I Love Him, But . . . Quotes

“No matter what we’re doing, he won’t miss a phone call. He’ll never let the answering machine take a call. Even if we’re making love! He’ll conduct conversations with, say, his mother or his golf buddies, right in the middle.”
—Kerrie, New Orleans, LA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“There’s nothing so sweet as my husband apologizing after we fight. There’s nothing so endearing as his testing my good graces, or as satisfying as his make-up kiss.”
—Grace, Nashville, TN”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He never apologizes. After a fight, he makes ‘nice.’ Whatever I start to do, he jumps in and grabs it away from me. The dishes, the laundry, whatever. He keeps this up until he’s satisfied that I can’t possibly be mad at him anymore.”
—Debbie, St. Paul, MN”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He’s a lawyer. I hope he argues better in court than he does with me. He can’t stick to the facts. He’s illogical. He changes the subject, or attacks me instead of the issue. He brings up irrelevant topics, lists everything I’ve ever done wrong in the duration of our acquaintance. He sputters. He gesticulates. He paces. But he almost never addresses the issue. It’s amazing that he has a clientele.”
—Joanne, Chicago, IL”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He’s a lawyer, so fighting with him is like being interrogated by imposing counsel. He uses innuendo and leading questions, false assumptions galore. As if there’s some invisible jury who’s going to congratulate him and say, ‘You win!’”
—Amber, Joliet, IL”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He wants to make sure we understand each other, especially when we’re upset. So he gives me feedback. During arguments, he repeats or paraphrases what I say. He sounds like a parrot. I’ll say, ‘I’m furious.’ ‘You’re furious?’ ‘You’re making me crazy.’ ‘I’m making you crazy?’ ‘Stop it!’ ‘Stop it?’”
—Marissa, Chicago, IL”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“When I’m angry, he retreats. Takes a nap. Gets under the covers, closes his eyes and hopes it will all go away.”
—Cathy, Detroit, MI”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“Before we can argue about anything, he has to do a certain amount of chest-beating, like a male ape. He yells, hisses, flails his arms, pounds furniture, slams doors, stomps in and out of the room. It’s real primitive, but there doesn’t seem to be any way around it. No matter how gently I bring a problem up ‘for discussion,’ he tries to scare the subject away. When he realizes it won’t be scared off, he finally settles down and we talk. But first, I have to deal with the ‘beast.’”
—Deirdre, Gladwyne, PA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He mimics me when I’m angry. Mocks me. The thing that’s most annoying is that he’s good, he’s funny, and he makes me laugh. Infuriating.”
—Marla, New York, NY”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He laughs at me when I’m mad. Tells me I’m cute. That I’ve turned red. That I’m going to start a fire.”
—Susie, Richmond, VA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“When I’m angry about something, he just agrees with me. He says, ‘Yes, Dear…Yes Dear.’ When I tell him to stop, he says, ‘Yes, Dear.’”
—Marnie, Seattle, WA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He finds a way to blame my mother for whatever’s wrong. If I’m mad at him, it must be because of the attitudes I got from my mother. And if he’s done something wrong—however unlikely that may be—we’ve driven him to it, my mother and me. He thinks any sane man would go berserk, sooner or later, in our company.”
—Trudy, St. Paul, MN”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“When we fight, he attacks everything and everybody remotely related to me. My parents. The medical profession because I’m a nurse. The entire state of Florida, where I grew up. All Southerners. All blondes. All women. Hell, all earthlings. Minus, of course, himself.”
—Trixie, Washington, DC”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He’s never wrong. About anything. And nothing is ever his fault. He’s blameless. That settled, fighting’s easy. I just have to apologize and we can move on.”
—Donna, Pittsburgh, PA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“I can tell in the morning, just by looking at him, how our day’s going to go. Sometimes he’s yummy, sort of like Tom Cruise. Others he’s more Robin Williams, you know, Mork from Ork. When Freddy Krueger’s on the pillow next to me, I know it’s not going to be a good day.”
—Sam, Olympia, WA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“All’s Fair
Every honeymoon has an ending. Even in the best of marriages, spouses inevitably have spats. Successful wives say they learned early how to take strife in stride; many, in fact, insist that the freedom to argue is essential in maintaining a stable marriage.
Most fights focus on minor but recurring issues. Skirmishes grow into battles, battles into wars—over how high to set the thermostat, how loud to make the television, who holds the remote, what time to set the clock radio, who showers first, which way the toilet paper faces, and of course, the position in which the toilet seat is left.
