and wounded bird in the sheets. A man who likes to use me, and doesn’t mind if I do the same with him – because in that mutually selfish dance, we become even better, together. Knowing him – and getting to see his fantasies, and the fears and insecurities behind them – is more valuable than a Birken. Genuine intimacy is priceless.

I don’t know that beautiful freckle woman’s real relationship, only what she shares online, but pretending to be her reminded me how lucky I am to be me.

Thank you for reading this exhibition of love. I hope it’s brought aspirationally accessible amorous living to your life. Your support — whether in paid subscriptions, likes, comments, shares (publicly or privately) — is immensely appreciated. I’m sending love to you (literally)!

The soundtrack for this piece is, unsurprisingly, the following:

1. There is (obviously) no Birken incoming. As I mentioned in the subscriber chat, we’re in the midst of an expensive move (lol, but no lol). And probably more importantly, although we value design and the tangible, manufactured good, we don’t spend that kind of money on objects.

2. Obviously, I pee and sort my menstrual business out with the door open.

3. Manic Pixies are an alt high-vibration woman (right?), if I were going to make an X-Y axis.

4. But this could just be because I have an unconditional love kink.

5. Tinnitus is a metaphor here. The other parts are legit though: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S8756328210004928

6. Gone Girl, Stepford Wives, ya know?