It is time for another personal observation about life, the universe and everything, or at least a look at how marriage can go awry. The other day I was at my wife’s house to pick up my mail. As I was going into the kitchen to throw something away, I looked out the back window and noticed that the garden hose had been pulled out into the yard. It appeared to go out into the middle of the yard and then disappear. I stopped to look to figure out where the hose was going when my wife asked me what I was looking at. I told her what I just told you. She said that she thought I was looking at something of which I disapproved. And that, my friends, is why my wife and I are no longer together.

At face value, my wife’s comment was just an observation. In reality it was a conditioned response formed during our many years of marriage. Unfortunately, I “inherited” my father’s belief that he knew the best way to do something and if you weren’t doing it his way then he would either let you know about it or, when I was a kid, take over the job and finish it himself. This was not done in an overt, smack-you-around kind of way. There was no verbal or physical abuse at all. It was much more subtle than that, but in the end, you still felt like an idiot because you couldn’t do whatever it was correctly.

My wife suffered my expression of that attitude through what I would say was the first two-thirds of our marriage. Her own head was not in a place where she was able to tell me to go screw myself when I stepped over the line, so instead she internalized her resentment of being treated that way. Of course, she couldn’t keep that bottled up her whole life, so her resentment came out in other ways. Eventually she reached her limit and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that my attitude of knowing the best way to do something was really pissing her off. Good for her. It was about time, but I think the time was too late.

When you treat someone in a way that you did not like when you were being treated that way, you generally know, deep down inside yourself, that you are not acting the way you want to act. In addition to my wife’s unhappiness with me, I could see the undesired behavior in myself in my relationship with my son. I worked very hard to squash that attitude. I did not want my son to feel the same way I did when my father treated me that way. I know that I was not entirely successful, much to my chagrin, but I also know that I did the best that I could.

At this point in my life – just like every other person in the world – I can look at someone else’s situation and say to myself, “What the hell is that person doing? Can’t they see that they are wrong?” I know that I am not unique in that. However, the years have taught me that I am very often wrong and that I have no special status when it comes to doing things correctly. I now do my best to keep my mouth shut when I think that I know better. Every person has to live his or her own life and learn from his or her own mistakes. I know that I am no authority on anyone’s life except my own (and even then I have my doubts).

Therein lies the rub. Even if I succeeded (and I think I did) to change my attitude, I could not change my wife’s expectations. No matter what I did, based on past experience, she continued to interpret my words and actions as criticisms. It got to a point where I could not make any kind of suggestion at all without her taking offense at it, regardless of the value or appropriateness of the suggestion.

This is just one example of what can happen in a marriage. Over the years each person in the relationship comes to expect certain behavior from the other person. If this is good behavior, it works out well. Unfortunately, anything that has bugged you during a marriage becomes something you also come to expect. Even if the other person changes, it is difficult to accept that the person has changed and to act in accordance with the new attitude rather than as though he or she is still acting same old way. Eventually, you get tired of your efforts to change being treated that way and either you close yourself off in your marriage and don’t let it touch you, or you decide you’ve had enough.

That one comment from my wife told me that her assessment of my actions continues to be in accordance with the man I used to be. Too many years living that way has taken a toll. Such expectations have worked their way deep into our relationship and have made it impossible to deal with each other objectively. I don’t think that a marriage can work that way.

Then again, I may be misinterpreting her words entirely, giving them meaning that she never intended. Ironic, eh?