I love it when I am proven right.
Well, not always…
When I give my children advice and they don’t take it, I REALLY do not like being proven right.
But I have to confess that it feels pretty good when a disinterested third party confirms something that I have been saying for quite awhile, especially when they confirm it to my wife!
You see, my wife will argue with me. I know that sounds unbelievable but it is true! I might be the only husband that can say that.
I don’t know why she does. Sometimes, I think that she thinks that it is her calling…her responsibility…that if she doesn’t, I will grow into this uncontrollable egomaniac. So, for the sake of Western civilization, she frequently practices…”counterpoint.”
After all, it’s just ME saying it…and who am I? How do I KNOW???
Puh-leaze! EVERY wife KNOWS that she is smarter than her man! To quote Maria Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “Let me tell you something, Toula, the man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.”
Over the years, every so often, in a moment of frustration (I know, I don’t really understand how that can happen either…but, what do you know, it has!), my wife would assert that I was a “control freak”.
Don’t tell her that I said this, but for the first 15 years of our marriage, I would say that she was right! I would try to compensate for my own “weaknesses” and “imperfections” (hold on…those words are much too kind…let’s try “flaws”…no, that is still too nice…how about “gaping insecurities” and “glaring inadequacies”…yep, that would be more accurate) through my wife and children.
Then, somehow, I started getting better. I finally came to terms with my own shortcomings, failures and disappointments.
I began to realize that my youth was vanishing and that I probably wasn’t the one that would figure out answers to all of the world’s problems. I lowered my expectations a bit.
What if I attempt something a little more manageable…like solving my own problems? What do you know…I actually started growing more confident.
One day, I have actually had the temerity (look it up!) to suggest that Bunch might have her own control issues.
Huhh???…
That simply can’t be. I mean, consider the source!
My wife came home from school today with an incredulous look on her face…
“Guess what happened today?”
“What?”
“My physiology teacher identified me as ‘anal retentive’. (I hate that term. Sigmund Fraud, er…I mean Freud coined it to describe someone who REALLY likes things a certain way.) I’ve never been called that before!”
Far be it from me to actually argue with her…”So then, I might have been right?”
“About what?”
“That you might have some control issues…from time to time.”
She smiled. She had not made that connection yet.
I was wise enough to avoid belaboring the point. My impartial, objective knight in shining armor had already ridden onto the stage to tell her that she can now safely consider the possibility that I might know a little sump’n, sump’n about what I am talking about. That is good enough for me!
