Marriage

Amateurs

We hit every red light on the way home from the last regular-season hockey game. Every single one. It was nearly 10:00 on a Saturday night, and the lights had not gotten the memo

My wife, in a tone that does not brook dissent: “What incompetent traffic engineers.”

This is not an unusual comment from her. We both share the impulse, actually. I come at it with sarcasm. She comes at it with how she would fix the problem. Neither approach accomplishes much, but both get to the root of who we are. I default to humor. She sees a problem and intuitively knows how to solve it.

If she could clone herself, she’d dispatch a copy to every corner of society plagued by inefficiency. We’ve had car-ride conversations where she single-handedly fixed healthcare, immigration, and the tax code before we reached the driveway. I realize the world is a lesser place for having only one of her — but if there were an army of her fixing the planet, I’d still only be married to the original. I can barely keep up as it is.

So I couldn’t let her traffic comment go without a small test. “We’re good at making brisket in the oven but not on the smoker,” I said. “Does that make us incompetent?”

Her reply, patient and obvious: “No, dear husband. We are smoking amateurs. We are not incompetent.”

This is the woman I love. Her humor is surgical. It doesn’t land with the same splash as mine, but it challenges me every time — and it’s a daily reminder that I don’t have a corner on wit in this household.

She had also handed both of us an escape hatch before Easter Sunday arrived.

We’ve attempted brisket on the smoker three or more times this hockey season. None of them were shoe leather exactly, but they involved more chewing than I prefer. Yesterday we swallowed our pride, pulled out the oven bag, and went with the hard-to-fail method. Six-plus hours, then a little time in the crockpot while we’re at church.

We may be amateurs in the backyard. At the table today, we’re professionals.

Values Don’t Retire

My wife and I are somewhere in the foothills of retirement. Not even close to the summit. There are still detours on this road, and honestly, we keep choosing them. We could draw a straight line to the finish — coast, let someone else worry about the spring weather.

But here we are, babysitting a ten-month-old and still figuring out health insurance. And I wouldn’t trade it.

Faith Is a Verb

Every time our kids gather around the table, we say a prayer. That’s not a performance — it’s just what we do. Faith comes up again before the meal’s over, usually more than once. We counsel our kids, married and unmarried, on building something with a Godly foundation. But we learned a long time ago that advice requires a listener. Acting on it? That part belongs to them.

We’re conservative Christians. We attend a church that reflects that — not perfectly, but pretty close. Our kids know where we stand. They also know we can’t believe for them. My granddaughter, as much as I adore her, will have to find her own faith someday. Her parents’ belief won’t carry her across that finish line, and neither will ours. What we can do is make sure the example exists. Doing nothing, after all, is the easiest thing in the world to imitate.

The Tangible Stuff

I’m not going to pretend grandparenting is purely a spiritual exercise. My granddaughter needs a babysitter, and I technically have “spare time” — though I’m not sure where I’m hiding it. My wife works remotely, so we tag-team diaper duty in shifts that would make any grandparent proud.

And yes — her job keeps us from raiding our savings for insurance premiums until we hit 65. These aren’t just financial decisions. They’re the quiet argument I make every day to my kids without saying a word: this is what showing up looks like.

Respect Isn’t Political

Everyone has value. The prisoner. The foster kid. The garbage man. We did foster care for six years — that wasn’t a hobby, it was a conviction. The political lines blur for me here. But the bottom line is simple: treat me and my country with respect, and I’ll meet you with kindness. As a Christian, at a minimum, I owe you a prayer. We’re all sinners. Just not all saved.

Generosity Without the Receipt

Could I give more? Absolutely — most of us could, and I’d be a fool to claim otherwise. We give to causes, including our church. Our kids know we give. They don’t need to know the number. The impression matters more than the invoice.

Commitment Is the Whole Game

Marriage is the biggest bet most people will ever place. We’re honest with our kids about it: it’s not easy. It requires two people willing to grow up and reckon with the fact that their decisions now affect someone else’s life, too. We hold an old-fashioned view on this. A marriage with a Christian foundation is simply better, in our experience. That’s not a lecture. It’s just what we’ve lived.

