The key to a good relationship between the sexes lies in communication, but not how you think. There is no denying that couples should carve out time to shoot the breeze or dissect issues. A willingness to hear and fulfill your partner’s needs goes a long way in strengthening your relationship. Really, though, communication is about maintaining proper expectations. This is why I am still married. I don’t expect to ever understand the who, what, where, or how of 99% of anything that comes out of the Mister’s mouth.
Men communicate to react; women communicate to perceive. And for the Mister and I, this has never been more apparent than when one of us is running late. Let’s assume we are meeting for dinner at 6:00 pm. If I am running late, I start calling twenty minutes before I am supposed to be somewhere.
“Nicholas can’t find his shoe, so I will probably be 7, maybe ten minutes late if I hit the traffic lights. Go ahead and sit down, because the dinner crowd usually hits at 6:10 maybe 6:15 and if we wait a second longer we will be standing around for forty minutes to eat Americanized Mexican food we don’t even like. Is there already a line? There’s already a line, right? You know what, don’t even tell me because I’m already annoyed. Do you think we should just go somewhere else? Because I’m fine with that, and if we get burgers at Henry’s it’s a little closer to the house and we might be able to shave three minutes off my time, provided Nicholas finds his shoe.”
The Mister will approach the same situation with his own communication style. My phone will ring for the first time at 6:25 pm.
“Hey, I’m running late.”
He’s running late. I had no idea! This shard of wisdom communicated because despite my two graduate degrees, I never learned how to tell time without looking at the sun, which of course you can’t see when you are inside a mediocre Mexican restaurant being tossed about by the dinner rush like underoos at a Justin Bieber concert.
Men communicate to react; women communicate to perceive.
The doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms have twist locks you can’t release by jiggling the knob. They are the kind with a little twisty key, and if you are on the outside of a locked door trying to tell a toddler how to release the lock, you have a problem. We put in knob covers when we moved in, not long after a 2 year-old Mikey locked himself in the bathroom for what seemed like hours but was only seconds. Now that the boys are older, we’ve taken them all down. Occasionally the doors will lock when you grab the door knob wrong on your way out, which is a hassle because there is no one on the other side of the door to unlock it. It’s happened to me once with the bathroom, and while I lost spirit, I didn’t lose hope. The original owners left behind an enormous freezer bag with hundreds keys and a note that read, “Sorry to say we don’t know what most of these open.”
Number 75 opened the bathroom door.
Last night I took a break while cooking a late dinner and went to put on my pajamas. The boys and the Mister were watching Iron Chef America–secret ingredient, lentils–when I walked by, tired and quiet. I tried the bedroom door and found it locked. Tired and quiet go bye-bye.
“Oh, come on now! What the hell?!” No way was I going to sit with that bag of keys again.
The Mister came around the corner in his usual slow, easy fashion with a bored look on his face. I used my eyes to communicate a message. Somehow, someway, this is totally your fault.
His eyes sprouted shields and deflected my daggers. A huge, exasperated sigh. “What are you all worked up about now?”
“The door is locked. I didn’t lock the door, of course, but it’s locked. Which means I can’t get in. Because it’s locked.”
“So use the key.” This said while opening the utility closet perpendicular to our bedroom door. From a hook on the wall he pulled a skeleton key.
“What is that?!”
“The key.”
Sometimes, he makes me want to commit a violent act. “I know that. When did you put it there?”
“I didn’t put it there. The original owners did.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“We’ve lived here six years.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Were you ever going to tell me there was a SKELETON KEY hanging in the closet?”
“I just did.”
No words. Only gaping mouth, bugged eyes, shortness of breath.
“Why are you upset? The door’s unlocked now. Oh, and you can open the locks with a butter knife. Guys learn that when we’re kids. But you can use your fingernails, too, if they’re long enough.” And then he winked.
It’s nice there is a key in my house that opens all the doors, but what I wouldn’t give to find one that opens up the recesses of his mind so I can see how it works.
Men. Enough said.
