The Biggest Fight We Ever Had

Cassanda and I often reflect on what I consider to be the biggest fight we ever had, it lasted a year or more and was all about a floor, rhyming intentional.  I’m a pretty solid carpet guy, whatever that means, and Cassanda is pretty solid about not wanting carpet under her kitchen table.  When we moved in, and for years afterward, there was carpet underneath where the kitchen table sat.  You can imagine the size and number of stains we get on all of our carpet with all of these little boys, but the stains under the table were significantly more so.

Needless to say, but I’m going to say it anyway, Cassanda wanted to remove the carpet, and put in a hardwood floor.  I on the other hand, did not.  I think Cassanda’s reasons are pretty clear, and to not be petty here, I won’t enumerate my 15 reasons for not wanting it.

So, for about a year, we had this discussion back and forth which went something like this:

Cassanda: “Can we get a hardwood floor?  I don’t like having the carpet here.”

Jacob: “I don’t want hardwood floor and here are the 15 reason why.”

This conversation happened like a hundred times.  Finally being the good husband I am (note: if I was actually a good husband, this wouldn’t have taken a year), I let her get the hardwood floor.  Only in the kitchen area, however, not the front room as well, which she wanted.  I’m happy to say that once the new floor was installed, my list of 15 reasons dropped to about 18 reasons, I thought of several more reasons I hadn’t realized until the floor was in.

I learned a few things from this experience that I should have known sooner.  Here they are if you need them too:

1. If your wife needs or wants something that will make her happier, and it is reasonable, don’t stand in the way.
2. There are a lot more important things than floors.
3. The happiness of your wife is more important that your own happiness, trust me.

Overall, this fell into the same category as the toilet seat argument.  I had a bunch of well thought out reasoned arguments for that one too, and in the end, Cassanda gave me the one counter argument that I couldn’t overcome when she said “do it because you love me.”