Eight things I hate about Wife

Last fall I wrote a lengthy post called “Eight things I love about Wife.” In it I listed some of the things that I had always enjoyed and admired about Wife, the things I married her for, the things on account of which I always used to say that she was the most remarkable woman I had ever known. At the time, I said and believed that it was important to show another side to her than the side I was always griping about.

But I also knew, even as I wrote the post, that in some respects it had become dated. Wife has gone through a lot of changes in the last two years, and some of those changes have involved the evaporation of the very features I used to love. What is left are features that are far less admirable. For the most part these are not new things ... she was like this too, sometimes, even in the old days. But back then they weren’t the whole story. Now, too often, they are.

Of course, every description of anybody is an oversimplification. Strictly speaking, I suppose I should allow that this picture isn’t the whole story either, that there are still glimpses of the old Wife under it all. But it is getting harder and harder to see those glimpses or remember what they were like. And I find that less and less do I have the heart to try.

To facilitate comparison with the earlier post, I have organized this one the same way; and I have set each point – except the last one – in deliberate contrast to something I said before.


Wife has become stupid. (Wife is smart.)

Wife used to be smart, really she did. So I have had a lot of trouble coming to grips with the fact that she can’t understand basic things any more ... or at any rate things that look basic to me. For years I tried to explain my emotions -- how I feel about things -- by telling stories. “It’s as if ....” And I don’t remember if it ever worked, but for the last several years it hasn’t. So I have gotten bit by bit more frustrated with my inability to communicate emotionally with Wife. A few months ago, D finally framed this for me very clearly: Wife can’t understand stories, so stop telling them.

This might be a narrow problem – maybe we just think about our feelings differently – but I don’t think so. Last March we had to reschedule a couple of appointments at the last minute, and this is what it took to do so:

It all started when I reminded her that she had an endocrinological appointment in the morning before breakfast; then Boyfriend 4 wanted to take her out to lunch, but she was in Son 2's classroom from 11-12; then Son 1 got out of school at 12:30 but our appointment with his advisor wasn't till 1:20, so what did she want to do -- pick him up, or have him come to my office [which is just down the road from his school]?

Wife: I don't know what time the appointment with his advisor is.

Hosea: The note you forwarded me said 1:20.

Wife: Yes, but I got another note from her that said 2:20. I don't know which one is right.

Hosea: Well actually the note you forwarded me said she was changing it from 2:20 to 1:20.

Wife: Yes, but I still don't know which one is right. (Oh for heaven's sake.)

Hosea: Fine, go look in your e-mail and check the timestamp of the two notes to see which one is later. Meanwhile, what do you want Son 1 to do when school lets out? (At this point Son 1 called into the room, "The appointment's at 1:20, Mom!")

It was easily another 5 minutes -- maybe closer to 10 -- before she decided that she did not want to retrieve Son 1 from school and then drive back 50 minutes later, so he should walk to my office. But then she said, "I'm really worried that the appointment might be at 2:20, because I am due in Son 2's classroom then."

Hosea: No, I already said that part -- you are there at 11 this morning, which is why you have to schedule your lunch with Boyfriend 4 around that.

Wife: Oh.

And then a couple of minutes later, when I reminded her that Son 1's sports team was having pictures taken at 4:00pm, but that should be no problem because there would be plenty of time for them to come home first so he can get into his uniform, she said, "Well I don't know if there will be plenty of time or not. I'm working in Son 2's classroom this afternoon."

Hosea: No, we already went over that part -- you are there at 11 this morning, which is why you have to schedule your lunch with Boyfriend 4 around that.

I also remarked that Son 1 got out early the next day too, at a time that conflicted with our appointment with Counselor. How did she want to handle that? Well, you would have thought I was asking her how to solve the banking crisis, for how helpless she felt. She finally -- finally! -- saw that there were only two meaningful choices: either he go to my office and wait while I'm not there (because I would be with her at Counselor's), or we cancel our appointment with Counselor. And she picked the second one. OK, so I called Counselor to cancel. But it was like pulling teeth to get that far.

I should add that it's not like those two choices weren't obvious to me before I asked the question ... but I really did want her to take a little more responsibility for thinking through questions like this, instead of just telling her what to do all the time.


Wife has no sense of humor. (Wife is funny.)

