Trained in the art of the huff and eye roll

AS IF YOU ASKED

What’s the secret to marriage? Every once in a while, some

foolhardy soul drawn to our house by screaming voices and the sound

of crockery exploding on the walls will ask me to share our secret.

OK, that’s not true. I’ve never been asked. But just as the name

of this column promises, I’m going to answer the question as if you

asked.

I should quickly note there probably isn’t anyone who has ever

heard my wife and I doing battle, intermittently shouting at the top

of our lungs as we gulp down the remnants of a martini shaker, and

occasionally hurling vases and picture frames across the room. In our

house, scenes like that are exclusive to the television, perhaps when

I catch “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” on a classic movie channel.

Those kinds of spectacles are so foreign to our marriage that I

suppose I have an idealized view of them.

There’s something appealing about the prospect of screaming and

shouting, ranting through the house, and occasionally flinging

breakables to punctuate a sentence. I’ve always been facile with

rage, reveling in the cathartic value of hurling a tool in

frustration, or shouting at the stupid, rude, moronic, bone-headed,

inconsiderate, reckless, feebleminded, selfish, foolish, confused,

dumb, insane and idiot drivers who always seem to be headed the same

way I’m going. (Did I mention moronic?)

Unfortunately, engaging in that sort of behavior when dealing with

one’s spouse probably encourages the same in response, and just

conjuring up the image of my wife screaming and throwing things at me

is horrifying enough. I’ve heard her yell at the dogs. I don’t want

to imagine that wrath aimed at me.

No, in our house it’s extremely unusual for the adults to even

raise their voices during fights. Instead, we are champions of the

sniff. Occasionally we employ the sigh, or the puff. Of course, both

I and my wife are trained and certified in the use of the glare. I

have an advanced degree in the eye roll, and my wife is expert in the

under-the-breath mumble.

Stand outside our house as we engage in an ugly exchange of

complaints and accusations, and you might think the Rogerses are out

of town. The worst you’ll hear is something like a bus releasing its

air brakes.

Nonverbal communication is an art, not a science, and so there is

room for confusion and mistakes. On the other hand, it also makes it

impossible to say something unforgivable. The worst that can happen

is for one spouse to THINK the other has said something unforgivable.

Nonverbal fights give the other side (almost always the husband) a

chance to immediately and passionately retract something they

belatedly realize they never should have said, but that they can undo

by claiming to have been misunderstood.

I did once get angry enough that I whipped off my glasses and

hurled them to my desk. But one of the lenses shattered, the frames

were tweaked, and the process of repairing them cost time and money I

just couldn’t spare. The insurance coverage I paid extra for covered

accidents, but I didn’t think that would be a legitimate claim in the

case of a tantrum. I’d have been better off using a glare, followed

by an eye roll and then a sideways glance.

But I haven’t addressed the question I promised to answer in the

beginning, and that was about the secret to marriage. I’ve heard my

wife’s answers on the issue. She and a friend will get into a

discussion about marriage, and she’ll offer her insights as if I

weren’t in earshot.

Wives apparently assume that, since we seem to hear so little when

they’re talking to us, we hear even less when they’re talking to

someone else. It’s that, or they simply operate around husbands the

same way wealthy families learn to live, forgetting “the help” is

standing right there.

Like virtually every woman I’ve ever heard talk about marriage,

most of my wife’s tips focus on mitigating or learning to live with

her husband’s many shortcomings. “Learn to compromise,” she says.

“Understand that you can’t change him -- well, not as quickly as you

want to, anyway.” “Let him think that doing what you want to was

actually his idea,” she advises. “And he’s never going to find the

right pan in the cupboard without asking for your help, so just get

it out before he starts looking and ends up rearranging the kitchen,”

my wife told a friend.

I’ve never heard a woman explain that her secret to marital

longevity was “Admitting many of my expectations were unreasonable

and unfair.” I doubt any woman has ever confided to a friend, “Things

have been going so much better since I stopped being unpredictably

cranky.”

I wish I could work myself into a lather over the lack of balance,

but I’d be lying if I tried denying that, rather than being players

on the team, husbands are often obstacles that have to be worked

around. I could get huffy about my wife’s teasing, if only it weren’t

true that I can stare into the refrigerator for five solid minutes

without ever seeing that what I’m looking for is directly in front of

my face. I could pout and wear a hurt expression when my wife reacts

badly to the birthday gift of a salmon pink turtleneck, if only she

hadn’t the day before clearly said the only thing she despises more

than the color salmon pink is the idea of wearing a turtleneck.

All that leads me to the only advice I have to offer. Simply

enough, I say, “Do what you’re told.” Some consider this a dark,

oppressive and cynical view. But I see it as all the usual advice

about “communicating” condensed to its purest conclusion. You can

call it “working together,” if you want to, or “being flexible.”

Yammer on about “sharing” and “being open to one another’s ideas.”

Maybe you have all that time to spare. I don’t.

Like the concept surrounding homework when I was a kid, I’ve found

that, once I’m finished doing what my wife has told me to do, I then

have the time and energy left to do what I want to do. If I fight

doing what I’m told, I’m going to lose in the end anyway, a lot of

time will have been wasted, and I’ll probably be too tired and grumpy

for whatever it was that I wanted to do. If I’ve done what I was told

to do, I’ve effectively disarmed my wife.

As of our anniversary this week, my wife and I have been married

14 years. In that time, the only time my policy of “Do what you’re

told” has failed me was when I failed it. That is, in doing what I

was told, I tossed in a little extra, or tried to take a shortcut.

Invariably, that created problems.

So perhaps I should amend my advice to read, “Do EXACTLY as you’re

told.”

* WILL ROGERS’ column appears in every edition of the Leader. He

can be reached 24 hours a day at 637-3200, voice mail ext. 906, or by

e-mail at WillColumn@aol.com.