“Fine.”
A corner for married men
“Fine.”
He goes first
Sharlene came home and asked how my day was. I said I was fine.
Earlier that day a family member had followed up about money I had promised to return. I looked at my budget. It was not there.
What came over me was not embarrassment. It was guilt, and then something worse: if I cannot do this, am I providing anything at all? Am I failing my wife?
I did not ask her that. I did not have the courage to ask her that.
So I said fine, and I carried it, and we went to bed with it in the room. She knew something was wrong. She did not press. I lay there wondering how I could fail her. She lay there wondering what was wrong.
It was easier to say fine than to face the sense of failure I felt in that moment.
Joshua
Your turn. Nobody sees this.
When you say “fine”, what is usually true?
No name, no login, no email address. One tap.
Now guess the room.
Out of every 100 married men, how many answered the same way you did?
30%
050100
The room
8 men have answered this week.
These are the real answers from the men who opened this week. No name, no email address, no IP address is stored, and no cookie is set.
The turn
Fine is not a report. It is a door closed politely.
It is the most efficient word a man owns. One syllable, the conversation is over, nobody has been rude, and nothing has been said.
I have used it when I was tired. I have used it when I was ashamed. From the outside those two look identical, and that is the whole problem. She cannot tell them apart. So she has to guess, in the dark, lying next to me.
Here is what it costs. A woman can only be turned away at the door so many times before she stops knocking. And when she stops, the house goes quiet, and a man can mistake that quiet for peace.
It is not peace. It is a wife who has learned that asking gets her nothing.
And here is the part I am least proud of. I did not find my way out of it on my own. The next morning there was a devotion, and the topic happened to be the exact thing I was carrying, and only then could I say it out loud.
I needed a prompt. I could not get there without one.
So if there is something you have been calling fine, take this as the prompt. That is what it is for.
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. Proverbs 20:5, KJV
She has been drawing. The question is whether anything is coming up.
The rep
One rep. This week.
The next time she asks how your day was, do not say “fine”. Say one specific thing that happened, even a small one, and one word for how it left you.
Two sentences. You are not required to enjoy it.
5 men have logged this rep