Jake chuckled at first, thinking Lisa was just playing along with his joke. But as he kept reading, his smile slowly disappeared. “Wait… what is all this?” His eyes squinted as he scanned the numbers on the page, confusion quickly turning into disbelief. “Twelve hundred dollars for a personal trainer? Seven hundred a month for groceries? What the hell, Lisa?”
Lisa leaned casually against the kitchen island, her arms crossed, her expression firm but composed. “Well,” she said, her voice calm, “you want me to get up at 5 a.m., hit the gym, prepare gourmet breakfasts, keep the house spotless, cook all the meals, and be ready to entertain your friends at a moment’s notice. Don’t you think we should budget for all of that?”
Jake’s eyes widened as he glanced at the bottom of the page. His heart dropped when he saw the total. “Seventy-five thousand dollars a year? And… wait, you’re quitting your job?”
Lisa gave a small shrug, but the look in her eyes was serious. “I mean, how else am I supposed to keep up with everything on your list? I can’t hold down a full-time job and be your idea of the ‘perfect wife’ at the same time, can I?”
Jake was frozen, staring at the pages in front of him. The confidence he had felt only moments before was slipping away, replaced by confusion and regret. “I… I didn’t mean it like that,” he stammered, his voice faltering. His mind raced as he tried to explain, but the words didn’t come out right. “Lisa, I didn’t think it would turn into all of this. I just thought…”
Lisa’s gaze stayed locked on his, and although her voice was calm, it held a firmness that couldn’t be ignored. “You thought what?” she asked, her tone soft but cutting through the silence. “That I could be ‘fixed’ or improved, like some kind of project you’re working on?”
Jake’s mouth opened, but no words came out. The weight of what she was saying settled on him heavily, and the realization of what he had done started to dawn. Lisa wasn’t just reacting to the list—she was hurt by the idea behind it, by the expectation that she needed to change who she was to meet some unrealistic standard.
“Marriage,” she continued, her voice steady but carrying a quiet intensity, “isn’t about schedules or routines, Jake. It’s not about making lists of what your partner should be doing better. It’s about respect, about being there for each other as equals. And if you ever try to ‘fix’ me like this again, you’ll be paying a lot more than what’s on that paper. Trust me.”
Jake stood there, speechless, the absurdity of his demands sinking in deeper with every second of silence between them. He hadn’t realized how far off track he had gone. What had started as a simple idea to help them improve their lives had spiraled into something ridiculous, something hurtful. He hadn’t meant to make Lisa feel like a project, but that’s exactly what he had done.
As he continued to stand there, lost in his thoughts, Jake finally understood just how misguided his expectations had been. He hadn’t been asking for help to make their lives better; he had been placing demands on Lisa, thinking she needed to change for him to be happy. And in doing so, he had missed the point entirely.
For the first time, Jake saw clearly how unrealistic and unfair his demands had been. More than that, he saw how much they had hurt Lisa. Marriage wasn’t about fixing one another—it was about growing together, accepting each other for who they were, and making sure that respect and love came first.
