If you’re a guy and you’ve been married for five+ years, let’s face it, you’ve screwed up. A lot. Every day you inadvertently do something your wife finds annoying, insulting, insensitive, or just plain stupid. Perhaps this generic apology letter may help get you out of your latest jam. Probably not. But what have you got to lose?
[Author’s note: As a public service to my married male readers, I have crafted a generic apology letter for husbands who are looking for just the right, sensitive words to explain to their wives that they’re sincerely sorry for all their husbandly shortcomings. Guys, feel free to edit this to your specific situation to ensure your wife forgives you and lets you stop sleeping on the couch over your latest screwup. Of course, none of these examples below applies to my wife and me. – Tim Jones]
I feel I am past due in extending to you a sincere apology for the many ways I have failed you over the years. As I reflect upon our nearly [fill in # of years: ____] years of marriage, I realize there have been countless occasions in which I have selfishly placed my own wants, needs, and basic understanding of how reality works ahead of your spousal expectations.
For example, I want to offer my profoundest apologies for my reckless and borderline criminal behavior regarding the thermostat. I don’t know what possessed me to believe that 72°F was a temperature suitable for human habitation. I clearly forgot that the “proper” indoor climate for a suburban home is a balmy 84°F – somewhere between a tropical rainforest and a commercial greenhouse.
My mistake was assuming that if you saw sweat forming on my forehead while I was sitting motionless on the couch, you might conclude, as I did, that the house might be slightly too warm. From now on, I will respect your wish to live inside a high-functioning pizza oven. That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.
I also owe you a massive apology for my inexcusable occasional lapse in attentiveness when you tell me stories about your latest workplace drama. You were roughly forty-five minutes into a truly riveting, frame-by-frame analysis of why Brenda in Accounting is a “passive-aggressive viper” for the way she CC’d your manager on that email about the breakroom microwave.
I realize now that my eyes may have glazed over slightly. It was selfish of me to let the sudden-death overtime of an NFL Seahawks playoff game distract me from the psychological nuances of Brenda’s cubicle warfare. A caring husband would have known that the playoff hopes of my favorite team pale in comparison to the specific tone of voice Brenda used when she asked if you’d “had a chance to look at those spreadsheets yet.” I should have known better. Can you forgive me?
I would also like to apologize for not completing every home-improvement project you discover online. For example, last year you sent me a Pinterest link which gave you the idea of remodeling our unfinished, damp basement into a five-star Mediterranean day spa with heated marble floors and a eucalyptus steam room. Meanwhile, I was still finishing the artisanal, hand-stacked stone fire pit you wanted after seeing a thirty-second Instagram video featuring a smiling couple roasting marshmallows while wearing adorable matching sweaters that read “You Complete Me.”
Ah, date night. And you’ve been patiently waiting for your wife to decide which outfit to wear. Suggestion: Avoid the temptation to say, “Honey, we’re just going to Denny’s, not the Metropolitan Opera Gala. Pick something, for God’s sake.” Trust me on this.
I recognize now that my failure was in believing that projects should be completed sequentially rather than simultaneously. A truly dedicated husband would have remodeled the basement, built the fire pit, installed a pergola, landscaped the backyard, and handcrafted a rustic farmhouse dining table all while making your favorite dinner. I see now that my inability to manipulate the space-time continuum to complete multiple major construction projects simultaneously is a glaring character flaw. I apologize for my lack of competence when it comes to time travel.
I would also like to apologize for the “tone” I used last Tuesday. You were merely fulfilling your civic duty by telling me, for the twentieth time on a four-mile stretch of road, that I should probably be in the left lane, and that the car three blocks ahead of us looked like it was about to brake suddenly. When I raised my voice (by which I mean, spoke at a volume audible to someone without sonar), I was being defensive. I should have simply thanked you for providing the turn-by-turn commentary that my GPS – and my 45 years of driving experience – clearly couldn’t provide.
