Of Course! I Should Have Known The Whole Time
About a month ago I told my wife I wanted to be a vegan for a month. She got very upset and annoyed. I couldn’t understand what was going on. She doesn’t have anything against vegans and actually thinks it could be a healthy lifestyle. After about an hour of questions, she angrily exclaimed, “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.” I offered to try the experiment for only a week, but this didn’t help matters. I was completely perplexed. Why did she care if I was going to be a vegan? How would this alter her life? Is a month really that long? I was completely confused that night and into the next day until I received an email from my wife. Here is an excerpt of the email. Perhaps you can understand why I might be confused from time to time.
(By the way, this is my first unauthorized post. This means that it has not gone through the “approval committee,” so I might be in serious trouble. Call the cops if you don’t hear from me within a day or two. )
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>>>From: “The Wife”
>>>To: “The Donkey”
>>>Subject: I think we should start over…Here is what I meant to say:
Oh wow, I had no idea you were interested in eating like a vegan. That is quite a shock. It actually sounds like quite an adventure; I would even be tempted to join you; it would be fun to do something different and get ourselves eating different kind of foods, learning to prepare/like new things. But I wonder how hard it will be. Oh, and then there’s the kids to think about. Well, I guess we could just eat separately from them. Or I guess we could have them do it too, and just have some other things on hand for them in addition to the vegan stuff. Gosh, the more I think about this, I start feeling a bit overwhelmed. I don’t even know what foods would be available to us. I guess I would have to do some research, look up some recipes, etc. Wait, speaking of recipes, I was just planning on trying to implement a new grocery/menu system that should save us a lot of money; I don’t know how that would fit in to all of this. Oh, maybe you should just do it all without me. Wait, but then I worry that I might get annoyed. The reason I was excited to start planning our menus was so I could do a better job feeding you. I really want to be more proactive about that. So maybe I could just make you the vegan stuff. Oh, now I’m right back where I started. Plus, I’m thinking about things like dates and having people for dinner, and people asking us over. Not to mention the fact that I don’t really like having such a focus on food and food planning. I mean, I don’t mind putting some more effort into it, especially if I feel like there is a good reason. But I don’t want to invest a lot of effort into something that I don’t feel strongly about. Then again, you aren’t even asking me to spend my time and effort on this. But, if you just do it on your own, I feel like I am stuck making meals for myself and the kids, which usually turns in to convenience food, which is exactly what I want to get away from doing. Plus there is extra expense if you are eating completely different food than we are.
Wow, I’m thoroughly confused about this, and that’s just all the stuff that went through my mind in the minute or so after you brought this up. That’s what I should have said.
-Love, me.
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I probably should have been able to figure out why she was annoyed, right?
6 Responses to “Of Course! I Should Have Known The Whole Time”
What seem fairly typical is that wives can hear something from their husbands and in a matter of seconds MENTALLY debate it with you, get upset about it, argue it some more with you, go through a wide emotional gamut, and come to a resolution as though you were an equal partner in the entire mental exercise.
This whole event is internal to her and you are still just standing there wondering what was wrong with what you said in the first place.
What is more *amazing* in this case is that she was actually able to transcribe this entire mental episode into a readable email.
There is no way you could have known what was wrong at the time, your mind just isn’t wired the same way. My advice is that next time this happens, just walk away and review the transcript later.
By Karlmalone on Nov 6, 2007
I totally see Nancy’s side of this. But at the same time - I am concerned about one particular line in her note, “having people for dinner…” I think perhaps the problem is that she doesn’t understand veganism if she thinks canabalism is a part of it.
By Nancy Sabina on Nov 6, 2007
i must say that may be the first time i have read an email that is likely the exact way it would have been orally expressed. let’s face it we can’t be expected to know what is going on
By phillyz on Nov 6, 2007
don’t upend our world without letting us plan it out first…this is a planner versus nonplanner issue (similar to money saver versus money spender).
this has nothing to do with husband/wife…maybe it just so happens that wives plan and think of their spouses on a daily basis whilst men think of themselves on a daily basis (not saying that men never think of their wives, but I think they don’t think about caring for them daily - it is a more long term thinking — at least for my husband).
i always make totaly sense and my husband should always know what i am thinking — without a transcribed email.
By celine on Nov 7, 2007
the e-mail makes perfect sense to me. You should be lucky she took the time to express how she was feeling, it’s hard to express yourself with words sometimes so writing an e-mail was a good idea.
By April J. on Nov 7, 2007
Makes total sense to me too. A guy wouldn’t think that him wanting to eat an entirely different way for a whole month would involve a whole lot of research, planning, shopping, recipe-reading, and cooking? Was he going to do all that himself?
By Shelley on Nov 7, 2007