As I start the stew for dinner, my husband stands behind me, his arms across his chest and his brow pleated, watching intently. Soon he begins to pontificate. if I stir the pot, the simpler activity, with my left hand, he says, my right hand will be free to do more complicated things like searching for the condiments on the shelf. The right hand, of course, is the more dexterous. That’s probably true for some, but not for me. Apparently he’s never noticed that I am left-handed. With remarkable restraint, I suggest that he try to pat his stomach with one hand while circling his scalp with the other. This earns me the look and a lecture on closed minds. Deep breathing helps, since it would not do to have him wear the pot upended with stew dripping down his head, at least not on this, his retirement. It wouldn’t be nice.
The pattern is set. In the ensuing days, he will follow me into the bedroom and explain: “In making up a bed, first you do one side completely before going around to do the other. That way you don’t keep running back and forth, wasting all those steps.” But I like the way I have always done it -a tuck on this side, a pull on that- and I would rather not change, thank you. Another short lecture on being “set in one’s ways.”
Next come the cupboards. “Now that the kids are grown,” my husband says, “what do you need all those pots and pans for? They just clutter up the place.” I try to explain that the children still come home for holidays, and we do entertain guests from time to time. But he’s not impressed and prepares to throw out the “extras.” No sense arguing. It would only lead to another lecture on my stubbornness. I arrange to have a neighbor retrieve them on trash day. When hubby’s out doing the marketing, I’ll sneak them back home again.
Speaking of marketing, Gene’s decided to show me how to shop and save money. He’ll go to the store alone. He doesn’t need me along to do any impulse buying, “the bane of all budgets.” I agree gladly. It gets him out of the house for a while. When he turns up with a lifetime supply of toilet tissue because it was on sale, I just make room for the bargain. Sooner or later, it will be used up. If not, we can always will it to our children.
The moment he starts to criticize, I’ve learned to use the “show, don’t tell” routine. I let him know how smart he is so he should show me the right way. Before he knows it, he’s busy while I’m off doing something more fun. If he says he’s going to fry the chicken well done, not “raw as you always do,” I hand him the pan, trying not to show my clenched teeth. After temporarily removing the smoke-detector batteries, I go into the garden to pick flowers for the dinner table.
I had hoped to travel when he retired, but he insists that “airport terminals are the work of the Devil,” to be avoided at all costs. Sometimes that’s hard to refute.
When we visit our daughter, Mr. Overachiever is amazed as he watches her shuffle babies, laundry, phone, kids’questions, dog’s strap wrapped around her feet and, at the same time, get the cookies out of the oven before they bum. Of course he takes full credit and says she takes after him. How does he think I raised our kids while he was out there overachieving?
If, like me, you’re not too keen on trimming the roses, start the job in his presence and he’ll likely say, “Wrong!” and take over. You’ll also learn there’s a right way and a wrong way to wash windows. You have to admit he does a fine job.
One day he’ll catch on when you say “show me” and grumble, “To hell with this.” Then he’ll get out of the kitchen to “find something better to do than argue with a stubborn wife.” That’s when it’s time to prod him into volunteering at the local hospital. They’d appreciate him there, you say. Why should his expertise go to waste? He’ll reluctantly agree, and you wish the hospital management good luck as he drives off wearing a necktie for the first time in months. It’s when he returns that you wish yourself some luck. Refreshed, he starts showing you how to refold every blouse, shirt, sweater and undershirt-including linens in the closet -with precise hospital comers. You always thought those comers were for beds.
Some men are ready for retirement. For them a job has only been a means to an end, a way to earn a living while waiting for their real fife to start. They can’t wait to sharpen the tools in their workshop, get out the fishing rod or gas up the Winnebago. Others have been so wrapped up in building a better mousetrap and getting recognition for a job well done that their lives become empty when they retire. The sense of directing, accomplishing, being a part of the mainstream is addictive. Workaholics are ill prepared for anything else.
How does one survive those “golden years” when it becomes a matter of your sanity or his life? With patience, ingenuity and nine drains of humor. It takes practice and self-control to convert your exasperation into calm, and you begin to understand why so many women you know have become “ladies who lunch.”
When he suggests that you take the Fat Free Cooking Course or the Women’s Mental and Physical Health Course given down at the hospital, get to the phone quickly and make a lunch date. That way you can resist the temptation to kill him, because if you did, who would do the income tax and balance the checkbook, and who would there be to cuddle up against on a cold night?
