It’s Never About the Black Olives

Dear TEAMS,

Throughout your lives at home with us, you have heard us mention this phrase here and there when we were discussing an issue that generated unusual emotional response.  It was one we coined early on in our marriage.

We were newlyweds, and life was stressful.  We barely had finished opening wedding gifts and finding a place for them in our tiny apartment that we packed up everything and moved 600 miles away so Daddy could begin seminary.  While we had a wonderful send-off party and 30 people helping us load the moving truck, our arrival was quiet and unnoticed.  The door to our new apartment swung open and echoed through the empty kitchen, and it hit us.  We were on our own now, just the two of us. 

 

Over the next few weeks, we set about making our new home.  Daddy started school, I got a job, and we started church shopping.  We went to the church nearest our home, and soon after, our pastor's wife invited us to a post-church group lunch so we could get to know people.  Everyone who came was bringing an item to make taco salads.  Our assignment was the black olives.  

Sunday morning came and with it a comedy routine to get out the door.  Of course, we had overslept.  Of course, we had forgotten the hot water runs out earlier Sunday mornings.  Darryl needed to iron his shirt, there was a stain on my skirt, and I had forgotten to slice the black olives!  My wet hair dripped onto the back of my shirt as I dashed into the kitchen and quickly opened the 2 cans of black olives and began to slice.  Daddy, wanting to pitch in so we could get to church on time, sat beside me at the kitchen table and began to cut the olives--lengthwise, into wedges.

"That's interesting," I said, “You cut your black olives for the salad into little boats while I cut them into rings.”

"You know," he replied, "I never thought about that.  I guess I do.  It just seems easier."

Obviously, my hint was too subtle.  Sweetly, I asked, "Honey, do you think people will know that they are black olives?  I mean, in restaurants taco salads usually have black olives that are in rings, not wedges."

Daddy looked at me, and replied a little more sweetly to me than I had talked to him.  "I think until we mix up your circles with my wedges, they will know they are black olives."

My eyes narrowed.  So did his.  Restraining myself, I tried to explain to him why he needed to cease and desist with his wedge cutting.  He responded even more edgily why it didn't matter.  They were black olives, for Pete's sake.

What followed was a fight that had to do with black olives as much as night has to do with day.  Everything in our relationship that had been simmering for months came up: housekeeping; meals; intimate relations; money; and, of all things, a houseplant.  It was brutal.  The man I had never known to raise his voice loud enough to cheer on his favorite team was breaking the sound barrier.  I returned to my childhood days as a hotheaded, tantrum-throwing, screaming banshee.  Never, in our years of knowing each other, had we said such cruel things to each other in the tone (and volume!) of that fight.  We used words like baseball bats, swinging hard to hit the sweet spot of the other.  We didn’t care about the pain, and eventually the scars, we were causing the other.  We only stopped the argument because we had now missed church and were late to the lunch.  

We made quite an impression on that church group, I’m sure, given we refused to speak to each other.  On the way home from the afternoon, we began to talk again.  We miserably dissected the day's events and realized how the olive cutting had triggered deeper feelings of insecurity, lack of control, and selfishness in our marriage.  It was a painful realization of how much we lacked maturity and the good communication in marriage that takes work, time, and the humility to look below the surface and face what’s swimming around.  The fight hadn’t been about the black olives, it was about all the things underneath that caused the emotional struggle, behavior and outburst.

All these years later, we still use the term to get on the same page about something and remind each other that conflict never happens in a vacuum.  Whether it’s with one of you or each other, if some seemingly insignificant event causes a storm, we need to address what’s really going on.

Love,