Sometimes people tell us, “I don’t know how you spend all day together without fighting.” While I appreciate the assumption that our marriage is effortless and always cheerful, the truth is—we argue. We get frustrated with each other, with Clara, and even with Burger. These aren’t dramatic, reality-show style blowouts (our table-flipping count remains zero), but like any normal couple we have disagreements. Some are healthy and come from caring; others are less graceful, where one of us raises our voice and the other retreats into silence. The point is: yes, we fight. We just try to handle it privately and respectfully.
Generally we avoid airing specifics of our arguments publicly or sharing intimate details with friends and family. It’s not about keeping up appearances; it’s about not making a small conflict larger by dragging other people into it. We usually move on quickly—there’s always a project to finish or a post to write—so I don’t want a moment of frustration to taint someone else’s view of my wife. At the end of the day, I think she’s loving and wonderful, and I don’t want a passing complaint to overshadow that.
Still, every so often a disagreement is so tied to the house or a DIY project that it feels fitting to share—especially when we can laugh about it afterward. Case in point: the time we fought over a bathroom shelf. It sounds trivial, but it escalated into what we now jokingly call the Towel Bar Incident of 2012.
Here’s the backstory. We were repainting a bathroom and removed a glass shelf and a towel bar that had come with the house. Both pieces went into a box on the bathroom sink to be dealt with later. Sherry remembers telling me not to donate them because she wanted to Craigslist the towel bar (it was from Restoration Hardware) and possibly reuse the shelf in the shower for shampoo and toiletries. My memory of the exchange is basically blank—I didn’t recall any specific instructions at the time.
A few days later the room was painted and the art was up, but the shelf and towel bar were still sitting by the sink. One evening I got fed up with clutter and went on a short, intense cleaning spree while Sherry worked on a blog post in the office. I gathered a bag of old clothes, an old light fixture and—without mentioning it to her—placed the shelf and towel bar in the car to donate to Goodwill. I told Sherry I was running errands and left with Clara the next morning.
That very afternoon Sherry brought up swapping the towel bar in the shower for the old shelf so we could have a place for shampoo. I had no idea what she was talking about. When she said the shelf had been by the sink, I realized she’d been referring to the items I’d donated that morning.
SHERRY: The one that used to be on the wall. It was sitting by the sink the last time I saw it.
JOHN: You mean the one I donated this morning?
SHERRY: You WHAT?! John! I said I wanted to Craigslist the towel bar and possibly reuse the shelf!
JOHN: Sorry, I figured they’d just been sitting there making a mess so I’d help take care of them.
SHERRY: Why didn’t you tell me? You left without a word. I could have stopped you and explained if you’d told me!
JOHN: Am I supposed to tell you every errand I run?
You can probably imagine how this played out. Sherry became increasingly frustrated; I became defensive. She said I’d “ruined her plan” and that she could’ve sold the towel bar for some extra cash. I was indignant that I was being scolded for trying to help. I even threatened—unwisely—that maybe I wouldn’t volunteer to run errands like that anymore if she didn’t appreciate it. Not my finest moment.
Realizing I’d messed up, but wanting to make things right, I rushed to Goodwill and begged them to pull the bag from the donations. There was nothing to be done—the items had already been processed and were gone. They sympathized, took my number and the item description, but we eventually accepted it as a lost cause. We ended up using a Plan B suction-cup shelf in the shower. It’s not perfect, but it works.
We resolved the argument with apologies, a few concessions, and a promise to communicate better. With so many shared projects and so much time together, we know more bumps will come—this was just one of them. We remind ourselves that we’re on the same team with the same goal: to make our house better and enjoy the process without letting frustrations fester.
So if you ever wondered whether we fight, now you have evidence: the Towel Bar Incident. Your turn—have you ever had a DIY-related miscommunication blow up into something bigger? Feel free to share your stories (anonymously, if you prefer). We’ve learned that a little patience and clearer communication can keep small home-improvement hiccups from becoming real problems.