I ran into “Jackass” Friday at a buy fresh workshop. Here’s his picture:
He mentioned he and his wife hadn’t seen us for awhile (it’s been two years). I’m not sure what to do with him them relationally. He suggested we needed to get together again.
Every time we are with them- Virtually every time “Jackass” will say some form of …”It’s too bad you are here (meaning me ) …MM (my wife) is who I really enjoy seeing“. 😉 (or some variation of that statement)
We’ve known this couple for 8 years. He’s a 60 year old hippie, been married a time or two….he’s a big flirt with every attractive woman he sees…not just my wife… to be perfectly honest, for the first 5 years we knew them, I thought to myself..he’s harmless enough..that’s just “Jackass.”
Scripture talks about how the words we use are an index of our heart…both good and bad…we give others a glimpse into our hearts by what we talk about.
Anyway, 3 years ago, in another friendship we had as a couple…I kept insisting that the boyfriend of my wife’s good friend was an out and out pervert. Guys can pick up on things in other men, I swear women are sometimes blind to. My wife wasn’t so sure, so I had to bite my tongue, so not to rock the boat. One day my wife comes home and says…”You were right about Wilbur. He is a creep. He tried to kiss two women who stayed over night @ so and so’s house.”
I wept from the pent up turmoil I’d been carrying for over a year.
My wife and I had a heart to heart talk, we both agreed “Jackass” while not cut out of the same cloth as Wilbur, was a flirt. Why submit our marriage to that? So we backed off. It was hard because we did enjoy his wife’s company.
Have you ever had to deal with this sort of thing?
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I wrote that post in 2008 . It touched a chord. Had 22 people comment.
Yesterday, I ran into Steve as I was coming out of a local gas station. I have been listening to his flirtatious comments toward my wife for 40 years, writing him off as another harmless jackass.
(Every single time I run into Steve, he has something to say, and it happens at least twice a year. (At my wife’s last class reunion a year ago, he tried to kiss her on the cheek). Couple of years ago,our daughter K ran into Steve uptown. She called our place to tell us, Steve and she had talked, and he told her, he was her mom’s first kiss. You get the idea. Harmless, but, non stop.)
Steve was just coming in the automatic door as I was leaving.
I knew it was coming..some, comment about my wife, I knew I needed to suck it up, write it off as harmless….
Sure enough…
“Tell your cute wife I said “hi”.”
I looked at him and before I could say, twinkle twinkle little star, a breaker must have tripped in my brain. I could hear myself saying “I don’t like it. Every single time you have to make some comment.”
He looked at me, I could see his brain was trying to process what was going on. I wasn’t smiling, I wasn’t joking, I was dead serious. We stepped back out of the entry so the door would shut, and continued the conversation for another 3 minutes. (It ended on good note.)
Wife and I have been married now for 40 plus years. We’ve talked about the Steve’s and the Jacks, and the Wilbur’s and Tony’s, when they’ve crossed our paths for any length of time.
In a long term healthy relationship, there has to be room to have these sort of conversations.
Have you ever had to deal with this sort of thing? Would love to hear your thoughts. DM