the true measure of a couple's compatibility and the strength of their marriage can be gleaned by their response to this three-word phrase: home improvement project
some shudder. some cry. some get angry and vow never again. some just laugh.
face it, with half of all marriages ending in divorce, someone at home depot needs to come up with a better slogan than "you can do it. we can help." unless they also plan to start offering couples therapy and cheap divorce lawyers.
maybe it's just because men and women are so different in their approach to life (and a project) that even having a store like home depot just deepens the line drawn in the sand between the sexes.
i spent a better part of my morning in home depot as you may have guessed. hubby and i had a reason to be in the store, we were picking up supplies to finish our master bedroom, bath and closet makeover. sadly, ty pennington and carter oosterhouse were not a part of this home makeover, although their presence would have certainly made things more enjoyable for me.
it started out routinely enough, we entered together pushing a cart with our list in hand. i'm not sure what evil force field lurks beyond those sliding doors but by the time we were ready to leave the store, we're ready to go aisle 9 to pick up a pick axe and finish each other off.
the funny thing is it's not just us that this strange phenomena happens to -- today, i witnessed at least 3 other couples who were ready to see judge judy for dissolution of their marriage. friends have told me similar stories of how they simply refuse to go into that store with their spouse. home depot has morphed into the great orange divide.
maybe its the way the store is divided between "contractor" and "home" that begins the tension. my husband left me in the paint department to just go check out a miterbox. it's not needed for our project today but i like walking through the kitchen cabinet section to dream about things i cannot have, so he have his few minutes alone to wonder how great life would be with this miterbox at his side.
with list in hand, i continued picking up items on it. when i got to the bottom of the list i realized wow, he's been gone quite awhile. my next thought is, this can only end badly.
as i whipped out my cell phone to use as a tracking device, i shuddered in panic. we had been in the store for almost two hours. i sincerely believe that the amount of frustration that a project absorbs is directly proportional to the amount of time spent procuring supplies in the pre-planning stages. we planned to be working in confined spaces for the next two days -- if he was pissed at me he'd go to taco bell and try to asphyxiate me while i painted the bathroom.
i dialed his number feverishly. no answer. oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. we were now entering into the "where the hell were you" stage of shopping. it didn't matter who went where...we both left the spots where we had last been seen. now it was just a matter of getting the words out first and with the proper finger point and exasperated facial expression.
in my journey to cover the monster warehouse aisle by aisle in search of him, i kept running into another couple deep in the throes of home depot-itis. they bickered as their anklebiters climbed all over their cart of plants and mulch. they traded snide remarks that i couldn't hear but could tell it wasn't pretty by the curled lips and bared teeth.
taking on a home improvement project just amplifies the normal human response to conflict. it has all the best elements to break a marriage:
+ to fights over the cost of the project (you spent how much over budget?),
+ to battles over who wins final say when a couple is in disagreement (sorry, we are not painting the kitchen yellow),
+ to struggles over work ethic (get up off yer ass and help me, would you?).
a home improvement project is like a soap opera -- c'mon, why do you think the steady surge of television programming in this genre? it's not because people are suddenly interested in paint colors and shag carpeting. it's for the conflict, silly.
a good project has all of this drama and a still has room for a pleasant result in the end. and for the couples who can eventually find humor during the process, well, they have the longest staying power there is.
before i got married, my husband and i had to take pre cana classes where a pregnant woman taught birth control and a priest talked about relationships. now either she didn't practice what she preached or her methods were suspect. regardless, i had volunteered at planned parenthood long enough to know what's what. but the single priest trying to tell me how to be a better partner? this is like me teaching a cooking class -- neither of us are qualified to give any advice in these areas.
but just think, instead of those wasted hours learning the rhythm method of birth control -- which has a failure rate somewhere near the rate of marriage survival -- what if there were field trips to home depot instead? what if that weekend was spent doing a home improvement project to test a couples' compatibility, to see if two people can work side by side, crammed into a tiny room, ripping up carpet, painting and installing new windows? finding misplaced tools, screaming for help when something lands on your foot? all of the homework could be completed for habitat for humanity and maybe some couples would learn a little more about each other than they originally thought they knew.
as for me, my hubby and i play the game so well. we both got the "where the hell were yous" out at the same time and we both had stinky lunches. thankfully, our bedroom - bath - closet home makeover is almost complete.
just as soon as that green cloud dissipates.
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