Off The Record
My Husband Told Me To Dance Like His Brother’s Wife — The Lesson I Taught Him Left Him Speechless
The delicate equilibrium of their marriage is upset when Jess’s worn-out devotion clashes with her husband’s degrading demand during a family meal. After that, Jason is forced to face a reality he can no longer deny during a night of reckoning marked by stillness, scathing remarks, and an unexpected ally.
I used to think that compromise, giving a little, taking a little, forgiving, and continuing on were the cornerstones of marriage. It looked easy enough, didn’t it?
During our vows, I told myself that, and I continued to repeat it to myself during the difficult years when life was too tight. However, Jason lost the equilibrium somewhere along the line. Or perhaps, if I’m being completely honest with myself, he was completely unaware of it.
I believed that I had my hubby figured out after six years of marriage. Together, we had three kids: a kindergartener, an elementary schooler, and an eight-month-old infant who continued to wake me up three times a night with cries of hunger.
During the day, I worked twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, answering codes that made my heart race, holding strangers’ hands as they slid away, and charting vitals until my handwriting became hazy.
By nightfall, I returned home to another shift, mountains of laundry that never seemed to go away, sticky fingerprints all over the place, boiling pots on the stove, and a newborn balancing on my hip while I refereed the older two.
What about Jason?
Earlier this year, he had lost his job. He initially presented it as “temporary” and assured everyone that he was waiting for the “right opportunity,” but as the weeks stretched into months, he continued to sit at home and idly browse job boards, telling me that looking for a job was a full-time job in and of itself while I dragged myself through the door, smelling of sweat and antiseptic.
In the meantime, I was pushing myself to the limit, getting by on coffee and sheer willpower, my body hurting and my heart growing more and more hollow every day.
I had waited. Too long, too patient.
Ruth, my mother-in-law, adored celebrating her birthday. She actually loved family get-togethers, and her birthday meal was no exception. She would prepare a feast that would resemble Thanksgiving fare, and she would be beaming the whole time.
The aroma of roasted turkey, cinnamon, pumpkin pie, and vanilla sponge filled the dining room this year. With family crammed shoulder to shoulder and mismatched seats, the long table nearly reached the wall.
While cousins cried after them and the parents tried to speak over the commotion, the children screamed and ran down the corridor. It was a warm supper, the sort where the clatter of plates and the rise and fall of chatter filled the home, but it was also raucous and chaotic.
Jason pushed my arm just as I was getting comfortable with my plate.
He whispered, “You forgot the salt,”
Without saying a word, I handed it over, suppressing the thought that I had prepared dinner three nights in a row while he “rested.”
Leo, Jason’s brother, reclined back in his chair halfway through the lunch, his voice easily overpowering the din. Chrissy, his wife, was sitting next to him, looking stunning in her neon workout attire, her blond hair bouncing when she laughed. She hadn’t bothered to change before dinner, and I didn’t understand why.
“You know what Chrissy’s been up to?” With a dramatic thrust of his fork into the air, Leo asked. “She has been taking Zumba classes! And you know what? Every night after class, she does a dance for me. I just want to mention that my wife definitely keeps me amused.”
The men clinked their glasses and bottles together as they yelled with laughter. Chrissy’s eyes glistened with pride, but she covered her face with her handkerchief as she giggled.
“Every night?” Paul, their cousin, made fun of them. “Man, you’re spoiled.”
“What can I say?” Leo puffed up his chest and laughed. “She’s got the energy for it.”
The remarks hurt, but I faked a kind grin. Vitality. The only thing I had lost was that. My feet itched from wearing compression socks for twelve hours, my body hurt from working double shifts, and the thought of coming home and dancing for my husband felt like a cruel and humiliating joke.
Jason didn’t chuckle. Rather, with an intensity that made my stomach turn, he leaned forward. As though Leo had just given him the key to happiness, his eyes were wide and almost eager.
He slammed his fork down so forcefully that the entire table was silent, then swallowed the remainder of his beer in a single swallow.
He screamed, “Hey, Jess!” in a voice that cut through the laughs.
My fork was halfway to my mouth when I froze.
“Why can’t you dance for me every night like Chrissy does for Leo?” Jason’s voice echoed across the table as he demanded. “What it means to be a woman has entirely slipped your mind. You only bother me about the kids and work. I would get an obnoxious roommate if I so desired. Maybe I’ll find it elsewhere if you don’t start providing for my needs, Jess.”