Gosh, how do I give examples of this?

Wife has never gotten along with my father, who tends to pick up ideas he heard somewhere because they look bright and shiny and then drop them into conversation to see what happens. Wife scorns him for not having any “convictions” and for changing his “beliefs” every ten minutes. “Beliefs”? Hardly ... but Wife takes them all in dead earnest. So if my dad hears some outrageous opinion on talk radio while driving home one day, she assumes that he is really, deeply committed to whatever it was. A little laughter would take her a long way here – that and an ability to stop taking herself or him all that seriously. But in 25 years she hasn’t been able to relax that much.

This dreary seriousness used to be leavened by Wife’s ability to crack smart-aleck jokes with perfect, split-second timing. And occasionally I could tease her out of a self-righteous dudgeon by a little inspired silliness. But at this point I can no longer remember the last time I heard her laugh. And laughter used to be one of the few things that could always bring us together again.


Wife is passive, whiny, and resentful. (Wife is ambitious, sometimes even cocky.)

A few days ago I posted about Wife’s chronic complaining. It really is such a normal feature of her life that I can go for weeks without even noticing it. And yet not a day goes by without her complaining about something ... usually many things, with a regularity almost like breathing. A few weeks ago, when D was visiting, we drove about two hours to visit my parents. Throughout the drive, there was a lively conversation among the boys, and D, and me; and at the same time, concurrent with this conversation, Wife kept up a running commentary sotto voce, complaining about every single thing any of us said.

What does she complain about? Often it has to do with her physical symptoms; but it could equally well be about other people, or me. Certainly she never worries about making her complaints consistent. During one extended period a few years ago, when I was out of work for something like a year and a half, Wife complained every single day about my being out of work; many times she threatened that if I didn’t have a job by ... well, the end date kept moving ... she was going to divorce me. When I finally got a job, you would think she would have celebrated. But no – the very minute I told her, she panicked immediately that I wouldn’t be able to keep carrying out all the responsibilities I had picked up around the house, and how – how on Earth? – did I think all those things were going to get done now??

What all these complaints have in common is the theme of powerlessness. Always, in her mind, Wife is a victim. There is nothing she can ever do to make things better, or to shape events. All that is left her is to be passive – as I say, a victim of forces beyond her power to control or even influence – which means she has no recourse but to complain.

Maybe another example would be useful. Over the last few days, I have been working with Wife to separate our spending, at least in part. (I talk about it here.) The basic idea is that we split common expenses proportionally to our incomes (my salary and her disability payments), but that special expenses for just one of us are paid individually. I think this basic criterion should be pretty clear, and in fact we have discussed it several times while working it out. I have tried to give a lot of examples of what I have in mind.

Last week I left on a business trip, and the night before Wife demanded, “Tell me exactly what I can buy while you are gone.”

Hosea: Huh?

Wife: I need to know exactly what I can buy for groceries.

Hosea: Buy what you like. One of the whole ideas of this system is that I won’t need to be looking over your shoulder all the time second-guessing how you spend your money.

Wife: But if I buy the wrong thing, then you are going to say it’s not a “normal” expense and you won’t pay your share of it.

Hosea: Ummm, ... what are you getting at?

Wife: We’re about out of ice cream. Am I allowed to buy ice cream, or are you going to say that’s a luxury? How about if I decide to get rocky road instead of vanilla? Are you going to refuse to pay your percentage of it? What if I decide to get hamburgers for the boys on Saturday night? Does that count as a normal Saturday night expense, or will you say that since I chose to splurge on such a treat then it’s up to me to pay it all?

Hosea: We’ve been over all this a bunch of times. I know that I have explained exactly how I envision this working. Just take what we have discussed as a guideline and then use your judgment.

Wife: But we never specifically discussed ice cream! So how am I supposed to know what you are going to do?

I should add at this point that while we hadn’t discussed ice cream explicitly, it looks obvious to me. If there is always ice cream in the freezer and we are about to run out, surely that is a normal expense. And as for the difference between vanilla and rocky road ... what are we talking about here? Pennies? How could I possibly be expected to make a fuss over that? I also know that we did explicitly discuss hamburgers for Saturday night ....

