Wednesday's Story

I ripped this story out of a church magazine in 1993. It seems just like the other day! This was before I was married. I still have the ripped out page in a file and refer back to it a lot. If only I could remember this story's lesson a little more often!

The Grapefruit Syndrome

My husband and I had been married about two years - long enough for me to realize that he was a normal man rather than a knight on a white charger - when I read a magazine article recommending that married couples schedule regular talks to discuss, truthfully and candidly, the habits or mannerisms they find annoying in each other. The theory was that if the partners knew of such annoyances, they could correct them before resentful feelings developed.

It made sense to me. I talked with my husband about the idea. After some hesitation, he agreed to give it a try.

As I recall, we were to name five things we found annoying, and I started off. After more that fifty years, I remember only my first complaint: grapefruit. I told him that I didn't like the way he ate grapefruit. He peeled it and ate it like an orange! Nobody else I knew ate grapefruit like that. Could a girl be expected to spend a lifetime, and even eternity, watching her husband eat grapefruit like an orange? although I have forgotten them, I'm sure the rest of my complaints were similar.

After I finished, it was his turn to tell the things he disliked about me. Though it has been more than half a century, I still carry a mental image of my husband's handsome young face as he gathered his brows together in a thoughtful, puzzled frown and then looked at me with his large blue-gray eyes and said, "Well, to tell you the truth, I can't think of anything I don't like about you, Honey."

Gasp!

I quickly turned my back, because I didn't know how to explain the tears that had filled my eyes and were running down my face. I had found fault with him over such trivial things as the way he ate grapefruit, while he hadn't even noticed any of my peculiar and no doubt annoying ways.

I wish I could say that this experience completely cured me of fault finding. It didn't. But it did make me aware early in my marriage that husbands and wives need to keep in perspective, and usually ignore, the small differences in their habits and personalities. Whenever I hear of married couples being incompatible, I always wonder if they are suffering from what I now call the Grapefruit Syndrome.

Although this story speaks of a married couple's relationship, the lesson learned can be applied to all relationships. I always tell people when the subject arises that Big Mister and I don't argue much...and it's because he is much like the husband in this story. Maybe I am not giving myself any credit...we really don't argue and rarely have disagreements. However, I really have a ways to go as I suffer a bit of the Grapefruit Syndrome!