The Pain of Scrambled Eggs

She likes her eggs aerated before they’re scrambled. She’s shown him lots of times how she likes it.

He knows she likes it this way.

But he thinks the supposed benefits of aerating are overrated.

He’s a bit skeptical that she can actually taste a difference.

It takes longer.

Sometimes he’s rushed and doesn’t want to spend the time holding the bowl sideways and turning the fork so that the proper amount of air gets into the eggs.

So sometimes she asks him to make eggs for her and he doesn’t aerate them.

She is a little embarrassed to admit that she listens for the sound whenever he’s making eggs.

And if she doesn’t hear it, she gets mad.

This is what brings them to couples therapy.

You don’t like it when she gets mad, so why don’t you just make the eggs they way she likes them? I ask.

She shouldn’t get so mad. I wish she would get over this.

This is the whole problem, she says. He doesn’t care about what I want.

He just sighs.

It’s common, when deeper issues have been ignored, for the smallest everyday exchanges to become charged with resentment.

Presumably, there are other issues where he thinks she has the wrong idea, but he doesn’t feel like he can change her mind.

And surely this isn’t the only place in their relationship where she feels like he doesn’t care what she wants.

At this point, even if he resolved to make the eggs the way she liked them, it wouldn’t help very much. Every time he turned the fork he would be thinking how dumb she was for wanting the eggs that way. It wouldn’t be an act of connection and care to make those eggs, but an exercise in contempt.