Bossed Around

Dear Madame Toujours,

I have been married to my husband Royce for fifteen years. For seven of those, he has been the handsome, charismatic CEO of a high-powered international marketing company. All day long, he jets from one end of the Earth to the other having people fetch and carry for him and call him "Sir" and "Boss". He's gone for weeks at a time. Then he comes home and he seems to think he's still at work.

He acts like he's completely helpless, like he never learned how to fix a garbage disposal or carry out a bag of garbage, like he thinks he ought to be able to snap his fingers and have half a dozen lackeys appear out of nowhere to help his kids with their homework. He barks orders like the kids and I are his personal staff. It's exhausting, and irritating, and I'd like to smack him upside his fat head.

I've tried to talk to him with all that "I-statement" therapy-talk crapadoodle, but he claims he just doesn't have the least idea what I'm talking about. I'd have divorced him (or whacked him senseless with a blunt object) years ago, but he does a lot of very important work, and I've got this irrational attachment to the big jerk. Plus, the kids would miss him.

Is there some way to get through to him so that I can enjoy my husband and the kids can get to know their father?

Sincerely,

Tired of Being Bossed Around

Chere Mme. Bossed,

Quelle domage that M. le Boss, he is having the tiresome habits. However, I am always observing that the compromise, it is being the very important tool of the marriages. Clearly, M. le Boss, he is feeling much more of the comforts when he is the familiar environment of the successful business. Fortunately, M. le Boss is not being at home all of the times. It should not be the terrible burden to be making the small adjustments.

Purchase for yourself and the children the useful businesslike accouterments. If the children are of a suitable age, they will wish to have the "blackberry" thingies that everybody is using for the businesses. Learn to employ the fancy, modern terminologies such as, "Here, now I am textilating to you about the conference with the CEO of the children's educational work-group because little Jeffy is possibly being downsized from his position in the fourth-grade." Suggest that some personal mentoring from the boss would improve the productivity of M. Jeffy.

Learn to carry a clipboard and a notebook. Pretend to take notes of everything he says. The next day, you can read back the "minutes" of the meeting. Tell him he has on his schedule for five-thirty an important meeting at the curb with the "Head trash receptacle."

Offer to sleep your way to the top. The power, she is the aphrodisiac, non?

Bon chance, Mme. Tired, and if M. le Boss, he is making the life more complicated, you can be insisting that he provide you with an "executive assistant" to "facilitize" your "management strategy."