Has your husband ever called you by his ex-wife’s name? If you are one of the thousands of second (or third) wives reading this, I know you’re nodding your head. So am I. It’s not so much that it happens but how we deal with it when it happens. I was in the Turks and Caicos airport when it happened to me.
My suitcase weighed five pounds too much. Richard removed it from the scales and set it on the ground.
“Take out the conch shell,” I suggested.
He opened the suitcase and we both knelt down.“I got this,” he said.
“I stuffed my dirty underwear inside the shell” I whispered.
He dug through my clothes and found the shell. My oh so sexy panties clung to a sharp edge. I hoped no one saw as I threw them back in the suitcase. As I stood up, I grazed the bill of Richard’s ball cap.
“God damn it, Cindy. I told you I got this.” He shoved the shell inside his back pack.
My skinned burned from the inside out as the flames of anger, embarrassment, awkwardness, and “can I kick your butt right now” rose upward from my chest to my cheeks. I stepped away. Silently, not wanting to cause a scene and to keep myself from doing something stupid that would most certainly end with me being led away in handcuffs.
I smoldered in the security line. I stared straight ahead and read the same “Welcome to the Turks & Caicos” sign a dozen times. I gazed towards the departure area and spotted the one and only bar. I could hear Jose Cuervo enticing me to a shot or two of tequila. Or five.
I felt him behind me. He touched my shoulder. “How much of an issue is this going to be?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders but kept my back to him. “You just yelled at me and called me your ex-wife’s name.” For dramatic effect I pouted and folded my arms across my chest until the security guard waved me through the airport scanner. No, I didn’t possess anything dangerous on my person. Bad thoughts don’t count.
As I retold my story inside my head, I realized how funny it sounded. Sure he called me his ex-wife’s name, but haven’t I been guilty of nearly calling him by my ex-husband’s name? More than once I’ve caught myself and my ex’s name is easier to cover up than his. “Duh-air-” (oh crap, that’s not his name) “-ear.”
If you grew up with siblings, did your mother ever call you by your sister’s name? I grew up with six siblings. My mother resorted to calling us by the number of our birth order. One summer she bought seven baseball T-shirts and ironed on numbers. I was number 3. If she needed something, she just called out a number. Easier than trying to remember all of our names. I’ve resorted to assigning numbers to my dad’s ex-wives and mother’s ex-husbands. It’s easier for me that way.
At work there are several people who insist on calling me Debby. I look at them politely and say, “Peggy.” I know. D’s and b’s look like P’s and g’s. Easy mistake to make. Unfortunate brain slips happen. Once, I answered a call from Cindy, handed the phone to my husband and said, “your wife is on the phone.” If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.
When your husband mistakenly calls you by his ex-wife’s name it may trigger the fight or flight response. When it happened to me I felt the heat rise in my body, I knew my skin was red and blotchy, and I could feel the effects of the sudden rush of adrenaline. I thought my hair was on fire.
Once I got over my initial reaction, Richard clued me in as we sat in the only bar at the airport. When I insisted on removing the conch shell from the suitcase myself, my behavior triggered one of Richard’s underlying issues that he had with his ex. No matter if he said he’d take care of it, she (according to him) would insist on doing it herself or she’d go behind him and redo it her way. Richard experienced a bad case of deja vu followed by a panicked rush to smooth things over with me.
One or two isolated name brain slips isn’t something to get your knickers in a bunch. Take a deep breath, wait for the flight or fight response to subside, and assess the situation. If you’re husband accidentally calls you by his ex-wife’s name think of it has a sub-conscious conditioned response, similar to Pavlov’s dog. Don’t take it personally and don’t beat him up over it. If you are newly married this will most likely happen once or twice. And yes, you’ll do it, too. If your partner repeatedly calls you by his ex-wife’s name, you may want to seek counseling to help uncover what’s going on. He may still have an emotional bond with her. When you are in the throws of lovemaking any reference to the ghosts of ex-wives or ex-husbands past is a big oops. Call each other babe or hon. That should keep unfortunate name calling at bay.