The Promotion We Didn’t Know Was Coming

Somewhere around the time your kids leave the house, you stop being a parent in the daily operational sense and get promoted — if you’re lucky — to trusted counselor. We’re hoping to earn that promotion unanimously.

We weren’t perfect parents. Our advice isn’t flawless either. But if our kids can feel the gist of how we’ve lived — if they’ve seen our convictions match our words, if they’ve watched our marriage hold — then it’ll be hard for any of them to look back and say, “Nobody told me that.”

You were told. You were shown.

We’re not trying to make our kids into copies of us. We’re trying to make sure they don’t walk into the world without a compass. Call me boring. Just don’t accuse me of raising kids who’ll make the world worse. We fought too hard for that. And if they pass something worthwhile to the next generation of Gruenbaums?

That’s the whole point of the journey.

The Voice (Or: How I Learned to Nag Without Technically Nagging)

This is a further explanation of one of the titles included on my “semi-retired” business card. (Reminder Wrangler)

Somewhere after the last kid left for college, I developed a second voice.

Not a concerning one. Not the kind that tells you to do things. More of a guest narrator. A color commentator for the small, unresolved frustrations of domestic life. Specifically, my wife’s share of them.

It sounds exactly like my wife. Except sassier. And with slightly more self-awareness than she’d probably volunteer on her own.

Here’s how it works. The dishes pile up. Judy is, by longstanding treaty, the designated dishwasher. When the stack starts achieving architectural ambitions, I don’t say anything. I just wander past the sink, tilt my head, and murmur — in a voice that is not quite mine — “I wonder when the dish fairies are coming. You’d think they’d have been here by now.”

She knows exactly what’s happening. She’s been married to me long enough to read the subtext, which is: the dishes need doing. The Voice is just the delivery system. It’s a nag wearing a disguise, and the disguise isn’t even that convincing. But somehow it lands softer than the direct version, and we both know it.

The lamp incident lasted several months. We had a lamp behind the chair. The recliner ate its cord. I asked about a replacement — once, twice, roughly fourteen times over what felt like a minor geological era. When I finally deployed The Voice, it came out as: “Boy, I wish I could remember to buy that lamp. Andy hasn’t mentioned it today, so I guess he doesn’t want it anymore.” She smiled. She did not immediately buy the lamp. But the smile was acknowledgment, which is honestly most of what you’re after.

Then there was the peanut butter and jelly incident. These are the ones that make me regret The Voice’s existence.

I had made warmups — real food, intentional food, food that required actual effort and lived in the refrigerator with the reasonable expectation of being eaten. Judy opened the fridge, considered her options, closed it, and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I watched this happen in real time. I said nothing in my own voice, because my own voice would have had an edge to it that the situation didn’t technically warrant. So The Voice showed up instead.

“I know there are perfectly good warmups in there,” it said, with Judy’s cadence and Judy’s calm, “but the peanut butter and jelly is really speaking to me today. And honestly — Andy probably won’t even notice. He loves to throw uneaten food away.”

She laughed. I felt seen and also slightly ridiculous, which is more or less the emotional signature of a successful Voice deployment. The warmups, for the record, were eventually eaten. By me.

The bedtime reading situation is its own category. We both read before sleep. When she stops first, there’s an announcement — delivered with genuine tenderness but also the logistical clarity of a boarding gate closing — that I should probably wrap it up soon. When I stop first, I roll over and go to sleep. If I’m feeling spirited, I’ll glance over my shoulder and say in The Voice, “Don’t read too long, you know how it keeps me awake,” then pull the covers up with the serene expression of a man who has made his point.

I get sassier as the day goes on. Judy has documentation. By 9 p.m., The Voice has loosened up considerably and is operating with real creative confidence.

My wife is a kinder spirit than me — she has accepted this fully. Not just tolerated it. Accepted it. She even has her own version of my voice, which she deploys occasionally. Her renditions are, I will note, significantly more complimentary than mine. Her version of me seems to be a wiser, more generous person. I’m not sure who she thinks she married, but I appreciate the optimism.

