Dear James: Make the Whistling Stop

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Dear James,

My husband whistles constantly. His whistling is the first sound I hear in the morning and often the last sound I hear at night. He has three types: the standard whistle, with lips pursed; the tongue-between-the-teeth whistle, which is more high-pitched; and a “lazy” whistle, where he’s sort of blowing air with no real tune—which may be the most grating one. When he does whistle a tune, it varies from whatever song is in his head, to whatever song is playing on the air, to whatever commercial jingle is on TV. All of which is to say: I’m losing my mind.

We had a houseguest who teased him about this one morning at breakfast. I was grateful—what a relief to know I wasn’t the only one noticing. But it had no effect on my husband’s behavior.

You might wonder: Why don’t you just talk with your husband about this, adult to adult? Or simply explain that it’s hard to have that much whistling in one’s life? I’ve tried many times over the years, and it has not gone well.

My husband, you see, fancies himself a kind of performer. In stints over the course of about six years, during elementary and high school, he was in a theater ensemble and did a small amount of acting, plus one childhood commercial. I think he still strongly identifies as a person who was a child actor. So whenever he hears a comment or request about anything he deems performative, he gets angry and offended—enough so that it can feel as if, by asking him to limit the whistling, I’ve initiated World War III. It has not been worth it to me to fight in front of our children or even when they’re away at school, because the tension will just carry over to when they’re home.

I don’t know what else to do. Any advice?

Dear Reader,

In another mood, in another mode, I might be exhorting you to appreciate the different tones and timbres of your husband’s whistling. I might compare it to birdsong. I might be encouraging you to embrace it as the sound of natural high spirits, of unreflective biological gaiety. How nice, I might say, to have a cheerful man about the house.

But that’s not how I’m feeling, and it’s clearly not how you’re feeling. This is driving—has already driven—you mad. It must stop.

The mailman can whistle. The passing tradesman, he can whistle. Paul McCartney in 1963—so the legend goes—woke up to hear a milkman whistling “From Me to You” and knew in that instant that the Beatles had achieved pop immortality. But the point about the milkman and the mailman is that they’re outside. They keep moving; they’re making their rounds. They’re not standing by the fridge, whistling their heads off.

Whistling can be musical, of course. Meat Puppets’ “The Whistling Song” is beautiful. But more often, what the whistling expresses, with sometimes a strange vehemence, is a kind of mental vacancy or mild automatism, something quite impersonal. I’m not thinking, it says. I refuse to think. And for your husband to be wandering from room to room in this state of militant mindlessness, whistling away—I can quite see how that would play upon your nerves.

I sense a lot of backed-up marriage stuff here too—his reaction to your reaction to your reaction to his reaction, and so on—which I think is probably closer to the core of the problem. One of your husband’s whistles might be a just-getting-through-it whistle, a passive-aggressive whistle, or a whistle of dangerous forbearance, like a kettle close to the boil. Is he telling you something, however unconsciously, with his whistles? Could that be a way to approach the subject? Not: I don’t like these noises you’re making. Instead: Why are you making them? Why are you whistling instead of talking to me?

Also: Get that houseguest back.

Tuned to the music of the spheres,

James

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