I was flogging some kind of soup today when an old man came to get a sample. He liked it and I suggested he buy some. He would, he said, except for his shit for brains wife wouldn't eat it. I said, "Sir, please don't disrespect your wife." Then I turned away. I wonder if that man realized how bad talking about his wife made him look? Not good at all, and very hard to respect. One of my coworkers was standing next to me and she was pretty shocked, too.
I told her the story of long ago when we lived in Jordan, MN. We hired a babysitter to watch the girls and off we went to the old theater in New Prague. It was a beastly cold night. At one point some teenagers behind us were making a lot of noise and I turned and told them to be quiet. One of them called me a bitch and S faced them and told them they were not to disrespect his wife. Then he went to the manager and had them kicked out. We spent the rest of the movie sitting stock still, wondering if they were going to beat us up when we left. As I said, it was a beastly cold night and they were gone when we got out. Whew! What a relief. If you gave me a million dollars, I still couldn't remember anything about that movie, we were that scared.
I am not a delicate flower, never was. Although S was always athletic, he was never a tough. He is better at intellectual argument where he will wear his opponent down with facts, either real or made up. So having my husband jump to my defense was a really wonderful thing. He had my back and I felt safe and secure. Another time when my folks were visiting the old man made me cry. At one point I said to S, "If you love me, you will call in sick today. Don't leave me alone with them." He went up to my father and told him that although I was his daughter, I was also his wife and he would not allow anyone to talk to and disrespect his wife that way. The old man is still leery of him.
This is the holiday season, a time for family. It is not always a happy time by any means. One way to weather the emotional storms that can come when families don't get along well, when there is poor communication or years of resentments that never were resolved is to be there for each other. Be a unit. What is done to one is done to both, and both do not accept poor behavior towards their spouse. There is such strength in being each other's best friend.
That is what I miss about being alone now; knowing there is no one at my back. That is what I want for all my married or committed friends and family, a certainty that the one you love will be there for you, through good times of laughter and scary nights at the movies.
Love and respect each other. There is so much strength there. You can take on the whole world... together.
Beautiful blog, thank you. And thank you for standing up for that stranger's poor wife. Either they need a marriage therapist or she needs a good divorce lawyer. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteDenise
Thanks for your input. Unfortunately that old couple will go on living together, sometimes good times, often not, until one of them dies and the other will miss them.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar discussion with my eldest son when he was about 13. He was sassing his mother about something so I rolled him up in a ball and rolled him down the stairs, and down the hallway to his room and plunked him up on his bed. I then told him that I loved him but that he was not allowed to talk to my wife that way. She might be his mother, and that should be enough reason to be respectful, but if that wasn't enough he needed to understand that she was my woman and when he was disrespectful to her he was saying that I wasn't man enough to do anything about it, and he needed to understand that nobody was going to get in my face and challenge me without paying a price..... that he understood, as a male, and he never again sassed his mother.
ReplyDelete