There was silence in the room. Glasses stopped in mid-flight, forks stopped halfway to mouths, and even the cousins stopped playing games in the hallway as if the air had frozen.
He went on, “Why aren’t you like Chrissy?”
I looked at him, certain for a moment that it must be a joke, that he would smile and dismiss it. Jason, however, did not chuckle. I could tell he meant every word as he simply gazed at me with the same piercing gaze.
My cheeks burned as heat slowly made its way up my neck. In my ears, my heartbeat thudded. Leo, on the other side of the table, smiled like the devil himself and began humming “Dance Monkey,” which gave my humiliation a vicious beat.
Ruth whispered, “Jason,” as she lowered her hand to her lap. “That… that isn’t fair.”
Chrissy’s smile wavered as she shifted in her chair.
“Leo, stop,” she commanded him. His grin, however, simply got bigger.
Every set of eyes was on me, watching to see if I would sit quietly or laugh it off. Something inside of me exploded as my pride and fatigue clashed.
I carefully put down my fork, cleared my throat, and looked directly into my husband’s eyes.
“Why? Jason, I’m not sure. Perhaps it is because after spending twelve hours on my feet, I have to make supper, feed three children, clean the kitchen, fold mountains of clothes, scrub bathrooms, rock a baby to sleep, and then collapse into bed at midnight. In the meantime, my pitiful spouse sits on the couch as if he were affixed to it. If I run myself into the ground and don’t have the energy to shake it for you, please pardon me.”
Like a razor, the words sliced through the room.
Nobody moved until Jason’s loud-mouthed brother Mark slapped the table so forcefully that the gravy dish shook and started laughing. With a hard scrape of his chair, Jason pushed back from the table and walked away without saying another word, his face drained of color.
“Good riddance,” I said to myself.
Even so, my heart continued to race in my ears as I followed him out into the cool evening air, nearly drowning out the crickets humming around the porch’s edge. The door was open, letting in the warmth of the house, yet the air outside was chilly and sharp against my red face.
“What the hell was that, Jason?” I went onto the porch and demanded, my voice tighter than I meant to be.
He whirled so quickly that the rage etched on his face was illuminated by the porch light.
“Nice job embarrassing me in front of my family, Jess,” he said. “You made me look like an idiot.”
I stared at him, and before I could stop myself, the words began to flow.
“I made you appear foolish? Jason, you made me feel ashamed! In front of everyone, you called me out like a circus performance. Why did you do it?”
With a finger stabbed at me, he shot back, “You didn’t have to blow up,” “You could have dismissed it with a joke. You might have assured me that you would dance for me. Rather, you made the entire meal uncomfortable.”
“Awkward?” I threw my hands in the air as I spoke. “You said that if I didn’t dance for you, you would ‘find it somewhere else’. Are you even able to hear yourself?” “Are you even aware of your voice?”
My husband turned to face the car, his jaw clinched.
“Jess, get the kids. We are going,” he declared plainly.
Long silences and angry comments filled the drive home. In front of his family, he claimed that I had undermined him and degraded his dignity. As he sat at home, I accused him of never seeing me and of never realizing how much I carried on my shoulders.
“Jason, do you think I don’t want to have fun? By the time the kids go to sleep, do you think I like being too exhausted to breathe?” I yelled.
“You don’t understand,” he said, his fingers whitened by the streetlights as he tightened his hold on the driving wheel.
We had stopped talking by the time we pulled into the driveway. Like a storm cloud, that silence followed us inside. As we drove home, I couldn’t stop thinking about my children’s terrified looks.
Being heard seemed more essential in that time. However, I now understood that Jason and I had caused them to experience a fresh trauma.
He slept with his back to me that night and said nothing. Angry and guilty, I lay up staring at the ceiling, wondering if I had wrecked Ruth’s birthday meal or if Jason had finally passed a boundary from which there was no turning back.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand at around midnight. Ruth had left a message.
“Well done, Jess, for pointing him out. He was completely out of line. I feel ashamed to have brought him up.”
I was so stunned that I blinked. I had never been particularly close to Ruth. She wasn’t always in agreement with me regarding my children, and she loved her sons intensely, sometimes blindly. However, this—this was novel.
Another bubble popped up before I could type a response.
“Unless you give them a true lesson, men like Jason don’t learn. Would you like me to teach him one?”
I repeatedly read the words while I gazed at the screen. Would Ruth, of all people, agree to side with me in opposing her son? This was not like the others.