Hosea: You know, maybe you are making this too hard on yourself. Just go shopping and use your best judgment. The worst that could happen is maybe you get ... oh, I don’t know, maybe one thing that I insist is some overpriced luxury, and if I do then it’s no big deal. I’ll write you a check for my share of everything except that one jar of caviar (or whatever), and you’ll make a mental note that next time I won’t pay for caviar. No big deal, and life goes on. In the grand scheme of things, even if that’s what happens, springing for one jar of caviar on your own isn’t going to break you: you are sitting on something like $23,000 right now. It’s not like you have to turn grocery shopping into some horribly fraught experience, ... it’s not some kind of exam where you have to score 100% or suffer terrible consequences. It’s just groceries, for heaven’s sake. We can’t possibly be talking about enough dollars for you to get that worried over it ... not unless you are planning to buy a lot of caviar! [quick smile at my own pathetic joke]

Wife: But it is too a test, and I do too have to get 100% or I’m going to have to pay for everything all on my own and there’s no way I can afford to do that! And as usual this puts you in complete control of everything I do. You get to scrutinize every line on every grocery receipt and pick out the ones you think you’ll pay for and I have no say in the matter. How is that fair, anyway?

Hosea: Oh, but you do have a say. When I go out shopping, you’ll have exactly the same privilege ... if there is something crazy that I have bought that looks outrageous to you, then you don’t have to pay me your fraction of it. So it is toitally even-handed. We just have to agree on what we are buying, and if we don’t agree then the person who wants it gets to pay for it. You can’t get more even-handed than that. And if there is something you’re really not sure about, we can discuss it ahead of time rather than one of us just buying it and hoping to win the subsequent fight.

Wife: Well it still means that you are completely in charge and I don’t get a say over anything ... and then you won’t even give me a clue what you’re willing to accept. So in other words you are in complete control of everything again as usual. That’s just where you always like to be, isn’t it?


Wife is unwilling to change. (Wife is demanding, of herself as well as others.)

Wife used to joke – well, it wasn’t a joke, but for the first hundred repetitions it sounded pretty witty – that she wouldn’t undergo a “personality transplant” for anybody. If you didn’t like her the way she was, tough shit. And admittedly change on a truly fundamental level is pretty difficult. But she has used this slogan over the years as an excuse to resist even modest change ... even changes in tactics. And as many people have pointed out over the years, doing the same thing and expecting different results is a form of insanity.

So, for example, how should Wife motivate the boys? Her preferred method (see also below) is to give them an order and then walk away. When she checks back a few hours later, she expects the job to be finished, to her very demanding standards. If it’s not finished – if in fact, as is generally the case, the job isn’t even started (because the boys, being no fools, see no reason to work up a sweat over something that Mom refuses to engage herself in) – then she gets mad. More than mad, she gets personally affronted, offended, insulted – because she takes their behavior to be “deliberate insubordination,” the direct equivalent of refusing to her face and insulting her to boot. Of course this is silly, because it is nothing of the kind ... but let that stand for the moment. I have tried a different approach, by asking her “Does your method get you the results you want?” If not, would you be interested in considering a different method?”

But the answer is actually No, she is not interested. The fact is that in her mind, her method ought to work. In her mind, her method is right. Therefore the boys have no business failing to respond to it. They must respond to it – they have to – because they should. If it doesn’t work in reality, then so much the worse for reality. That just shows how lazy and worthless the boys are. It certainly doesn’t suggest to her that she ought to change anything.

In the same way, Wife interprets all criticism as an attack. Now I admit that it can be very hard to take even the gentlest criticism with equanimity. I don’t claim to be very good at it myself. But if someone goes out of his way to assure me that he doesn’t mean to attack me, that on the contrary he has simply noticed that such-and-such a behavior is bringing me unwanted results and I might do better to do it like that instead, ... well, after a while I’ll finally hear him and lower my defenses. I might not like it, but I can grudgingly admit the theoretical possibility that something I am doing is less than perfect and could use to be upgraded.

Not Wife.

For Wife, any criticism is an attack. For Wife, it is impossible for a criticism to be impersonal. What is more, it is equally impossible for a criticism to be true. The only interpretation Wife can understand is that the one uttering the criticism is an Enemy, someone with whom she has to fight in self-defense. There is no way that anybody – not D, not me, not even Counselor – can possibly ask her to do anything different from what she is doing today, without all her hackles going up and her ears closing. And of course this means that all communication and all relationship is closed off. You can only relate to Wife if you are willing to accept her behaving exactly the way she already behaves.


