There’s this phone commercial on TV that makes me sick every time I watch it.
I mean, yeah … it makes me so mad, but it really produces this awful awful lump in my throat.
Well here. Let me know what you think:
I swear … I get so angry that it makes me want to smack the living daylights out of this woman!
Okay, so the guy does appear to look rather — ahem — nerdy. But as I look at the other things surrounding the commercial, it appears to me that he is a guy that would do anything for his family. And his wife.
For example, unless the woman is a self-made millionaire who can afford a greenhouse separate from the house … who do you think agreed have one built on their property? The husband.
Who apparently encourages her to enjoy her own gardening past time? The husband.
And yet, this wife apparently has no respect for him.
I don’t know about you … but I could never be that disrespectful to the person I vowed to love and honor for the rest of my life.
But maybe that’s exactly it. Maybe there are couples out there that act like that around each other. And maybe that’s why watching this commercial makes me sick; because I would hate knowing that there are people out there that may be married (or may stay married) and treat each other with such disrespect.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand that people can “fall out of love” with one another. And I can understand that there are certain circumstances in a person’s life that would make a person marry (or stay in an unhappy marriage) for something other than love. I can also understand why certain circumstances can lead a couple to divorce.
What I don’t understand is how a person can just be downright disrespectful to someone else; circumstances or none. You can hate the situation you currently find yourself in, but don’t blame (or hate) anyone else for your current situation but your own self. And certainly don’t disrespect someone just to spite them.
I guess this commercial gets me so riled up because I can’t see myself ever acting that way with my Husband. Okay, I admit that I may have occasional disrespectful thoughts, but: 1) I would never ever say them out loud and in front of him, and 2) they’re literally fleeting thoughts that quickly get dismissed when I realize exactly how much Hubby means to me.
If there’s one thing that Hubby & I have gotten right in our life together is that we have a good solid marriage. While I don’t mean to be arrogant by making that statement, I do know that we’ve heard from other couples … other friends, that the two of us together are a great couple.
But here’s the thing. Although we appear to be such a great couple to people we come in contact with … keeping our marriage together is not an easy task.
Marriage is hard. And it’s definitely not something you can dismiss lightly with a passive-aggressive statement like, “Mother was right. I should have married John Clark.” It takes a lot of patience, understanding and mutual respect for one another to make things work. And it especially takes honest and open communication / open dialogue to keep the marriage working.
I can’t dismiss the fact that Hubby & I (as college sweethearts) have grown into our marriage together; and therefore haven’t experienced some of the things that a couple married later in life (and likely with more “dating” experience) has. But I do know that past experiences can affect how one may react while in current and/or future relationships.
But I also can’t dismiss that Hubby & I have also gone through our own experiences that have challenged our marriage in many ways.
Think about how we found out that we couldn’t have children the “traditional” way.
Think of the risks we took trying to finance infertility treatments that only had a certain percentage of working.
Think about the decision we made to move to Chicago and now the decision to move back to Detroit.
Think of the roller-coaster of emotions it took to finally come to the decision to live child-free. Or the emotions of having to deal with the unexpected death of a parent.
Now imagine what our marriage would be like if we didn’t love and respect one another. If we didn’t have honest and open dialogues. Think of how hard it would be to go through everything we did without having each other’s back.
So yeah, I think that’s why that commercial makes me sick. And I hope that I’m not the only one out there that feels the same way …
So what do you have to say, oh Internets? What do you think of this commercial? What are your thoughts about marriage?
I think the first time I saw that commercial I felt bad for the husband. I felt it was a bit of a cliche, actually to portray the husband in that kind of light (a thoughtless money-spender).
But reading your post it does bring to the surface many thoughts about the disrespect that occurs in most marriages and how that disrespect dissolves that marriage. It actually reminded me of when Michael and I were in grief counseling. Our counselor told us that “You do realize that despite the trauma you both have gone through in regards to infertility, you both have a very strong marriage.” It was such a profound statement. I knew it to be true, but hearing it from someone else and having it reaffirmed back to us was fantastic. Its part of the reason why I can’t really watch “Everybody loves Raymond” – because no one, especially Raymond and Debra, respects one another, and respect is so important in a marriage.
I see this commercial a lot, too. And yes, there ARE people just like this. I’d have to say that I’ve often felt disrespected in my relationship about as often as I’ve been disrespectful. I hate it and we work every single day to be better to each other. I agree that it is disrespect that does dissolve marriages. People can often be so thoughtless to the one they take for granted, they forget to hold their tongue or think before speaking. When the world is crappy to them, they take it out on each other – which SUCKS. DH and I recently had a conversation that we are on of the most fortunate people we know and yet questioned why we had such difficulty communicating. We found a few answers but the short one is that is does take KINDNESS and APPRECIATION every single day.