I Thought I Knew My Husband of 60 Years. Then This Happened

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I've lived with my Danish husband for 60 years and — like all good wives in their mid-80s — I am pretty confident that I know everything there is to know about him. I know his favorite foods: bread, cheese and herring. I know his favorite movie — Beverly Hills Cop and any other films in that genre. I know his strengths: honesty, loyalty and total devotion to me and our family.

And I know his weaknesses. Sloppiness, stubbornness and a pathological fear of getting his hair cut.

Though, occasionally Benni surprises me. For example, he’s never been much of a cook, and certainly not a baker — mostly because he hates following instructions of any kind. So imagine my shock when, during COVID-19, my husband began making banana bread. He actually read and followed the recipe, measured the ingredients, timed the oven and made enough delicious loaves to share with neighbors every week.

Another time, Benni astounded me when he decided to act as a matchmaker. My husband is the last person in the world I would expect to play Cupid. As a bottled-up Scandinavian, he does not get involved in other people’s personal lives. But he did connect two of our single friends, who are now a loving couple.

Okay, so I was wrong about the baking thing and the matchmaking, but there’s one thing I know for sure: Benni is not a vibrant conversationalist. He’s often shy, often bashful. If someone asks him to recount an event, he will defer to me, saying “Why don’t we let Annie tell it.” In keeping with that old “opposites attract” maxim, I sometimes think he married me because I am as loquacious as he is restrained.

I’m a talker, I’m a storyteller and I know how to time the punch line of a joke. And most of our friends are lively noisemakers like me. So, when we’re at a dinner party, Benni just sits there, listening quietly. I must confess that I am often embarrassed by his reticence; I think it seems unfriendly not to join the babble.

On the other hand, when we’re home alone, he can be a real chatterbox. He will hit the pause button to elaborate on the TV news, barge into my office to share his excitement about his favorite Danish soccer team and entertain me during dinner by recounting details about his 7th-grade girlfriend, like that her mother smoked cigars. He only clamps down in social situations.

You might think Benni’s reserve comes from the fact that English is not his first language. But he can beat me at Words with Friends. And when I show him something I’ve written, he easily corrects the spelling and the grammar. So it’s not a language problem. It’s a personality problem.

Occasionally Benni is required to give a speech. I write it for him and coach him on his performance, and I try to keep it as short and simple as possible. He brought down the house at our recent 60th-anniversary celebration, where he got up and said, “I’m not very good at public speaking, so here goes. We met. We married. It worked. Thank you.”

If it’s a small group of close friends, Benni can open up a little. He likes to discuss current news like updates on the various medical uses of marijuana. But he often takes too long to make his point, and he rarely reveals anything personal.

Also, he HATES when people ask him about his art. Benni is a very talented painter. It’s not his full-time profession, but he has had gallery shows and has sold his work here and abroad. Almost all of the work is abstract and Benni’s worst nightmare is that someone will ask him to explain the meaning of an image.

So you can imagine our horror when Benni impulsively agreed to be a guest on a podcast about creative Danish natives living in Los Angeles. It would take an hour, and he would be asked questions about his life, his film career, his art and his family. In this case, I would not be able to prepare his answers beforehand, nor would I be there for him to defer to when there was a tricky question. He would be on his own.

The dreaded day came. Tina, the podcast host, and her tech team came to Benni’s home office and they were all holed up in there for what seemed like an endless afternoon. When it was over, Tina said to me, “He was fantastic! So charming, so witty and he told such wonderful anecdotes!”

I was in shock.

Then I listened to the podcast. And guess what? My shy, man-of-few-words Benni was everything Tina said: eloquent, amusing, a fascinating raconteur. Who was this man, and what has he done with my husband?

He told droll stories I had never heard before. Like the time, when he was 14, shy little Benni found the phone number of his favorite Danish painter and called to ask if he could visit his studio. The artist agreed, and Benni got a private tutorial on how to use color. Or the time he bought a 1939 Citroen for $600 and camped in it for three months in Paris, in the Bois de Boulogne.

Then he topped everything off by ending the interview with an inspiring quote from Muhammad Ali: “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room on Earth.”

Friends and family listened to it and sent sincere, albeit astonished, congratulations. I told Benni how impressed I was, and I apologized for underestimating him.

I guess no matter how long you know your spouses, and no matter how well you think you know them, they may reveal an unknown, surprising side of themselves and add some zing to a not-as-predictable-as-you-thought relationship.


Do any of you have longtime partners who sometimes surprise you? What did they do? Let us know in the comments below.