On Wednesday I didn’t get home from my last class until 9:20pm after arriving on campus at 10am. It was a long day with classes both at Pitt and Chatham, torrential downpours and parking issues in Oakland. All I wanted was a glass of wine when I got home but I had chapters to read for two classes and a test in another. Thursday looked to be another long day with classes, workshops and a required movie keeping me on campus until nearly eight. I’m really not complaining, I know time and study issues are every student's lament, but I was exhausted. My husband Larry said “Let’s go up to Mexi-Casa for dinner tomorrow when you get home.” It sounded like a great idea, especially since I didn’t have class on Friday. Larry is very supportive of my return to school, he’s even postponed his own retirement until I graduate. He does the dishes whenever I cook and he always cleans the bathrooms. He really could wear a “This is what a feminist looks like!” t-shirt. But somehow he slipped on Wednesday and came very close to dragging me down with him.
Larry: I think we have a Groupon for Mexi-Casa.
Kathy: We do. But I don’t have time to print it.
Larry: We're not going ‘til tomorrow night.
Kathy: I know, but I don’t have time. Why don’t you print it?
Larry: Ok, I will. How do I do it?
Kathy: Just go to the site, sign in and print it.
Larry: How do I get on the site? What’s the password?
Kathy: Just go to Groupon.com and sign on with your email address.
Larry: What do you mean?
Kathy: Lar, c’mon, you can figure this out.
This probably went on for five more minutes. I could have printed it by then, which is the point, in his own way he was attempting to wear me down so I would just say, “Fine, don’t worry about it. I’ll do it.”
When I told him this is typical "husbandly manipulation" to make the wife take care of something he didn't want to do, Larry just laughed and said he would figure it out, and he did. The next day he was pretty proud of himself when he came home from work with the coupon.
This kind of behavior has been around for a long time. It manifests in the dad who pretends not to know how to change a diaper or in the husband that always says “But honey, you do it so much better than me.” It’s so subtle that often you don’t even realize you’ve been manipulated or if you realize it, you just figure it’s not worth the time to debate the issue.
Ah, yes. My husband for *years* pretended he could not pack a suitcase (nor could he pack the car!--at least some gender switching here): "Honey, you are just so much better at fitting things in..." And I already wrote about anything related to puke or other ick... and we don't even have children. Often subtle, but it's there.
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