How I put my husband through the hoops

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How I put my husband through the hoops

The Guardian
06 Jul 2006

After learning about the tricks that trainers use on wild animals, Amy Sutherland de
cided to try the same techniques on her husband — with dramatic results

As I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. “Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favourite human's upset. In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the tap and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides such as, “Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown, angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog. Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I do not turn around. I do not say a word. I am using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.

I love my husband. He is well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.

But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in the New Yorker when I am trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. “What did you say?" he will shout.

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who would not keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behaviour worse: he would drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

We went to a counsellor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She did not understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.

Then something magical happened.... read more...