Wife does not grok the boys: not to motivate and discipline, (Wife is a good teacher.) nor to appreciate and understand. (Wife is a good mother.)

The last time D was visiting us, Wife started complaining to her about how “lazy and insolent” our boys are. D had just gotten them to participate actively in a large cleaning project, and she (like everyone else) has always found them to be respectful and chipper. So she demurred that whatever one might fairly call the boys, “lazy and insolent” isn’t it. But Wife insisted that they are.

The gist of Wife’s argument is that when she tells the boys to do something, they ignore her. D tried to probe a little deeper ... to debug the situation ... to see whether there might be something Wife could do more effectively than she is doing it right now. And of course when Wife explained what she meant, the answer became obvious.

Wife’s idea of how to get the boys to do something is to call an order (or a set of orders) to them from another room, and then to lie down for three hours nursing a headache. Or maybe she picks up the phone to call Friend, or logs onto her e-mail for the afternoon, or disengages in some other very obvious way. Naturally the boys don’t take her orders very seriously: if Mom can’t even be bothered to walk into the same room with them, and if she doesn’t propose to lift a finger herself, and if there is no indication whether she will ever remember to follow up afterwards ... why exactly should they break a sweat? So they do nothing. And then Wife gets insulted and offended, because they are “so blatantly disrespecting her.”

It is a mystery to me how Wife ever held a job as a manager, because her ideas of how to manage are so paleolithic. Of course the story had an unhappy ending, for all the reasons I outline above – D tried to suggest a different way to approach the whole issue, and Wife got offended. (How dare you suggest I am an ineffective mother? They are my children, after all! So they have to do what I say!) What is relevant here is how thoroughly Wife misunderstands other people, and particularly our boys. How is it possible that she can’t understand what motivates others? D was even surprised; she and Wife used to be schoolteachers together, long long ago, and so D tried to remind Wife of what it takes to motivate a child in the classroom. It takes engagement, after all ... no schoolteacher can be effective without engagement and follow-up. So D tried to pitch it like that, by saying that when Wife gives an order, she should think of it as teaching the boys how to follow orders. Then all the skills that Wife used to bring to bear in her teaching could be deployed here too. D urged her, “You are a good teacher. You know how to teach. So if you want your child to do something, teach him. Teach your child! You can do this.”

But maybe she can’t, not any more. Certainly that evening she wanted no part of it, and she has shown no signs since then of taking any of that advice seriously.

Of course, being a good mother is about more than discipline and motivation. It’s also about love.

For years I cut Wife a lot of slack because she loved the boys with all her heart. And she thinks that she still does. But from where I sit, it has gotten a lot harder to see.

She complains about the boys incessantly. She runs them down as “lazy and insolent.” She denigrates the music they like to listen to. OK, maybe sometimes their choice in music isn’t exactly my favorite either – I think kids are supposed to favor music that annoys their parents, aren’t they? But never once to say anything the least bit positive about it ... isn’t that carrying parental annoyance a little far? What ever happened to the parental forbearance that puts up with all manner of crazy things from your kids because you love them?

Nor is the complaining lost on others. Last summer, we investigated a number of private schools for Son 1. In the end we applied to four and he was accepted at only one of them. Now, I have no doubts about the school that accepted him ... it is a fine school and I am happy for him to attend it. Only I have to wonder something. Son 1 is the kind of kid who would be an asset to any school; he is smart and insightful without being academically pretentious; he is kind, helpful, cooperative, and a natural leader; and he makes friends as if effortlessly, in any social setting you care to name. Why did three schools reject him?

There could be many explanations, but my theory is that it had something to do with Wife. She was so worried about whether he could make the transition to a new school successfully that she talked at great length about Son 1 to each of the Admissions Directors in turn. And I think she scared them off. No doubt she thought she was rooting for him; but I overheard some of these conversations and she seemed to spend a lot of time rehearsing her doubts and laying out all of Son 1’s failings ... or alleged failings, meaning all the places he falls short of the perfection she wants him to achieve and is disappointed that no human can ever reach. In the face of all this, I think the schools could be excused for fearing that Son 1 would be more trouble than he was worth.

