There’s a delicate balance that every married couple have to manage if they’re going to make it for the long run. Apparently, I just stepped over the line.
Picture this: My beautiful wife Maya was setting up a time to have dinner with one of our favorite married couples. The dinner was scheduled for this coming Friday.
Somewhere along the way, Maya looked at her schedule for the week and realized that Friday might not be the best day and wanted to reschedule for the following Sunday.
So she asked me, “What do you think of moving the dinner to Sunday instead”?
I said, “Fine with me.”
She said, “I hate it when you do that.” Turning to her, I said, “When I do what"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=8b64ff35-2d21-481e-88ae-8562dded85bd&cid=1ffe15d6-eb53-11e9-b4d2-06948452ae1a'; cnx.cmd.push( function() { cnx( { playerId: "8b64ff35-2d21-481e-88ae-8562dded85bd" } ).render( "11982501ceb44352bd1e95848c612274" ); } );
She said, “When you don’t give me your opinion. I really hate that.”
I followed with “But that’s how I honestly feel. I have no real opinion on whether we go out on Friday or Sunday night.”
Having enough, she says, “That’s it. From now on, you’re no longer allowed to answer my question with those three words!”.
I said, “You don’t want me to say, ‘Fine with me’”?
“Absolutely not!” she bellows.
Then I follow up with, “Well, I could use some alternative responses.” And I began to list off some of the alternatives. How about:
- I don’t care. 2) It doesn’t matter. 3) OK, no problem. 4) Either is fine. 5) Whatever is fine.
Maya’s harsh reply — “No, no, no, no and no! Any combination of three words where you don’t express an opinion are no longer allowed!”
So what am I left with? Now I have to reply with an opinion that I don’t genuinely have. Do I want to reschedule the dinner to Sunday? “Absolutely not! The last thing I want to do is move the dinner from Friday to Sunday. I think that’s just a ridiculous thing to do!”
Of course, you KNOW her follow up would be, “Why not”?
And I would have no answer! I really don’t have a problem having dinner on Friday or Saturday. To be honest, we could have dinner with them both nights and it would be “A OK.” By the way, “A OK” is also on the verboten list.
In order for me to make this whole fake demonstrative thing work, now I’ll be forced to come up with fake reasons as to why I’d rather have dinner on Friday rather than Sunday.
Things like, “Wait a minute! Virgo is ascendent on Sunday! How can we even consider going out to dinner that day!?!”
Now, I know what some of you may say. You’re going to say that all Maya wants is for me to be an active participant when we’re making decisions in our day to day lives. Fair enough. But honestly, that active participant thing really runs both ways.
For example, I really want Maya’s honest opinion on my next set of power tools — a table saw or a jig saw?
Hmm…something makes me think we’re not quite done with this conversation.
Wayne Chan, a Poway resident, writes about family and community life and shares humorous views of topics of the day.
