Things Women Should Never Do for a Man

Last week a young woman from two doors down knocked on our side door to borrow the extension ladder. Her name is Kelsey. She rents the blue house with the crooked mailbox. Tom was out back with the leaf blower, so she waited in the kitchen while I finished peeling apples for sauce. She stayed two hours. Her boyfriend had just moved in with her, and she had a lot on her mind. I peeled, and she talked, and I mostly listened.

By the end of the week she had come back four more times. Once for the ladder, once to return it, and three times for no reason she could name. I started writing on the chalkboard by the fridge, the one where I used to list the week’s suppers when the kids were home. I wrote down things I wished somebody had told me at her age. Some of them I did anyway. By Saturday the board was full and I counted twenty one.

I do not love the word never. I do not make rules for other people’s marriages, and I will not start now. These came from more than thirty years with Tom, three kids raised and gone, and a stack of reader letters that keeps growing. Take what fits your life. Leave the rest on the board.

Pretend to be a woman she is not

Kelsey told me her boyfriend loves camping. She hates bugs, cold ground, and any bathroom with a line. She has gone on four trips and smiled through all of them. I told her about the summer I let Tom believe I liked fishing. I sat in that boat three Saturdays in a row with a book hidden under the tackle box. By August I confessed. He laughed and said he already knew, because nobody who likes fishing reads a paperback with her back to the water. The real you shows up sooner or later, so it costs less to show up on the first day.

Drop her friends because he is home now

She mentioned she had skipped her Thursday night book club twice. He was home, and it felt rude to leave. I set down the peeler. When our oldest was a baby I stopped seeing my friend Carol for almost a year. Not because Tom asked. Because I thought a good wife stayed in. When I finally called Carol she said, you went quiet on me, and I let you. That sentence still stings. The friends you keep while you are in love are the ones who are still there when love gets ordinary.

Hand over money with nothing written down

Kelsey had paid his half of the deposit on the house. Also his phone bill, twice. She said it was fine, he would get her back. Maybe he will. A reader named Diane F., 52, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, wrote me last spring. She had loaned her boyfriend eleven thousand dollars over three years, all in cash, all from kindness. When they split he said it had been gifts. She had no paper. No account. Nothing. She was not angry at him, she said. She was angry at herself for not writing one line in a notebook. Love does not need a contract, but money does, even between people who trust each other.

Apologize for things she did not do

Kelsey said sorry to me eleven times in one visit. Sorry for taking my time. Sorry the ladder was heavy. Sorry she talked too much. I started counting on my fingers and showed her. She laughed, then she said he gets annoyed when she apologizes too, so she apologizes for that. I did this for years. Tom would be in a mood about work and I would say sorry, as if I had caused the mood. One day our middle one, maybe nine years old, asked me what I did wrong. I had no answer. A woman who apologizes for the weather teaches a man that everything is her fault.

Do all the housework to prove she is worth keeping

She has been getting up early to make his lunch, doing his laundry, and cleaning the bathroom he uses before he wakes up. He has not asked. She wants him to see she is a good partner. I understand that completely. I also know how it ends. In our first apartment I did every dish for two years and then blew up one Tuesday over a coffee mug. Tom was honestly confused. He said, you never told me you minded. He was right. Doing everything quietly does not earn a man’s respect, it just teaches him where the dishes go.

Cancel her own plans every time he calls

Her sister had tickets to a concert. Her boyfriend called that afternoon and said he was tired and wanted company. She stayed home. She did not sound sad telling me. She sounded like she thought that was what a good girlfriend does. I thought of a Saturday in our second year of marriage when I skipped my mother’s canning day because Tom wanted to watch the game with me. He did not even remember asking. I remembered missing the tomatoes. Plans with other people are not placeholders until a man needs you.

Lie to her own family about him

Kelsey’s mother does not like the boyfriend. So Kelsey tells her mother small things. He has a steady job. He goes to church sometimes. Neither is quite true. I asked her who she would call at two in the morning if something went wrong. She said her mother. I said then your mother needs the real story. I once told my mother Tom and I were doing fine during a stretch when we were not. When it got bad enough that I needed her, I had to unsay all of it first. The people you lie to for him are the same people you will need if it falls apart.

Give up something big without saying it out loud

This one came on the third visit, and it came quietly. She wants children. He has said he probably does not. She said she could maybe be fine with that. I did not tell her what to decide. That is not my place. I did tell her about a friend of mine who agreed to no kids at twenty seven and spent her forties grieving something she had never said out loud to her husband. He did not know. She had kept it inside to keep the peace. A thing that size cannot be a secret you keep from the person you are building a life with.

Wait around for him to make up his mind

He is not sure if he wants to stay in this town. Or in this house. Or, Kelsey said very softly, in this relationship. He has been not sure for about a year. She has stopped applying for the job across the state because what if he decides. I have watched this happen to friends. One waited six years for a man to be sure. He was sure the day he left. A man who cannot decide has decided, and the answer is that you are the one left holding the question.

Quit the work she loves because it makes him uncomfortable

Kelsey teaches swim lessons at the Y. Some of the other instructors are men. Her boyfriend does not love that. She has thought about switching to the front desk. A reader named Ruth A., 67, from Spokane, Washington, wrote me after I mentioned this kind of thing in another post. She had left a nursing job she loved in 1983 because her husband did not like her night shifts. She never went back. He left in 1991 anyway. She wrote, I gave up the thing that was mine to keep a thing that was never really mine. Work that feeds you is not a bargaining chip for a man’s comfort.

