The Butter Wars

Early in my marriage I quickly became aware of the first of many petty annoyances that we humans encounter upon living with someone else we love and desire, but do not yet really know. I was amazed at how ridiculously true the cliches were — socks on the floor, toilet seat up, snoring, unscrewed toothpaste caps, etc. — and how I seemed to be slightly annoyed by all of them. You’d think that being an Organic Freedom (NFP) would make me pretty laissez faire about such petty annoyances, but this is not so.

Perhaps we Organic Freedoms (NFP) are are not truly as laid back as we seem because we let so many things go in the name of harmony and idealism and general going with the flow, that we tend to get particular about random, petty things of the empty toilet roll variety. And while I still get annoyed when I go to throw something away and there’s no liner in the trash bin, the real bee in my bonnet, the total stick in my craw, was and sometimes is, the butter. Yes, butter.

The first time it happened I was still dizzy in my newlywed happiness and so when my toast popped out of my new and beautiful wide mouthed Dualite and the butter was nowhere to be found I didn’t immediately start screaming, where the F is my butter. I looked in the fridge and there it was, already my toast losing the perfect temperature to melt butter, and now it had to deal with the fridge factor. So I skimmed some off the top, even though that kind of annoys me too, but less so now that I have to deal with frigid butter from time to time, but then, after I got it all on the toast, not as perfect as I like it but still edible, it tasted funny. Sigh. I took a quick look at the package. Oh. It’s unsalted.

This was early in our marriage and and our relationship, so I sweetly asked him — okay maybe I wasn’t sweet I don’t remember anymore — but I asked him in the future to get salted butter for me. “What’s the difference?” Sigh. I explained how one made things taste good and the other was just like spreading fat on your toast, important to some, but for me, salt was the thing. And for someone with low blood pressure, salted butter is not actually bad for me, but good (Please take note Mayor Bloomberg!) My husband is good at many things, but as a Smart Freedom (NTP) I don’t expect him to be good at the petty details such as the difference between salted and unsalted butter, or to even know how I like my coffee or tea, but he does aim to please me, so unless he was truly distracted at the grocery store he started getting me the salted butter. (In fact recently he bought some unsalted butter and I pointed it out to him and he was adamant that he had gotten me the salted butter, only to be confronted by his distraction and the unsalted butter sitting in the fridge.)

So butter and my other complaints are the little things that befuddle MANY marriages of all genders and personality types, but the commonality here is the inattention to detail and the types who have a harder time with this are the Smarts (NTs) like my husband and the Organics (NFs) like me! Now you would think that because we both have trouble with detail, we would be forgiving and understanding of each other, but alas, after 13 years I still expect him to remember these things. Or rather, I still think I can rib him when he doesn’t pay attention when he’s shopping and gets the salted butter now and again. I know that he doesn’t mean anything by it and I do my best to accept it.

And as much as I think that I am faultless in my attention to the details in my home life, the fact is I only care about the details that I care about — like having socks in the hamper, the toilets seat down, etc. But my inattention to scheduling details drives my husband crazy. While I know exactly how he likes his coffee and what foods he likes and dislikes, this is because these things are important to me. Knowing exactly when something is supposed to happen without looking at my calendar, is not that important to me and so I don’t stretch my preferences to do it. It IS important to my husband and frankly it comes a little easier to him naturally, and so he does.

But the butter wars don’t end with the difference between salted and unsalted. Remember how my butter wasn’t out on the counter? How it was in the fridge all cold and useless, and sure I could zap it in the microwave for 10 seconds, but the microwave has a hot spot so part of it gets totally blasted and the other part is still too cold for proper spreading. Yes, I know I am completely guilty of being a princess in the pea! As I said, I let a lot slide — like when my husband purchased two used cars on Ebay without discussing it with me while I was pregnant with our first child (one a 1962 Cadillac and the other a crappy 1985 Jaguar) and I there are actually photos of me smiling — but mess with my butter?! Hell to pay.

My husband and I do not share a decision making preference — he uses logic (the T in NT) and I use my subjective and learned value system (the F in NF). I grew up with salted butter and we left it out until it was gone, which even in the summer did not go bad. (Yes, we’re also a butter loving family with mostly low blood pressure.) He grew up in a household with unsalted butter and because it’s not salted, you really shouldn’t leave it out or it will go bad quicker. Logic. But go ahead and try and convince him that it’s okay to leave salted butter out, or even non-organic peanut butter and corn syrup. It took at least 7 years before I got him to leave the peanut butter out of the fridge. I still have trouble getting my fake maple syrup to stay in the cupboard. But the butter?

I know it defies logic, but it’s truly very hard for all personality types to deviate from what they were raised with, logic or no. We call this the enviornmental factor. My husband also tends to use his subjective values a lot when making decisions and he is comforted by things that remind him of his mom. But I knew his mom. She was a strong T. If she had cared about having salted room temperature butter at a moment’s notice, then the fridge factor would never happen again. So I channelled her strong and decisive T, copied the tone of voice she used when dealing with idiots and people she loved, and just nagged the shit out of him until he acquiesced to my ways. We’ve only been married for 12 years, but in another 12 I’ll have my room temperature syrup too.