Momference: A Meeting of the Moms

Before I got married, my mother sat me down to have “the talk.” I wasn’t looking forward to this, but I decided to grit my teeth and hear her out, even though I thought I knew what she was going to say, and furthermore, thought I knew more.

“Judy,” she began in a serious tone, “there’s one thing you need to understand about men.”

I nodded somberly, wishing I were anywhere, even having a tooth extracted by a Zulu tribesman using primitive instruments, rather than have to have this tete-a-tete with Mom about intimate relationships. She leaned forward and said, “Whenever your husband comes home and brings you flowers, just smile and say ‘Thank you,’ even if you hate them. Once, Daddy brought me flowers that I thought were ugly. I thought he’d want to know what I really liked, so I told him. He was so afraid of making another wrong choice that he didn’t bring me flowers again for 23 years.”

This revelation was more chilling than I ever imagined. While all the experts claimed that  open communication was a key to marital success, here was Mom, married to my father for 40 years, telling me to just keep my trap shut, perhaps dooming me to hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of bouquets of limp daisies during the decades to come. And there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it without risking my marriage!

Mom had learned her lesson, and so when Dad brought home jewelry for her birthday or their anniversary that didn’t match her style, she quietly returned it all. Poor Dad. Defeated in the gift-buying department, he began enclosing checks in the anniversary and birthday cards, as if he were giving a bar mitzvah gift. I took note of this while growing up, and thought I would subvert the problem in my own marriage by “coincidentally” leaving pages torn from jewelry catalogs around the house, with my selection circled in fat, black marker. After all, a man’s ego is a sensitive life form – why take a chance and damage it so cavalierly by rejecting a gift when you could simply drop subtle hints?

Relationship experts also suggest that when you have something uncomfortable to say to a spouse, you do so in an empathic manner. Frankly, this hasn’t worked so well for me.  For example, after three months of unsatisfactory flowers early in my marriage, I decided to try this line:

“I understand that getting this many flowers for $9.99 at the gas station is a real bargain.  But I would really love it if sometimes you could purchase them in a floral shop, since the petals don’t fall off so fast.” My bold attempt at empathy was met with a hurt look, and just as Mom predicted, the bouquets temporarily stopped. But part of my message obviously had weasled its way through when about a month later, slightly more upscale bouquets came home, with a Big Gulp soda thrown in for free.

I know I’m not alone. My friend Debby once said to her husband, “I know that this jacket from high school has sentimental value, but if you look carefully, you’ll see it is also unraveling and is moth-eaten. Would you consider letting me get you a new one?”

When Debby admitted that this idea had bombed, I rolled my eyes. “Anyone who’s been married more than six months is entitled to surreptitiously help antiquated or embarrassing spousal clothing ‘disappear.’ It may even be a law.”

The eye-rolling I practiced above, in fact, is one of the many powerful non-verbal cues we have in our arsenals when words miss their mark. But it’s not the only one. These come in handy when in public, and include: rapid foot-tapping, kicking a spouse under the table (not too hard, lest people notice the spouse limping out of the social hall),  holding one’s breath (not too long, for obvious reasons) eyebrow furrowing (not too vigorously, lest you upset the normal pace of synapse firing), spiriting the leftover donuts out of the house to avoid tempting the dieting stay-at-home spouse, and exchanging “Isn’t our kid a genius?” looks when your little darling has uttered something precious with guests around.

One time, my grandfather tried to let my grandmother know that he found her sleeping attire too formal, shall we say. To make his point, one night Papa came dressed for bed in a tuxedo, top hat, and spats. This got them both laughing, and after all, laughter is the healthiest form of communication for every couple.

Want more laughs? Get Judy Gruen’s book, The Women’s Daily Irony Supplement, through her web site, www.judygruen.com, or through any online bookseller.