It’s
been a year since Jim married Bridget. In a very short time, my son who I
thought would never make the transition from bachelor to husband, found a nice
girl and became a step-father to her two children, Tyler and Samantha. Tyler,
age twelve, has a mind like a computer. He plans everything he says and does
with NASA-like precision. This quality may make him seem like a nerd at his
tender age but it will take him far when he decides to marry.
Shortly after their wedding, Jim and Bridget
were invited to a party close to where they live. It was adults only and my
daughter who lives a few miles away offered to take the kids for the night. As
they were getting into the car, Jim observed, “You know, if we didn’t have to
drop off the kids, we could just walk to the party.” To any man, this is a harmless
logistical statement of fact. If he’d said it to another man, the response
would be, “Duh.” What Jim didn’t realize was that he’d just verbally left solid
ground and stepped onto a metaphorical straw mat covering a hole filled with
sharpened punji sticks.
Bridget exploded. “Maybe we should just get
rid of the kids,” she screamed.
They never went to the party.
My son, who’d lived alone or with male
roommates for most of the prior ten years, and could fearlessly say anything he
wanted without thought of contradiction or retribution, was unschooled in the nuances
of talking to women—especially one he was married to. The lessons began that
night.
It’s been my personal observation and that of
my married friends, when our wives aren’t around, that something changes when a
woman marries. That sweet fun-loving girl becomes a ruthless, calculating,
cold-hearted linguistic sentinel on the lookout for something sinister in
anything her husband might have the temerity to utter. Maybe it’s a defense
mechanism, but a woman parses everything her man says seeking any subtlety in
tone or phrase that might be a knock against her.
For example, he says, “You look nice today.”
Instantly she thinks, “Is he saying I looked
bad yesterday?” Then she lets him have it.
He learns to drop any qualifying words that
might be taken the wrong way. “Safety First” becomes the rule for saying
anything to her.
I learned a different lesson early on. The
wife asked one day if I would like steak or chicken for supper. When I
responded in favor of steak, she asked why I didn’t like her chicken. I tried
to explain that there was nothing wrong with her chicken, I just preferred
steak on that particular night. She countered by telling me she’d already made
chicken anyway. Things escalated when I asked her why she’d given me a choice
when she’d made my decision for me. After a brief discussion that brought the
neighbors to their windows, we ate our chicken in icy stillness. That was the
night I learned to embrace the silent treatment.
Since my son and I work together, we discuss
these issues a lot. I’ve explained to him that he must think before he speaks.
He must look for anything in his upcoming utterance that could be used against
him in the court of marital bliss where he stands accused and she is judge,
jury, and executioner. When in doubt, I say, grunts and monosyllables are as
safe as can be. However, there are times when questions must be answered and he
must be cautious to a fault to avoid saying something that might be turned
around to bite him in the ass.
That being said, there is a question that
every married man should never, ever, answer. No, it’s not the “do I look fat
in this?” query. My thinking is that if she thinks she looks fat in
something, she probably does. “Uh-uh” is always a safe bet here. The
unanswerable question is, “If I died, would you remarry?” These six simple
words are a trap. There is no correct answer.
If you answer in the negative, she’ll get
all upset and claim you hated being married to her. If you say you would get
married again, she’ll ask, “Who is she?”
I took a solemn oath from my father that he
took from his father and so on back into the antiquity of husbanddom. I swore
that I would avoid that question at all costs. I have passed the oath on to my
son but it will probably end with him. Tyler, I’m sure, is already working on
the answer.