I would like to apologize for my ongoing inability to read minds. This has been a recurring issue. Many times I have asked, “Is everything okay?” To which you’ve replied, “I’m fine.” Unfortunately, I have interpreted this response as meaning you were, well, fine. This was an amateur mistake. I realize now that “I’m fine” actually translates to: “I am currently compiling a mental list of every mistake you’ve made since 2012, and the fact that you can’t sense my boiling rage proves you don’t love me.” I promise to enroll in a Basics of Mind Reading course at the community college this fall so I can better interpret your silence.
I would also like to apologize for anniversary-related misunderstandings. Last year as our anniversary approached, you informed me, “Don’t get me anything. I have everything I need.” I foolishly assumed these words carried their standard dictionary meanings. I have since learned that “don’t get me anything” is not an instruction. It is a test. And like most husbands, I failed spectacularly. Mea culpa.
Most of all, I would like to apologize for the countless ways I have failed to live up to the very reasonable standard of a handsome, competent, caring, financially successful husband you’ve come to expect, based on every romantic movie you’ve ever watched. The man who always says the right thing, remembers every date, and compliments your latest new outfit, without ever asking how much it cost.
Few things cause marital friction like driving. Sure, you know the way to your destination. And you even remembered to leave 20 minutes early to allow for traffic. But your wife will find SOMETHING to criticize about your driving. You’re not going to win. Just apologize.
I confess that I am not that man. I am merely the guy who occasionally forgets why he walked into the garage. I love you, dear wife, deeply. You are smart, funny, beautiful, [fill in four or five more bromides of appreciation] and a better life partner than I probably deserve. I sincerely hope you can forgive my many failures.
I suspect that deep down you secretly dream about how you’d be happier leaving me for George Clooney, your favorite Hall Pass. I totally understand. I have lost count how many times you have sighed when you watch him on TV, “He just gets more handsome with age,” unlike your current husband who, for some reason, just gets more nasal and ear hair with age.
Just a word of caution, however, before you ride off in the sunset with your dreamboat lover: I hear George insists on keeping his house at a crisp 70°F.
With all my love and deepest regrets,
Your Loving Husband
That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.
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One of the many unexpected aspects of being married to my lovely wife is the frequent opportunities to demonstrate my patience, by which I mean WAITING… and WAITING… and WAITING. But the reasons I have to wait are not what you think.
A common complaint of many husbands is having to wait for their wives. Waiting as she picks out an outfit; waiting for her to finish putting on makeup; waiting in the store for her to pick out the perfect lamp for the living room. Waiting at the hospital while she takes forever to deliver their baby.
You will never hear me make any such complaints about my wife – although there was that one time when I got a flat tire. It took her forever to jack up the car and put on the spare. I got so bored waiting for her to finish. A guy can only play Solitaire on their phone so many times before it gets repetitive.
The truth is, in most aspects of our wonderful life together, my wife rarely makes me wait. She can be very decisive. What I’m not quite as fond of is the way my dear wife takes FOREVER whenever we are visiting an interesting place, particularly one that has a lot of incredible scenery or fascinating history. Once there, if we see ANYTHING REMOTELY WORTH TAKING A PHOTO OF, well, that’s when the problems begin. Did I mention my wife is an artist? She does oil paintings of landscapes – mountains, flowers, birds, seashores, and interesting architecture. She is very accomplished and well known for her artwork.
Because of her passion for her art, whenever we take a hike to check out, say a pristine lake or some lovely beach or a historic castle or a cathedral or a heron sitting on a log, my wife has an uncontrollable impulse to take several photographs. Let me clarify. When I say, “take several photographs,” I don’t mean three or four photos of the very same thing. That’s what a normal person might do. My wife is not normal. No, she’ll take three or four DOZEN photos of the very same thing. Why does she obsess over getting the perfect shot? She claims it’s so she can make oil paintings from her photos.
