“Honey, I Have a Nail In My Head!”

Last Updated on March 21, 2018

You know how a good talk with a girlfriend is like a bottle of Prozac on a sunny day when all you have to do is make it to your spa appointment? Uh, well. Like any of us have ever had a day like that, but you have probably had a conversation with your girlfriend like that.

She listens. You listen. No one tries to solve a problem. Everyone feels good.

Why, oh, why can’t our husbands do that?

They are wired to fix things. I thank God for this because my husband is a great fixer. So the empathy and casual recounting of conversations frustrates them. They want the most linear path possible to a solution. We, on the other hand, want to talk it through. Slowly.

Any wayward husband happening to read this should be warned that failure to partner with your wife to talk through her emotions could cause no small eruption of even scarier feelings with terrifying results. (Think: Mt Vesuvius and Pompeii.)

Years of therapy has not worked to alleviate the tension Bob and I feel when I need to “just talk” and he tries to “solve the problem.” Until recently. Thanks to a viral video by Jason Headley called “It’s Not About The Nail,” I think we have finally figured it out. I could tell you about the video, but you really have to see it.

This past Sunday, I was about to burst with emotions that made no sense. No sense! And I knew that. I did not want a solution because there isn’t a good one, but I deeply needed to talk it out. Bob’s been so busy. I didn’t want to burden him but there was not a good girlfriend in sight. That’s when it hit me. An idea.

I walked into the living room and said, “Honey, I have a nail in my head!” He smiled knowingly. He invited me to the deck (where I suspect he thought the eruption might be more easily contained or blown away by the wind) and invited me to barf out all my thoughts. I did. And he didn’t offer one single solution. Not one. He even said, “I understand!” Big win for the Greshes!

Girls, show your husband this video and the next time you just need him to be a good girlfriend promise me you’ll start with this line: “Honey, I have a nail in my head!”