Lessons Learned

   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.