The Grapefruit Syndrome
by Lola B. Walters (Link)
by Lola B. Walters (Link)
My husband and I had been married about two years—just 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 than 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 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.
