There is nothing to test the strength of the marital relationship like assembling IKEA furniture. It should be used in psychologists’ offices when couples go in for therapy.

“Here,” the doctor would say, leading them into a room with a single cardboard box on the floor. “If you could kindly wait here – and while you’re waiting, please assemble this SHMAGGE magazine rack.” He’d leave the room and watch them from behind a one-way mirror. All of the tensions that lay beneath would rise to the surface, sulfurous gas rising from the earth’s molten core.

And so it was this weekend. For a reason unknown even to myself, I chose to do a stress-test of sorts on our marriage: I proposed that we purchase not just IKEA furniture, but IKEA furniture without instructions from Craigslist. And not just ordinary furniture, but a behemoth of a sectional couch that was supposed to (note that supposed to) fit down our basement stairwell. Was I asking for trouble? Why, yes I was.

First of all, it didn’t fit into my station wagon. It barely fit into the neighbor’s monster man-truck we’d borrowed. The kids, who were waiting in my car while we disassembled the thing and tried to shove its various parts into various vehicles, grew impatient and started to cry. One of us (me) had to try to amuse them while the other (J.) sweated and swore (quietly, so as not to freak out the couch owner) and vowed vengeance upon the offending spouse. (Me again!)

Finally we got it home. And it then became crystal-clear that the couch was never going to fit down the stairwell—a stairwell made to be traversed by fasting supermodels, turned sideways.

Two hours after paying for our “new” couch we were cutting it in half with a circular saw.

Ten minutes after that, we were yelling at one another because J. used the term “rotate” when of course he meant “turn,” (yes, there is a difference), and couldn’t you have warned me to step down? And next time YOU can take the heavy end.

And six hours after that, after many rounds of “Well, if you KNEW where that piece was supposed to go, why did you ASK?”, we were finally done: we lay on the couch in our family room. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked cheerfully, watching J.’s face for the answer.

He glared.

Yeah. It was.