Annoying

the movie.”

This seems like a lot of work to extinguish an annoying habit in your spouse, but at the same time, you can’t argue with success.

According to University of Louisville psychologist Michael Cunningham, if you want to know why your spouse’s habits drive you nuts—such as being too demonstrative about someone else’s cooking, for example—you should start by thinking about the immune system, particularly allergies.

Allergies are a good example of the immune system gone awry. Dust is nothing more than a nose-tickler for most people, but people with dust allergies will become severely congested, with constant sneezing and reddened eyes. Or take peanuts. Instead of being a tasty snack, to the person with a peanut allergy they become a deadly menace. Or poison ivy. Some people can frolic barefoot in a patch of poison ivy and be no worse off than if they had walked on a shag carpet. For others, all it takes is a sideways look at the distinctive three-leaved plant, and they break out in an incredibly itchy rash. In addition, when the immune system starts to get things wrong, it doesn’t learn from its mistakes. The first exposure to poison ivy can cause a minor rash. Repeated exposure can lead to acute rashes and swelling that may be severe enough to require hospitalization. This heightened reaction with repeated exposure is called sensitization.

Cunningham says that partners are so good at getting under each other’s skin because of behaviors that he calls social allergens: small things that don’t elicit much of a reaction at first can lead to emotional explosions with repeated exposure. This is the unspoken behavior that gets repeated on an occasional basis—sometimes daily, sometimes less frequently—but packs a bigger and bigger punch with the passage of time.

The idea occurred to Cunningham when he was visiting a colleague. They were having an amiable chat when the phone rang. Cunningham’s friend answered the phone, and as the phone conversation progressed, Cunningham watched his friend become agitated. He remained civil, but his face became red. “I could see the irritation, and I knew there must be an issue there.”

When the call ended, Cunningham asked what was up. It turns out that the call was from a graduate student who was writing a research paper with Cunningham’s friend. The student kept neglecting to make a change that his professor had wanted. “There’s nothing more annoying to somebody who is editing a document than to ask for a change and not get it,” says Cunningham.

By itself, the dispute was minor. The first time the student failed to make the correction, the professor may hardly have noticed. The second time the response was a bit stronger.

By the third or fourth time, the failure to make the change was causing the professor to become severely agitated and turn red. The professor was not certain whether the student was passively resisting the revision or simply was not paying attention to the comments written in the margin, but neither possibility conveyed respect for the professor’s time and effort in providing expert feedback.

The parallel with sensitization was clear. Cunningham has now done numerous studies on social allergens, often as they relate to people in romantic relationships. He says there are four basic categories that most social allergens fall into:

1. Uncouth habits. These are behaviors that are not necessarily intended to be annoying but do the trick admirably. Noisy flatulence, nose picking, and knuckle cracking are all examples. Basically, it’s anything that a person does that detracts from your physical or sonic space. It’s not meant to be intentionally annoying, just as the way that someone who blasts his iPod until you can hear it at the other end of the subway car isn’t doing it because he wants to irritate his fellow travelers; he simply likes loud music. “Somebody who plays video games instead of paying attention to the romantic partner who is in the room would also have an uncouth habit,” says Cunningham. “People who wear the same clothing from Friday night all the way through to Sunday and don’t bother taking a shower all weekend might annoy some partners.”

2. Inconsiderate acts. Cunningham says that inconsiderate acts are social allergens that do affect a specific individual, but they aren’t done with the express intention of annoying that person. For example, you’re having a discussion with your partner about a project you find difficult at work. At first, she clucks supportively, but as you explain the nuances of the problem, you notice that she’s checking her BlackBerry for any new e-mails. Or your partner is ready to leave the house because you promised to take her out for dinner, and you say, “I’ll be ready as soon as this inning is over,” and the inning lasts for twenty-five minutes because there are three pitching changes, and she’s left standing by the door. Or your partner says she’ll pick up the dry cleaning, and she forgets, time after time. Or your partner is chronically late for every appointment you make with him. You get the idea.

3. Intrusive behaviors. Unlike the first two categories of social allergens, “intrusive behaviors are intentional and personally directed,” says Cunningham. “This is a person who always insists on inflicting his opinion on you, whether you are interested or not. Somebody who tells you how to improve yourself. Gives you unsolicited advice. Just generally tries to dominate you, often with the best of intentions, but you didn’t necessarily appoint this person to the role of surrogate parent.”

Intrusive behaviors can be relatively anonymous, like the bar bore who insists on telling you what’s wrong with America when all you want to do is watch the ballgame. Yet these kinds of behavior can also be quite personal. Parents frequently inflict them on their adult children. Parents know your insecurities best. If you are a successful lawyer, but your mother keeps reminding you that you could have been a doctor, it can get under your skin in a way that’s hard for others to appreciate. Or if your spouse is in the habit of reminding you that you don’t make as much money as Bob, the boyfriend she left to marry you, this, too, is a good way to set you off.

4. Norm violations. “These are intentional behaviors that are not directed at you personally but violate some standard that you have,” says Cunningham. “For example, you know somebody who is not paying his income tax. It’s not necessarily your business to supervise that person, but you pay your income taxes, and the fact that he doesn’t is annoying.

“There are certain norm violations that actually do entail some personal impact; for example, people who violate the building rules about not smoking in the bathroom, and you go into the bathroom right after them, and it stinks. Those norm violations have a personal impact, but it’s not directed at you.”

Taken together, these four categories of social allergens make living with someone else a challenge. Cunningham likes to recall a scene from the 1999 movie The Story of Us:

It’s inevitable—suddenly, all you’re aware of is that there are too many wet towels on the floor, he’s hogging the remote, and he’s scratching his back with a fork. Finally, you come face-to-face with the immutable truth that it’s virtually impossible to French-kiss a person who takes the new roll of toilet paper and leaves it resting on top of the empty cardboard roll. God forbid, he takes the two seconds to replace it. Does he not see it? Does he not see it?

10. He’s Just Not That Annoyed by You

There are people who meet, fall in love, stay married for their entire lives, and never have an unkind word for their spouses. And then there are the other six billion people on the planet.

People frequently describe their partners as both “the love of my life” and “one of the most annoying people I know”—in some cases, the most annoying person they know. It’s a baffling paradox. Consider the following scenario. It’s a scene that’s played out a million times at dinner parties around the world. Think of it as a theme with endless variations.

Four couples are sitting around a table. Everybody is on a second glass of wine. One of the men at the table starts to tell a joke.

“So, three strings go into a bar, and the first string says to the bartender, ‘I’d like a Tom Collins, please.’”

At this point, the man’s wife interrupts. “Please, not that joke again.”

He turns to her. “But they haven’t heard it.”