By Rick Kaempfer
My wife Bridget and I celebrated our fifteenth anniversary last week the same way we celebrate every day together: peacefully.
We really don’t argue.
There isn’t a secret to our marital harmony—I think we’re just a good match. We tend to agree on most things, and when we don’t, one of us inevitably buckles before it turns into an argument. Usually I’m the one that buckles. My wife is passionate about everything, and I’m passionate about nothing. That makes it much easier for me to buckle. I have an incredible ability to go with the flow.
Don’t get me wrong, Bridget buckles too. On the rare occasions when I disagree with her AND I actually care, I become intractable. I put my foot down, she senses that I am serious, and she buckles. This happens maybe once a year.
Has there ever been a time when I put my foot down on a subject that Bridget felt too strongly about to concede? Yes, it happened once.
I can tell you everything about that fight because it’s ingrained in my memory banks. It occurred in October of 1997. Tommy was just about to turn 2. The argument began thusly…
Bridget: I got Tommy’s birthday present today.
Rick: What did you get?
Bridget: A tea-set.
Rick: That’s great…um…what did you say?
Bridget: I got him a tea-set.
Rick: You mean like a golf tee set?
Bridget: No.
Rick: You mean like a “pour imaginary cups of tea for your dolls and raise your pinky while you pretend to drink” tea set?
Bridget: Yup. He’ll love it.
Rick: You know he’s a boy, right?
Bridget: This won’t make him gay, Rick.
Rick: Objecting to “girl presents” for your son doesn’t make you homophobic.
Bridget: It’s not a girl present.
Rick: Let me see the box.
(Bridget pulled the pink box out of the bag. A little girl engaged in a doll tea-party was pictured on the front of the package.)
Rick: That’s what I thought. We can give it to one of our nieces.
Bridget: No, we’re giving it to Tommy.
Rick: No, we’re not.
Bridget: Well I’m not returning it. If you want to get him something else, you have to get it yourself.
Bridget wouldn’t buckle, and called all of her friends and sisters for support. They all agreed that I was being sexist and ridiculous.
I wouldn’t buckle, and called all of my friends for support. They all agreed that she was being ridiculous.
Since neither of us could convince anyone on the other side of the sex divide to cross-over and support our argument, we agreed to conduct an experiment to see which one of us was right.
Bridget would still give Tommy the tea-set, but I would give him a more appropriate boy gift (Hot Wheels). We would put both presents on the table in the living room and let Tommy decide which one he preferred. Neither of us would be allowed to talk to him at all, and we couldn’t say or do anything to sway his opinion.
Since Tommy didn’t really talk too much, the winner would be decided by which present Tommy chose first….her tea-set or my Hot Wheels. Winner takes all, loser admits defeat.
That night we brought Tommy into the room and told him the presents on the table were both for him. At first he didn’t say or do anything.
Then it happened…he walked right to the Hot Wheels and asked me to open the package.
He was a little taken aback by my exuberant response and Bridget’s inexplicable muttering, but Tommy had cemented the father-son bond forever by proving me right.
I didn’t dance on Bridget’s grave, and it’s a good thing I didn’t. She was also later proven correct. Tommy did eventually warm to the tea-set, and his two younger brothers also played with the tea-set without sustaining any lasting damage.
The real winner of the argument was our marriage. We both felt really silly and ridiculous after that display, and we haven’t had a real argument since.
It’s much easier to buckle.
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