Men Are Keeping Photos Of Their Wives As Children In Their Wallets So They Remember To Be Nice

When my husband and I first started seriously dating, I bought him a sentimental gift. It was a credit card-sized metal rectangle engraved with a Charles Bukowski quote that made me think of him: “And we are in bed together, laughing, and we don’t care about anything.” I was worried it’d be way too earnest, but he really loved it, and it has migrated from wallet to wallet as he’s had to replace them over the years. So when I saw a Tik Tok recently of two men realizing they both keep photos of their wives in their wallets, I thought it was going to be a super pure, adorable interaction. But why were they so surprised...isn’t this kind of a normal thing? Their shock was because they both kept childhood photos of their wives in their wallets — and I’m paraphrasing here — so they’d remember who they were really talking to in a fight.

I can’t seem to find the original video now — it may have been taken down — but it showed two friends sitting in a truck together and realizing with shock that they both had pictures of their wives as kids on them at all times. In short, they said it helped them remember that when they’re having an argument with their partner, the little girls in the photos are who’s really inside of her and that’s who they should speak to. It seems like this is actually a thing quite a few people do, according to Tik Tok at least— and frankly, it pisses me off.

The comments are flooded with people saying their partners do this or that they now want to start. And I just want everybody to pause and consider why we only think children deserve kindness during conflict.

It should be really disturbing to these men’s partners that they can’t be f*cking nice to the adult women they profess to love without the tangible prompt of seeing them as a little girl. I simply can’t imagine two women sitting in the front seats of a crossover, Life of a Showgirl playing in the background, realizing they both have their husband’s Little League portraits in their purses so they can look at it and find their zen instead of cussing them out or screaming. My husband and son smile out at me from my lock screen because I love them and their faces make me happy. I do not have to check in with a visual of my husband in preschool, mid-argument, to communicate with him in a healthy way. That man has never raised his voice with me or called me a name — because he cares about me, now, the woman in front of him. Saying that you can’t just be calm and kind in conflict with a woman is really telling on yourself.

The idea that fights should be avoided because inside your wife there’s “that little girl who just wants to be understood, heard, loved, and protected” is... impressive cognitive dissonance. Do you think your adult wife doesn’t want or deserve the same? Don’t you?

Coming from someone who was verbally abused as a child, I feel qualified to say it’s extremely patronizing for these men to think they are somehow now the stewards of their wives’ inner children. You’re not her dad or her therapist. You’re supposed to be someone who works on their own sh*t, and doesn’t require a big woo-sah breath while imagining her with pigtails to prevent a screaming match. If you love someone who has past wounds to heal, you show up in support, and you don’t add to it. If you can’t pull that off without imagining them as a tiny child: therapy.

I think some of the men posting these videos think they look hot and covered in green flags, but I promise you are not signaling safety the way you think you are. If you can’t be kind to a grown woman you disagree with, give your wife back her baby photo and find somewhere else to be.