ON WIVES, AGAIN

Your writer is today revisiting some thought-provoking pieces about the travails of marriage. The FIRST is “I’ll Never Understand My Wife”, written by Steven James in ‘A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul’: “The day she moved in, she started opening and closing the kitchen cabinets, gasping, ‘You don’t have any shelf paper! We’re […]

Your writer is today revisiting some thought-provoking pieces about the travails of marriage. The FIRST is “I’ll Never Understand My Wife”, written by Steven James in ‘A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul’:

“The day she moved in, she started opening and closing the kitchen cabinets, gasping, ‘You don’t have any shelf paper! We’re going to have to get some shelf paper in here before I move my dishes in.’ ‘But why?’ I asked innocently. ‘To keep the dishes clean,’ she answered matter-of-factly. I didn’t understand how the dust would magically migrate off the dishes if they had sticky blue paper under them, but I knew when to be quiet.

“Then came the day when I left the toilet seat up. ‘We never left the toilet seat up in my family,’ she scolded. ‘It’s impolite.’ ‘It wasn’t impolite in my family,’ I said sheepishly. ‘Your family didn’t have cats.’

“In addition to these lessons, I also learned how I was supposed to squeeze the toothpaste tube, which towel to use after a shower and where the spoons are supposed to go when I set the table. I had no idea I was so uneducated. Nope, I’ll never understand my wife.

“She alphabetizes her spices, washes dishes before sending them through the dishwasher, and sorts laundry into different piles before throwing it into the washing machine. Can you imagine? She wears pajamas to bed. I didn’t think anyone in North America still wore pajamas to bed. She has a coat that makes her look like Sherlock Holmes. ‘I could get you a new coat,’ I offered. ‘No. This one was my grandmother’s,’ she said, decisively ending the conversation.

“Then, after we had kids, she acted even stranger. Wearing those pajamas all day long, eating breakfast at 1:00pm. She picked up the baby whenever she cried, even though people told her it was healthy to let her wail. ‘It’s good for her lungs to cry,’ they would say. ‘It’s better for her heart to smile,’ she’d answer.

“One day a friend of mine snickered at the bumper sticker my wife had put on the back of our car: ‘Being a Stay-at-Home Mom Is a Work of Heart.’  ‘My wife must have put that on there,’ I said. ‘My wife works,’ he boasted. ‘So does mine,’ I said, smiling.

“Once, I was filling out one of those warranty registration cards and I checked ‘homemaker’ for my wife’s occupation. Big mistake. She glanced over it and quickly corrected me. ‘I am not a homemaker. I am not a housewife. I am a mother.’ ‘But there’s no category for that,’ I stammered. ‘Add one,’ she said. I did.

“And then one day, a few years later, she lay in bed smiling when I got up to go to work. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Nothing. Everything is wonderful. I didn’t have to get up at all last night to calm the kids. And they didn’t crawl into bed with us.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, still not understanding. ‘It was the first time I’ve slept through the night in four years.’ It was? Four years? That’s a long time. I hadn’t even noticed. Why hadn’t she ever complained? I would have.

“Nope, I’ll never understand my wife. And you know what? Our daughter is acting more and more like her mother every day. If she turns out to be anything like her mom, someday there’s going to be one more lucky guy in this world, thankful for the shelf paper in his cupboard.”

The SECOND piece, Bossed Around By The Wife is of no known source: “I was tired of being bossed around by my wife; so I went to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said I needed to build my self-esteem, and so he gave me a book on assertiveness, which I read on the way home. I finished the book by the time I reached my house. I stormed into the house and walked up to my wife. Pointing a finger in her face, I said, ‘From now on, I want you to know that I am the man of this house, and my word is law! I want you to prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I’m finished eating my meal, I expect a sumptuous dessert afterwards. Then, after dinner, you’re going to draw me my bath so I can relax. And, when I’m finished with my bath, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?’ ‘The funeral director,’ she said.”

And the THIRD is on ‘Mis-Communication’: “There is this about the husband whose car would not start in the morning because he left the lights on overnight. He asked his wife to give him a hand to start the car. He told her to get into their much bigger second car and use it to push his car fast enough down the road to start it. He explained that because his car had automatic transmission, it needed to be pushed at least 50kmh for it to start. She said fine, hopped into the bigger car and drove off. The husband sat there fuming, wondering why she drove off without pushing him. A minute passed by and then he saw her in the rearview mirror coming behind him very fast at about 70kmh. It was too late to realise that he should have been a bit clearer with his instructions.” (Push had come to shove! Ouch!)

And the FOURTH is titled ‘Millionaire’: “A friend and her millionaire husband visited the husband’s construction site. One of the labourers, a worker who wore a helmet, saw her and shouted, ‘Hi, Emily! Remember me? We used to date in the secondary school.’ On the way home, her millionaire husband teased her, ‘Luckily you married me. Otherwise you will be the wife of a construction worker.’ She answered right back, ‘You should appreciate that you married me. Otherwise, he will be the millionaire and not you.’”

And the FIFTH is titled ‘At The Same Time’: A man said to his wife one day, ‘I don’t know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.’ The wife responded, ‘Allow me to explain. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!

AND FINALLY, A PIECE OF ADVICE: A newly married couple once asked: “What shall we do to make our love endure?” Said the Master: “Love other things together.”