Recently we took a stroll along a beach near our home. She loved the way the sunlight reflected off the waves as they lapped along the shore. I’ll admit it was a lovely, tranquil maritime setting. That’s why I took two photos… and my wife took 125. She kept on clicking over and over. Thirty years ago, when people used film to take pictures, my wife knew that each snap of the camera’s shutter cost money to develop. So, she was conservative in her click-count.
Thanks to the age of digital cameras, she can now take a myriad of shots, and they’re all free. Whoever invented the digital camera, that person has seriously threatened our marriage and my sanity. That’s because my wife sees nothing wrong with spending hours photographing every possible nuance of a babbling brook, while I sit around waiting for her to run out of steam. She never does. She’s the Energizer Bunny of taking pictures.
My wife is a gifted artist. She paints landscapes in oil of the natural beauty near where we live. Just one problem. She is forever in search of the PERFECT SHOT!
One time we were on vacation in Rome when we decided to explore the famous Coliseum. Big mistake. My wife stopped every ten feet to take fifteen to twenty photos of the very same building from a slightly different angle, apparently in pursuit of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning photograph. If you’re curious as to which of the 800+ photos she took of this ancient Roman ruin she ultimately used to paint from, the correct answer would be none of them. She decided not to do a painting – probably because she was sure she would have better luck clicking hundreds of photos of the canals of Venice or a row of Vespa scooters in Milan.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my wife. And her landscape paintings are truly amazing. But I have seen glaciers crawl forward in less time than it takes for her to finish taking photos of, say, a crawling glacier. I’ve learned to accept this peculiar quirk about my wife. Whenever I’m forced to wait around while she clicks away in search of the perfect closeup of a tulip, I try to make productive use of my spare time by getting caught up on my latest Stephen King novel… or chopping down tree branches and erecting a lean-to, to take a nap. She’s going to be a while.
Our house is filled with dozens of her original paintings – on just about every wall of every room, I pretty much live in an art gallery. Before long we will run out of wall space for her art. Maybe then she’ll dial back on the need to take hundreds of photos of every waterfall she sees.
Who am I kidding? She’s not going to change. But I have discovered a way to give her a taste of her own medicine. In the evening, when we sit down to watch a movie together, I deliberately take an annoyingly long time to decide on a film. I’ll check out the trailers of ten different movies, until in exasperation she whines, “FOR GOD’S SAKE, JUST PICK ONE!”
It drives her crazy. Let’s just say we’re even.
That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.
In the Garden of Eden, everything was going great until Eve tempted Adam to disobey God and eat the apple. That’s when all Hell broke out. The moral of the story: It’s all the girl’s fault – at least that’s what I got out of the story. Maybe I’m wrong.
I discovered there are some extremely helpful life lessons found in the Bible. For example, the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. When the serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, she selfishly convinced Adam to do the same, even though this was strictly against God’s direct order not to eat the apple. When Adam caved to her unrelenting nagging, God banished both of them into the wilderness and destroyed the Tree of Knowledge. I think the takeaway lesson from this story is clear: Adam may have screwed up, but technically, it was really mostly Eve’s fault. Like 90%.
Just as Adam blamed Eve for his ill-advised decision, there have been a spate of recent news stories about other men throwing their wives under the proverbial bus, blaming them for the husband’s own bad behavior. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez was indicted for a bribery scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and cash. When the Feds caught him red-handed with the loot, including actual bars of gold bullion, the Senator manned up and took the fall. I’m just kidding. He denied everything and blamed his wife for the entire scandal, claiming she kept him in the dark about her scheme.
Then there’s Samuel Alito. This nice man is a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, holding one of our nation’s most trusted positions of power. It was recently reported that for several days in the immediate aftermath of the January 6th storming of the U.S. Capitol, he flew an American flag upside down in his front yard. The upside down flag is widely known to symbolize support by people sympathetic to the “Stop the Steal” election-denying cause.
When confronted by journalists as to why a Supreme Court Justice would prominently display such an obvious symbol of political protest at his residence only days before Biden was sworn in, Alito did the noble thing: He blamed his wife. He claimed he had nothing to do with it and that his wife had put up the flag due to a spat she was embroiled in with an anti-Trump neighbor. Well played, Sammy. Well played.
