When to Ignore Your Spouse

Long before she was my wife, Carolyn told me to stop bringing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to her in her office at lunch time even though she had been accepting them for a few weeks. Maybe she thought I was suspicious, or maybe she was letting me know it would take more than a smattering of fruit preserves, some root-crop spread and two pieces of baked grain to seduce her. At the time of the PB&J sandwiches, I reasoned that Carolyn, recently divorced, probably didn’t want to feel too dependent on anyone, especially an incredibly studly man. So I stopped.

However, sometimes you might know your spouse better than she knows herself. Though I always listen, I don’t always comply. Which, admittedly, can be dangerous. Recently, she told me not to put gas in her car, said she would go to an Ingles gas station in another town on her trip the next day so she could cash in our accumulated “fuel points” for a discount. I know Carolyn loves bargains, but I fueled up her car anyway. When she got home, she said she’d been tired and eager to get home and was glad she didn’t have to stop for gas, as I had anticipated. Phew! I got away with that one.

I don’t have any failsafe system for making these decisions with your spouse. I wish I could be more helpful than advising that you decide on a case-by-case basis, but that’s all I got—except giving you examples from my own experience.

When Carolyn tells me not to do something because she’s afraid I might get hurt, I almost always obey. She’s told me not to get on our house roof unless she’s home to hold the ladder, and I don’t, because I can imagine that the ladder falls and I’m stuck on the roof and maybe break an arm or a leg when I jump down and can’t even drag myself to a phone to call for help, or maybe I fall off the ladder and again break an appendage or two and how am I going to explain THAT to her when she returns? My only hope would be that the fall kills me.

Injunctions against specific foods can be a minefield. Sometimes you should take your spouse at her word; sometimes maybe you shouldn’t. Pay careful attention to her tone of voice and the expression on her face, and analyze the context. If Carolyn’s trying to lose weight and says, “Don’t buy me any more pretzels,” I know she’s not in love with pretzels, so this request I honor. If she says, “Don’t buy me any more Reese’s peanut butter cups,” however, I buy them anyway and sneak them into the candy cabinet, which she never opens unless she’s craving chocolate. Since she’s looking for chocolate, she’s going to be pleasantly surprised to find some. Though she meant it at the time she forbade me to buy it, she is, at the moment she finds it, joyful that I didn’t listen to her.

Sometimes it’s not about food but about her work as an artist. She’ll say, “Don’t buy that; I’ll make it for you.” Carolyn is an amazing artisan, and she’s a pretty good time bender, but even she doesn’t have time to make every gift I want. If I judge that Carolyn would have fun making it, I accept. But at some point, I start ordering from the Devil, I mean “Amazon.”

One final example involves the most important call I ever had to make. Very early in our relationship Carolyn said right in front of me, “I’m never going to get married again.” She said it repeatedly. Matter-of-factly. Often. But since I’m a marriage kind of guy, I treated it as more of a challenge than as an oath she’d never break.

Over three decades later, I’m glad I didn’t listen.

(My thanks to Wildacres Retreat, where this essay was written.)