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Tubthumping was a song by the band Chumbawamba in 1997. I’m pretty sure they were a one-hit wonder here in the U.S., but the name of the song has always struck me as being very funny. Whenever someone bumps into me (physically smashes into my body with an arm, hip, or girthy leg), especially someone on the large side, I think to myself, “I just got tubthumped.” I have no clue why I think this, but I do.

Lesson 7: Don’t blame your wife if the two of you bump into each other.

I am on the smaller side–only 5′6″ tall, and weighing in at a mere buck-35. Defining my wife’s dimensions online would not be a good idea (although recently I did reveal her height and weight to a few people at work…oops), so let’s just say she towers over me and is a gumball short of 2 bucks.

Anyway, throughout the course of everyday life, there are occasions when my wife and I will bump into each other while in the kitchen, walking by each other, or simply shuffling past each other in the closet. In almost all cases, these incidents occur when I am trying to carry something, in a rush, or completely oblivious to the potential dangers of being tubthumped. I typically get very annoyed and exaggerate a fall into the wall or pretend that my neck was just jolted back. I’m not sure what I am really looking for with these exaggerations, but I do know that I hate it every time.

The other day my wife and I were walking by each other in the hallway, and BOOM! I was thrown backward, but she also claimed to be thrown backward. As I was struggling for survival, my wife said, “You don’t need to act like you just got run over by a herd of rhinos. Besides, it was your fault.”

My fault? How could this have been my fault? I did marvel at the image she painted with her rhino simile, but then I thought, “Can it really be one person’s fault if two people bump into each other?” I don’t think so, but I still give credit to my wife for most of our run-ins.

“You ran into me. I was just walking by,” I said.

“Well, I’m the one who got thrown back. That means it’s your fault,” she
retorted.

I then said, “Excuse me. You hit me and then I went flying. Are you honestly trying to tell me that I moved you all the way back there?” (In the meantime, she had inched back a little further to make the distance appear more dramatic.)

She then exclaimed angrily, “Whoever gets thrown back furthest is clearly not at fault.”

In an instant I relived all of the punishment I had taken over the years–all the maulings I had been subjected to. I thought of all the responses I could make, but decided to avoid a conflict, and just let a small “humph” out under my breath. Unfortunately, my wife is an expert at interpreting those little humphs. “Don’t even say it,” she snapped, “I know exactly what you’re thinking, and I don’t want to hear it.” Then she went into the voice she uses to impersonate me, which resembles a drunk man from the South with a swollen tongue: “If we’re talking about who can knock who the furthest, then I think there is a clear culprit.”

“Was that what about what you were thinking?” she asked

“Well, it’s not like I have a lot of mass to move you with.”

Understandably, she became quite irate and went on for a while about me talking about her weight, me blaming her all the time for things, and then it spiraled into whether or not I even love her (a subject for an upcoming Wife Advice!). I was wondering how I could extricate myself from the situation, and was literally saved by the bell when our friends showed up at the doorstep for a visit. We had a nice time and it seems that she has forgotten all about the incident (until she reads this post, that is).

My suggestion: If you get tubthumped by your wife, don’t blame her. Take ownership and apologize. There is no need to go flying backward–even if you are trying to prove a point. Take the hit like a man and move on. You might even spin it in your favor by saying something like, “Oh, a little love tap!” However, if you are dwarfed by your wife, I might suggest some protective bodywear for safety’s sake.