My wife and I come from different family backgrounds. Prior to marriage, we didn’t expect those differences to have any effect on our relationship because well, we were in love. Needless to say (and much to our surprise), we had to deal with many of those differences early on.

Communication styles seemed to be one of the issues that crept up most often. My wife is used to speaking freely, while I tend to hold things in. Neither of these tendencies is wrong or right unless taken to the extreme, which we have both had to learn to control. I have had to learn to open up more while my wife has had to learn to choose her words more carefully.

So, we were sitting at the dining room table one afternoon eating lunch. I don’t remember the topic of discussion, but at one point my wife said something that just rubbed me wrong. Typically in this type of situation, I would just assume that she was not intending to hurt my feelings, and simply suppress any emotion that may have been spurred. However, we had recently had a discussion in which my wife encouraged me to be more open about my feelings so that I would be less likely to explode with a bunch of penned-up emotions later on. I therefore got up the nerve and said something like, “ya know, it hurt my feelings when you said that.” Feeling slightly embarrassed about such an awkward statement about “feelings,” I was in no way prepared for my wife’s response: A bellowing of hearty laughter broke forth from the depths of her being. I was speechless; I don’t even remember her laughing that hard at any of my best jokes. In between her gasps for air and seemingly uncontrollable hysteria, she managed to repeat “I’m sorry,” a few times.

After she regained her composure, she continued to apologize and then explained that she had never heard me say anything to that effect, and especially not with such sissy words. To her defense, I probably would have responded similarly if the same words were spoken to me by a male.

Since then, I have learned to express my feelings in a less-awkward manner and my wife has refrained from laughing at me when I do so. Learning to reconcile these differences, like many things, is always tough the first time around; but we’ve learned that it gets better the more you do it.

Please don’t hurt my feelings with any negative comments.

My son, going on 2 years old, has continued to amass a large booty of toys in his relatively short life so far. Recently, his vocabulary has been growing even faster than his collection of playthings; some of which is helped by teaching him the names of some of his toys. However, one of his stuff animals (herein known as Buttercrunch) recently caused a debate between my wife and I.

May I first present Exhibit A (downloaded from puffins.com):

Cute? Sure, we both agreed to that. The issue that caused our disagreement may be best described in an email I sent to Russ Berrie and Company Inc., the manufacturer of Buttercrunch:

Hi,
My wife and I were recently in debate over the species of the plush toy at hand. “Buttercrunch” is one of our son’s most beloved toys, but we have differing opinions as to what Buttercrunch really is. My wife insists that it is a giraffe, but from my experience and knowledge of wildlife, I am quite sure that one of the defining features of the giraffe is its extra long neck, which Buttercrunch lacks. Therefore, due to the normal-sized neck of the plush toy, along with its name–”Buttercrunch” (butter->reference to dairy products coming from bovine-like animals)–I am under the strong impression that Buttercrunch is a cow. This has become an object of much debate, and I would very much appreciate clarification from the creators of Buttercrunch. If it is truly a cow, I believe that my wife will only believe it if she is convinced by your company. If Buttercrunch is a giraffe, I would very much like to know why its neck is so short…could it be a defective product? If Buttercrunch is neither a giraffe or cow, I would also appreciate further description as to what it truly is. Thank you so much for your help.

Fairly impressed with my own interogation skills, I anxiously anticipated a witty response from a Russ representative. Not a day later, I received this reply:

The item you are inquiring about is a giraffe. A longer neck could pose a choking hazard.

Period. No “thanks for inquiring”, “you and your wife need counceling”, not even a “Sincerely, So-and-so”. Evenmore, that has got to be the most ridiculous excuse for a short-necked giraffe. I tried with all the brainpower I could muster to figure out how a child could manage to choke on a long-necked Buttercrunch.

Needless to say, I still refer to Buttercrunch as a cow.