I haven’t thought about underoos in like a hundred years. I loved those! I actually saved a piece of my Josie and the Pussycats underoos. They’re right next to all the other crap I’ve saved all my life. Are you shocked?
No, I’m not. My only fear is that I will outlive you, and it will be me stuck with the job of rifling through all that crap.
I don’t understand. When I married my husband I sold my house. When I organized (threw out his junk) I found keys in every room. He had no idea what they opened.
Maybe he only said that because I had organized the house:)
This sounds just like a conversation I might have with my hubby. To make matters worse, we have a nine-year-old boy that is wired the same way. I cannot even begin to count how many time’s I’ve uttered the words, “I don’t understand you people.” Boys. They are such a mystery.
I’m pretty sure I would have told him to sleep with one eye open.
Hilarious!!
He really thought I knew. In fact, I don’t think he understands how I DIDN’T know. Because I rummage around a utility closet ALL THE TIME.
I loved this story. You are an aweome writer!!!
I love this!!!
Haha! I can see the exact same thing happening with my mom and dad. They have little button locks on the bathroom/bedroom doors that sometimes seem to lock on their own so we all learned at a young age how pop them open with a screw driver/knifer/credit card. Of course, this didn’t help when you were hiding in the bathroom to escape your big brother who thought it was funny to tickle you until you cried.
Ah hahahaha ok so maybe I shouldn’t be laughing. My wife sent me this to read and it was well a very familiar situation. I think if we could give you the key to how our minds worked we would but I’m not sure it would help much. All I can say from my mans point of view is Sorry and at least we give you fun things to blog about. :)
Hah! That’s what I told my husband last night. He loves it when I blog about us. He thinks it’s funny. (So do I.)
Oh I so understand this post. Especially the “I’m going to be late” part.
Oh man….I laughed SO HARD! This is so hilarious because of the truth.
When my husband and I started dating, my dad told him that “Communication is the most important thing to a relationship”. My parent’s have been married for over 30 years – and yet….we laugh because it’s a family trait of having conversations in one’s own head, assuming that it was spoken out loud. It happens all the time.
In FACT, my dad just called as I was typing this comment and we were talking about my mom’s birthday party on the 12th. The conversation actually went like this: “Judy is going to take Avi after dinner that night.” “What night?” “The night of mom’s party. Which is what we were just talking about.” “Just wanted to make sure I was part of the conversation.”
I blame the previous owners. Who takes the time to write, “Sorry, don’t know what these go to” but then doesn’t add “PS: There’s a skeleton key in the closet.”
We had an epic argument about the blender one night. I was pureeing soup (which I do all the time without incident) and it kept exploding out of the top. Hot soup all over me and the cabinets. I go to change shirts (kicking and cussing) and my dear, sweet husband offers up the suggestion that the blender is on the wrong setting. Cage fight ensues.
To any man facing this circumstance in the future, the proper response is: “Geez, this blender is a real piece of crap. Let’s go get you a new one.”
Priceless!
I cannot count the number of times I’ve looked at my husband, who is in the middle of a story, mouth agape….because the middle is where he started.
So I ask him the most basic question, such as: “wait, who were you talking to?”
To which he’ll say something like, “you know John. He’s my assistant manager…”
Somehow my husband never seems to understand that I’m not so dumb as to not know who John is…he just never shared that piece of information!
This kind of thing happens, at minimum, three times a week.
OMG – thank you so much for your post! I’ve been pondering the same things about my husband for years!!! Drives me insane! I often wonder, how can I be so thoughtful, taking care to plan and prepare — all in an effort to make our lives easier, when he just blows in and blows out without a second thought as to how what he does or doesn’t do affects the family. Drives me nuts.
Totally priceless! My husband is same and my six year old is starting to show similar tendencies. Either I get information that is obvious (i.e. I am late) or I get information that is totally mind blowing to me and by default totally matter of fact to them (i.e. the key is in the closet) =:o
“like underoos at a Justin Bieber concert”
HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAhaahahahahahaaaaaa…
Jules, you are a genius.