I hovered my fingers and then hesitantly typed back. It was unclear to me whether this was a trap.
“I’m happy you feel that way, Ruth. However, it depends on the type of lesson.”
Her response came at once.
“Come along, Jess. Act as though you’ve given it some serious thought. and that you’ve made the decision to grant him his wish. Let me then reveal the surprise.”
After the children had gone to sleep two nights later, I dimmed the lights in the living room and put on a romantic, mellow playlist that hummed through the speakers. Wandering in, Jason rubbed his eyes.
“I’m probably tired from sitting around all day,” I thought.
“What’s all this, Jess?” He inquired, but I could tell he already knew because of the sneer pulling at his mouth.
“I have a surprise for you, Jason,” I replied. My stomach twisted furiously, but I spoke steadily and calmly.
He exclaimed, “Finally!” as his eyes brightened. “You need to start behaving like a wife once more. I’m really excited to boast to my brothers. Leo won’t be aware of what struck him.”
I smiled and allowed my hips to swing a little as I turned off the final bulb, even though his comments felt like a slap in the face. As he waited for his private performance, he reclined back on the couch with a smug air.
The front door then opened.
With her coat still buttoned, Ruth entered the room, her steel-sharp eyes shifting from me to her son.
With his face flushed, Jason jumped up and down.
“Mom?” “Why in the world are you here?” he inquired.
Ruth did not recoil. Jason looked like a kid caught red-handed as she moved deeper into the room with such composure. She settled on the recliner, crossed her legs properly, and held up a firm hand to indicate me.
She remarked, “Don’t stop on my account, son,” “All OK. You wanted to dance every night with your wife? Let’s check it out. Show me the kind of man I brought up.”
His mouth fell open, and he looked from me to his mother.
“Mom, this isn’t —”
“No,” Ruth interrupted him with firmness. That’s precisely what it is. While you sit and mope, your wife works long hours caring for sick people, returns home to raise your three children, and manages to keep this house from collapsing. And like a showgirl, you insist that she dance for you? Do you believe that marriage is like that?
His words, “I didn’t mean it like that,” “It was just a joke, I —”
“You meant it exactly like that,” Ruth yelled. Even though she spoke calmly, every word had a sharp edge. And I feel embarrassed. At the dinner table, a true guy would never make fun of his wife. When his girlfriend sacrifices herself for the family, a true man doesn’t treat her like entertainment.
The ensuing hush was oppressive. In the dense silence, I could hear every sound, including the tick of the wall clock and the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Jason moved from foot to foot, his hands twitching at his sides as his face heated scarlet. As though to argue, his mouth moved back and forth, but nothing came out.
Ruth leaned forward, her eyes never leaving his, and I watched him, my chest constricted.
“Jason, you wanted a dance class? Okay, you learned your lesson. Your wife deserves far more than to be made fun of for everything she does, and respect is worth more than boasting privileges.”
For the first time in a long time, Jason had nothing to say, so he swallowed hard, his face white and stunned.
After Ruth left, he hardly said anything. His pride was bruised in front of the two ladies who knew him the best, and he went to bed silently. The silence between us was odd and oppressive as I lay awake next to him. For the first time, I felt as though he, rather than me, was bearing the burden of guilt.
He was in the kitchen the following morning, pouring porridge for the children. As he spoke, his gaze remained fixed on the bowl.
“Jess, you’re correct. Mom is also correct. I have been behaving foolishly.”
I was so surprised that I nearly dropped the baby’s bottle.
“Jason, did you just admit that I was right?” Half-shocked, half-teasing, I asked.
“Don’t rub it in, Jess,” he sighed. “I know I messed up.”
The words were true but frail as they lingered between us.
Something changed in the ensuing weeks. Jason started to assist, slowly and carefully. In addition to packing lunches and folding laundry, he once prepared dinner, though the pasta turned out sticky and the sauce was thin.
One day, our daughter Ava asked her father, “Daddy, are you helping Mommy now?”
“Yes, honey,” was his response. “It’s about time, huh?”
He didn’t say “dancing” again. The word seemed to unnerve him, if nothing else.
A miracle metamorphosis did not occur. He was still Jason—obstinate, arrogant, and even careless—but the guilt persisted because he had recognized himself in Ruth’s eyes.
And I didn’t feel invisible for the first time in a long time. Something had changed that night. Our union wasn’t a theatrical performance. It was a collaboration. Furthermore, he finally realized that I was his wife and not just his amusement.
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