MY HUSBAND broke the bed. Literally.

But before anyone has visions of my excitement and exhilaration as a result, let me say that it’s not what you think it is.

I was standing at the changing table wiping down Baby K when my husband D (who is, by the way, 11 years my junior) decided to throw his strapping young self on our marital bed, comic book in hand.

In a split second, the bed gave way with an almighty crack, shocking both K and me.

I froze and stared at D lying tangled among the bedclothes, with the mattress on the floor and a sheepish look on his face.

“Oh. My. God,” I said. A cocktail of shock, alarm and dismay slowly began filtering its way into my system, taking shape as a throbbing vein in the side of my head as D extricated himself from the debris.

“It’s broken. I’ll get us a new one,” he said. My palms went damp and I began seeing red.

“What else do you want me to say?” said D mutinously. “I can’t un-break it. It’s done.” Aggravated, I continued changing Baby K and thought hard. It was yet another scenario repeating itself.

D would do something unspeakably stupid (in my opinion) and he would expect me to simply accept it.

Where before, I would have flung myself at him screaming bloody murder, I really attempted this time to separate myself from my emotions. “D,” I declared calmly, “I feel somewhat annoyed with you.” It was the understatement of the century. D looked at me in surprise. “Why? I told you I would get us a new bed,” he said.

I scratched my head. How could I explain to my 22-year-old husband that it was not the broken bed, but rather his irresponsibly-childish act of hurling himself onto it, causing it to break, which annoyed me? Beyond that, I felt that in explaining myself, I would be speaking more like a parent rather than a wife.

I decided to just be honest and tell him what I thought. D shook his head. There followed a lengthy argument on how he had done nothing out of the ordinary while I tried to explain how, in my eyes, he’d leapt on the bed with the force of a tiger pouncing on its prey.

And so the argument developed into an extremely mature discussion of “yes, you did, no, I didn’t”. More was needed, I thought. Patience, providence and a pine bed that would not easily collapse. I removed myself from the crime scene, gave the baby to his nanny and went for a walk.

Ten minutes later, I received a text message from the guilty party offering an apology. The words comforted me, but they were not enough. I had to hear them to make certain that D was repentant and that he understood why I was so angry. I wanted to hear that he would never, ever act in such a daft manner again. I rushed home, keen to make my stand.

But when I reached home and saw D sitting penitently on the mattress on the floor with baby K gurgling happily on his lap, I changed my mind. I realised in that moment that it didn’t matter if I was heard or had the last word. The trophies I wanted were sitting in front of me. Winning is a state of mind.

In marriage, you pick and choose your battles. Dirty clothes on the floor cannot compare to emotional indiscretions. Also, as parents, there are other things more worth fighting for than a broken bed.

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