If communication is supposed to be the hallmark of a strong marriage, I think my husband and I are in trouble.  It’s not that we don’t talk to each other. We probably talk to each other too much.  Our communication problems aren’t about anything specific.  It’s mostly a lot of “this” and “that”.

Like the other night, when we were watching TV.  My husband suddenly starts waving his hand at me.

“Ssh,shh,shush!”

Now, I haven’t said a word, so he’s not shushing me. After all the years of being married to him, though, I know that shushing and hand waving while watching TV means “turn the volume down.”

I mute the television and I wait.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That sound,” he says.  I can hear the annoyance in his voice.

“Well, of course, it’s a sound,” I say, my annoyance equally apparent.  “If I was supposed to HEAR it; it must be a sound.”

“So, did you hear it?”

“Hear what?” I ask again.”

“If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t be asking you!”

“Could you narrow it down a little?  I mean, what kind of sound is it?”

“I don’t know.  It’s kind of…wait, there it is.  Did you hear it?”

“Well, let’s see.  I hear a hum from the TV.  The motor on the frig is running.  The furnace just went on.  Nic is snoring to wake the dead.  And, I think I heard one of the neighbors’ dogs barking.  Was it any of those sounds?”

“No.”

“Then I didn’t hear it.”

“Oh,” he says giving a shrug.  “Why is the TV on mute? I can’t hear it.”

It’s not just “that”, that is causing us trouble.  We’re also having problems with “this”.

At least once a day, we will have a conversation that goes something like, well, this.

“Do you know what this is?” my husband yells from another room.

“What what is?” I yell back from inside the dryer.

“This!” I still don’t know what it is but I can tell from his voice that he must be pointing.

“If I can’t see it, I can’t tell you what it is. Can you describe it?”

“Never mind.”

My favorite of these conversations, though, is when my husband is looking for a snack.

Staring into the snack cabinet, my husband let’s out a loud sigh.  “Do we have anymore of that stuff?”

“Which stuff?”

“That stuff we had the other night?”

I reach past him into the cabinet. “Do you mean this stuff?”

“No, that’s not the stuff?”

“Is it this stuff?” I say pulling out another bag.

“No, that’s not it either.”

“Do you remember what it was called?” I ask, growing tired of the hunt and the conversation.

“Never-mind,” he says with another sigh.  “I’ll just have some of that.”

I had him that last bag I took from the cabinet.

He sighs again. “No.  I meant this,” he says as he takes the first bag from my hands.

I think if we are going to make it through another 12 years, my husband and I better stick to using nouns.