Love and irritation: how little things can drive you INSANE

As husbands go, mine is a good one – loving, generous and fun to be with. He can build a fence and do the BAS. He folds laundry while watching cricket. He gets up to sick kids in the night and knows I prefer lemon cake to chocolate.

But of course there’s a grey underbelly to this rosy domestic picture.

Jim likes to sing as he goes about his tasks, and (not to put too fine a point on it) it’s giving me the screaming shits. It’s not that he has a bad voice – it’s pretty good – it’s the material that irks. He likes to make up little ditties about whatever he’s doing. For example, if he’s making the kids’ breakfast, he’ll add his own lyrics to the tune of Michael Jackson’s ‘Blame it on the Boogie.’ So we’ll get a ditty that goes, ‘Don’t blame it on the Weet-Bix, don’t blame it on the Cheerios.’

It was kind of sweet the first time (8 years ago) but now even the kids are rolling their eyes.  Most daily activities have a song to accompany them, and the repertoire is rarely updated.

Recently, (and I thought, quite nicely) I told Jim I find the songs annoying and would he please wind them back a little? Imagine my shock when he said, ‘No. I like singing my songs. You should just put up with them. I put up with heaps of annoying things you do.’

‘Like what?’ This was incredible. I couldn’t possibly do anything as annoying as his mutated singing.

‘Like how you are always leaving drawers open,’ he said.

It’s true. I leave drawers open all the time. Doors too. Jim says living with me can be like the scene in The Sixth Sense when Toni Collette leaves the kitchen for 2 seconds and turns around to find every cupboard and drawer hanging open. Except it’s me opening them, not the undead, but you get the picture.

Of course I’ve noticed that Jim closes drawers I’ve left open, but I never imagined he minded. If he did, surely he’d say something? I would. I do. I’m being helpful in pointing out the things that annoy me, otherwise how would he know? I do it for the good of our marriage!  Why didn’t do the same? His answer floored me:

‘You can’t help leaving things open. It’s part of who you are, and because I love you, I accept it. I’m prepared to close drawers after you for the rest of my life. Similarly, you should just deal with my songs.’

They never mentioned this in marriage preparation classes did they? Silly singing and compulsive failure to shut things didn’t make it onto Father Peter’s PowerPoint presentation. But it’s an issue for many couples. As the song goes (until my husband gets hold of it), from little things, big things grow. One day you’re fed up with the Chux left in the bottom of the sink, and the next you’re Googling divorce lawyers.

On balance, I reckon I’m lucky. I’m going to focus on the positives and tell myself a basketful of folded clothes is worth a couple of verses of ‘Undies and Boardshorts,’ sung to the tune of, ‘Under the Boardwalk’.

Does your partner have a benign but irritating habit? Do you tune out or ask them to shape up? And does he or she endure your less-than-endearing quirks in loving silence?