CHANGING PARTNERS

When the genius and I first married, I had heard some horror stories from his mother about how particular he was about the cleanliness of his clothes. For instance, she said that ever since he was a boy he would remove his shirt outside and play in his t-shirt to keep from messing up the outer shirt. BUT he didn’t want to wear the outer one again later because “it was dirty.” I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Oh, I’m not talking about working myself to death washing clothes. No, like all smart wives of the fifties (and all other decades since Adam and Eve) I was out to change him and make him see the light of so much waste. Why do we always think we can do that? We see or hear of their faults before marriage and just think, “Ah hah! They will be different after we marry and they listen to reason.”

The first test in this area came the day we were moving into our first apartment. It was a hot day in the last part of June and our tiny apartment was on the second floor of a house above two spinster piano teachers. The genius, who was very hot natured, decided he had to stop and cool off with a bath (there was no shower, only an old fashioned claw foot tub). So he jumped in and cooled off and used one of our brand new towels we had gotten for a wedding present. The thing is he did that four more times that day and each time used a clean towel. When I realized he had used up five towels, I said to him, “We only have eight! At this rate we’ll be washing clothes everyday!!”

Well. I didn’t have to try and change him after all (at least not in this area). Reality set in when we had to drag all the wash to the laundromat and lug it back up the steps afterwards. I couldn’t do it during the day because we only had one car and he had to use it for work. So he quickly learned by experience to conserve both his clothes and the towels.

That incident taught me a lesson that I have had to learn over and over again throughout our forty-eight years together. DON’T TRY TO CHANGE HIM; just be patient and eventually, he’ll see the light. Especially since I’m always right!!!