Make excuses for his temper

She mentioned he threw a plate. Not at her, she was quick to say. Just at the wall. He was stressed about money. I stopped peeling. I told her plainly that I am not a counselor and I will not pretend to be one. I also told her that a thrown plate is not about money, and that if it ever becomes about her, there are people who answer the phone all night and know exactly what to do. She nodded and changed the subject. I let her. But I wrote it on the board in bigger letters than the rest. Explaining away a man’s anger does not make it smaller, it only makes you quieter.

Let him be the only one who knows how things work

He pays the bills online. He knows the passwords. He set up the car insurance. She said it was nice not to think about it. I made her a cup of coffee and told her about the winter Tom had his gallbladder out. For nine days I could not find the account for the mortgage. I did not know the name of our propane company. I was forty years old and standing in my own kitchen like a guest. After that we sat down and wrote it all in a binder. It is still in the drawer by the phone. A woman should be able to run her own life for a month without asking a man where anything is.

Cover for his drinking

On her fourth visit she said he had called in sick on a Monday because of Sunday night. She had made the call for him. Her voice was casual. Mine was not. Tom’s cousin drank for twenty years, and his wife covered every single Monday until she could not. By then it was so much bigger than one phone call. I told Kelsey what I tell everybody. If a man’s drinking is a problem, that is a problem for a doctor or a program or a hotline, and a girlfriend cannot be any of those things. Making the call for him is not kindness, it is giving the problem one more week to grow.

Skip her own checkups to drive him to his

He had a dentist appointment, so she took the morning off and drove him. She has not seen a doctor herself in three years. I asked why. She said it felt selfish to take two mornings. I have done this exact math. For most of the years our kids were small I made sure Tom and all three children saw the dentist twice a year. I went when something hurt. Our youngest found an old appointment card for me from four years back and asked if I was still alive. Driving everyone else to the doctor is not the same as going.

Chase him when he goes quiet

He goes silent for a day or two sometimes. During those days she texts more, cooks more, asks more. Teresa M., 44, from Mobile, Alabama, wrote me about her first marriage. She said, when he pulled back I leaned in, and when I leaned in he pulled back further, and we did that for eight years. I know this dance. Tom gets quiet when something is wrong at work. For years I would chase. Now I say, I am here when you want to talk, and I go read on the porch. He comes out sooner than he used to. A man who goes quiet needs room, and a woman who fills the room gives him nowhere to come back to.

Fix things between him and his mother

His mother calls, and he does not pick up, so his mother calls Kelsey. Kelsey smooths it over. She buys the birthday card. She signs his name. I did this for about a decade with Tom and his father. One Christmas I was tired and did not send the card. Tom’s father called Tom directly. They talked for an hour. It was the best conversation they had had in years, and I had been standing in the way of it the whole time with my nice stationery. His family is his to tend, and a woman who tends it for him keeps him from learning how.

Remember everything for him

She keeps his schedule in her phone. His sister’s birthday. His oil change. His mother’s doctor appointment. He forgets, and she catches it, and he thanks her, and she feels useful. I felt useful too. For most of my marriage I was the one who knew everything. When our youngest left for college I realized I was still reminding Tom to call his own brother. I stopped. He missed two birthdays the first year. He has not missed one since. Carrying a man’s whole calendar in your head leaves no room in there for your own.

Change how she looks on his say so

He mentioned he liked her hair longer. She is growing it out. He said once that red was not her color. She gave the red sweater to a thrift shop. These are small. I know they are small. I grew my hair long for Tom in our first year, and I hated it, and I looked like a woman I did not recognize. He noticed I was unhappy before he ever noticed the hair. He said cut it, I married you, not the hair. A man’s opinion on your looks is one opinion, and it should not be louder than the one in the mirror.

Pretend to like what she does not like

He puts hot sauce on everything, so she does too. He plays a certain kind of music in the car, so she sings along. She told me she cannot stand the music. I laughed, because Tom thinks I love his westerns. I have never loved his westerns. He found out at our twentieth anniversary dinner when our oldest let it slip. He was more hurt by the twenty years of pretending than he would have been by the truth on day one. Liking everything he likes does not make you easy to love, it makes you hard to know.

Shrink what she wants out of her own life

She used to talk about a trip to Ireland. She has family there she has never met. She does not talk about it anymore because he does not want to fly. She did not say she gave it up. She said it was not a big deal. I have learned that when a woman says something is not a big deal, in that tone, it was a big deal. I wanted to see the ocean for twenty years before I made Tom drive me there. It took two days of driving and he grumbled the whole way. We go every October now. A dream you stop saying out loud does not disappear, it just goes somewhere you cannot reach it.

Stay because of the years she already spent

On Saturday she said, we have been together four years, that has to mean something. I told her four years means you spent four years. That is all it means. It does not buy the fifth. My sister stayed in a bad relationship for a long time because of the years. She told me later the years were the reason she stayed and the reason she regrets staying. I am not saying Kelsey should leave. I am not saying anyone should. I do not know her life. But time already spent is not a reason to spend more of it, and nobody gets the old years back by adding new ones.

I erased the board on Sunday night. Tom came in from the garage and asked what all that had been. I told him it was a list for the girl two doors down. He read what was left in the corner, the part about the westerns, and he said, you really do not like them. I said no. He put one on anyway. I sat with him and read my book, and he did not mind. Kelsey still has our ladder, which is fine. I think she will bring it back when she is ready to talk again. What is the one thing you did for a man that you would tell a younger woman to skip?