Member-only story

My Husband Thought He Was Being Funny

But gender jokes hurt marriages

Colleen Sheehy Orme
3 min readAug 7, 2021

I walk into our office and my husband hangs up the phone with a look of panic.

“Someone stole our credit card,” he says. “They charged things in like four departments at Nordstrom in less than an hour.”

“Yeh, no one stole our card,” I say. “That was me.”

My husband told that story for years. Each time thinking it was funnier. And it was. However, it morphed from a one-time humorous event — into the wife stereotypically shopping and overspending.

He never told the rest of the story.

Our first son was just a few months old and we were having his Christening. I ran to the mall to get what we needed. He was super fussy so I strolled and strolled to no avail.

I finally gave up and was ready to head home.

But then he fell asleep.

I raced to the baby department, then to women’s, then to shoes, and then to the men’s department. I was quite proud of myself, I was able to get all of our outfits quickly and accomplish what I set out to do.

Success in the new mother event planning arena.

Even if a credit card company followed it up with a call.

--

--

Colleen Sheehy Orme
Colleen Sheehy Orme

Written by Colleen Sheehy Orme

National Relationship Columnist, Journalist & Former Business Columnist. I cover love, life, & relationships— #WomanResurrected colleen.sheehy.orme@gmail.com

Responses (6)