If a man is standing in a forest more than 250 miles away from the nearest woman and a tree falls, is he still wrong? The first time I heard this question, I thought it was lightly humorous, just as it was meant to be. However, the longer I’ve been married and the more I think about the question, I’m starting to think it is one of the most profound statements I have ever heard. Of course, if my wife heard me utter the word “profound,” she would tell me I am using the word wrong.
It seems like my wife’s No. 1 occupation is notifying me that I am doing stuff “wrong.” It happens so often she could probably list it on her resume: five years as a math teacher, 15 years notifying husband he is an idiot. I don’t know when this pattern began. I don’t remember her telling me I was doing it wrong in college, or on our honeymoon. But somewhere along the line, when I wasn’t paying attention, she decided she would inform me every time I was doing something wrong—which, nowadays, is occurring on an hourly basis. And this is happening 24 hours a day. When I sleep, I am breathing wrong because I snore. And, no joke, she tells me every single night that I am using the blankets wrong. Is that even possible?
Recently, I got away from my wife, whom I love, and took a boys’ trip to the racetrack for an endurance motorsports event. “The boys” consisted of a few guys my age who were racing on my team and a couple of dads in the group known as “the old farts.” When we arrived at the track, we had to maneuver a few motorhomes around, open some awnings, set up some tables and chairs, and then start to barbecue. There were some logistics to deal with, but the process went very smoothly. As I sat down and opened a beer, enjoying the aroma from the barbecue, the senior old fart in the group proclaimed, “Can you believe we were able to set all this up without our wives here to tell us what to do? And we were able to do it without being wrong once all day!”
He was right. With my wife gone, I wasn’t wrong at all. I didn’t park the motorhome at the wrong angle. I didn’t put the garbage can in the wrong place. I didn’t use the wrong towel to dry my hands. I didn’t cook the meat wrong. I didn’t open my beer in the wrong manner and spill beer on the motorhome floor (well, I may have done that, but I wasn’t wrong when I did it). I had never thought about it before, but the old fart was absolutely right: Without our wives around, we could accomplish things without being told all day long that what we were doing was wrong. It was so liberating.
It made me really start to look back at my marriage and try to figure out where it all went so … wrong. Somewhere along the line, I lost the mental respect of my wife. It’s like I’m getting dumber and more useless as I grow older. She doesn’t think I can fill the dishwasher correctly—or even fold laundry correctly. When she explains things to me, she talks to me like I have a head injury. If it’s this bad now, and it appears to be a progressive trend, what will my quality of life be like when I’m 60? I’ll probably be blinking wrong by then.
This “wrong epidemic” seems to be seeping into every facet of my life. If my wife sends me to the store to buy lettuce, I come home with a bag filled with a green leafy substance that grew in the ground and would go in a salad. My wife takes one look at the bag and informs me, “That’s the wrong lettuce. I wanted romaine, and you bought iceberg. Why would you buy this? We don’t eat iceberg lettuce.” She is telling me I’m wrong, and I don’t understand what she is even saying. I don’t have a degree in agricultural engineering; I just grabbed a bag labeled “lettuce.”
Once I went to the store to buy myself some new socks. I got home and my wife told me that I bought the wrong ones. I bought the wrong socks for me, and my feet? How can she possibly have an opinion on who, what, how, when, or why my socks fit and feel on my own feet? To me, it seemed like such a ridiculous statement on her part. I later realized the socks were wool instead of cotton, and my feet didn’t breathe, resulting in athlete’s foot. I went to the store and bought some medicine to treat the condition. Yes, you guessed it: I bought the wrong medicine.
This constant and endless narrative between my wife and me dealing with everything I do which is wrong is completely one sided. I never tell her she’s wrong. I don’t say to her, “You’re dieting wrong” or “You colored your hair wrong.” I’d be a dead man. Husbands aren’t allowed to tell their wives they’re wrong, because if we did, our wives would inform us that it is wrong to tell them that they are doing something wrong. The whole double standard is just so … wrong.
But when I got away from my wife, otherwise known as the “wrong police,” and hung with “the boys,” everything was all right. All was good with the world, and I could do no wrong. Then, later that night, I received a text from my wife: “You were supposed to call me when you arrived at the track.” Whoops. Wrong again.
Without his wife’s advice on barbecuing, Rob’s entire race crew caught a case of dysentery from either a lack of washed hands or undercooked meat at the race.
This article appears in Nov 23-30, 2011.
