"Only a wife would say that!"

The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them: "Only a wife would say that!" They came so naturally and yet their effect was explosive. Let me explain: Occasionally, in the heat of conversation, you'll be explaining something and you'll quote a figure or state a fact that is not in itslef important, but you miss the mark recollecting the exact figure or fact and you blurt out something to support your point, then move on. No one but a pedant would sotp your flow and humiliate you in front of a group of people, but this voice pipes up: "No, that's not right. it's nearer to (whatever)..." And it is th melifluous tones of your beloved's voice. A sane man simply looks at his watch, shouts "IS that the time?" and rushes out of the room. An insane man says: "Only a wife would say that!" I am insane. I had to apologise like a bastard, thinking all the time "It's you who should be apologising." She was deeply hurt by the remark, perhaps because it hit home. Your best friend wouldn't do it, so why will a wife do it? Exercise compassion, Michael. Likely explanation: she realised what she had done and attacked me for saying something that humiliated her in public (the mirror image of what she had done to me). Often when we have a go at somedone for doing something, if we look back at ourselves we find that we have done the same thing and we're covering for ourselves. (The Bible says don't worry about the spec in your brother's eye, worry about the log in you own eye.) The fact is I humilated her in retaliation, without meaning to. It comes so easily to me to hurt her feelings, as it does to all of us. ("You always hurt the one you love..." goes the old song.) Why are we so cavalier with the feelings of those closest to us? Why can't we say all the praiseworthy things they do all the time?
Anyway, as luck would have it, a couple of days later she was in a position to say, "Only a husband would say that..." and we had a laugh. She's a wonderful woman because she's human and subject to human frailty. By sheer luck, so am I! We will stagger on together, wearing off the rough edges of each other to make the perfect partner, like it says in the book.