What's Amiss

A few months ago, I received a call from a friend whom I haven’t seen for several years. She called to ask my opinion about her husband.

I knew her husband to be a quiet, very quiet, guy a few years older than her. He didn’t talk much. From a bystander’s point of view, he was just an ordinary guy. Other people might say, my friend was one lucky girl to have such a quiet husband, doesn’t complain, doesn’t lose temper, doesn’t.. anything.

And that is the problem. He doesn’t talk at all. He drops a comment about the weather, about last night’s basketball game, about local politics, about the neighbor’s dog.. but never about the house, about their kid’s education, about plans for the future.

My friend has been frustrated for years. She felt like she doesn’t have a husband and that she has been living with a stranger all this time. She tried pleading, then crying, whining, yelling, throwing things around but to no avail. She also tried to threaten him by leaving, but he just kept quiet. She simply couldn’t get him TO TALK about them and their family or their LOVE, if there’s any between them.

My friend asked me if that was normal. I gave her my honest opinion, that I’ve known a lot of guys exactly like her husband. They look normal to me and they sound normal. They are just NOT INTO confrontation and all that, and I guess they are not going to change just because their wives want them to, leaving the wives two choices, whether to TAKE THEM AS THEY ARE or LEAVE THEM AND GO…