Her responses track pretty cleanly to guilt level and degree of offense. Snoring gets a genuine “I’m sorry.” The dishes get something like, “They are piling up — I wish the dishwasher would come back from vacation.” The lamp gets a smile and a “Yes, I should get to that,” delivered with the calm of a woman who has decided to manage me rather than fight me.

The honest version of what The Voice is doing is this: it’s nagging with the volume turned down and a laugh track turned up. It keeps us from having the same conversation with teeth in it. After enough years of marriage, you develop these little systems — ways of saying true things without making them into a confrontation. The Voice is mine. It is weak camouflage. She sees right through it every time.

And she still seems pleased she married a sassy husband — which, after all these years, I’ve decided to take as a win.

The Morning Scrimmage: Why Every Marriage Needs a “Billeted” Punching Bag

My wife and I have been married for nearly 35 years, and I’ve learned one absolute truth: Marriage isn’t just about love; it’s about managing the “chirps.”

I am a natural-born chirper. If I have a witty observation or a mild grievance, it bounces around my skull like a puck rattling around a dryer drum until it finds an exit. My wife, however, is a “slow-thaw” morning person. She is not a fan of dialogue—and certainly not banter—until she’s well into her second cup of coffee.

For the sake of our domestic harmony, I have to get those chirps out of my system without bumping into her morning rhythm. Fortunately, we have “The Boys.”

The Peanut Butter Defense

Currently, our kitchen is populated by billeted hockey players. They are the perfect targets. They provide the friction I need to reach my “optimum flow” without waking the dragon — my wife, who is lovely precisely because she hasn’t spoken yet.

Take, for instance, the “Bagel Bandit.” This kid has a specific talent for “nutty perfection.” He’ll smear peanut butter on a bagel and then, as a final flourish, leave a thick glob on the knife before dropping it in the sink. Within minutes, that peanut butter undergoes a chemical bonding process that makes it “dishwasher-proof.”

On a morning when my wife is still on her first cup, I’ll drop a line on the Bandit:

  • “The dishwasher is a machine, son, not a miracle worker. Clean the blade.”
  • “If you lick that knife clean, the dishwasher will thank you for your service.”

The “Agile” boys—the ones with a high hockey IQ—will fire back. The “Slow-Mo” rookies just nod and say, “Okay, next time,” while they internally calculate how many minutes until practice.

The Buffer Zone

There is a method to my madness. My wife knows I like to banter, and as long as I don’t go too hard on the kids, she lets me run my plays. In fact, she’s grateful. By the time she’s ready for conversation, I’ve already burned off my sass on a 19-year-old defenseman.

The boys are the grease that keeps the marriage rolling through the years. When my wife is an “obstacle” to my flow—meaning she just wants to eat her toast in peace—the hockey boys step in to cover the difference.

The Sentiment in the Sarcasm

I’ll admit, the sentimental side of this gets hidden under the layers of trash talk. But it’s there. My wife gets the lion’s share of my heart, and whatever is left over goes to these boys who have become part of our daily chaos.

We had a visitor the other day who mentioned he does the dishes for his billet mom because she’s been ill. I looked at my most “agile” resident and asked if he’d ever consider such a noble act.

He didn’t miss a beat: “Well, if you were gravely ill, I might consider it. But since you’re healthy, I guess I’ll just keep letting you sharpen your wit on my dish-loading skills.”

After he made his comment, we exchanged a glance. We both knew the chirping wasn’t entirely one-sided.

The Long Game

How long will we keep these “billeted victims (their term, not mine)”  around? Only until the grandchildren are old enough to hold their own in a verbal sparring match. I need a house full of relatives with finely honed wits to keep me humble.

Until then, I’ll keep chirping at the boys. It keeps my mind sharp, the sink (mostly) clear, and my 35-year marriage exactly where it needs to be: in a state of graceful, quiet, peanut-butter-free peace.