It sounds like I am making up bogeymen. Why can’t I accept that Son 1 just didn’t make it? Plenty of kids don’t. Well, I would probably accept that explanation too, were it not for one fact. There was a fifth school we looked at, but we never applied to it. The reason is that this fifth school sent us a rejection letter in the fall – a full three or four months before we would ever have submitted an application – right after one lengthy discussion with Wife. The conclusion is inescapable: that school rejected Son 1 either because Wife made him sound so awful, or else because she herself was so awful that the school didn’t want to have to deal with her. And if one school could do that, it is not so far-fetched that others might have too ... even if the others had the delicacy to wait until we had submitted the application first.

This is love?

For that matter, Wife says that she loves Son 2 and that I don’t understand him. Maybe not, but she says this only when I am encouraging Son 2 to outgrow some immature behavior that won’t serve him well in middle school, and that she wants to cling to because it reminds her of when the boys were babies and she had a real bond to them. Whether it is sleeping in her bed or wearing odd and uncool clothes, Wife is always the one saying Son 2 should be allowed to do exactly as he has always done ... that we should all accept him exactly as he is, without ever asking the slightest change. Meanwhile Son 1 is the one saying, “He can’t do that in middle school or they’ll eat him alive – he looks like such a freak that way!” I know older siblings can be mean and overbearing (heck, I was an older sibling myself). But in this case it is totally clear to me that Son 1 is the one doing Son 2 a favor, and not Wife.

Again, this is love?

Maybe not.


Wife is materialistic and compulsively acquisitive. (Wife is idealistic.)

I have talked about Wife’s acquisitive lusts in earlier posts (such as this post and this one from Second Date, or this one from Sixth Date). These lusts aren’t new, but they used to be counterbalanced by her idealism. The truly depressing thing is that Wife doesn’t get any joy from the things she buys. Oh, she might occasionally say she appreciates these glasses frames she bought for $1000, or that watch she got for $1600. (And she’ll be sure to tell you the price while she is commenting on them.) This kind of buying can maybe be explained as Wife’s attempt to buy herself into a higher economic or social class than she was born into, because she so hates having once been poor. Not that she really comes across as belonging to some higher class – buying his way in didn’t work for Jay Gatsby and it hasn’t really worked for Wife – but at least the motivation here is easy to understand. Class mobility is a well-known American aspiration.

But much of the holding of goods in perpetuity seems to be some bizarre kind of duty for her, not a pleasure in its own right.

Consider, for example, the quilt that she inherited when her mother died. Now, this quilt isn’t finished, and Wife periodically frets that she will have to finish it before she dies. This is a moral imperative for her, at least insofar as it generates a lot of anxiety. It is never important enough for her to actually learn how to quilt, for instance, but it is plenty important enough to prevent her acquiescing if somebody suggests getting rid of it.

Now why, you might ask, does she think she must – simply must – finish the quilt before she dies?

Because we have no daughters, and she can’t rely on our sons to marry women who will want to take on the job of finishing it.

Come again?

Well the quilt can only be finished by women, you see, and only by women who have inherited it through the family.

One more time?

Look, this is easy. Her great grandmother started collecting the squares. Her grandmother started quilting the squares together. Her mother continued the job but never finished it. And so now the job has fallen to Wife.

You see, she obviously doesn’t really want to take it on, or she would have done something about it in the fifteen years since her mother died. But she dare not get rid of the quilt before finishing it – or ever after, come to that – lest she be pursued to her grave by nameless Furies. And so it sits in our living room to this day, wrapped around a frame like some massive spear, propped in a corner by the book shelf and stretching floor to ceiling. And it will be there until the day Wife dies.

I had a similar conversation with Wife the first year we were married. She was talking about “heirlooms” and it became clear to me that it was absolutely unthinkable to Wife that one might not keep everything one inherited from one’s ancestors. I tried to object, “Sweetheart, be reasonable. If you acquire things of your own and never get rid of anything that belonged to your parents, then you will obviously end up owning more things than your parents did. Now suppose our kids do the same thing, and then their kids. How many generations will it be before the family home has to be the size of the Smithsonian Institution to accommodate all the stuff? Isn’t that crazy?” But she couldn’t see it. I mean this quite literally – she was absolutely unable to follow my argument to its conclusion. At the time I didn’t know what to do with her incomprehension. I couldn’t fathom it, so I just set it aside as a curiosity that I hoped one day to see more clearly. And I guess maybe today I do.

