I Crushed the Fender on My Husband’s Truck: A Marriage Parable

Years ago, I did an incredibly stupid thing. I was driving my husband’s beloved dually pickup truck and while backing up took out one of the fenders. Now, I had driven this truck for years and had no incidents but on this day I got distracted by someone who wanted to talk with me and lost my “sense of where I was” and smashed the fender. The thing with accidents is no matter how many times “you didn’t smash the truck” on the day that it gets smashed all previous non-smashing incidents kind of don’t matter. Your track record is smeared.

As I drove home, I began running all kinds of scenarios in my head. Will he be mad at me? How much is this going to cost? Can it be fixed? My anxiety raged.

I was fuming mad at myself for doing such a careless thing. I was disappointed with myself. I was beating myself up pretty good. I decided it was inexcusable. This is unforgivable—I should have been more careful.

Then my thoughts went back to my husband. For sure he’s gonna be mad. How could he not?

As I got close to my home instead of stopping at my house I kept going. Down the road I stopped at a local grocery store. I parked and got out of the truck.

And do you know what I did next?

I found a pay phone—yes, this was before cell phones came into our lives—and called my husband.

As he answered the phone, and this is what I said:

“I smashed your truck. I took out the fender. If you’re mad at me, I’m not coming home.”

I wish I was making this up, I really do, but this is the threat I gave him because I had smashed the fender on his truck.   

He said, “What? Honey, are you okay?”

I said, “Yes, I know you’re mad at me and I’m not coming home.”

Mike said, “Wait. It’s okay. I’m not mad.”

With surprise I said, “You’re not? Because if you are I’m not coming home.”

He said, “Honey, it was an accident. I’m not mad at you, we all make mistakes.”

Me: “You’re not mad?”

Him: “No! Honey, just come home.”

Me: “You’re not gonna be mad once I get home?”

Him: “No! Please come home. It’s okay. Just come home. It’s no big deal. I’m not upset at all.”

And I drove home. And he was not at all upset or mad or disappointed with me. And he later got the fender fixed. And he never brought it up or said anything to poke fun at me or tease me about it later. That was over 20 years ago, and he’s never teased me about it once. Not once.

He had plenty of ammunition to shame me and use this incident to put me down and even had a good funny story to tell about how I called him and threatened him, but he never did that. He never said a word about it.

As I wrote this, I literally laughed out loud at myself. I got mad at him when I was the one who smashed the fender.

What I did that day was take my own feelings of anger and disappointment and guilt and I put it on him. I projected how I was feeling on to him. I took my anger and decided he would feel the same. I expected him to be angry because I was. So, instead of going home I called him and poured out my “feelings” on him.

Sometimes that’s what we do in marriage. We take our feelings and decide that’s how our spouse feels. This can be very destructive in a marriage. What if my husband had reacted to my foolish phone call? It could have been the beginning of a huge rift in our relationship. Fortunately, my husband acted way more mature and kinder than I did that day.

What Mike and I have learned to do since is to ask.

Ask.

We ask the other how we are feeling about certain situations and don’t assume one feels like the other or assume negative feelings. A frown doesn’t necessarily mean it has something to do with the other. A bad day usually has nothing to do with our loved one. Frustration can come from many different sources and our spouse usually has nothing to do with the frown, bad day, or frustration.

We just need to ask.

So, the next time you’re confused about a reaction from your beloved and especially if you think they may be upset with you…ask.

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

-Romans 12:18

For more from Lucille Williams on marriage order a copy of “From Me to We” and “The Intimacy You Crave.”For tools to parent your strong-willed child order “The Impossible Kid: Parenting a Strong-Willed Child with Love and Grace.”