January 9, 2008

Shh!  Don’t Tell My Wife

A husband with secrets?  Never gonna happen. Maybe an article entitled “Eleven Secrets All Husbands Keep From Their Wives” sells Redbook magazines, but c’mon, who’s kidding whom?  A secret from your wife?  It’s easier keeping Paris Hilton away from a photographer, young boys away from a mud puddle or Bill Clinton away from an intern.  President Clinton could be example A.  Rhodes scholar, then Governor, followed by being leader of the free world.  And then he tried to keep a secret from Hillary.  In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’d that work out?” 

For females, husbands are a pants wearing open book. Wives, simply put, are a human, never fail, lie detector when it comes to “reading the male”.   Any man disagreeing is either a newlywed about to learn some painful lessons or a schnook married so many times his divorce attorney’s number is on speed dial. 

A couple of months back Ty Wenger, an editor and writer for Redbook, a publication aimed at married females, supposedly revealed eleven secrets all husbands keep from their wives. 

First off, don’t expect anything scandalous.  We’re talking Redbook, not People, Star, or the National Enquirer.  And one could debate at length whether some of Mr. Wenger’s postulations even qualify as a secret.  For instance, number 7 is “every year he loves you more”.  While I don’t disagree with the thought, it seems more a peace offering aimed at the author’s wife.  The poor woman.  Imagine, the shock of discovering your husband proclaiming, in a magazine found along side supermarket check stands where the whole world can see, he’s been keeping clandestine thoughts after promising in front of God and everybody to “Love, honor and spill all the beans.”    

Some of the supposed “secrets” make no sense.  Like number 5.  “Though he protests, he secretly loves fixing things around the house.”  At our domicile, all tools are kept under lock and key to remove any temptation toward attempting to rectify the smallest of mechanical failures.  Put a screwdriver, pliers or hammer in my hand and there’s an immediate protest from the female side of the house.  At casa de Maynard, if there’s fixin’ to do, it’s a Jan job.  She claims the history of our marriage is pockmarked by the forlorn attempts of the family male to repair any object suffering from a bad “chugga chugga”.  And she’s equally convinced any “fixation” attempt by her husband invariably results in a minor repair becoming a major malfunction. 

Secret number nine is equally ridiculous.  “He’s terrified when you drive”.  What’s the problem with a wife driving?  Other than all the time wasted because of an insistence on driving no faster than the speed limit and obeying all those other silly traffic laws. It’s just Type B’s and their “what’s the hurry” attitude.  Aggravating yes, but certainly not terrifying. 

But the silliest secret is number ten.  “He’ll always wish he was twenty-five again.”  Oh please.  True, at twenty-five I had hair on my head.  I was also living paycheck-to-paycheck, smoked, twenty pounds overweight, driving a VW with 150,000 miles on the odometer and single.  Why would anyone want to be 25 again?  It’s an age where men are convinced it’s possible to keep a secret from their wife. That’s the kind of thinking that causes male pattern baldness.