Marriage Pattern Language

In the software world these days, some are into "Patterns" -- commonly encountered solutions to problems found in some context.  For more information, see Hillside.net - Your Patterns Library. Anyway, I have this urge to document a set of patterns one encounters in marriage.  

I've been married for awhile myself (37 years next week!) and I had a newly married colleague at work some years ago who enjoyed talking about "discoveries" she was making concerning "husband behaviors", which is probably a subset of the pattern language I'm talking about.  

For instance, she had something she wanted me to do, and I was busy doing something else at the time.  She asked me (again?) and I said "I'll take care of it".  She said "Oh!  That means Don't bother me doesn't it?".  Seems her husband said that sometimes, but didn't always "take care of it" later...  That led to a long talk about ManSpeak and WomanSpeak -- different ways of communications.  

These days, my younger son and his wife are living with me and I can see some of the same patterns I've seen in my own marriage, and in others, so I'm reminded of the need to work on the pattern language.

I just observed a use of what will probably be the first pattern I write up -- it's titled Yes, Dear and I've actually written it up once before -- but will have to search for the writeup before I can include it here.