Are any of your girlfriends married to obnoxious husbands? Or do you ever run across couples while you’re out and about and witness an exchange between them that makes you think, “Wow. That guy’s really obnoxious. How does she put up with him?”
I have a couple of friends who are married to husbands who would be too much for me. They’re nice enough guys, and they love their wives to pieces (which is how I’ve determined my friends put up with them), but I couldn’t do it. My personality would clash with theirs.
Because of my experiences with my friends, however, I generally give obnoxious strangers the benefit of the doubt. I assume the husband must dote on his wife mercilessly and cater to her every whim with abandon. She must see the obnoxiousness as an endearing flaw.
But the other day I witnessed such obnoxious behavior the only way I could reconcile it was I thought it must surely be a joke. Turns out it wasn’t.
The Obnoxious Honker
It was a pleasantly warm Friday afternoon. Just right for me to sit in the shade on the back deck while Murph sunbaked on the lawn.
I was contentedly writing and Murph was contentedly snoozing. One of our across the street neighbors came home a little earlier than usual. She parked in her driveway and got out with Target bags in hand. I figured she must have taken a half day and had done a little shopping.
About an hour later, her husband pulls up. But she’d parked a little too far over and he wasn’t able to pull up alongside her in the drive like he normally does.
So he honked. No big deal. I figured she must be expecting him.
But then he honked again. And again. And again. Then he laid on the horn and gave it a good thirty second blast.
After five minutes of incessant honking, I figured he’d give up, go inside, and either tell her she needed to move her car or get the keys and do it himself.
I thought wrong.
He had been parked in front of their house with his car facing opposite of traffic. He pulled up, circled around the little cul-de-sac and parked in front of the house so his car was now right with traffic on that side of the street.
“Great. He’s finally going to go in.”
Nope. He set about honking again.
By this point both Murph and I were annoyed. He was wrecking the quiet and calm we’d been enjoying.
He didn’t care. He was solely focused on getting his wife’s attention.
Why he didn’t use a cell phone to let her know he was out front, I don’t know. Why he didn’t get out of the car and tell her the problem, I also don’t know.
All I know is he honked for 20 minutes straight (not an exaggeration) before she finally came out and moved her car.
I don’t know if it was a standoff between wills, or what. I just thought it was incredibly obnoxious and inconsiderate. Not only of his wife but of his neighbors.
Yet, they’re still married. I’m hoping it’s because he treats her well otherwise. In this case I wouldn’t know. I don’t know them and rarely see them out, but when I do, I don’t see him being particularly warm towards her.
I guess this case of an obnoxious husband will have to remain a mystery to me. I have no explanation for why the wife puts up with him. (But it did remind me of another blog I recently wrote where I expressed my view that men can be babies and demand more attention than women do. He was certainly proving this theory o’mine correct on this particular day.)
Courtney Mroch writes about animals great and small in Pets and the harmony and strife that encompasses married life in Marriage. For a full listing of her articles click here.
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Photo credit: Jenny Rollo, photographer. 
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