“Let Me Ask My Wife.” 

In corporate, when you hear “Let me ask my superiors” or the “I’ll present this to the team” variant, just know it’s a no. In entrepreneurship, “Let me check in with my business partners” means you should move on. For a man, “Let me ask my wife” also means no but it also means much more. 

“Let me ask my wife” is the go-to term when we don’t want to be seen as the bad guy that said no or refused to pay for something. 

The same applies in business or whenever you need an answer from the waiter, mechanic, cashier. Whoever. We have this inexplicable habit where we pass the buck on unpopular decisions.

You’ve seen it happen or experienced it yourself. You ask for a service, you’re quoted a kidney and then wheel out the line, “Thank you, let me ask my wife.”

Your wife has no idea you’re getting quotations for a new roof. You can’t say it’s expensive. The next best thing is to buy time for your response by saying you’ll ask your wife. A day later, if you’re polite enough, you say no. 

Men these days refuse to stand on business.

Standing on business, as the kids say, means you’re firm about your decisions. You don’t pretend there’s some higher authority that will decide if there’s money for the Paw Patrol birthday cake. 

But do we really ever ask our wives anything? 

For starters, there’s no living man that’s ever told his mistress that he’ll ask his wife if he can get her an iPhone or pay for a birthday trip to Dubai.

We tend to own the flippant decisions. Never asking the wife if we can buy new rims for the car. What we don’t do is ask the pertinent questions that matter the most. 

Do we ever ask more of our wives or partners when they’re not putting in the same effort as we are? Is there any room for this conversation? At all? Because we use this line so many times but never actually ask them anything.

We’re wired to ask “Will you be my wife?” and that, frankly, will be the last question we ever ask that woman. We never truly ask them the difficult questions for answers that could be eating us away. 

Because they do ask men questions. Have you paid the school fees? Who are you voting for in 2026? When is the plumber coming? Where are you? When did Messi stop playing for Barcelona?

And you? Constantly wondering what the answers are for things you should be asking. We are led to live inside our heads for years because we don’t ask for more of the partners we have. 

This is the fate of the modern man. That he claims he will ask his wife or partner. He will see the things that may not be sitting well with him and his outlook on life but elect to be a casualty in the very real crisis of men’s mental health.