Wife is completely self-absorbed. (Wife is – or can be – astonishingly empathetic.)

I have mentioned Wife’s nonstop litany of complaints, all day and every day. They are a sign of passivity, of course, but also of self-absorption; after all, finding every single thing in the world to be wrong isn’t possible unless you judge them all with respect to yourself. (I mean, even then it is pretty remarkable – what ever happened to the possibility that something might happen that you like? But it is a sure bet that some of the things that happen in life are good for other people, so if you sometimes see things through their eyes you’d be more likely to feel happy on their account.)

Nor does she have any understanding of the people around her: what they think, what they feel, what motivates them. It sounds like a cliche to say “My wife doesn’t understand me,” but this is something D described well when she raised the idea that Wife co-creates the fantasy world she shares with Boyfriend 5. D wrote:

I am also somewhat surprised at your reaction to my belief that there is every reason to believe she is a co-creator of the stories around [Boyfriend 5’s] family and their activities. If she can accuse you of rape, and develop a character for you so at odds with your real character (Wife's idea, for example, that you are a lonely misanthrope with no friends or connections is dramatically different from your persona with me; the man who wants to meet my friends, attend my dinner parties, likes to go to theater exploring the human condition and would be delighted to sit in my class and participate in my discussions is very far removed from her view of you). I could give plenty of other examples, but what seems odd to me is her complete inability to understand you at all, on any level. Your material desires seem distorted, your social network is minimized, even your physical well-being is completely overlooked. Either she really doesn't comprehend you, or she has invested her energies into creating a "Hosea" she can own (and she very much does own this person) and manipulate to satisfy her own psychological needs.

Once upon a time, it seemed like Wife would suspend her self-absorption for the boys, even if for nobody else. Why else would she go to all their sporting events, when she hates sports? These days, though, while the sporting events have become an unquestioned habit, she won’t extend the same grace to anything else. After one game, Son 1’s coach invited the whole team out for pizza. He does this every so often, and it is just the thing to appeal to hungry twelve-year-old boys. Wife’s reaction? It was sotto voce, of course, but the litany was immediate. Of course he wants to go for pizza. I hate pizza, It could have been anything else, but no, it has to be pizza. It’s always pizza. And I really hate pizza. Why can’t he choose something else, just for once? For that matter, why do we have to go at all? Sure, the whole team is going, but that’s just the problem. I hate being cooped up in a noisy restaurant with all those noisy boys yelling at each other about how much fun the game was. And laughing ... do you have any idea how loud they laugh? It’s just going to make my headache worse than it already is, worse than it has been all week. On top of which, I’m going to have to choke down the pizza. And I really, really hate pizza ....

Once upon a time, I really do think Wife knew how to see things from somebody else’s point of view, even if she didn’t always do it often or well. But lately I have seen no evidence whatever that she still has this skill. For a woman who used to be capable of such remarkable empathy, it is a terrible loss. And what a waste.

For what it is worth, I think this is why D suggested last winter that Wife is a narcissist.


Wife lies all the time.

What can I say about this that I haven’t already said on this blog many times over? Wife lies. To others and to herself.

She lies about big important things, like whom she is fucking, or whether I am a drunkard and a rapist and a child abuser. (I’m not.)

She lies about little trivial things, like whether she checked her e-mail today.

And then she lies to herself, telling herself over and over the fanciful stories she has made up, until finally she has persuaded herself that they are the truth.

Her mother used to lie like this, and it drove Wife crazy. But then, years ago somebody told me, “If you want to know what a young woman will be like when she is old, look at her mother.” I ignored this advice. But in Wife’s case, at the very least, it has come eerily true.

If you want more stories about Wife’s lies, all I can recommend is that you follow this link here.


I don't know how to summrize this post. I used to love and admire Wife. I used to say -- over and over -- that she remained the most remarkable woman I had ever met. Today, I don't find her so remarkable. But I don't know what else to say.