Dear La Rochefoucauld: My Husband Wont Admit Hes Lost

My Husband Refuses To Admit He Is Lost

La Rochefoucauld Replies

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French moralist and author of the Maxims (1613 to 1680)

Dear Detoured in Dubuque,

Madame, I have studied courtiers who could not admit a card had been misplayed, and I promise you your husband is no different in a car than they were at a gaming table. The stakes are smaller. The stubbornness is identical. This is not about the exit at all.

Men do not doubt their sense of direction for the same reason they do not doubt their taste, their wit, or their jokes at dinner. As I wrote in my Maxims, "Everyone complains of his memory, but nobody complains of his judgment." He will gladly say he forgot the exit. He will never say he chose wrong. The feed store is not a mistake in his telling. It is a destination he has not yet explained to himself.

So stop attacking the judgment, which he will defend to his grave, and let the facts attack it for you. Hand him the phone with the map already open and say nothing. Let the silence and the little blue line do the arguing. A man can ignore his wife's advice far more easily than he can ignore his own eyes watching the road recede the wrong direction.

This Sunday, put the map in his hand before he starts the car, and resist the urge to say I told you so when the shortcut fails again, which it will. Let him arrive at his own conclusion in his own silence. A man forgives the GPS far faster than he forgives his wife.

— La Rochefoucauld

Francois de La Rochefoucauld was a French nobleman and writer whose Maxims, published in 1665, distilled his sharp, skeptical observations about human motives into short, polished sentences. He had lived through court intrigue and failed rebellions before turning to writing, which perhaps explains his unsentimental eye for vanity disguised as virtue. His maxims remain widely quoted for their wit and their uncomfortable accuracy about why people do what they do.

Try This Today

Next time you are in the passenger seat and sense a wrong turn coming, do not say anything right away. Open the map app, set it on the dash where it is visible, and let the route correct itself in silence. Giving someone the evidence instead of the argument lets them change course without having to lose face in front of you.

Your Turn

Is there a small disagreement in your relationship that would resolve faster if you let the facts speak instead of you?