Left: NJ Senator Robert Menendez; Right: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. What do these men have in common: Both their wives hate them, since they both blamed them for their own bad behavior.
The obvious takeaway for husbands is that it’s perfectly acceptable to blame your wife when you get caught doing something reckless or morally egregious. For too many years, we husbands have been held accountable by our wives simply for making boneheaded, impulsive, and poorly thought-out decisions which we hoped our wives would never find out about. It’s time we held our ground and shifted the blame for our many failings squarely where it belongs: with our wives.
Let me explain how this works. Say you’ve been jonesing for a 20-foot power boat for years, but your wife keeps pointing out that “we can’t afford it.” This despite the fact that you’ve never once complained about all the times she’s gotten her hair done at that fancy salon.
My advice, following in the footsteps of inspirational men like Menendez and Alito, is to ignore her protestations. Go out and buy that boat anyway. You deserve it. And if she ever finds out (which is possible since it’s hard to hide a 20-foot boat in your garage), just blame your impulse purchase on your wife.
Point out that when she said, “You really shouldn’t buy that boat,” you thought she meant, “Oh, my, you really shouldn’t, my darling” the way southern women in the movies often blush and say things like that when what they really mean is “Oh, my, Thank you, darling. How did you know? I just love it. Of course, I will have sex with you tonight.” Explain how you bought it for HER, not even thinking about yourself, and how you plan to name her boat “Beautiful Gal” in her honor. And how the dealer doesn’t accept returns after the sale.
But be careful about trying this technique if you’re thinking about buying those top-of-the-line titanium Calloway golf clubs without her permission. She might not be convinced you bought them for her, given the last time she played golf was 1994 – and all the holes came with castles, clown faces, and pirate ships.
Let’s say you just put half of your retirement nest egg into some convoluted cryptocurrency scheme your buddy Artie told you was sure to quadruple your investment in five months. Say it tanks, becoming totally worthless. Remember, it’s not your fault. It’s HER fault. After all, your wife was the one who once said, “Gosh, I wish we’d invested in Google back when it first went public.” So, clearly she was giving you her tacit permission to try to load up on the next unicorn buying opportunity.
Is it your fault that it turned out that your $200,000 investment in BUBBA BUCKS crypto turned out to be pyramid scheme run by an ex-con named Bubba who had recently served ten years for defrauding people by selling them non-existent condos on the moon? Okay, technically, yeah, it IS your fault. But that’s beside the point. Your wife planted the idea in your brain with that Google comment. So, she’s at least half to blame.
See this poor husband? He’s grossly overweight from eating junk food and never exercising. But it’s not his fault. Blame his wife for serving him his favorite foods and letting him lie on the couch and watch football for hours on end without ever complaining.
Imagine you arrive home at 2am, after playing poker with your buddies – instead of 10pm like you promised your wife – and your wife notices the car’s front bumper has been badly smashed in. Once again, it’s not your fault that you forgot to press the garage door remote, and as a result drove straight into the closed garage door. It could have happened to anyone who was as drunk as you were.
This is clearly your wife’s fault. She should have called you to remind you when the clock struck 10pm to come home NOW! But she didn’t. She deliberately let you keep playing poker and doing tequila shots. So, why should you be blamed simply for failing to notice the garage door was shut when you rammed your Ford F-150 pickup truck into it at 32 mph?
In any healthy marriage, the wife needs to accept at least 50% of the blame for your mistakes. If she really loves you, she’ll agree to take more like 75%. Remember, guys. We’re just men. We’re designed to fuck up. It’s in our caveman DNA. If your wife couldn’t figure that out by the time she agreed to marry you, if you ask me, that’s on her.
That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.
PS: If you enjoyed this week’s post, let me know by posting a comment, giving it aLikeorsharing this post on Facebook.
PS: If you enjoyed this week’s post, let me know by posting a comment, giving it a Like or sharing this post on Facebook.