Over time, the process of fighting often becomes more important than the content of the fights. “We never solve anything by fighting,” one wife says. “We just sort of let off steam.”
Whatever they argue about, when the smoke clears and the air cools, most wives feel better for having boiled over. Whether or not issues are resolved, they’re able to blow up, make up and move on. No harm done.”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“When he gets home, he wants affection. You know, romance? He comes in the kitchen and fondles me. Dinner’s burning. And what am I supposed to do? Stuff the kids into the cupboard?”
—Dottie, Selma, AL”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“It’s always a party. At six a.m., he bounds out of bed, juggles eggs, whips OJ, makes pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse or the alphabet. He sings, he dances. He leads the kids in jumping jacks. I roll over, hoping he’ll close the door behind him.”
—Lucy, West Hempstead, NY”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He’s never spontaneous, always serious. Even a walk in the woods is a serious endeavor. You need gear. You need a canteen, a coat, a camera, a first-aid kit, matches, a compass. He worries about bears. Warns of rabid raccoons. Ticks. Poison ivy. The kids tease him about being so serious. They scowl and march behind him, like little robots or soldiers, and they salute him like he’s their drill sergeant.”
—Allison, Baltimore, MD”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“If they need help with their homework, he gets right in there and does it for them. Like he has to prove that he can do fourth-grade math. Or that he knows where Antarctica is.”
—Edie, Portland, ME”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“Discipline’s a contest to him. If they obey him, he wins. If he gives in or compromises with the children, he sees himself as losing. And he’s a very sore, very sulky loser.”
—Lynne, Philadelphia, PA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He doesn’t believe in discipline. Children are who they are, he says. They can’t go by our rules; they have to survive in their own time, by the rules of their generation. The world, their peers will shape them. We’re obsolete. Of course, the kids love this concept.”
—Marge, San Jose, CA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He boasts about how bad the boys are. Makes them sound like six-year-old gangsters. Makes legends out of chipped teeth and broken windows. People laugh, but I can’t get a baby-sitter.”
—Maggie, Towson, MD”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He tells the kids not to expect to get presents on holidays, that he buys them things all year round. He says Hallmark and retailers created holidays. He curses when he gets cards and gifts from them. And at the last minute, he invariably feels guilty and rushes out, buys impulsively whatever’s left in the stores. Spends more than he would have if he’d planned. Then he’s furious, sputtering, all over again.”
—Marge, Seattle, WA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He begins complaining about my family months before the holidays. This cousin’s too loud, that one’s too cheap, my uncle drinks too much, and they’re all a bunch of ‘moochers.’ I’m dreading that day that one of the kids repeats what he’s said. Like asking Aunt Harriet, ‘Do you really eat more than a regular family of five?’”
—Joyce, Buffalo Grove, IL”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“Every summer he takes the kids camping, and every summer he ends up with poison ivy, a hundred mosquito bites, or a sprained or broken limb. This year his back went out while he was pitching the tent. He couldn’t get up. The kids had to call a forest ranger to get them out of there.”
—Lisa, Mountain Home, ID”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“The girls have him wrapped around their pinkies. They bleed him mercilessly, squeeze him dry. And he loves it. Thinks that girls should be able to con the shirt off their daddies. He says that trains them to be proper wives.”
—Celia, Atlanta, GA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“If I tell our daughter to come in by midnight, he’ll tell her she can stay out till one or two but he won’t tell me. Then I’ll sit up in bed worrying when she doesn’t come in at twelve. He’s asleep on the sofa, doesn’t wake up at two to see if she’s come home, doesn’t wake up when she rolls in and we argue about her staying out so late. When he finally wakes up it’s morning, and the man has no idea if she got home at all.”
—Jade, Philadelphia, PA”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“He videotapes every moment of their lives. I doubt if they’ve ever seen his face. It’s always behind his camera.”
—Jean, Phoenix, AZ”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .

“If I’ve been up with the baby all night, he’ll tell me to sleep in. But I can’t. Because he’ll send the twins off to preschool without brushing their hair or their teeth, in clothes that don’t fit or match, without their lunch boxes. Once I got up just in time to see him putting them in the car without their shoes. He scowled at me and said, ‘I told you to rest this morning.’"
—Joyce, Yazoo City, MS”
― Merry Bloch Jones, I Love Him, But . . .