Marriage Moats-It Hurts

Published: Sat, 04/13/13

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

Years ago one of my kids was complaining about his tooth. I looked in his mouth and saw nothing untoward. Sympathy was not forthcoming. There were no visible signs to substantiate his suffering. But he was ornery.

A few days later he groused about it again. What a whiner. But life was currently in the fast lane and I had no spare time for making an appointment. Mostly we fought between meals.

The next week he stepped up the distress signal. I fortified my resistance. I didn't believe him.

Finally life offered a crack of reprieve, big enough to usher him to the dentist.

"Mrs. Odhner your son needs a root canal." Root canal??? He was thirteen!! Was I supposed to spend that kind of cash on a molar he had only chewed with for a year?

I was chagrined. All that kvetching. He could replay it now and I would be more attentive. But the opportunity had passed. Retroactive sympathy is like black bananas. I waited too long.

Husbands carry a kind of pain that many wives never know about. Shame is a deeply rooted throb that rumbles below the surface. They probably don't think much about what it is called, but they sure know it hurts. And the torment easily gets cloaked in more socially acceptable reactions like anger. To be mad is to be macho. To be shamed is worse than death.

John wrote about it in an article called Cycle Built for Two, where he describes the not so merry go round that couples get caught in. Shame and fear perpetuate each other in a whirling dervish.

I cannot see or even understand the cause of John's pain. But I can believe him. And offer compassion before the bananas turn black.

Photo by Jenny Stein

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