How To Fight Like a Wife

by Lisa Emmerich

It was easy to tell myself I would pick my battles—harder to actually do so. After the wedding, he quit his job so I could work as a newspaper reporter in Florida. While I worked, he filled out a handful of job applications, swam laps in the pool at our apartment complex and served ball after ball on the tennis court. He acquired a tan; I comparison-shopped for the least expensive spaghetti sauce to keep us out of debt.

At the end of a long day at work, I came home to find him lounging on the couch. Laundry had piled up in our bedroom; dishes streaked with crumbs littered the living room; the toilet was ringed with grime—and why couldn’t he put his toothbrush in its holder rather than on the edge of the sink? I changed into comfier clothes, feeling the familiar anger bubbling.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Exactly!”