A Question
Why do many middle-aged men leave their wives for their wives’ best friend? Because it’s familiar but fresh? New but not? Because it rocks the boat without getting them too wet? I’ve been thinking about this, lately. Not because it’s happened to me. But because I’m curious. I have this crazy theory that a ‘good wife’ is responsible for planting a seed of doubt in the heart and head of her husband; for keeping him just the tiniest bit uncertain. This is because too much certainty hardens the heart and closes the mind and makes men hard to reach and rigid. Stalin, for instance. Or the Taliban. Now, there’s a bunch of guys whose wives could certainly do with planting a seed or two of doubt in the hearts of their men. Seriously, though…I worked with a very powerful women at the beginning of my career. She would give me tips before pitching the powers-that-be (mostly men, of course.) “Never preface a sentence with the words, I think or I believe,” she would say. “It will only weaken your argument. And men won’t listen.” She was right. Which brings me back to where I started. Sort of. I think (oh dear, there I go) middle-aged men leave their wives for their wives’ best friends not because change is good. But because just a little bit of change is good. Just enough change to free them from the uncertainty that comes, so inevitably, with middle age. The uncertainty that leads them to believe that their wives don’t understand them. Lord! How I love that phrase. “My wife doesn’t understand me.” How many women fall for that one, I wonder? Anyway, feel free to fill in some my blanks. (including the proper grammatical use of wive’s versus wife’s best friend. Is there a possessive plural or not?)
